We just published this post about all the stuff you can do to create a better blog. But we can’t forget the tools!
Not in any order but all these online tools, services, apps, (whatever they’re called) and stuff make our blogging and business lives a whole lot easier and way more merry! Yay for more merry! Yay for blogging tools!
We started in 2013 and we 100% did not use all this stuff straight away. We actually introduced most of them over the last 18 months! So freaking happy we did.
We’ve learnt so much! And this is why we’ve created the #MerryBiz Hustle Program. The blogging and social media program that will get you to take action and get results. We are sharing EVERYTHING we know. There are only 100 spots available. Checkout what’s included HERE!
Let’s get onto those blogging and business tools…
Slack
Slack attack! C’mon, if you guys use Slack admit it, you say this regularly don’t you!? Yes! We use Slack to communicate with our team. At the moment our team is just us 2, our Mum who does our fulfilment (yes, it was Merrymaker Mum sending you those glitter bombs!) and Ann our amazing Virtual Assistant. We use the free version and it’s all kinds of awesome.
Trello
We use Trello for project management. Seriously, how did we get anything done before we used Trello? Super easy to use. We assign weekly tasks to ourselves and lovely Ann. Labelled red to start, then label it green when the task is complete. It’s a nice feeling when you change it to green. Ahhhh. We also use Trello to set yearly and monthly goals.
Drip
We use Drip for email marketing. If you’re currently using a list based email sending service we highly recommend you check out Drip! Drip is a tag based email marketing tool, so you can segment people depending what they opt into and click onto… rather than creating a million different lists. Drip was game changer for us! Check it out.
X Theme
We used X Theme to build our site on WordPress. One word: EPIC! We bought it from Envato, it’s like a market place. We have bought WordPress themes, app templates and audio from them. Carla is the WordPress whiz and with some help from Dan Norris and epic photos from Rialba Photography TA-DA epic site on a budget! We are talking under $1000.
Zapier
Zapier is a tool that makes it super easy to set up workflows. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, so this Zapier tutorial and video should help you get started as quickly as possible.
Optimise Press
Another game changer for us has got to be Optimise Press. Carla quickly learnt how to use it and can now make epic landing pages and opt in pages. Great for promoting and selling. Here’s an example of an opt in and here is an example of a sales page (this page was actually built on cornerstone but just so you can see the difference!).
Google Drive
What is word anyway? We were resistant at the start but luckily we had a little pressure from Dan Norris (yes Dan and his online mastermind have had some significant influence on us haha). Stop using Word, get on Google Drive and your world will be forever changed in a magical way. Trust us on this one!
WP Engine
We just signed up to WP Engine. Not going to lie… the migration process what pretty tricky. If you are not tech minded (like Emma) DO NOT do it yourself (LOL). But changing from old host to WP Engine has seen our site speed load time go from like 10 seconds to like 3 seconds! EPIC! How annoying are slow sites? So annoying. So we love WP Engine.
Xero
If you’re in the business of blogging and business (which you are) we’d suggest getting onto Xero asap. It’s the epicest! For the first 2 years of biz we used spreadsheets… just thinking about it brings back nightmares! ARGHHH!
Samcart
On the topic of money… we sell stuff via Samcart. It’s a pretty epic shopping cart. Super simple for the user and less click throughs is always a good thing! They also have a one click up-sell feature. So if someone buys the Get Merry recipe book, then they have the option to buy the tote bag at a discounted rate. Pretty cool, checkout the process here. Not ideal if you have a bunch of products but perfect is you have a small range.
Shopify
Ok… so we have 2 different shopping cart features. We probably, definitely don’t recommend this. But ever since we started Merrymaker Club we realised we needed an actual online shop. Here’s our Shopify shop, of all the shopping carts Shopify is the easiest to set up and we love it!
Meet Edgar
Oh how we love Edgar and yes we bang on about it all the time. It’s magical and has worked wonders for our Facebook page and engagement. Instead of spending time scheduling your Facebook posts and only living for that 1 post they go to the end of a queue to live on! That’s Meet Edgar in a tiny nutshell. Perfect when you have a lot of ever green content to share.
Latergram
We use Latergram to schedule Instagram posts, Ann (lovely VA) schedules them in a Google Doc, we approve, Ann schedules into Latergram. Boom! LOVE IT.
TagsDock App
If you love Instagram then we know you are gonna go craycray for TagsDock! You can save all your fave hasgtags and with the press of 1 BUTTON (yes 1 button!) you get all your hashtags in an instant. Hell yeah for time saving.
Repost App
We use Repost to re-post other people’s Instagram posts onto our Instagram account. We’re all about sharing the love and we’re all about sharing epically good content! Easy peasy.
Do you use any of these tools? Do you have more to add to the list?
Remember, if you’re ready to take your blogging and content to the next level… to ACTUALLY take action, then come and check out our brand new #MerryBiz program! We’re like so excited.
Always merrymaking,
Emma + Carla
P.s Don’t forget to checkout #MerryBiz Hustle! It is gonna be epic!
* there are affiliate links in this blog post, not all the links just some. If you have any questions please get in touch!