A Google search for "social media tool" or "website builder" will yield so many results that it can feel like choosing a new show on Netflix—you’ll spend hours scrolling but eventually get overwhelmed and just go to bed. This post is for you!

I’ve spent hours learning, implementing, and troubleshooting various software, online tools, dashboards, CRM, and web design-building platforms. I’ve explored the pros and cons of each, and here are my top five FAVES to help you spend less time troubleshooting tools and more time doing what you love—running your incredible business!

Mural for Copywriting & Brand Development

Mural is a super flexible, customizable online “whiteboard” that elevates my deliverables and streamlines my creative process. I learned about Mural from a fantastic client who uses this platform for large-scale projects and interactive online meetings. While I’m not hosting large-scale meetings, I use my custom-designed templates in MURAL for all my website design, brand storytelling, and social media management projects.

In the beginning, designing, honing, and finalizing my custom templates took quite a bit of time, especially as I learned more about the specific questions I needed to ask my client to generate the best results.

Now that I’ve developed my templates, my onboarding, design, and brainstorming processes are fast, efficient, and visually dynamic. I design website architectures in Mural so I can make sure my clients’ vision and mine are aligned for their websites; I write Brand Stories into Mural with added visuals, graphics, and brand colors to highlight how the story connects to the brand; I design custom social media calendars color-coded based on post type to make content planning a breeze.

Which Industries is Mural Best-Suited for?

• Website Design: website architectures and scoping builds
• Graphic Design: design concepts and brand strategy
• Copywriting: create a visually stunning brand story that comes to life
• Social Media: content creation, planning, and ideating
• Coaching: visioning, strategy, and templating sessions

Duda for Usability, Page Load Speed, and eCommerce Functionality

I’ve worked with many website design platforms: WordPress, Weebly, Wix, Squarespace, Showit, and GoDaddy, and Duda is by far my favorite for its ease-of-use customizability, eCommerce, and SEO functionality. I started working exclusively with Duda in 2021 because backend is highly navigable and straightforward, with minimal click-paths (I’m looking at you, WordPress) to find what you need. You can give clients super customizable levels of access, and their preview links display sites on all 3 major devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile) to give clients a fuller picture of how their site will look.

Page Load Speed with Duda

What truly sets Duda apart is the site speed and performance. Duda sites load significantly faster than any other builder I’ve worked with. Since page load speed is one of the top factors influencing bounce rate (how quickly a visitor leaves your site), and the modern market expects sites to load almost instantaneously, their superior load speed is a significant competitive advantage.

eCommerce Functionality with Duda

I love the store's backend with Duda, which allows you to connect to PayPal, Shopify, Square, and all the payment methods a modern business requires. Their eCommerce platform is so flexible and functional that you can create, sell, and manage your online course directly through Duda instead of using a separate platform such as Kajabi or Teachable.

Which Industries is Duda Best Suited for?

• Website Design
• Online stores (product or service based)
• Any industry looking for an edge on Google Ranking

Honeybook for Contracts and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Honeybook is an easy-to-use CRM without all the bells and whistles of some other CRM platforms, which is perfect for me as a small business owner. The fancier CRM systems like Asana, Trello, and PipeDrive are excellent for a team, but I found they offered too much for solopreneurs like myself.

Honeybook allows you to upload contracts, send them to clients to e-sign, helps you keep track of projects in your pipeline, and offers calendar integration with Google Calendar and Zoom, so all your meetings are simple to track. My motto for tools is that less is more, and Honeybook offers the perfect amount of support at a significantly more affordable rate than other CRMs.

Which Industries is Honeybook Best Suited for?

• Professional Services
• Coaching or services industries
• Any industry where you’ll have an ongoing or project-based relationship with your client

Canva for Brand Collateral Design and Social Media

Canva is quickly taking the lead in digital and graphic design. I love Canva for its flexibility, massive database of beautiful stock images, videos, and incredible graphics. Canva is perfect for DIY designing your brand aesthetic if you’re starting your business and collateral for Social Media, online marketing, and website visuals.

Which Industries is Canva Best Suited for?

• DIY Marketing for your business
• Graphic Designers
• Website Designers
• Brand Designers
• Social Media Managers

Sked Social for Social Media Management and Social Media Strategy

Having a Social Media strategy is a great start, but implementing a Social Media strategy can take up precious time and hours. There are hundreds of Social Media Management systems, all of which have fantastic benefits and offerings. But my favorite (for the price point and customer service) is Sked Social. They’re an Australia-based company with a fun, user-friendly dashboard I use to manage all my social media projects.

They send out emails to check on their clients, consistently add new tools to their suite, and their pricing is highly competitive. Suppose you want to manage your social media platforms and set up auto-posting or manage social media accounts for many clients. In that case, Sked offers simplicity, efficiency, and superb customer support.

Which Industries is Canva Best Suited for?

• DIY Marketing for any industry
• Graphic Designers
• Website Designers
• Brand Designers
• Social Media Managers

Choosing the Right Tools to Grow Your Business

Do you LOVE a tool that didn’t make the list, or have you tried any of these tools and found them less fabulous than I described? Share your thoughts in the comments!