5 Online Tools & Resources to Help You Manage Your Business
In today’s increasingly virtual world, it’s especially important to be able to manage your business remotely, and to have all the tools necessary to remain competitive and grow. From building and maintaining a professional website to staying in touch with your customers and team members, utilizing online tools is a low-cost and highly effective way to manage your relationships and business operations. Because of this, we’ve put together a list of six online tools and resources that can help you manage your startup or small business operations.
1. WordPress
Customers, both existing and potential, often prefer to research a company online before conducting business with them. For this reason, it’s important to make sure that your business’s website is up-to-date and easy to navigate. WordPress is an entirely-online, industry-standard content management system (CMS) for creating and managing websites. WordPress allows you to build and maintain a user-friendly, easy-to-maintain website with a professional look and feel for your company. Many online tutorials exist to help you and your team navigate the system and build a high-quality website.
However, once the website is built, don’t forget to maintain it! WordPress makes it easy to update content and images on your website to ensure that you always have the most up-to-date information available to your customers and other stakeholders.
2. Google Analytics
Once your website is built, you’ll need to track its progress, results, and traffic to determine the website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. Google Analytics is a great tool easily integrated into your website that can track your website’s traffic, traffic sources (how users are finding your website), most-visited pages, user demographics, and much more. You can also use Google Analytics to compare your website’s stats from the current time period against another, giving you valuable comparative metrics that can help you determine areas where you can improve your website’s traffic or performance.
3. Slack
Communication amongst your team members is an integral part of business operations — if your team members aren’t communicating effectively, vital information can be overlooked. If your business often operates remotely, team members are in the office at different times, or you’re changing up how and when team members report to the office during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ll need an online internal communication tool. Slack can help your team manage “channels” of communication, which can be based on projects, teams, departments, business functions, or whichever categories make sense for your business. Users can also direct message one another and set up video calls. By using Slack, you can ease the barriers to communication within your organization and make sure your team always stays on the same page.
4. Online Educational Resources
Have a question about a program, software, business tactic, or anything else? Find the answer online! Courses and other online educational resources like information guides, blogs, and articles exist all over the Internet with the sole purpose of helping you find the information you need. Check out business publications like Harvard Business Review or Entrepreneur to read articles about leading a business in the current business landscape, find accounting resources on the IRS website, or learn a new business skill with a course on Udemy or an instructional video on YouTube.
5. Small Business Administration (SBA)
Many small businesses and startups are familiar with the Small Business Administration (SBA) through their funding assistance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through other valuable resources they provide. However, many business owners are not aware that many of the SBA’s business resources are also online, where you can receive anything from courses about running a business to resource guides about creating a business plan or funding your company. Enhance your business knowledge and connect with valuable resources on their website!
As the business world continues to shift more toward digital communication and services, it’s important that you’re able to manage your business, communicate effectively with your clients and your team, and even grow your business online. If you’re interested in learning more about growing your business remotely, consider applying to Union River Center for Innovation’s Business Affiliate program, where you’ll take part in the benefits of our business incubator from a virtual setting. Contact us today to learn more!