If you think you need to need to invest a lot of money to start a home-based business, think again. Today the Internet provides many tools and resources to help you start and run your business. Save on your start up and running expenses by using free options as long as they don’t impact your professional appearance. Here are few free resources you can use to build a website, manage email, edit media (photos, audio and video), phone services, and much more.
Website/Blog
GMail – Web-based mail
Phone/Voicemail
Teleconference
Word Processing/PDF
PDF995 – Free PDF Maker
Microsoft Word PDF Add-on for 2007 (free)
Media Tools
Merchant Account/Payment Processing
Article Marketing
Press Release Distribution
Publicity
Anti-Virus Software
Productivity
iGoogle (start page)
Remember the Milk (task management)
Miscellaneous
Free Business Cards (pay for shipping)
KeePass (password management )
HotSpotr (find free wi‐fi spots)
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Thanks Ila. I’ll check it out.
Love this article, the list is rich with some hidden gems. The one aspect the article doesn’t address is how some of the free tools can hijack your brand. One of my biggest pet peeves are those free conference calling services that we’ve all been tempted by in the past. My business was taken much more seriously when we spent the few bucks to get a service that allowed us to put our own brand on our conference bridge messaging. So “buyer” beware of the free tools and choose wisely. (btw, we use http://www.brandedbridgeline.com for our teleconferencing). Good Luck!
Great list! I’m happy to see top conference line service (free). Though I’m kind of hesitant to use free services, I agree with Jack’s comment.
Thank you for commenting. You do need to weigh free services against how it can de-professionalize your business. Thanks again Adrianna.
Great article on the free resources to run our business. I totally agree with this article as some of the resources mentioned in the article like PayPal, AVG and Google Calendar have helped me in my business.
Some of those which haven’t tried by me which are mentioned in the article, I would look forward to give a try.
Thanks for sharing the resources.
Glad you found the article helpful. There is a ton of free and low cost resources out there now to help people run a business and work from home!