If you run a small business, fees can quickly add up. Although you’ll want to run marketing campaigns and optimize your e-commerce website, these tasks can be expensive. Fortunately, you can easily find tools like Google Analytics or Canva to improve your online store for free.
In this post, we’ll explain why you might want to find cost-effective tools for your online store. Then, we’ll recommend four of the best options that are completely free to use. Let’s get started!
Why You Might Need a Cost-Effective Tool for Your Online Store
To grow your online store, you may focus on improving sales and conversions. However, another essential factor is limiting unnecessary business costs. If you spend too much money on third-party tools, these high expenses can negatively impact your success.
Many tools can increase your productivity, marketing, and web performance as a business owner. Initially, you might think that expensive software will be more effective. However, you can cut costs by installing a cost-effective alternative.
Finding free tools for online stores means you’ll have more money to spend on higher-quality products, packaging, and advertising. Especially if you’re a beginner, starting with free software and upgrading as your store grows is a good idea. In addition, this approach can help you make a profit even in the early stages of your business.
4 Free Tools for Online Stores
Once you decide to limit your online business expenses, it’s time to find cost-effective tools. Depending on your goals, you’ll find free software for marketing, graphic design, and more. Here are four of our top picks!
1. Google Analytics
As an e-commerce store owner, you’ll need to understand your online audience. Using Google Analytics, you can monitor your web traffic and analyze how customers interact with your website.
Some of the most useful features of Google Analytics are its reports. With these free tools for online stores, you’ll see a real-time analysis of your organic traffic. This data will inform you about your customers’ locations, session duration, as well as how they found your website.
Google Analytics can also help you track your revenue. You’ll be able to see first-time purchases, Average Order Value (AOV), and specific product revenue. As a result, using these metrics will provide more insight into your most popular products.
Key Features:
- Real-time reporting
- Reports on user acquisition, engagement and monetization
- Advertising performance analytics
- Machine learning to predict user behavior
- Integrations with other Google tools like Google Ads and Google Search Console
Pricing: Google Analytics is completely free. You’ll simply need to create an account and connect a property (your website) to get started.
2. Jetpack
If you’re looking for a comprehensive tool to optimize your website, consider using Jetpack. This free WordPress plugin has a complete set of features to improve the security and performance of your e-commerce store.
With Jetpack, you’ll be able to back up your website, perform malware scans, and enable two-factor authentication. These security measures can also protect your business from unexpected downtime or brute-force attacks.
In addition, Jetpack provides many ways to speed up your site. Its built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) will automatically optimize images and static files to deliver your content efficiently to customers.
Key Features:
- Automatic, real-time backups
- Malware scans
- Image CDN
- Image lazy loading
- Unlimited free video hosting
- Website analytics
- Integrations with WooCommerce, Google Analytics, and social media platforms
Pricing: Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin. If you need to extend any of its core features, consider purchasing a premium product bundle.
3. Canva
Whether you sell digital or physical products, you might consider creating custom graphics for your product pages. Although software like Photoshop can be useful, it’s also expensive. As a free alternative, consider using Canva.
Canva is a free graphic design tool with beginner-friendly features. It comes with thousands of pre-designed templates to feature your custom products, create social media posts, customize your business logo, and more.
Key Features:
- Pre-designed templates
- Drag-and-drop editing
- Support for collaboration
- Schedule and publish social media posts
- Image enhancer
- Video trimmer
- Text animations
- Stickers and icons
Pricing: Canva’s free plan comes with over 250,000 free templates, 5 GB of cloud storage, and 100 design types. However, if you need to access more templates, stock content, or background removals, Canva Pro starts at $119.99 per year.
4. Mailchimp
Building an email list can also be an effective way to communicate with your audience and promote products to potential customers. Although you can design and send your own emails, a tool like Mailchimp can make this process easier.
Mailchimp is an email marketing software that can automate your campaigns. Starting with a pre-designed template, you can also customize your emails in minutes. Then, you’ll be able to set up automation to send the right emails to the right customers.
Key Features:
- Pre-designed email templates
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Audience segmentation
- Email automation
- A/B testing
- Analytics reports
- Integrations with Stripe, WordPress, Canva and more
Pricing: Like the other options on this list, Mailchimp provides a completely free base plan. This includes up to 2,500 monthly emails, analytics reports, and email templates. For more advanced features, the premium plans start at $13 per month.
Conclusion
With the right tools, you’ll be able to maximize the productivity of your business. Software like Jetpack or Mailchimp gives you everything you need to speed up your website and start advertising your products. Plus, these tools offer basic plans that are completely free to use.
Do you have any questions about which free tool is best for your online store? Ask us in the comments section below!
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