18 Business Tools we use as Travel Content Creators
18 Business Tools we use as Travel Content Creators
HANDY APPS, WEBSITES & SOFTWARE
As self-employed photographers, videographers, and bloggers we’re constantly utilising multiple tools to help run our small business.
Over time, we’ve found the right fit when it comes to software, websites, and programs. Whether this be for the creative side of things or the more practical aspects.
It can take time to find the right tools that suit you best. So we’ve written a list that gives you a brief behind-the-scenes glimpse of what helps us run our business on a day-to-day basis in the hopes it can help you too!
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The three main creative platforms we use on a daily basis are Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro. Instead of talking about this software, we’re going to focus more on smaller tools we use that help with features like organisation, communication, and project management for our business.
Most of these tools are free. Some come with pro versions which you can pay for monthly or annually but we find the free versions still suits us most of the time!
WETRANSFER
WeTransfer is an online computer file transfer service. Being photographers and videographers we’re constantly sending massive files to clients so this is the perfect tool to use. Once your files have been sent you receive a notification when they’ve been opened and downloaded from the recipient and this is our favourite feature.
You can use WeTransfer for free and you don’t even need an account.
Cost | Free: (Send up to 2 GB) There is also a pro and premium version with upgraded storage
CANVA
Canva is a fantastic graphic design platform that we use frequently. They have pre-built templates for all social media, logos, presentations, documents and so much more. It’s simple and easy to use too.
We regularly use Canva to create Pinterest graphics, Instagram stories, and most importantly, our media kit. We also used Canva when designing our website, to create those little extras that we can’t simply create on Squarespace, like the polaroid images on the Home and Destinations Page. We also felt limited with the selection of fancy fonts on Squarespace for headings so we found one we loved on Canva which we’ve used regularly throughout our website (like on the About Us page).
Cost | Free but the Pro version costs £10.99 monthly
PINTEREST & TAILWIND
Pinterest is like a visual search engine. Unlike Google, you can search for a travel guide or article visually rather than just going by the title. Having pins linked to your website is a great way of creating traffic.
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Tailwind is a great tool for Pinterest marketing and managing. It allows us to schedule pins at our optimal times while growing our Pinterest following, resulting in more views to our website. There are also Tailwind communities that you can join, better known as “Tribes” that are made up of bloggers who share content on a common topic. From the Tribes, you can upload and re-pin peoples content from within the Tribe and vice versa.
Cost | Free but Tailwind comes with an option of paid pro and advanced versions which have additional functions and capabilities
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics is a tool that helps you keep tabs on traffic to your website. The data includes the country your audience is from, what pages they’re visiting, how they’re interacting, and how long they’re there. Knowing what’s popular on the blog is helpful when evaluating and planning new content. This data also tells you what areas aren’t working and what needs improving.
Cost | Free
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
Known as one of the most powerful, free SEO tools out there, this tool measures your site’s search traffic and tracks your performance on Google. You can understand how Google sees your pages and what your audience has googled which then brought them to your website.
Cost | Free
ZOOM
Zoom is our preferred video platform when it comes to meetings and catch-ups. It’s simple and easy to use and you don’t have to download it to use it. This makes it more simple when sending a meeting invite to someone who hasn’t used it before.
A huge part of being a content creator is contacting and emailing new and existing clients. We like to video call or speak on the phone as much as we possibly can rather than emailing all the time. This keeps us more sane and it’s nice to put a face to a name (or email)!
Cost | Free for one to one meetings
QUICKBOOKS
Quickbooks is a really handy online accounting software. We use Quickbooks for our accounts, organising our invoices and receipts, and keeping up with our finances. Being self-employed can be tough to stay up to date and organised with everything but Quickbooks really helps and keeps us on track.
Cost | Offer a free trial and then various plans for freelancers and independent contractors
MAILCHIMP
Mailchimp is a comprehensive email marketing platform for managing mailing lists and creating email campaigns to send to our audience. We use Mailchimp for our newsletters which you can receive by filling your details in on the pop-up when you first enter our website. Newsletters are a great way to stay connected with your audience and keep them updated on newly uploaded content.
Cost | Free for the first 2,000 people on your contact list
QUORA & ANSWER THE PUBLIC
We use both Quora and Answer the Public in a similar way.
Quora is a large question-and-answer website with an online community of people providing answers to questions.
Answer the Public is a powerful, yet simple SEO tool which gives an insight into what people are typing into search engines.
Both of these websites are extremely different but we use them for a similar outcome. With both websites, you can search a keyword, and follow topics related to your blog’s focus. This means you can find what people are asking, what’s popular, and what they’re interested in. This is a brilliant tool to use to find multiple ideas when planning new content.
For example, say you want to write an article about blogging. You have one article in mind you could write entitled “How to start a blog”.
Type in “blogging” to both websites and from there you can find questions and topics like “How to monazite my blog”, “How do I create more traffic to my blog”, “What blogging platform should I use” etc. By doing this you then open the door to hundreds of extra articles you could write rather than just one.
Cost | Both are free but come with an option of paid pro versions with extra functions
SQUARESPACE
Squarespace is an all-in-one versatile website builder. With domains, eCommerce, hosting, galleries, analytics, and 24/7 support, we’ve found Squarespace to be the most hassle-free software to use.
Unlike WordPress (which we previoulsy used but didn’t get on with) Squarespace allows you to easily create a website with zero coding experience whatsoever. With its templates and drag and drop features, it’s simple to use and really enjoyable! I personally loved creating our website, putting my rough sketches on paper and then onto the screen, and watching it develop!
Cost | Various pricing plans for personal, business and commerce websites. We pay £15 monthly for the “business” package along with £16 a year for our domain name
TIMEANDDATE
I don’t know about you, but countless times I’ve made mistakes when scheduling meetings when it comes to us being in different time zones. This website has time zones, a world clock, a calendar, and a worldwide weather forecast.
Cost | Free
MAIL APP
We have multiple emails, business and personal. Using this app on our MacBooks keeps them all in one place. I like using the flag feature as well to keep the emails organised, who I’m waiting on a reply to, who I need to reply to etc.
Cost | Free
GRAMMARLY
Grammarly, a free grammar checker, is a lifeline when it comes to writing new articles and proofreading. It can check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors while enhancing your vocabulary usage.
Cost | Free but comes with premium and business plans
PDFESCAPE
This free service is brilliant for adding clickable links to PDFs. We use this for our media kits, case studies, rate cards, and any other PDFs we might be sending to clients through email.
Cost | Free
TRELLO
Trello is the newest tool we’ve recently started to use. I’ve been trialing various similar platforms for a while now and Trello seems to be the best fit for us.
Trello is a collaborative work management app that helps you create and manage tasks. You can create lists, set deadlines, leave notes on projects and assign tasks to collaborators.
We have Trello downloaded on our desktop and we also have the mobile app which is great for on-the-go.
Cost | Free but comes with standard, premium, and enterprise packages
DOCUSIGN
DocuSign is an easy and secure way to electronically sign documents online.
Gone are the days when you had to print out the document, sign it, scan it back in, and send it back.
Cost | They offer a free trial and then have plans from $10 a month
Are there any tools out there that you’ve found helpful for your business? Please let us know below in the comments!