Over the course a time we have developed a rather extensive in house library of tools and resources that we consistently utilize. Here are a few that we have found to be consistently reliable and to offer great value (some are free!) Many of these items are used Gadarian Digital as well as by many of our clients. In fact, our tool set is considered to be a major asset of our firm – we do the research and testing so our clients don’t have to.

With than in mind please feel free to look through our Resources Page and see if any of these items can help you with your own business.

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links (at no extra cost to you).

Website “Stuff”:

  • WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. Also happens to be the most widely used digital publishing CMS in the world!
  • Headway is a premium WordPress theme that provides some really nice drag and drop features. It also happens to be theme that Gadarian Digital is built on.
  • Theme Forest is a massive marketplace of website Themes. Make sure to click through to WordPress if that is what you are looking for. You’ll be impressed!
  • Sucuri is a paid service that will monitor your website for malware and if they find anything they’ll also remove it. BTW they also offer up a free WordPress plugin.
  • BackupBuddy is a premium WordPress backup plugin. We use this service for all our retainer clients. Here is a post called How to Protect Yourself From A Worst Case Scenario which you might find helpful.
  • Slider Pro is a WordPress Slider – you can see it in action right here on the Gadarian Digital Home Page. I love this slider for a few reasons that you can read about here. Meanwhile if you are looking for a slider for your website I’d strongly suggest you take a look at Slider Pro
  • App Sumo is an online deal site tightly focused on web 2.0.  While not every deal might be a perfect fit for you, when they run a good one for something you are interested in it is hard to beat their price.  Also this is a great way to learn about new digital tools.

Productivity/Digital Management Tools:

  • Google Apps for Business brings the power of GMail to your own domain. For a small business this feels like a must. Moving to this service was a real game changer for Gadarian Digital and our overall productivity.
  • Rapportive is a Gmail add on that provides some nice social information about the people you are emailing with from inside your inbox. Despite being a Gmail add on this company just got purchased by LinkedIn.
  • Boomerang, technically Boomerang for Gmail is a nice email scheduling and reminder solution. They offer both a free and paid version of their service.
  • Nimble is a social CRM solution that we are currently “solution partners” for. If we didn’t think the outlook for this company was very solid we wouldn’t be working with them. Also… Google Ventures recently invested in them.
  • Skype is a video conferencing on phone service. We are currently utilizing an account with them that has a dedicated phone line (meaning we can dial anyone and they can dial us) for unlimited US calls for a small amount of money – all done from the computer.
  • Dropbox is an amazing cloud based file storage system. Makes sharing and storing files easy. Also, Backup Buddy (in the web section) has a very slick integration with Dropbox that allows you to have a nice automated cloud based website backup system for those just in case moments.
  • Asana, in their own words “is the shared task list for your team. The place to plan, organize & stay in sync.”  It is also the project management and organizational tool that we are currently using here at Gadarian Digital!
  • Netvibes is an online dashboard. Once you get rolling the possibilities really start to open up. When I meet with clients this service in particular consistently get the jaw dropping to the floor response. Great for ongoing monitoring.
  • Trello is an online collaboration and task management tool that we’ve recently started to use. Completely cloud based and at least for now free to use.
  • Freshbooks. If you are finding that your invoices are taking hours a month rather than minutes… Freshbooks is what we use.

Social Media

  • Hootsuite is a very robust social media management tool. Great for small business owners.
  • Google is the leader in search for a reason. If you are not in some way utilizing this Google to help with your social perhaps its time to revisit your social strategy.
  • Bing.com/social is a service that undeservedly gets overshadowed by Google, but in this case perhaps Bing does it better. Go ahead and see for yourself.

Desktop Items

  • Logitech Headset. We like this headset because the sound quality ranked high and because it has a USB outlet. We’ve been very happy with this purchase.
  • A Large Computer Monitor is a must. Now that I’ve personally have made the leap with a second screen I’m kicking myself for not having done it sooner. Is the Samsung monitor I have the absolute best deal for the money? Hard to say but whether it is or not, I can say for sure having this second monitor has been a great help with my productivity.
  • How to Make A Standing Desk for light money!

I’ve also been using this local directory service to explore generating more leads:

Digital Marketing & Online Communications

In addition please feel free to visit our Digital Marketing Bookstore where we share our recommended reading library with you.

Should you wish to contact Gadarian Digital to review a product or a book of yours in our space we encourage you to get in touch with us – we are always on the lookout for great solutions!

Thanks!