SU!I’m feeling extra generous today, so I’m going to share the most important web-based tools that we use at CHROMATIC to run the majority of our operations.
The following tools (or other tools with equivalent functionality), in my opinion, are some of the most essential components needed to run a streamlined, successful, and professional web operation. In addition, as the title implies, these tools can and should be used by any freelance web designer looking to take their operation to the next level of professionalism.
Note: These tools are only as good as the person using them. If you learn how to use each of these tools to their maximum potential, then there is no doubt in my mind that things will get better for you/your company’s operation very, very quickly.
The Trifecta
Hands down, three of the most useful web-based tools for our operation comes from 37signals. There are tons of different collaborative, organizational, and contact management applications available on the web. However, none of them hold a candle to the suite that 37signals offers.
1. Basecamp (project management)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5+ years, you’ve probably heard of Basecamp. This quote (taken directly from the Basecamp product website) sums it up:
Share files, meet deadlines, assign tasks, centralize feedback, make clients smile.
Basecamp is the ultimate project management application (it’s also the most popular – a status that is very well deserved). Our clients are constantly blown away by our ability to communicate quickly, organize project-related information efficiently, and maintain punctuality with our project milestones and deliverables on a consistent basis.
Although you must discipline and push yourself to be extremely communicative, organized, and punctual, Basecamp really helps make these things a lot easier. Our clients love Basecamp, we love Basecamp, you’ll love Basecamp. Period.
2. Backpack (business organization)
When we first signed up for Backpack, we were not sure if we needed it. A few of the features from Basecamp seemed to overlap into Backpack. However, after a few months of working with Backpack, its strengths quickly became rather obvious. Backpack excels with the following:
- “Pages” give you the ability to organize and share information related to a specific topic using notes, to-do lists, files, photos, and dividers. Pages can be created very quickly, can be shared privately or publicly, can be tagged for easy and convenient organization, and more.
- The Group Calendar is a fully functional, extremely flexible, and highly useful web-based calendar. You can create as many calendars (each color coded to make it easy to distinguish one from the other) as you’d like, share specific calendars with other people or keep them private, subscribe to calendars using iCal, and import Basecamp project milestones. The Group Calendar alone is worth the cost of Backpack.
- Messages allow you to easily communicate with other users in your Backpack account. You can also perform similar operations available in Pages to Messages as well.
Backpack is an invaluable business-organization tool that will help keep you organized. If I had to choose a favorite from the 37signals suite, Backpack would be my choice.
3. Highrise (contact management)
Wait a minute, did I just say that Backpack was my favorite 37signal’s web-based application? Can I change my answer? Just kidding. But really, Highrise is just as useful as the other two aforementioned 37signal’s products.
Highrise is a lead management, contact management, and deal management tool all rolled up into one application. If you find yourself talking to a lot of different people (which, if you want to be successful, you will be doing 95% of the time), Highrise is a necessity.
Each time we get a call or e-mail, whether it be for a RFP request, a designer/developer/marketer looking to join our team, or a discussion with a client about their project, we use Highrise to take notes. We then assign specific tasks to the contact’s file (create a proposal, schedule a conference call, etc) and set SMS/e-mail reminders so that we never miss an event, task, appointment, etc. It streamlines the entire process of contact and lead management.
Heck, I even use Highrise to set reminders related to many of my personal contacts (doctors, friends, etc). In these instances (when privacy is important), you have the option of hidding specific contacts from other members of your team.
I could talk about the benefits of Highrise for hours, however, I’ll let you learn more about it yourself. Let me just say this: Highrise will make your life a lot easier. Count on it.
Invoicing/Time Tracking
4. Cashboard
Over the past few years, we have used A LOT of different invoicing and time tracking web-based applications. You name it, we’ve probably used it. The problem is, although the majority of these apps have strengths, they also have some significant weaknesses – weaknesses so significant that they made us look elsewhere.
We just about gave up on our search for the perfect web-based invoicing software and time tracking application, but then we found Cashboard. Cashboard, in my opinion, has a great deal of pros, and very, very few cons.
Cashboard integrates seamlessly with Basecamp. And although Basecamp has a time tracking component, we prefer to use Cashboard’s time tracking widget to record our time spent on project tasks and milestones. It makes invoicing clients so much easier and streamlined.
Once again, there are just too many great features to discuss, however, these are our favorites:
- completely customizable user interface
- completely brandable invoices, estimates, thank you e-mails, and more
- seamless and simple integration with PayPal and Authorize.net accounts
- flexible invoicing options including the most flexible tax options of any web-based invoicing software, late fees, and more
- time tracking through the Cashboard web interface or through Cashboard widgets
- import Basecamp projects or create them from scratch within Cashboard
- accept deposits for work up front
- bill individuals or companies; associate a single person to multiple companies
- extremely competitive pricing (we feel like we’re ripping the Cashboard company off, that’s how cheap their pricing is!)
Seriously, these are just some of the amazing features that this app has. Ditch whatever invoicing and time tracking application you’re using and get Cashboard. This product will boost the professional image of your operation tenfold.
Metric Measurement
5. Google Analytics
Chances are, you’re already using Google Analytics. But just in case you aren’t, start using it today. And don’t just use it for your website, use it for your clients’ websites, too.
If we’re redesigning a client’s website, we like to install Google Analytics on their old site (if it isn’t already installed) so that we have some baseline metrics which we can use to compare to the metrics of the redesigned website (a great way to indicate how successful (or unsuccessful) a website redesign really is).
6. Google Website Optimizer
Google Website Optimizer is a very useful application that can easily be integrated into Google Analytics. This app gives you the ability to create multiple versions of any given page (commonly referred to as A/B and multivariate testing) and then test to see which version leads to the most conversions (or whatever metric you’re looking to improve). This is especially useful when testing landing pages on your website or your clients’ websites.
A few ways A/B and multivariate testing can be utilized by web designers on their website:
- create multiple versions of your pricing page; see which pricing plans convert the best
- change action phrases on key conversion pages; for example: does “What are you waiting for, call us now!” convert better than “Need a great website? Contact us today!“?
- does a certain color scheme yield lower bounce rates and higher conversions?
A/B and multivariate testing separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the successful web designers from the unsuccessful web designers. Google Website Optimizer is essential to the success of your operation. Okay, it’s not essential, but it will really, really help.
7. Crazy Egg
Another extremely insightful and very useful web-based application is Crazy Egg. Per the product website, Crazy Egg allows you to:
Create tests to figure out what people are doing on your website.
Very simple, very straightforward, but that’s essentially what the app does. The clicks of your visitors are recorded by Crazy Egg and then presented to you in a variety of different ways (including heat maps). Crazy Egg makes it easy for you for see what people are clicking on your website or your clients’ websites.
This application is particularly useful because it allows you to detect problems that would otherwise be undetectable without a click monitoring application. For example: what if 90% of your users are clicking on something that looks like a hyperlink but isn’t? Consequently, the bounce rate on the particular page is considerably high. Perhaps if you made this “link wannabe” an actual link, people might not become frustrated or confused and continue to browse your site (rather than bouncing).
Crazy Egg is another highly recommended web-based application. It can significantly help your business or your clients’ businesses in oftentimes unthinkable ways.
8. FeedBurner
An RSS feed is a very useful method of content syndication and is, in general, a great medium which can be used to build a loyal subscriber base to your website. Feedburner makes it easy to track and monitor the volume of your RSS feed subscribers over time. Feedburner takes RSS feed syndication to the next level.
This web-based application offers a number of useful features which can help reinforce your brand and increase subscribers – all for free.
Newsletter
9. Campaign Monitor
It’s very important to stay in touch with your past and present clients. Whether you publish a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter, it will really help add another layer of professionalism and legitimacy to your operation.
There are a significant number of newsletter management applications available on the web, however, Campaign Monitor seems to be the best of the bunch, in my opinion.
A few features that make this application worth using:
- Design custom newsletter templates for yourself or for your clients; this is a great way to reinforce your brand.
- Easy management of subscribers.
- Analytics which give you the ability to track which recipients open your newsletters, what links are clicked, what e-mail services and applications your recipients are using, e-mail related conversions/sales, and more! Priceless.
- Mark-up and resell this service to your clients – a great form of supplemental income.
When you visit the Campaign Monitor product website, notice some of the big brands using this product: 37signals, facebook, eBay, Intel, Twitter, Yahoo!, and more. Enough said.
Customer Surveys
10. Survey Monkey
Customer service is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of business. Listen up, because this is important: If you fail to fulfill the needs and expectations of a client, then you risk bad press, no referrals, and no testimonials. Most importantly, however, is the fact that you let down someone who instilled their trust and confidence in you. Thankfully, online survey applications exist. Leading the pack is Survey Monkey.
Survey Monkey has an impressive number of features, all available on the Survey Monkey product website. Survey Monkey is free, however, there is a paid version which offers features which are well worth the low monthly price.
We like to send surveys after each project deliverable. The surveys, although very brief (very important – don’t burden your clients with long, complex surveys, keep it simple!), allow us to gauge our performance for each specific task. This targeted client feedback gives us the ability to correct any imperfections in our process and most importantly, make sure that our clients are 100% satisfied with our service (communication, craftsmanship, punctuality).
Deliverable-specific surveys provide invaluable client feedback and will exponentially increase client satisfaction…which is why I highly recommend using them. Having said that – Survey Monkey is amazing. Check it out!
Brainstorming
11. MindMeister
Mind mapping is another extremely useful process that can and should be used throughout most aspects of a freelancer’s business operation. MindMeister is a particularly useful mind mapping application because it offers convenient, advanced, collaborative online mind mapping – for free.
There is a paid version available, however, I think most freelancers will be able to get by with the free version. Highly recommended.
The Key to Success
The eleven aforementioned web-based applications will provide a firm foundation for running a successful freelancing or small business web operation. However, as mentioned earlier, simply utilizing these tools won’t make you successful. In order to be a truly successful freelance web designer or small business website owner, it’s imperative that you possess, at a minimum, the following qualities:
- Communication (actions speak louder than words, but words are still extremely important)
- Skill (if you’re not good at what you do, why would anyone hire you?)
- Punctuality (be on time with each project deliverable, call a client back when you say you will, etc)
- Patience (things don’t happen overnight, be patient)
- Persistence (keep the pressure on, don’t give up without a fight)
- Passion (if you aren’t loving what you’re doing, you’re not going to succeed)
- Organization (Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, and Cashboard will help with that!)
- Discipline and Commitment (without it, everything else will fall apart)
Good luck!
I’ll definetely bookmark this one! Thank you
Nice helful tools, thanks for the list..
Fantastic post, I’m writing a blog at the moment about freelancing / starting a web design business and whilst I was familiar with all but one of the apps, it was great to read your take on each one of them. Bookmarked, and will be including this in my link roundup on Friday!
There are some really useful sites here. Shockingly I hadn’t heard of Basecamp, I’ve used Jira a few times but have been looking for something more affordable.
Thanks for the comments, guys. I’m glad everyone is finding this useful!
Thank you for sharing such a nice list of tools.
I would like to add one tool which I personally use and recommend –
DeskAway (http://www.deskaway.com) which is a project management & collaboration tool which provides a lot of features like team collaboration, to-do task lists, messages, email reminders, etc.
Great list, will have to try some of these out. Thanks.
Very useful list! You should offer your blog theme, is really fantastic!
Suruchi – Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve never heard of DeskAway, but I’ll definitely check it out. I can’t imagine much being better than Basecamp, though.
WordpressGala – Thanks for the comment about our blog design. If we offered it as a template, it wouldn’t be unique anymore!
Brilliant post, i’ll bookmark this page, i use analytics relogiously and feedburner but i’m gonna check out basecamp after reading this, i’ve heard how good it is already but it’s time to give it a shot
Another web-based tool for freelancers to check out is Intervals. If you need more than the features in basecamp it’s a great solution. But if you are happy with basecamp, go for it. Basecamp is a great product for freelancers.
You could also use iZepto for your timesheet solution. Includes an iPhone application as well. Free for up to 3 users!
http://www.izepto.com
I’m really surprised Browser and E-mail Testing products like Litmus and BrowserCam didn’t get a mention, these are in my opinion very essential
Andrew, great suggestion. This article focuses more on the operational aspect for a freelancer or business. If we created an article about the top web-based tools for creating websites, then we most certainly would have included one or two multi-browser testing tools.
Yay! so informative list!
This all ads up to about $100 a month, I can’t do that at the moment. Do you know of free/open source alternatives? Thanks
Very nice list, these are all very powerful tools. I think I’m going to switch from Freshbooks to Cashboard.
But does anyone else get nervous about using too many 3rd party web apps for essential or sensitive parts of your business? I do. The 3rd party holds your data, so what if their service goes down? What if they go out of business? What if their TOS allows them to do anything they want with your data?
I suppose these are the risks involved with web apps and cloud computing.
What’s with everyone using headers like “11 Absolutely Necessary …”, “11 Must Have …”, “The Best 11 …” etc. Why can’t people just say “11 Great …”
nszumowski – I’ll do some research and release a similar type of article, this time featuring all free, open-source web-apps that can be used to run a freelancer’s or web design company’s operation.
Timbo – I highly recommend using Cashboard. It’s a phenomenal service and you won’t look back. The support team at Cashboard respond very quickly, too. It’s well worth the cost.
Regarding using too many 3rd party apps for your business – well yes, there are risks involved with anything that you do. Just remember to choose a company that is very reputable, has a great number of clients, and has some sort of SSL security option. For example, all of Cashboard’s plans feature SSL. Basecamp, Backpack, and Highrise each offer SSL, however, you need to pay a little premium to get it with your account. Well worth it, IMO.
Cancer Bubble – That’s a funny question. It’s all about making the post look as enticing to read as possible. And since it made front page delicious, I guess it was worth it. Of course the content must be great, too, but having a more engaging post title always helps.
Good compilation Matt – for the most part I use the majority of these tools. In addition to Basecamp, we individually use Things (OS X to-do list app) at work. It’s faster to make a simple entry than opening up Basecamp.. but of course your teammates won’t know what you’re doing.. so it has some ups and downs. I just find it nicely convenient locally.
As for newsletter stuff – I actually just tried MailChimp.com and love it. I reviewed it on my blog; my name above is linked to the review.
Regarding Crazy Egg – have they added any stuff recently? They’ve been around for a very long time so I’m wondering if they have any other competitors with similar/better offerings. I know G Analytics does some heatmap-like stuff.
I haven’t heard of Cashboard before, I’ll check it out. I don’t need to do much invoicing or time tracking, but in the past I’ve used Blinksale.com and GetHarvest.com.
Hi Paul, glad you found the compilation useful. Thanks for the suggestion with “Things” for OS X. I’ll check it out.
I haven’t tried MailChimp myself, so I can’t compare it to Campaign Monitor. Also something that readers of this post should checkout. From all of the newsletter campaign web-apps I’ve tried thus far, Campaign Monitor has been the best.
Crazy Egg: We actually had signed up with Crazy Egg before they switched to the paid plans, so we’re getting the service for free. I haven’t had much experience with other heat map web-apps, but I can say that Crazy Egg has it down pretty darn well. Aside from the price being a little lower (naturally), I can’t imagine something being much better.
Cashboard: Yea, I can’t say enough great things about this service. The amount of time, money, and stress that this application has saved us is amazing. Branding is by far one of the biggest strengths with Cashboard…much better than the alternative invoicing/time-tracking web-apps out there right now, IMO.
Disappointing to say the least. From one of your first statements, “Hands down, three of the most useful web-based tools for our operation comes from 37signals.” I could tell you hadn’t spent much time exploring other options that are more intuitive, less expensive (in most cases free), and better support. Hands down?? Hardly. More like thumbs down for this article.
Sorry. Not a fanboy of 37signals and never have been.
As a budget conscience freelancer, paying for a service is out of the question. Try some of the great open source options out there and you may change your tune on some of these.
dezyboy: Certainly your opinion, thanks for sharing. Have you tried disassociating the company from the product? If you’re not a fan of 37signals (for whatever reason(s)), perhaps that is biasing your opinion of their products? I rarely hype or pump another product, and when I do do it, I do my due diligence first.
I wish you would have shared some other options, then, if you aren’t happy with 37signals’ products.
Anyways, I will be following up with an article similar in nature to this one, however, the apps will all be free. Free does not mean better, though, and surely any freelancer can afford to at least get Basecamp for $10 – 20/mo.
Basecamp and Cashboard are by and far the two most essential apps out of this list. You’d be spending between $25 – $40 a month depending on your plan (as a freelancer, I’m assuming you’re going to choose the less costly plans). Hardly a lot of money, and it will do wonders for your productivity, professional image, and process.
Again, if you’ve got better alternatives, please share. That’s why we have a blog with open-commenting!
Good points.
I’m absolutely biased given the two to three times I’ve tried working with their products and got frustrated with the UI. I kept asking myself, “why are people using this thing? It’s overly complex, confusing, and there are free apps out there that can do this stuff.” Granted, they’ve got a great group of die-hard followers plus a great PR/marketing strategy which seems to be working for them. Not arguments there. I agree that it’s not a huge chunk of change, but with other services such as Flickr, various desktop (Adobe) apps, service provider fees, and domain registration/hosting all competing for my dime, it adds up.
The tools I use are things such as Project Pier (projectpier.org), which is the open source application similar to Basecamp, Dotproject (www.dotproject.net), which allows me to do the typical project management GANTT chart stuff, and Contactizer Pro, which is a CRM type application with advanced features. I purchased Contactizer Pro from a MacUpdate bundle for $49 that included several other useful apps. So far as accounting, I found an older copy (2006) of QuickBooks Pro at a yard sale for $5 and run that via Parallels. Instead of Campaign Monitor, I use Vertical Response because it offers a pay as you go plan which seemed to meet my needs better than any of the others. Mind mapping stuff is usually done with Freemind, another open-source desktop application.
Aside from my biases, I do appreciate seeing what others’ use for their daily routine. In that regard I enjoyed what you’ve shared here. Hopefully people will be smart about evaluating their own tools to ensure that their meet their specific needs. Thanks again for the writeup.
There, now that’s a lot more constructive
.
I have a hard time seeing how the Basecamp UI is too complicated, and honestly, I can’t imagine a UI being much simpler to use. That being said, I’m definitely going to have to check out the various options you’ve cited in your response. If they are as good as you say they are, I’ll include them in my next article sharing some free alternatives to the list above (some of the web-apps above are free, though).
Thanks for sharing.
Hey!
This is cool collection. but i don’t agree with the order in which they are presented!!
One issue I had with Basecamp, was why bury the login? Go to the main page and try to find it. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Every time I would go back to the site and try to find it myself I’d forgot how I got there! Bad, bad 37Signals. That’s what you get when you design an application for yourself and not users I guess
Seems Google has neglected Feedburner lately and left it basically useless. Data is constantly skewed (if it even appears) and jumps all around the board on a daily basis.
Anyone know of any reliable FeedBurner alternatives?
Some great links, especially campaign manager. Just wondered if you could recommend any online accounting packages, Cashboard looks good but I don’t think its a full accounting package.
Awesome stuff Matt, thanks for writing this.
Keep the site fresh.
Nice !!
What i have seen when doing projects is the use of a project management system. This really helps to get more opportunities of getting new projects as the client gets a better impression of professionalism. Like in our company we used basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) for project management purposes and it changed the email email games we used to play. After Basecamp we have tried so many of the alternatives available today but everything seemed to be either complex with all those functionalies which were not even useful rather made the management process even more difficult. It then came to mind that Basecamp was actually better till the time we found a new product called Proofhub. Though now we use Proofhub Proofhub as our project management system you can use some but this 1 is the best from all that we have used and at a good price.
Thanx for the post
Matt, thanks for this round-up. Can you help? This is driving me crazy! Months ago I saw a screencast or demo for a client review & approval tool that worked like this:
You email the client a link – say, a Home page design – and clients can open it and interact with the page… even up to and including working navigation of a complete website.
This tool is email based, and the link you send clients also provides comment fields. Ever see this? I’ve scoured my browser history, my Evernote, my entire system for hours! No joy. Any help appreciated
Thanks, Charlie
Sage Software has recently launched a free online invoicng tool for freelancers and small businesses at http://www.billingboss.com. Billing Boss is focused of keeping invoicing simple – so simple that you can get set up and send your first invoice in just a couple minutes.
Please note: With the goal of full disclosure, I work at Sage. Feel free to contact me if you have any feedback about Billing Boss.
@dezyboy, the issue is that Basecamp is the one that started the whole thing, and the rest of the PM tools are just replicas with different look & feel and plans (pricing, bandwidth, storage, etc…)
I’ve published a year ago an article on the ideal pm tool and still many of these tools don’t have the basic necessities to be labeled as ideal.
Going back to Basecamp, there’s another application by 37signals called backpack, which, IMO, should be natively integrated in Basecamp.