Plus, most of these tools fail to to take into account the fact that when you’re just starting out, your operating budget is small. At least it should be: remember to consider your overhead costs!

If I’m a new business owner, I need to focus on three things when I’m considering adding a tool to my arsenal:

#1 – Cost

This one is obvious. If my business income is $3,000 a month, I’m not going to invest in a $500/month tool. Unless…

#2 -Potential Return on Investment (ROI)

If I’m fairly certain I can get a positive return on investment (ROI) from my $500, AKA I’ll make at least $501 in additional income every month from using this new tool, then it becomes a stronger contender. However…

#3 – Scaleability

Ideally a tool like this would be scaleable. I want something that works at my level and within my budget, if my business is earning $3,000 a month or $30,000 a month. I don’t want to have to upgrade to a new tool just because my business is growing. I’ll likely have enough growing pains to deal with as it is, without adding in “learning to use a new system”.

With these considerations in mind, I’ve put together a list of 6 tools for launching your business on a budget.

#1 – Dreamhost

First things first: you need a reliable webhost for your business site. It doesn’t matter how great your product, service, or website is if your potential customers can’t access it online easily. That’s why the majority of the “budget” in this post is used for hosting.

I’ve written previously on how to choose the best budget host, and why I personally use and recommend Dreamhost to all my clients. But, in a nutshell, Dreamhost:

• Doesn’t have: high pressure sales, gimmick e-mails, or variable term pricing
• Does have: User friendly backend, proactive updates, and length-of-term based discounts

How is it scaleable?

The vast majority of folks just getting started are suited to Shared Hosting, which is only $9.95 a month when you sign up for 1 year or $7.95 a month when you sign up for 3 years. When your business begins to grow, you can upgrade any time to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) package, which is notably faster and only a few dollars more per month, or a Dedicated Server, which is a critical investment for top tier sites.

PS: interesting in taking even more off? Use my link to save $50. ?

#2 – WordPress

WordPress! You’ve probably heard of it. It runs like 30% of the websites on the planet Earth, and with good reason. WordPress is known as “blogging” platform, but it’s just another Content Management System (CMS). Basically, WordPress makes it easy for people of all levels of technical ability to operate and update a website. These days your need for tech savvy is about as low as it’s ever been. You can even get drag and drop “themes” to easily turn your site into an attractive, effective place for people to learn more about you and your business.

Not sure where to get started? I recommend checking out the Jupiter theme.

How is it scaleable?

When you use WordPress, you’re in good company. Individuals and companies at all levels of industry use WordPress. There’s no limit to the things you can do with it.

#3 – MailChimp

If you know anything about e-mail marketing, you’ve probably heard of MailChimp. 5 years ago you didn’t have to do much to stand out in the e-mail marketing provider world, but MailChimp has always been ahead of the game. These days they offer some of the most robust features around, while remaining affordable and accessible (drag and drop newsletter building, anyone?)

How is it scaleable?

As with the vast majority of e-mail marketing software, you pay based on volume of subscribers. MailChimp is 100% free up to the first 2,000 subscribers. Scaling upward, 25,000 subscribers will cost you $150/month, or about 0.006 cents per subscriber. If you’re very ambitious and tech savvy, you can add MailChimp Pro features for $199/month, which allows you to do fancy things like eCommerce tracking and A/B testing. All paid packages including unlimited e-mails sent, so the sky is the limit.

#4 – Ninja Popups

Speaking of e-mail marketing… If you give a moose an e-mail capture tool, he’ll probably want some popups to go with it. Some folks might tell you that Sumo (formerly SumoMe) is the way to go, but unless you’re already doing a lot of volume in e-mail subscriptions, I recommend Ninja Popups. Here’s why:

• It has an easy to use, drag and drop popup builder
• It works with tons of different apps
• It’s a one time fee of $25

How is it scaleable?

Compare Ninja Popups to Sumo‘s scaling plans based on traffic, and you’ll quickly see why Ninja Popups has the advantage. There’s no concerns about your site’s traffic outpacing its profitability and because Ninja Popups is based entirely on your server and not in the cloud, you’re less likely to see an uncontrollable load time lag.

#5 – Acuity Scheduling

Pro-tip: whether you’re just starting out or well on your way to sustainable growth, you should be using an app to schedule calls. And Acuity scheduling = awesome scheduling. Here’s why:

• It works directly with your calendar
• It allows clients to choose their own time slots
• You set your availability
• You can use it to sell paid appointments

By the way: not so sure about doing sales calls? Check out my post about taking a fresh approach to sales.

How is it scaleable?

Acuity Scheduling is ridiculously affordable at every level. Emerging Entrepreneur ($10/month) is sufficient for basically every solo artist. If you end up with a larger sales team or a multi-location business down the road? Not a problem. The Powerhouse Player package, which includes up to 36 calendar integrations (!) is only $34/month. Other scheduling apps just can’t really compete with that.

#6 – SEO PowerSuite

Yes, this tip is about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t let your eyes cross just yet. SEO PowerSuite is a set of tools that actually make it really easy to optimize your site for search engine traffic. All you need to do is download two of their tools:

Website Auditor – this is the most important one. It’s basically like an organic search report card for your website. Download this tool, use it to analyze your site, and then use their recommendations to repair any issues.

Rank Tracker – this one is for next steps. If you’re interested in getting a bit more serious about search engine optimization for your site (which I definitely recommend you do), you can use this tool for just about everything else. Figure out how your site ranks for certain keywords and find new keywords to target based on how many people are searching for them.

How is it scaleable?

You can do almost everything with the free version of SEO PowerSuite (as noted above), but you can’t: save your projects or intuitively extract the data. This is especially annoying if you’re using it to do keyword research or tracking a lot of keywords. But, the regular price for the “professional” version (which does let you save and export, as well as automate tracking) is only $299.

This is a one time fee, but you do have to keep getting the “search algorithm updates”. They don’t make this incredibly intuitive. The first 6 months of updates are free after you purchase the package. After that you can buy them at a progressive discount based on the number of months you pay for at once. If you’re only interested in one or two of the SEO PowerSuite tools (the most useful are RankTracker and Website Auditor, as I mentioned), it’s cheaper, but 12 months of updates for all 4 products is only about $10 a month in total.

On the fence? I highly recommend keeping your eyes peeled for their annual Black Friday sale where you can get a really ridiculous percentage off standard pricing.

Another simple SEO solution

Another affordable option if you just want to keep a close eye on how your site is performing is AntRanks. You tell it your website URL, what keywords to track, and it checks them daily automatically.

There you have it: 6 tools to launch your business on a budget for less than $200 a year. Each one guaranteed to grow with you.

Anything missing? Questions? Let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail at kelly (at) kirin3 (dot) tech.

BONUS: The perfect tool for selling online

If you want to sell physical or digital products online, you’re going to need a tool that does three things:

• Shopping cart/checkout process (for customers)
• Order management (for you)
• Payment processing (for $$$)

As always, there’s a ton of options out there. Some can only do one or two of those things. And a lot of them are fairly pricey. SamCart has been a good option for years for people who were already established (for $199/month they don’t take a percentage of your sales). But recently they launched a “basic” version. Hooray for scalability!

Here’s what’s great about SamCart:

• Zero tech skills required – just fill in one of the tried and true SamCart sales page templates
• One click upsells and automated funnels – no need to build complex sales funnels
• Allows you to sell digital, physical, or subscription products and integrates with tons of apps

SamCart Launch gives you just about everything the professional version has for just $49 a month (and a small percentage of your sales). That’s effectively 90% off the regular price. For now you can get a 14 day free trial if you click here as a “launch special”. (I’ll edit this post to remove this link when it no longer works). 

Not convinced? Check out a few of their case studies from Stu McLaren and Will Hamilton. I’ve written previously on SamCart and Google Analytics if you’re interested in learning more about tracking and app integration, as well.

Duplicate Post

Like all the plugins on this list it performs exactly as the name indicates–it duplicates posts (pages, etc). If you use custom formatting for posts and pages, a plugin like Duplicate Post can be a real timesaver. Additionally, if you regularly repost/rehash/refresh older content on your site, Duplicate Post can do a lot of the grunt work for you. Copy a post exactly or insert it into a new draft.

[su_button url=”https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicate-post/” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#188098″ size=”5″ icon=”icon: cogs”]Grab Duplicate Post here[/su_button]

WP Mobile Detect

This plugin is a deceptively powerful design tool: it creates shortcodes you can use to control how elements display if a user is on mobile or desktop. If you have a cool embedded sign up form for your newsletter that looks excellent on desktop, but struggles to render properly on mobile devices, simply hide it behind the following tag:

[ notdevice ] Your desktop only content here. [/ notdevice ]

When creating a mobile alternative to display, just use this tag:

[ device ] Your device only content here. [ /device ]

It’s that easy!

[su_button url=”https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mobile-detect/” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#188098″ size=”5″ icon=”icon: cogs”]Grab WP Mobile Detect here[/su_button]

Sticky Widget

Need a widget to follow the user as they scroll up and down your page? Sticky Widget is your answer. To be honest, a vanilla install of this one may not work perfectly with your theme of choice straight away. If the widget appears to “jump” or conflicts with another floating element, it may require a bit of coding to fix. But, if this is a feature you need, it’s the best plugin for the job.

[su_button url=”https://wordpress.org/plugins/q2w3-fixed-widget/” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#188098″ size=”5″ icon=”icon: cogs”]Grab Sticky Widget here[/su_button]

WP Missed Schedule

Easily the simplest plugin on this list, but if you ever schedule posts to publish at a later date on your blog you need this one. Unfortunately even as of 2015, there’s an ongoing error that causes scheduled WordPress posts to occasionally be “missed” by the publish action. The result is a post caught in limbo. An out of the box copy of WordPress recognizes this issue–if this happens to a post you scheduled it will display with a “Missed Schedule” notation next to it. However, this does nothing to fix the problem. Install and activate WP Missed Schedule and you’re all set.

[su_button url=”https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-missed-schedule/” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#188098″ size=”5″ icon=”icon: cogs”]Grab WP Missed Schedule here[/su_button]

Know of any other simple, but essential WordPress plugins? Let me know in the comments!

If your restaurant’s website isn’t in the first two pages of results when you search your cuisine and your city, I’m sorry to say: you’re doing something wrong.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complex topic–way too complex to cover completely in a single blog post! That being said, my aim here is to help you learn more about a few common errors that anyone can make and how to correct them.

Common Error #1: Your menu is in PDF format

If you own a restaurant, I’m sure you already know that your menu is your crown jewel! But no one is going to know that you serve only Oceanwise seafood or that your foodtruck has the only vegan hotdogs in the city if they can’t find your page when they use their favourite search engine.

I know you’ve got an awesome, professionally laid out, print quality menu in a PDF–that’s important for building your restaurant’s image. But while PDFs may be composed of text, that text isn’t being “crawled”, which means search engines can’t find it!

Solution: Build an online version of your menu

I know it’s intimidating if you’re not used to working with web publishing software like WordPress. But it’s designed to be user friendly, and there are a variety of tools at your disposal that can help you recreate your menu online in an attractive and accessible way. Here’s a plugin (WordPress add-on) that can help:

Shortcodes Ultimate – Build attractive site elements, zero HTML/CSS required! Make things like custom buttons, eye catching headers, calls to action, and many more. Check out the plugin page to see some demos of what it can do.

Common Error #2: You don’t make your contact info SUPER clear

A user shouldn’t have to click more than once to find this info! In fact, it’s best if they don’t have to click at all. The most important thing to ask yourself here is: what do I want folks to take away from visiting my restaurant’s website?

• Visualize my restaurant and my cuisine

• Know and understand my menu

• Be aware of my location(s) and my hours of operation

The last thing you want is for a user to navigate away from your site or “bounce” before they can get that vital information.

Solution: Include all important info on your home page

Yes, a home page (or “landing page”) can be visually attractive AND include lots of information! Build with your goals in mind. Integrate elements where possible. There’s a few different plugin solution options here:

Soliloquy Lite – a responsive (AKA mobile device friendly!) image slider creator that is very user-friendly and low barrier. You could easily add images of your dishes alongside your important information and embed it in your home page or “landing page” so that visitors will see it straight away.

Sticky Header – a sticky header is one that follows the user as they scroll, so they can never accidentally navigate away from your important information. Easy to setup and customize.

Sticky Widget – this plugin is similar to the Sticky Header above, except it uses the sidebar/widget interface to make an element that follows the user no matter where they navigate. Be sure and only use one or the other for best results.

Common Error #3: Your keywords are too generic

You don’t just serve pasta at your restaurant, right? You serve handmade, fresh pasta. You serve gnocchi, you serve tortellini, you serve ravioli. So why would you use the keyword “pasta”?

People want to come to your restaurant for a variety of reasons: maybe they’ve heard the food is good. Maybe you one of the only purveyors of this cuisine in the city. Maybe you’re just open late and nearby! But the best way to hook someone is with specifics–the same goes for search engines.

Solution: Describe your restaurant as you might to a guest

I’m sure you have a lot to say about the items on your menu and why you founded your restaurant–so don’t suddenly turn tight-lipped when giving your pages titles, URLs/permalinks, and keywords. There are a wealth of generic SEO tools out there that can help you get this job done right, but it’s important to consider a bit of this theory first!

If you haven’t already, make sure you’ve got an SEO plugin installed on your WordPress site:

SEO by Yoast – this is the most popular option, and it has a pretty straightforward interface that “scores” pages with colour coded icons to let you know how optimized they are for your chosen keyword. It will also provide you with details on how to improve your page’s score if it’s low. Also, it’s free!

Premium SEO Pack – looking for a more high powered option? For just a one-time fee of $40, you can grab Premium SEO Pack, which even has a specific function dedicated to optimizing for local search results. That’s in addition to a variety of other features that SEO by Yoast doesn’t offer. The folks who developed Premium SEO Pack have an instructional video at the link, so even if you’re worried your tech abilities aren’t where they need to be to use it, it’s still worth a look.

So, what do you think? Do you have issues/concerns that weren’t covered? Leave them in the comments or drop me a line.