Free Image Editing with Canva: " For people and teams wanting to design absolutely anything, from logos and social media content to documents, prints and more. Tons of free templates, photos and fonts to bring your vision to life."
Stock Photos from Fotosearch: Looking for stock photos and don't mind paying for them? If you can't find what you want in my free stock images, check out Fotosearch for a huge selection of stock images. Photo prices vary depending on size and resolution, or you can save by purchasing "credits" starting at $1.50 per credit. Photosearch.com is operated out of Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA.
Web graphics from GoGraph: "GoGraph offers flexible royalty free stock photography, vectors, illustrations, graphics, and stock footage at low prices. Purchase and download stock images immediately."
Solopreneur and Small Business Resources
Support for Women Solopreneurs: This Facebook group, Productive Women Solopreneurs, offers support to women who run a one-person business. The group offers daily production goals and lots of support - essential for someone who works alone! I joined this group recently and find them very helpful! (NOTE: if you are an author or an artist, you are - whether you know it or not - a solopreneur. Check this out!)
Short URLS from Bitly: Create and track your own short links - especially good for posting on Twitter. Another great free tool.
No-Hype Marketing with Marcia Yudkin: Marketing For Introverts and Other Under-Appreciated People and Companies. Marcia offers great marketing services and resources, including resources aimed specifically at introverts. Marcia operates out of Goshen, Massachusetts, USA
Email Marketing with Mailchimp: MailChimp provides you with an Email marketing tool similar to Constant Contact, but with a viable free level - up to 2,000 subscribers, up to 10,000 sends per month, proper opt-in features and more.
Accept Credit Cards With Paypal: I have been using PayPal Payments Standard for years to give me the capability of accepting both credit card payments and PayPal payments. I have always found them to be reliable, and there's no better - or easier - way to get into e-commerce. Setup is free, and there are no regular monthly charges. You simply pay a percentage of each sale (2.9% plus $0.30) to PayPal - which means you only pay when you make money. The only other fee is a charge of $0.50 when you transfer money from PayPal to your bank account.
Canadian Payroll Tool - Payroll Deductions Online Calculator: This is an extremely handy tool for any Canadian small business that has to handle a small payroll and doesn't want to pay the extra for the payroll module in Sage or QuickBooks. Completely free, and provides you with printed reports.
Website Stats From Statcounter: An excellent and very detailed statistics-tracking service for your website, and it's free for up to 250,000 pageloads per month. Gives you not only recent visitor activity, but tracks keyword activity, visit length, browser stats, resolution stats, and more. I have used StatCounter for years and find it an extremely useful tool.
Website Hosting from Hostpapa: Dustwood Media's webhost of choice. Their "Start" plan offers one website, 10 email addresses, 100gB of SSD storage, free domain registration, free standard SSL Certificate, cPanel control panel and more for $8.95/month or less; the "Plus" plan offers 10 websites, 100 email addresses, free standard SSL Certificate, 100GB SSD storage, free domain registration, cPanel control panel and more for $10.95/month or less; and the "Pro" and "Ultra" plans include even more advanced features. I've used HostPapa for years and found them very reliable.
Free Email Accounts
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Google's Gmail is my top choice for a free online email provider, powerful and reliable. Just go to www.google.ca and click on "Gmail".
You may have an email account available through your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Check out your ISP online and see if email addresses are included in your package.
If you have your own website, very likely you have the option to create one or more email addresses through your cPanel. This is the best choice for a business email address.
You can also get a free email address at Yahoo, Hotmail, and other places, but many servers treat email from these locations as junk mail. If you are using the email for business (and don't have an email address through your website host), do NOT use a Yahoo or Hotmail email address - choose Gmail instead.
