The Ultimate Toolkit for Growing your Business Online
Scammed again?
I know that most people that I meet that have began the process of learning how to make some money online, often get this feeling time and time again!
There are so many scams, un-truths and misconceptions to making money online, that many people spend a lot more money than they need, or want to, and unfortunately end up making very little online, and eventually they give up all together.
Sad but true!
Since starting my OWN online business in 2013, I have seen many things that work, and many that DON’T work!
And as a result I have compiled a list of resources that any newbie online marketer can use to have success online.
An ultimate toolkit for growing your business online!
Having all the tools of this toolkit at your disposal will be a real guide to making money online.
Most of these tools are very low cost, and some are free, and you don’t necessarily need them all, at least not at first.
But more importantly, if you keep adding these tools to your “online toolkit”, you will have everything you need that is essential to building a successful online business – WITHOUT it costing a fortune… OR being scammed!
Keep reading below for this ultimate toolkit!
The Ultimate tool kit
The first thing you need is the RIGHT training!
People actually think that they can spend a few dollars on a program, or a “system”, and they will become instant millionaires in a couple of weeks!
It just doesn’t work like that!
Just think of a Doctor as an example.
Now a good Doctor can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, sometimes more.
But generally they are pretty smart cookies, and they spend years at school, college, and work their way up to the top.
They don’t just rock up to a Hospital and start doing brain surgery!
So why would you think that you can start earning a million dollars a year online in 6 months?
Or even a hundred thousand a year?
The bad news is that many people get caught up in the “get rich quick” mentality online, and get frustrated and give up.
The good news, is that you don’t have to be as smart as a brain surgeon, or study for ten years to earn money online.
But it DOES take the RIGHT training, some work, AND some TIME to succeed online!
Ultimate Tool #1 – Wealthy Affiliate – Cost – Free starter membership (Premium $49 per Month)
Wealthy Affiliate has the BEST training available online today on building a successful online business – Hands down!!
And they are ALL that you will need to create a full-time online income!
They are who’s training I have used personally to build my websites and online business, and you won’t go wrong under their guidance.
What’s more, you can start for free, and get some great training, with no obligation to upgrade.
Learn more here ==>> at my Getting Started Page.
Or sign up for a Free Membership here!
Ultimate Tool #2 – Website – cost – Free
If you want success online, then you need a Website… plain and simple!
The trouble is that it can cost thousands of dollars for a Website developer, or if you do it yourself, it can be difficult and technical.
Fortunately, another reason that I love Wealthy Affiliate is that two free Websites are included in their free starter membership, and premium has 50 available.
Not only that, they will teach you how to build out your own site, and believe me, with their training, it is WAY easier than you may think!
Get your FREE Website here!
Ultimate Tool #3 – A Domain name – cost – $10-15 dollars a year
If you continue with Wealthy Affiliate’s free membership and website, then you can continue without a domain name, but eventually as you start to see some results then you will want to have you own domain name for your website.
This will essentially give you complete ownership of your website, and it is something that you should eventually do.
The good news is that they are relatively inexpensive at around $10-15 dollars a year.
You can also buy your domain at Wealthy Affiliate and they offer a great service.
Get your Domain at WA here!
Ultimate Tool #4 – An Autoresponder – cost – $19 per month
One of the very first things you should do when you start an online business, is to start building an email list of subscribers.
Once you have your own database of subscribers then you can send them emails of your offers.
You can send out automated emails as soon as your subscriber signs up, or you can send an email broadcast to your whole list at once.
The power of this is enormous!
It has often been said that the money is in the list, and building up your subscriber base should be a priority.
You can start with a free email responder such as Mailchimp, and there are some very expensive options.
But the service I recommend is Aweber.
They cost $19 per month and offer a reliable and robust service.
You can get a FREE trial to Aweber here!
Ultimate Tool #5 – Landing Pages/Sales Funnels – cost $97 per Month
This is something that you may not need initially starting out.
If you follow Wealthy Affiliate’s training to begin with, (and you should ) then you may not need a landing page or to create a sales funnel.
But as you get more advanced, you may want to create your own digital products and create sales funnels, or run some ADs to a landing page to get more subscribers.
If you want to do this, then the service I recommend is ClickFunnels.
They are the best on the market, are very easy to use, and have some great training and support.
For a cheaper alternative you can get OptimizePress for a one off payment, but personally, I can’t go past ClickFunnels.
Get your FREE 14 day trial to ClickFunnels here!
Ultimate Tool #6 – Keyword research tool – cost – $19 per Month
One of the biggest keys to making money online is get people to visit your website.
Getting “traffic” to your site is all part of search engine optimisation, (SEO) and Wealthy Affiliate will teach how to do this organically.
But a huge part of this is using “keywords,” and a great keyword research tool is like a gold detector finding a chuck of gold.
Wealthy Affiliate have a pretty awesome Keyword tool you can use, but if you want to take your “detecting” to the next level, then I recommend the Jaxxy keyword research tool.
Jaaxy really is worth the investment at $19 per month, but there is a free trial, with 30 free searches. (And if you play your cards right, you can get a lot more than that 😉
Get your FREE Searches with Jaaxy here!
Ultimate Tool #7 – Shopping Cart – cost – Free
With all of the money you will eventually be making, you are going to need to be able to take payments.
While there are some pretty advanced shopping carts on the market, I would just start with a free Paypal account, and maybe a Stripe account as well.
Like I say, they are free and are all you need to begin with.
Get your Free Paypal account here!
Ultimate Tool #8 – Video Hosting – cost Free/$50 per month
Video is one of the best ways to grow you business online.
If you are worried about making videos, don’t be.
You will get more and more comfortable in front of the camera as time goes on.
If you really hate being in front of the camera, (Not my favourite thing to do) then you can also do screen cast videos, where you can just show someone something you are doing on your computer, or you can run through powerpoint slides and you don’t have to show your face.
When you create videos you can upload them to a free YouTube channel, but I also like to store my videos on Vimeo, which can cost up to $50 per Month, but there is also a free option.
Get your Free Vimeo account here!
And YouTube here!
Ultimate Tool #9 – Social media accounts – cost – Free
The best way to build your brand and start finding customers is on social media.
One thing to be careful of though, is social media can be a bit of a time trap, when you would be better off spending your time working on your website.
Remember the Pareto principle, that 80% of your results come from 20% of your tasks.
The other 80% of tasks don’t really matter, and social media can definitely fall into this area.
But in saying that, I would recommend that you open free accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus, but concentrate on just one or two.
I primarily concentrate on FaceBook, but right now, I am really liking Instagram, and getting some good results!
Just google them and set up a free account.
Ultimate Tool #10 – Advertising – cost – $$$???
There will come a point in your online business when you will want to scale up with paid advertising.
Primarily I use three methods of paid advertising:
- Pay Per Click with Google or Bing AdWords
- Solo Ads
- Facebook advertising
Facebook advertising is a whole beast in itself, but it can be very lucrative when you get it right.
On the other hand, you can burn a lot of money quickly.
I would recommend that you get some specialised training, and Udemy would be a good place to start.
They have some pretty inexpensive training courses that will get you up and running.
Start learning on Udemy today!
But my number #1 recommendation for learning FaceBook advertising is Dan Henry’s “FaceBook Advertising for Entrepreneurs”
He is a young, up and coming expert, and is really killing it, with some great results!
You can check out my review here.
Advertising on the search engines Google and Bing is called Pay Per Click advertising.
It is called Pay Per Click, because you only pay if someone clicks on your AD.
Wealthy Affiliate have a whole module that teaches you how to use Pay Per Click advertising in your business.
Solo Ads are another good option for getting subscribers to your email list.
You are basically buying an AD that you can send to someone else’s email list so people can subscribe to your list.
With the right person, this can work really well, and I would recommend starting with Udimi
BONUS Tool!
There is an old saying that readers are leaders, and in my experience that is certainly true.
If you really want to build a successful online business then continuing your education is essential.
Jim Rohn says: “Formal education will make you a living, but self-education will make you a fortune”
There are so many great books on online marketing, but if I had to pick one as essential reading it would be “DotCom Secrets” written by Internet Marketing Entrepreneur Russell Brunson.
This is definitely the best book on online marketing that I have read, and I use it a bit like my “Internet marketing bible”
Right now you can get a FREE physical copy of this book sent out to you anywhere in the world, just pay a few bucks to cover the shipping and handling.
Click here to get your FREE DotCom Secrets book!
So There You Have It!
The Ultimate ToolKit to Growing your Business Online!
By utilising this toolkit, you will soon be growing your business and profits to the next level.
And it’s NOT going to cost you a fortune.
Let’s get to work!!
If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below.
To your success,
John W. Newman
Helping you create Time and Financial FREEDOM by Building a PROFITABLE Business Online!
Dream It… Believe It… Then Achieve It!
Love social media? Join me on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Instagram.
Get Started With Your Own Profitable Business Online – Free Training!
Awesome list. Quite a few of these tools I’ve never heard of. Will be looking into a couple of them. I use proofy. io, verifier tool which has a 95% deliverability guarantee and surprisingly also the lowest cost in the entire market of companys that verify email addresses.
Thanks James, I have heard of proofy before, I will check it out 🙂
John,
Thanks for the wonderful and informative read.
You make perfect sense with website creation and monetization as the beginning of wealth.
I watched your YouTube video and now I understand that there is so much more after that to think about.
Your advice to use PayPal, AWeber and especially Jaaxy after signing up with Wealthy Affiliate is Spot On!
John thanks again, my best,
Gary
Thanks for your comment Gary, glad you liked my post!
Jaaxy, really is a great tool and Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to start learning how to build a profitable business online!
Thanks again 🙂
You are right about what you said and I believe that is how in all business, you need the right tools in order to get the job because with out them you will be planning and going no where. Thanks for sharing.
So true Norman!
Having the right tools, training and support are vital to building a successful business online!
thanks for your feedback 🙂
HI John,
Great Post and all the tips are really helpful. Wealthy Affiliate is great too.
Question, how soon did you start your email list?
Thanks
Hi John, I started building my email list within the first 6 months of first starting my online business.
I believe that is probably a good time to get started building a list.
You should have a solid foundation with your training with Wealthy Affiliate at that point, and is a good time to get started!
Thanks for your comment 🙂
This is a great tool kit John.
I too am using wealthy affiliate for about six months now to try and get my online business going. So far I have the first three of your tool kits going and working on the 4th, building an email list.
I don’t have any subscribers yet, do you have any recommendations on getting more subscribes?
Thanks Jeremy!
The best way to build your subscriber list is to offer a “freebie” in exchange for their email address.
It is often called an ethical bribe.
Things likes a free report, a cheat sheet or checklist works well.
It doesn’t have to be overly long, just so long as it adds value.
I always have a call to action at the bottom of my posts for people to sign up, and although a lot of people don’t like them, a pop-up always works well!
Thanks for your comment 🙂
What a great tool list here. And Really agreed with you that Wealthy Affiliate is the best training for online marketing. Be it newbies or domain provider. They just really awesome.
The only things I think I need to mark up on my skills is No.8-Which is Video Hosting. I have seen many successful website owners already started to add video hosting on their site to make their site more unique among others. What do you think?
Cheers,
Maxx
Thanks Maxx!
Yes, adding video to your blogs can really help your rankings, and creating videos for YouTube is also a great source of traffic, as well as promoting your brand.
I believe that video is only going to get bigger in the coming years.
Look at live streaming, such as FaceBook Live… it is getting HUGE!
This is going to be a big focus of my business over the coming years for sure!
Thanks for your feedback and comment 🙂
I will definitely be getting my free report the best way to earn money online. I have tried many different programs and schemes in the past, and they never worked out for me. I noticed you have other free offers as well as paid offers. Out of all the offers on your site, where would be the best place to start? Thanks.
Hi Don, my free report will definitely get you on the right track to start earning money online.
It sounds like you have fallen for a lot of the scams that seem to be gaining more and more momentum online these days.
They often promise quick results, but like with anything else, the easy answer just doesn’t work!
The best place to start is definitely with Wealthy Affiliate’s free training membership.
Follow through the video lessons and you will have a far greater understanding how you can build a successful business over the long-term!
In fact, if you implement the strategies, you will be very pleasantly surprised with what you achieve!
Best of luck! 🙂
John is in agreement with you that Wealthy Affiliate will guide through the way to learn how to make money online and not go wrong.
I have bookmarked your post “The Ultimate Toolkit for Growing your Business Online – 10 Essential Tools to Success Online!” it is awesome. It is so informative.
From your post, I have learned a lot.
You have shown all that one needs in summary. Wealthy Affiliate University teaches this, and you have put the whole thing on one page for me, thank you.
Thanks for your comment Mariam, hope you find this useful!
Yes, Wealthy Affiliate certainly covers most of the bases to build out a successful online business, but there are a few extra handy ones as well.
I know that if you follow this proven blueprint and work hard, you WILL have success online!
Thanks again 🙂
Great lists of the things I need to build a business Online. Your right though, expecting an overnight millionaire is something that only happens with lottery winners.
Question, how important is an email autoresponder in the beginning. I can’t imagine it would be of much use if you don’t have traffic and you told me it would take 6 months, so a free trial would be a waste of money.
Are their free options available?
Thanks for your comment Nathan, glad you liked it!
Personally, I believe that building an email list of subscribers is very important to start as soon as possible, after all, every post you do has an opportunity to add subscribers to your list.
I definitely would start within the first 6 months at least.
As I mentioned, Mailchimp is free, but I would definitely suggest you use Aweber… for $20 a month, you will be far better off in the long run!