Black Friday Tools For Your Tech Stack To Build and Grow Your Business

In this episode, I (Crystal Waddell) reveal the must-have tools that fuel my entrepreneurial journey and business success.

Add these to your Black Friday 2024 deals list!

This episode contains affiliate links, which means I could receive payment if you make a purchase after clicking on one of the links. Not all links are affiliate links and these are all products I use and fully recommend!

From client management tools like HoneyBook to SEO powerhouses such as Surfer SEO and Dragon Metrics, I walk you through the essential software that streamlines my workflow and fuels my business growth. 

With insights on AI, website platforms, social media scheduling, and more, this episode is packed with practical tips and exclusive Black Friday deals to elevate your entrepreneurial journey. 

Don't miss my candid recommendations and reflections as I preps for a fresh focus in 2025!

Also - can't believe I left Buzzsprout out of my tech stack but they are great for podcast hosting!

Key Takeaways:

1. Streamline Business Management: Tools like HoneyBook ensure your client communications and contracts stay organized and professional.
2. Boost SEO Performance: Leverage SurferSEO and Dragon Metrics (Use code WADDELL for 5% off!) for advanced content optimization.
3. Enhance Creativity with AI: ChatGPT supports brainstorming and content creation for efficiency and inspiration.
4. Build Impactful Websites: Platforms like Shopify and Wix cater to eCommerce and customized designs for any business need.
5. Optimize Communication & Podcasting: Tools like Google Meet and Squadcast.fm ensure smooth virtual collaboration and high-quality recordings.
6. Simplify Editing & Marketing: Descript, Metricool, TubeBuddy, and Tailwind streamline content creation, scheduling, and audience engagement.
7. Automate Email Marketing: Klaviyo helps segment your audience and create tailored campaigns with robust analytics.

Memorable Quotes:

• "The right tools aren’t just a convenience—they’re the backbone of a successful business."
• "Automation and efficiency give you the time and space to focus on what truly matters—growth and creativity."

Listener Action Items:

1. Explore the tools mentioned in this episode and consider which ones fit your business needs.
2. Take advantage of exclusive offers, like SurferSEO’s Black Friday deal or Tailwind’s Ghostwriter credits, to save while leveling up your strategy

Chapters

• 0:00 Black Friday 2024
• 0:01 Introduction and Welcome
• 0:44 Business Management and Organization Tools
• 2:01 SEO Tools for Entrepreneurs
• 3:33 AI and Content Creation
• 4:10 Website Platforms and Communication
• 5:32 Editing and Video Tools
• 6:06 Social Media, Marketing, and Conclusion

Transcript

Black Friday 2024

[00:00:00] ​

Introduction and Welcome

[00:00:01] Crystal Waddell: Hey there, my friend. Welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show podcast. I'm your host, Crystal It's been a week. I am a little jet lagged. I can't lie. I just got back from the amazing Brighton SEO in San Diego.

[00:00:14] Which I will be sharing more about next week. But being that it is. The week of Black Friday.

[00:00:21] I thought this would be a great time to share my entrepreneur tech stack with you. 

[00:00:27] Because I'm constantly asking other business owners like, what do you use? What's your process? What's your workflow? So I want to share the essential tools that power my entrepreneurial journey with you.

[00:00:39] And let you know how each one of those kind of contributes to the success that I've had so far. 

Business Management and Organization Tools

[00:00:44] Crystal Waddell: Let's start with my go to for business management and organization: HoneyBook.

[00:00:50] So HoneyBook is a customer relationship manager. 

[00:00:55] It streamlines client communication contracts and invoices, and it's pretty sweet because it'll combine all of those things into one. 

[00:01:03] And it's my go to for keeping everything organized. So I use it for the podcast to book podcast guests.

[00:01:09] And then I also use it. For my senior night store to keep me on schedule for my clients when I'm making their senior night gifts. 

[00:01:18] So I've created a workflow where I'm constantly communicating with my customers. And I get notified that, Hey, by the way, you need to send this notification. 

[00:01:27] And my customers love it.

[00:01:28] They feel very much cared about. I love it because then I don't forget about anyone. So honey book has been great for that. 

[00:01:36] If you use my affiliate link that I'm sharing in the show notes, you'll get 30 percent off your first year of HoneyBook, which actually beats out the Black Friday price of 25%, I think. 

[00:01:47] Definitely do whichever one makes the most sense for you.

[00:01:51] But if you're looking for a, Client management software. I highly recommend HoneyBook .Super easy to use and get started. And it's just been so helpful. 

SEO Tools for Entrepreneurs

[00:02:01] Crystal Waddell: So number 2, let's talk SEO tools. All right. 

[00:02:05] Everybody knows my. Favorite SEO tool. And that is Surfer SEO. So if you don't know, now you know, no, I'm just kidding.

[00:02:14] If you don't know, Surfer assists in optimizing content with on page SEO suggestions, helping my content rank higher without The 5, 000, 000, 000 steps that it normally takes to do SEO. 

[00:02:27] Surfer SEO's black Friday deal starts on November 27th. So you want to check that out. It's supposed to be really good. And I've got my affiliate link in the show notes. 

[00:02:36] If you're ready to try out surfer SEO, make sure you let them know that I sent you.

[00:02:40] Now my other favorite SEO tool is more for reporting and that is Dragon Metrics. So the people at Dragon Metrics are amazing. Their customer service is out of this world. 

[00:02:51] And I really value that when I'm working with a company. 

[00:02:53] They provide data, like rank tracking, keyword research, competitor analysis. 

[00:02:59] And a bunch of other stuff related to SEO. 

[00:03:02] If you're into analytics and you're ready to dive in, or you need reporting. Or you're an SEO and you want a program that is well priced with All of the bells and whistles that you have to pay a lot more for at other companies. 

[00:03:16] Definitely go check out dragon metrics. com and use my code Waddell to save 5 percent on your subscription. 

[00:03:23] That's not an affiliate link. That's just a savings passed on to you for listening to the podcast. So thank you so much to my friends at dragon metrics for doing that for us. 

AI and Content Creation

[00:03:33] Crystal Waddell: Number 3, AI and content creation. I got to go chat GPT.

[00:03:38] This is the first year that I am not going to renew my subscription to Jasper. And Jasper. ai was my original introduction into this whole world of content and SEO and large language models. 

[00:03:53] So it was very difficult emotionally to say goodbye to Jasper. But now that I'm creating my own GPTs in chat GPT, it's just really hard to justify paying for both.

[00:04:05] I don't have an affiliate code, but just definitely recommend using chat GPT. 

Website Platforms and Communication

[00:04:10] Crystal Waddell: Number four, my website platforms. Shopify .Got to go Shopify all day, every day for e commerce and e commerce SEO.

[00:04:19] Shopify has got an easy setup. It's got easy order management. They take care of all of the credit card information, all that type of stuff.

[00:04:27] So you can just focus on selling and fulfilling orders. I do have an affiliate link for Shopify. So I'll drop that in the show notes.

[00:04:34] And I use Shopify for my e commerce store, my senior store called collage and wood. com. So I love Shopify for that. 

[00:04:43] For the podcast. I use Wix and Wix is pretty user friendly.

[00:04:47] When I initially started my website on Wix, I used their AI generator. 

[00:04:51] And I was happy enough with what it came up with that. I just, built on top of whatever it recommended. 

[00:04:56] So I thought that was pretty cool. And Wix has got a lot of really neat SEO tools built in. 

[00:05:01] That I think help you stay focused and, know where you're at on your SEO work as you build your website.

[00:05:07] So definitely check out Shopify and Wix. 

[00:05:10] Regarding communication and podcasting. I like to keep it simple right now. I'm recording in Google meet. I have a subscription to squadcast. fm.

[00:05:20] It gives you high quality remote podcast recording capability. 

[00:05:24] But I just don't, good with Google meet. So I might up my game in 2025. I don't know. But right now I just use Google meet.

[00:05:31] So next step is. 

Editing and Video Tools

[00:05:32] Crystal Waddell: Number 6, editing and video tools. All day every day. Got to go with Descript and Descript is why I have a subscription to squad cast because they acquired 1 another. 

[00:05:43] I think it was Descript acquired squad cast. And so I was able to, get that squad cast package with my descript. But it just was never part of my workflow. So I haven't completely, taking advantage of it, but descript for editing.

[00:05:56] Amazing it, you edit just like you're in a Google doc. 

[00:05:59] And I don't have an affiliate code for descript, but it's an amazing product and I definitely recommend it because I use it almost every day. 

Social Media, Marketing, and Conclusion

[00:06:06] Crystal Waddell: Number seven, social media and marketing. 

[00:06:09] When I was talking to my SEO squad, I asked them how many of you guys use a content scheduling tool.

[00:06:15] And I was shocked to find out that the majority did not use a content scheduler. So over the years I've tried a lot of different ones, but Metricool is my favorite. 

[00:06:27] I love Metricool because it allows you to have a whole bunch of different social profiles. 

[00:06:32] And they set up your account in brands and that's really helpful because I have two separate brands. I help out other people. 

[00:06:39] And so it's nice to be able to, integrate all of that without having to upgrade to an enterprise plan. 

[00:06:45] Because I'm trying to do more than one business, whether it's mine or someone else's.

[00:06:50] Even if you are, not necessarily an agency, but you help other brands, Metricool is a great option. And you can even use it for free for a while if it's just for yourself. 

[00:07:00] So I do have an affiliate link for Metricool. You can see that in the show notes as well. 

[00:07:06] For YouTube, I use TubeBuddy.

[00:07:08] I don't use TubeBuddy enough. Even as I was logging in to see what some of those analytics were. I was like, oh, my gosh, I've got to do better with my YouTube in 2025.

[00:07:17] I don't have an affiliate link for TubeBuddy, but it's a great like getting started optimization tool if you're creating YouTube videos.

[00:07:24] So it helps you feel like you know what you're doing. They have tutorials that I haven't even watched yet. Which I'm going to put that on the list as well. So definitely check out TubeBuddy. 

[00:07:32] And then when it comes to scheduling for Pinterest, 

[00:07:36] I love Tailwind. And I tried to quit last year, but I had already signed up.

[00:07:41] I'd already paid my annual fee. And I thought, you know what? I have Metricool. I don't need tailwind anymore. But when I went to, to cancel my subscription, they were like, ah, you signed up for a year. So you have to stick around. 

[00:07:53] And I'm so glad that they made me do that because not only am I using tailwind for my business, but I'm also now using it for client accounts as well.

[00:08:02] And it is just the easiest, fastest, most efficient way to keep pins going all the time on Pinterest. So I've tried the manual way. I've tried other scheduling things. I've even done a little bit in Metricool, but nothing compares to tailwind. 

[00:08:16] And they also have this thing called tailwind create, which makes creating different pins so much easier. So if you ever have any questions about that, just hit me up. 

[00:08:25] I do have a link for tailwind. It's not an affiliate link, but if you sign up, you get 50 ghostwriter credits. With chat GPT, I'm kind of like, what's the point? But, whatever, you might as well get something free if you sign up.

[00:08:38] And then finally for email marketing, I use Klaviyo. So Klaviyo is my go to for for my Shopify store, my e commerce store, collage and wood. com. 

[00:08:47] Klaviyo has the best flows, the best integrations. They integrate with ads.

[00:08:52] They integrate with Facebook. They integrate with everything. They're so big.

[00:08:56] whatever their system is, it's very helpful for small businesses to be a part of. So if you can leverage Klaviyo, I definitely would recommend it. 

[00:09:04] And I love their segmentation and analytics. I will be talking about how I leverage Klaviyo with the help of a Shopify app builder.

[00:09:14] I'll be talking about that in 2025, so make sure that you come back and check that out after the new year. I'm going to have a little bit of a different format in 2025. 

[00:09:23] And I'm super excited because the focus is definitely going to be more on, the members of the squad and the audience that I serve. 

[00:09:31] While also showcasing thought leaders throughout 2025.

[00:09:35] It's a little bit of the old with some new, Which is going to be fantastic. 

[00:09:39] So I hope you enjoyed, just this quick run through of my tech stack. If you have any questions, you can always drop them in the comments or shoot me an email.

[00:09:47] Next week, I'll be back to tell you. All about Brighton SEO and the amazing time that I had there. So make sure you come back if you'd like to hear all about that.

[00:09:57] Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday and wonderful Thanksgiving with your family. And I will catch you next time.

[00:10:06] Bye..