I’ve been spending some time thinking about the tools that help me the most in working on my home business. I’m not talking about the forums and such that I find valuable (maybe another day), but the actual tools I use to get my work done.

A word processor

I don’t care if it’s Microsoft Word or one by another company, a good word processor is a must, and something most computers will have already. It’s useful when I want to write articles, brainstorm and so forth.

Multiple browsers

I have Internet Explorer, Firefox and Netscape installed on my computer. I use all of them for different things. Having all of them makes it easier to test websites.

WordPress

I do a fair number of my sites in blog format using WordPress. It has a lot of advantages, and if you like you can set it up as a regular website rather than a blog, and just have the software manage things for you.

One of the biggest benefits is that it can encourage your visitors to interact with you. Some people prefer to turn off comments, but I like to have them on. WordPress can also ping other sites automatically so that people can find out about your updates immediately. It can be a huge help.

However it does have its limitations. You cannot add javascript easily to your posts, which can be a disadvantage with some affiliate programs. If you want to customize your template you will need some ability to read and edit HTML.

Dreamweaver

My own favorite HTML editor. You can find others for cheaper or free, but few have the sheer power of Dreamweaver or create as clean of code. If I’m not using WordPress, odds are I created the site in Dreamweaver. I use Dreamweaver pretty much daily, even if it’s only for a few minutes sometimes.

If you’re into more advanced uses, Dreamweaver can cope with PHP, ASP and other languages.

The one problem is that Dreamweaver has something of a learning curve. I’ve had various family member struggle with it in their own attempts to start an online business. If you aren’t picking it up on your own I would suggest checking with your local community college for a course on Dreamweaver. There are also sites that will help you with it, but if you need a teacher going to a class can be more effective.

Wordtracker

You can just use the free version of Wordtracker or the free keyword suggestion tool to get going with this. If you’re doing heavy duty keyword research for pay per click, it is often worth buying some time on the full version so that you get the most information possible.

DigitalPoint Keyword Tracker

I love this tool for keeping track of how I rank on keywords that matter to me. It uses the Google API, and you need to provide your own key for it. It’s very easy to use but it can take some time for the system to go through all of your keywords if you have a large number to check. It can also keep track of your PageRank, number of incoming links and number of pages indexed.

Custom Home Page

I have a page I have customized for myself that has links to all of my sites, login pages, affiliate programs and anything else I may visit regularly. I find this easier to use than my bookmarks, which are quite cluttered from years of thinking I will get back to it. I only allow myself to add things to my home page that I know I will be checking regularly enough.

I made it in Dreamweaver, and update it as necessary.

Article Marketer

I remember submitting my articles using Ezine Announcer, back when it was capable of submitting articles. It was still a pain, since I had to go from article site to article site with it, submitting the articles in a semi-automated way. I had to select the category for each site for each article. It saved a ton of time compared to manual submission but it was still a pain. I believe the new free article submitter from Brad Callen works in a similar way, except Brad Callen’s appears to be a bit more advanced.

Instead I have a lifetime membership with Article Marketer. I can submit as many articles as I want. They take care of the actual submission to sites, and they include many of the really important ones in their services. I use them each and every month to submit a lot of articles. It only takes the time required to submit the articles to Article Marketer. That’s minutes per article submitted rether than the hours it can take doing it in a semi-automated fashion.

Great Website Hosting

A great website host is vital. I’m quite fond of Site5, but I’m also a firm believer in using more than one host when I have multiple sites. The reason is simply that this way I do not have to worry that all my sites are down just because one host is down.

Website Monitoring

Of course, you won’t know how great your website host is if you don’t keep at least a little track of what they’re doing, most especially uptime and how responsive their customer service is. I make sure that at least one (often multiple) sites of mine with a given host is monitored by the free version of Free Web Monitoring. It lets me know when one of my sites is down or not accessible and for how long the downtime lasted. This has told me a lot about one of my hosts, and I have been shopping for the right replacement.

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