Note: These are NOT affiliate links. All of these are services I have used myself or implemented for clients.
Another note: You don’t have to use any of these services, so please don’t get overwhelmed by the list. I’m here to simplify your business, not make you think you need to start doing more. But what’s nice about this list is that there may be an item or two here that can make your life a lot easier.
Superfast Business for affordable link building done for you. They offer a number of services, but the one I’ve used and liked is their ‘Traffic Pro Pack’, where for $259/month, they write an article for you based on 3 keywords you give them, then rewrite that article 6 times and post it online on well-regarded websites. Basically, this takes over at least some of your link building for you. This kind of service could be very spammy if it was run by a poor company, but this is James Schramko’s business, and they do a great job for the price (side note, as you might expect, for this price, the articles aren’t great – but the links are good). Of course, you can pay a lot more than this to hire an even better link building service.
99 Designs for logos and other images. I’ve also used 48 Hours Logo. These days, I’d rather find a designer whose work I like, and stick with them – it doesn’t necessarily cost more, and the process is less time consuming for me. Also, it’s easier to get quick changes after the logo or other artwork is done. Oh, and if you regularly need simple images created or tweaked for your work, Undullify offers unlimited monthly graphic design jobs for an incredible price.
Paid forums for getting business/marketing questions answered. There are plenty of free forums out there, and you can get great advice, but there comes a time when it’s worth it to get into a forum where everyone is paying. The caliber of help you get goes up big time. For ecommerce, that forum is Ecommerce Fuel. It only costs $29/month, and the answers I receive in there are incredible. The only downside? You need to prove you’re earning $100,000 in ecommerce revenue per year to get in. For SEO and organic marketing in general, it’s Moz. More expensive at $99/month, but in addition to the awesome forum, you get a suite of useful tools, too. I don’t tend to stay a member there year round, but I do poke in for a month when I’m working on something new.
Sales Copy Critique for sales letter help. Every time I finish writing a sales letter, I hire Stephen Dean to critique it. He charges $199 and always gives me a number of really smart changes to make. Highly recommended.
Kunaki for CD/DVD printing and shipping. I’ve been using them since 2010 with no problems. For $1, they print a CD or DVD. For an extra $4, they ship it pretty much anywhere in the world – fast. So if you sell your own CDs or DVDs, get them to handle production and shipping.
Transferwise for currency exchange. If you regularly move money between currencies, stop paying your bank’s crazy fees. I think I save about 1.5% every time I transfer, so $150 per $10,000 transferred. Worth it right?
WP Curve for WordPress help. For $79/month, get help with any issues you run into on your WordPress site. If you have only the occasional question, the free WordPress forum can be good enough, but you won’t always get an answer there. Also, if you have a good web host, they can sometimes help you figure stuff out. I use KnownHost, for their fast virtual private servers and amazing customer support.
Bench for bookkeeping help. These folks will take over your bookkeeping for you, quite affordably.
Kudu for Adwords help. They will take over your Adwords for you, also quite affordably compared to what I was quoted from several other consultants/firms.
And here are the more standard services I use:
WordPress or Joomla for my websites.
Aweber for my email list management.
Ultracart for my shopping cart. A bit complicated for non-techies, but tremendous feature set. Does almost everything. $50/month
Namecheap for my domain registration. $12/domain
Knownhost for my website hosting. $35/month
Vimeo Pro for video hosting for my online course. I found it faster than hosting with Amazon AWS. $199/year (or you could just stick with YouTube unlisted videos instead.)
Amazon AWS for other file hosting and site backups.
Trust Guard for a trust seal for my site. $30/month
Backupify for backing up all of my google docs, contacts, etc. $5/month