Resources
Blog Articles and Tools of the Trade to Market Small Businesses and Nonprofits
Snag your FREE guide to find out where your site might be missing the mark. Plus get a short marketing tip delivered to your inbox each week.
RECENT BLOG POSTS
Recent Posts
- Will AI Agents Make Branding More Important? September 23, 2025
- Your Brand is Your Secret Weapon for Scaling Your Success September 9, 2025
- Stop Guessing: 6 Simple Metrics to Tell If Your Marketing Is Working August 26, 2025
- Before You Pick a Website Template, Read This August 19, 2025
- How to Choose Brand Colors That Grow Your Business August 14, 2025
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Software and tools for marketing, graphic design, and business operations.
This is not a comprehensive list of marketing resources, but rather the tools that I use and recommend based on personal experience.
(Please note, this list includes some affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, I may receive a small commission.)
SEO
Semrush
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free and should be set up as soon as you build your website. Google Analytics contributes to your SEO efforts by tracking website performance and gathering visitor data. With out-of-the-box and custom reporting options, you can use this data to evaluate the success of marketing activities, monitor goal achievements, identify patterns in user engagement, and better understand your target audience.
Also, if you set up Google Analytics years ago, but haven’t looked at it since, you may have issues that you need to fix ASAP! In 2023, Google switched from Universal Analytics to G4. I’ve had several clients tell me, “yes, I have Google Analytics…” but when we go to look at the analytics we find that their account is no longer working because they didn’t switch to GA4.
Google Search Console
Rank Math
Rank Math is a WordPress plugin to help with SEO. While I think WordPress is a great website builder in many ways, my big frustration with it is the built-in limitations related to search. Rank Math solves those problems by allowing you to create an SEO title, short, keyword focused URLs, Schema Markup, and so much more. You can also monitor your SEO progress within RankMath. Yoast is a similar, well-known plugin.
The reason that I chose Rank Math over Yoast SEO is that I did extensive research before selecting a plugin. On many Reddit threads and other forums, people complained about Yoast bloating the website size, which negatively impacts SEO. A website designer I know also had had negative experiences with Yoast. That said, I have not personally done a side-by-side comparison, so I cannot confirm the website bloat issue.
Rank math has both free and paid options.
Graphic Design
Adobe Creative Suite
I went to school for graphic design and worked in creative services for a portion of my career, so I prefer to use professional design tools. I use the Adobe Creative Suite, specifically InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.
Aside from my training, experience, and comfort with the programs, I value the time savings that I can achieve by building automated workflows for common tasks. However, the user interface in these programs can be quite challenging to understand if you haven’t been trained in how to use the tools. I don’t recommend the Adobe Creative Suite unless you are committed to learning design.
Canva
Canva is probably the most popular graphic design tool for those who are not professional designers. There are thousands of pre-built templates, and you can set Canva up to help manage your brand, ensuring visual consistency in all your communications. For individuals there is a free version and a paid “pro” version with additional features. Team versions are paid, but you can test it out with a free trial.
I’ve used Canva to assist with brand management in previous corporate jobs. Now, I occasionally do work for clients in their Canva accounts.
Video
Zoom
Pictory
Pictory is an AI video editing tool that makes it easy for video armatures (like me) to make basic video edits. You’re not going to create an award-winning documentary with this tool, but if you want an easy way to cut out your ums, ahs, and off topic tangents this is the way to go.
You upload your video, and it outputs a pane of all the text in your video. You use the text to delete sections of the video. It’s similar to working in a word document and deleting words, but it uses your text edits to edit the video. Brilliant! It also has built in frame sizes, which makes it easy to take your widescreen video and remake it as a vertical Instagram story sized video.
Lumina Webcam
Moment Lens system
RODE Wireless GO Lavalier Microphone
CRM
Hubspot
The HubSpot CRM platform includes a comprehensive suite for managing customer relationships. It empowers businesses with tools for contact management, sales pipeline tracking, a customer service portal, and email integration.
I selected this CRM for my business because it has free a low cost options. It also has a user-friendly interface. As someone who has used Salesforce in past jobs, I find Hubspot much easier to navigate and figure out. I highly encourage all businesses to use a CRM for marketing to streamline processes and track data. Without good data, you cannot make good marketing decisions.
Email Marketing
Kit (Formerly ConvertKit)
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing platform designed for creators. It simplifies email automation and segmentation, enabling personalized communication with subscribers. Its analytics provide insights for optimizing campaigns, fostering meaningful connections and driving growth.
I use ConvertKit for my evergreen newsletter. While I do some email automations in Hubspot, the lower-cost tier that I have does not allow extensive automations and email segmentation. The higher-level tier of Hubspot, which does offer those capabilities, is cost prohibitive for me at this point in time.
I combine ConvertKit with Hubspot to expand my email marketing capabilities at a lower cost that Hubspot’s premier tier service.
AI
ChatGPT
Hyperwrite
Before ChatGPT had the more friendly user interface that it does now, I started using Hyperwrite, which is an app built on GPT. What I like about Hyperwrite is that it has prompts built in, and provides guidance on what the user needs to input to get the response they would like. Using this tool helped me learn how to write prompts, which makes it easier for me to use ChatGPT now. I use the paid version of Hyperwrite, but there is also a free version.
Pictory
I mentioned this above in the video tools. Pictory describes its service as “powerful AI enables you to create and edit professional quality videos using text, no technical skills required or software to download.”
My take on Pictory is you’re not going to create an award-winning documentary with this tool, but if you want an easy way to cut sections out of video and add text to the video, this works very well. You upload your video and it outputs a pane of all the text in your video. You use the text to delete sections of the video. It similar to working in a word document and deleting words, but it uses your text edits to edit the video. It also has built in frame sizes, which makes it easy to take your widescreen video and remake it as a vertical Instagram stories sized video.
Hubspot
Hubspot is a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses grow by allowing them to manage their sales, marketing, and customer service all in one place. AI capabilities are included in the platform to help you automate tasks and reveal valuable insights in your customer data. An AI writing tool is also built in to help with your marketing copy.
Business Administration
Freshbooks
FreshBooks is a user-friendly accounting platform tailored for small businesses and freelancers. It simplifies invoicing, expense tracking, and time management, streamlining financial tasks. When I was selecting an accounting software, I considered Freshbooks and Quickbooks. I had some familiarity with Quickbooks since I had used it in the past, but I opted for Freshbooks because it was slightly cheaper than Quickbooks. Also, I don’t have product sales, so I didn’t need that capability. (From the research that I did, my impression is that Quickbooks is the better product if you sell physical products.)
I have been really happy with Freshbooks. Their customer services has been great! I was especially impressed that after the free trial, my customer service rep reached out to talk to me about my business and when I explained I was just starting out and basically had no revenue, they offered me a lower cost intro plan while I was getting my business up and running. I really appreciated that personalization and willingness to work with me.
Google Workspace
Website Build
WordPress
Hubspot Plugin
With the HubSpot plugin for WordPress, you can seamlessly integrate HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and CRM tools into your WordPress site. The plugin makes it super simple to add HubSpot forms to your website to capture leads. You can also track user interactions and personalize content to drive engagement and conversions.
Rank Math Plugin
Rank Math is a WordPress tool for optimizing websites for search rankings. My one complaint with WordPress is that the platform by default includes issues that negatively impact SEO. To address these, you must use an SEO plugin.
I chose Rank Math because it was recommended by web designers I know personally. Also, I when I was researching solutions, I came across some Reddit threads saying that Yoast “bloats” your website causing slower load speeds. Load speed is another important factor in SEO; it is important for your website to load quickly.
(For the record, I have not personally done testing to see if Yoast really has a negative impact on load speeds, so I can neither confirm nor deny that information.)