business toolkit the mompreneur€¦ · themes available. tâå ¯ÊÖÙ ÜÜ ¯ÿ¯y¬ Ä Ü i...

2 0 1 9 c h r i s t i a n h o m e s c h o o l m o m s . c o m

The MompreneurBusiness Toolkit

Demetria Zinga

Mompreneur/ B u s i n e s s

T o o l k i t

2 0 1 9 C h r i s t i a n h o m e s c h o o l m o m s . c o m

My goal is to make your online business life easier. After 14 years of being a mom entrepreneur, I

have concluded that there are a few must-haves for getting started and sustaining a successful

business on the web.

I have to admit, I love geeking out on new tech. The items I list in this toolkit are products and

services that I use frequently and help make my business life easier. I've researched these and am

giving you the inside scoop on what I've found out about these tools and why I've chosen to use

them for my business.

Enjoy!

Dear Mompreneur ,

Lots of Love,Demetria


T o o l k i t


Your very first stop along the path of entrepreneurship is your website. This is home base for your

business brand and gives you the platform to reach the world with your message and vision.

Wordpress

Website | Blog

This platform is always my first choice and my favorite publishing platform. I love it because it's

easy to learn, versatile, and robust. It's a simple platform and yet it is power-packed! With all the

templates and plugins available there is no limit to the kind of website you can build with

Wordpress. As a business owner, always install it on your own hosting so that you own your

domain name and have freedom to do whatever you like with your blog (including selling ad space,

which is something you can't do on many free platforms). In this case, make sure you are investing

in Wordpress.org and not Wordpress.com, which are quite different from each other.

Siteground

You'll need a place to park your website, so your first stop is to set up hosting so that you can install

Wordpress. I have been to the moon and back with hosting companies and have experienced the

good, the bad, and the ugly. What I've found with Siteground is that they have been, in my

experience so far, among the greats. Siteground's customer service is unparalleled with any other

hosting company I've been with over the years (over five), and when I say they help you almost

immediately, I do mean that their chat service is super quick. Try it for yourself and see. Their phone

service is amazing too. I also feel assured that my sites are backed up properly and that they will

take care of my needs should any arise.


T o o l k i t


You will need to beautify your blog with a lovely theme. I'm not an advocate of using free themes

since there's not much you can do if something were to go wrong. If your code breaks, there goes

your entire site.

Even if you hire out your design, making sure your designer has access to the best themes on the

market is important. Since 2011 I have used Genesis themes by Studiopress and have had loads of

success with these theme packets. Studiopress is known for their knowledgeable development

team and community support should you (or your designer) run into a coding glitch. Their themes

are backed up with support and a membership site for customers only. As of 2018, there are over 35

themes available.

Studiopress

Divi Themes

I recently discovered Divi themes, which is a beautifully simple drag-and-drop web design builder,

created with the novice in mind. However, as a designer I find this interface to be so simple and easy

to use that I would much rather build my website with Divi nowadays. The responsive WYSIWYG

editor makes Elegant themes by Divi a natural go-to for mompreneurs who may not have the initial

budget to hire out a designer but needs a quick and easy way to design her own. If this is you,

definitely check out Divi.

Fiverr

Whenever I need specialty graphics created such as ebook covers, or if I need special audio outros

for my podcast, I always head over to Fiverr. For less than $50 you can come away with graphic

elements and even a logo. Select your designers carefully, but you might just find what you're

looking for at Fiverr.


T o o l k i t


This is my one-stop-shop for determining whether or not my business or blog ideas are profitable.

I've begun many brands online and before I ever begin a new one I always check the Keyword

Planner tool to ensure that there are enough searches and demand for my business idea. You'll

want to make sure to keep this tool handy for blog post ideas as well.

Keyword Planner

Google AnalyticsOnce your business is moving along nicely and you're putting out your content regularly, you'll want

to periodically check to see how you are doing. This is where the Analytics tool comes in handy.

Analytics will give you a snapshot of how your website is doing over the course of 7 days, a month,

six months, or any range you choose. You will be able to analyze how many unique site visitors you

have, their entry points and how they landed on your site, as well as a breakdown of how often they

stay on your page and when they exit. These statistics are important to your site growth as you

track goals each month.

Buzz Sumo

This is the tool to help you work smarter, not harder, as you determine which topics are popular

and which content to explore on your blog. Find out what other bloggers are talking about, get

influencer information, which content and posts are being shared most frequently, and analyze

your competition.


T o o l k i t


Plugins are to my Wordpress site what nerves are to my body. Without the impulses and signals

nerves send to my brain to give me direction, I don't have a system. My Wordpress plugins are like

life to my blog and are the juice behind the scenes that keeps my blog running like a professional

website. Here are a few of my favorite plugins.

Analytics for Wordpress

Plugins

This handy plugin allows you to track your website activity- see who's visiting you, where they

come from, and how many visits you receive per month. You install it, enter your Google Analytics

tracking code, and you will have instant access to this vital information about your blog.

Yoast SEO

This wonderful tool helps to make your website as search engine friendly as possible. This one

plugin saves the day for you when creating blog posts. It helps you to determine meta titles and

descriptions, target specific keywords, and even manage your sitemaps.

Akismet

This is the tool you need to help get rid of unwanted comments and spam. Think of it as the spam-

eater that protects your time by zapping away nasty spam that would appear as comments. This

frees your time and protects you from having to deal with it so that you can focus on more

important things: like bringing incredible content to your blog.


T o o l k i t


From monitoring my website uptime and downtime to building out contact forms, I've use Jetpack to

make building my website a lot easier and more productive. You can do so much with this one

plugin, including: creating automated social sharing, recommending related posts, and using secure

logins and authentication. Jetpack is definitely packed with a lot to offer professional bloggers.

Jetpack

Limit Login AttemptsAfter a horrible episode of being hacked multiple times on each of my websites, I came to realize

how deeply important protecting my websites would be, and which tools would be helpful in

keeping my content safe. Limit Login Attempts is a much-needed tool that locks out unauthorized

users from attempting to login to your site after so many failed attempts. You can control the

settings as to how many times they can try to login before being locked out, and you can also see

important information about them, such as the IP address. If the same IP address is attempting to

login, you can ban it. That puts the power into your hands in helping to protect your website.


T o o l k i t


Email communication is a vital form of connecting with my customers and clients and helps me to

build loyal relationships with them. Through my emails I build trust and they grow to appreciate my

brand and offerings.

Mailchimp

Email Marketing

This is a perfect beginner email provider. It allows you to build your email list with subscriber boxes

and offers a variety of templates. You can automate your email campaigns and integrate onto your

website with ease.

Convertkit

I have used and enjoyed ConvertKit because of its easy-to-use signup boxes. You can create an

engaged, segmented mailing list as well as create as many landing pages and forms as you need.

Divi Bloom

This plugin by Elegant Themes makes it super easy to add opt-in forms anywhere on your website

so that visitors can sign up for your mailing list. Bloom is so easy to set up and it connects with

quite a few mailing list providers. It's versatile and user-friendly. Place opt-in forms beneath blog

posts, on pages, fly in, popup or embed, it's all up to you.


T o o l k i t


Sometimes we just need quick, simple and organized ways to communicate with team members.

Here are a few tools that have been helpful for me.

acuity scheduling

communications

This tool has been great for client intake. Customers fill out a form, select a date and time to meet

with me, and voila- we're in a coaching session together! Acuity makes my scheduling life and

appointment-booking a breeze.

voxer

Communications can get hectic- between emails and social media. What I love about Voxer is that

it's a professional way to connect with members on your team without all the chaos and noise.

Write a chat message, send a question, or click the audio button to record a quick question or

respond to a team member. Simple and easy communication.

zoom

I currently meet all of my clients here, and this is also where I record my podcast interviews.

Coaching calls, breakout sessions, audio and video- all recorded onto your device and saved in the

Zoom cloud- it's great! And it's free.


T o o l k i t


Content is golden to your business and will be the bread and butter to all that you offer. You will

need a good strategy for implementing that content...but first, you'll need excellent tools to help

you get the job done. Here are a few that have been favorites for me over the years.

Google Docs/Slides

content creation

Google is everything to me. I use nearly all the Google apps available for one thing or another, and

content creation is no exception. I've found that I use Docs every day for writing up content to share

later with my audience. Google Slides is helpful in creating presentations for my ecourses.

Canva

You don't have to be a trained graphic designer to make awesome graphics for your blog. I've used

Canva to create YouTube and blog post thumbnails, Pinterest images, and am currently using it to

create this toolkit! Canva is super awesome in that you get loads of templates, graphic elements,

and awesome fonts for absolutely free. Upgrading gives you options for even more graphics,

backgrounds, and resizing your documents.

Camtasia

Sometimes I just want to record what's on my screen as I teach concepts for my clients. If we're not

in a live coaching session I need a way to do this in a pre-recorded format. Camtasia is a wonderful

tool that allows me to record superb video screencasts and audio, split-screen options, and comes

with editing capabilities.


T o o l k i t


We've got to have an easy way to bill clients. Setting up this process early on will take away the

sweat and tears later on. I only have a few tools that are helpful with my billing process currently.

Paypal

Payment Processing/ Invoicing

Good ol' Paypal has been with me for the long haul. I've tried newer processing systems, but Paypal

always comes through for me and has worked just fine. It has been a trustworthy source for

accepting payments and works great.

Stripe

Stripe, however, is newer on the scene and is also a payment processing and invoicing tool you can

choose for your business. My advice: choose both Stripe and Paypal. Stripe demonstrates you can

accept from a large selection of trusted financial institutions and might be favorable to customers.

Stripe also allows you more detailed and fine-tuned choices for billing your clients one-time or

monthly as an online business. It integrates with a wide variety of ecommerce platforms and

plugins and is extremely helpful for online business owners in particular.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks is a great way to keep your finances in order. Get organized by tracking your time

(super important if you are a consultant), logging your expenses, as well as invoicing your clients.

You can do it all from Freshbooks.


T o o l k i t


Keeping track of our time and energy is important as mompreneurs. We have to know exactly what

our business needs, understand our personal systems, and create an organized approach to making

our lives flow seamlessly. Here are a few tools I use to keep myself productive using systems that

work for me.

Evernote

Productivity/Systems Management

When I'm not using Google Docs to write up reports and documents to share with my audience, I use

Evernote to keep track of my personal business thoughts and ideas. I like to organize them in such a

way- tagging them with dates and keywords and placing them in folders- that it helps me to see my

mental processes visually. Evernote is excellent for this!

Dropbox

I never have to worry about losing my content with Dropbox by my side. It's my virtual "office on the

cloud" and I place much of my important documents and projects here. If I want to share this with

team members, it's super easy as well. Storage doesn't need to be a problem and I don't have to

worry about losing anything on my local drives.

Amazon S3 Storage

Amazon S3 is a fairly inexpensive way to store business data. It's cost-effective, secure, and pretty

simple to use. It's also quite reliable. If you want a free alternative to Dropbox, I would start with

this simple storage solution.


T o o l k i t


Using boards, lists, and cards you can empty your brain and watch as you sharpen your time, batch

your work, and get more done overall. Create cards for each project, or project member. Create

systems and workflows, and get a clear visual of what needs to be done, what is being done

currently and what is already complete. Trello has been such a wonderful part of my daily

workflow that I don't know what I'd do without it.

Trello

Managing all our social media platforms can be a nightmare without the proper systems and tools

in place. In comes Buffer, Hootesuite, or CoSchedule. Any of these tools will prove to serve you

greatly in the long run as you reduce time running around to plan out your next Facebook post or

tweet or forgetting to post. These tools give you options to plan out weeks and months in advance

for all of your social media: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. You can even plan out and

schedule your blog posts with CoSchedule. Planoly is awesome for seeing the layout of your

Instagram feed in advance and helps with managing that platform in particular. Tailwind handles

all of your pins on Pinterest- repinning them to the right boards and managing your boards and

stats.

Buffer | Hootesuite| CoSchedule| Planoly | Tailw ind


T o o l k i t


And you're ready to roll.

Right?

No worries, it doesn't all happen all at once. Take one tool at a time, play with it, implement it into

your business and see how it feels.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and come check out my Facebook page. You can

ask me questions there or reach out for support.

I hope to hear from you soon.

So now you have your toolkit .

Demetria

https://www.facebook.com/demetria.zinga/

business toolkit the mompreneur€¦ · themes available. tâå ¯ÊÖÙ ÜÜ ¯ÿ¯y¬ Ä Ü i...

Documents