Google Keep is my current favorite. You can add notes, lists, photos & audio notes (it’s transcription is brilliant). You can colour code, tag & archive your notes. Mind you I would love to be able to format my notes – bold  words in particular – perhaps google fill find this article & put my idea on their wants note.

I love it because it’s colourful, fun & I can use it on my desktop or use the app on my iPhone ♥ & iPad ♥. I love it when I can sync all my  devices.

Oh, did I mention it’s FREE? All you need is a google account & you’re well on your way to keeping all your notes in one place.

Daily notes is not a freeby but it is worth every cent. It’s a simple yet powerful note-taking app that lets you create and organize your notes, add and manage tasks, attach photos, PDFs, sketches and even voice recordings to your notes. All your information is synced between your  iPhone ♥ & the iPad ♥.

OneNote is a great tool for note taking on the run! You can use a stylus or just your fingertip to write down notes and have them converted to text. You can even search the web and take snapshots and draw free form with colour!

OneNote is great for all you napkin scribblers, you can collaborate with friends, it is accessible through all devices and you can even sync with EverNote!

Evernote is a great tool to help you remember things on the run, wherever inspiration strikes!

You have the ability to create projects, to-do lists, create handwritten notes and even snap photos. The system is available anywhere and can be synced to all devices. The best thing is that you can search for anything you have saved, even those hand written notes that may be way back and Evernote will find it for you!

hemingwayapp.com

If you struggle with writing the Hemingway online editor could just end up being your godsend. It’s a FREE browser based editor which allows you to write with power and clarity by highlighting adverbs, passive voice, and dull, complicated words.

It colour codes suggestions to improve your copy

• yellow means a sentence is hard to read
• orange is a really hard sentence to read
• fushia notes a phrase which has a simple alternative
• blue highlights an adverb which should be removed & green notes the use of a passive voice

If you want a desktop version you can purchase Mac or windows versions

Kickass Headline Generator writes engaging titles like a boss! Use their links to select what kind of content you want to generate a headline for and fill in the fields accordingly.

The tool is based on Sumo’s 49 Headline Formulas to Skyrocket Conversions (And Where to Use Them) by Sarah Peterson.

Portent Content Idea Generator is a headline generator.  Just enter the subject of your choice and Portent will generate an  array of titles you can use for your next blog, article or presentation.

onelook.com is like an intelligent thesaurus. Say you’re looking for words similar to ultimate – but you want a word that starts with g – voila, you don’t have to scratch your brain forever – it does the job for you.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com – type in any word and click on the idioms tab – so if you’re looking for another way to say “slow”, it shows you related idioms such as “slow as a snail” or “slow coach”

http://www.englishdaily626.com/conversation.php – if you’ve forgotten you’re a human typing your copy, this resource is PERFECT – it’s for people learning how to speak in english and a good reminder of how we actually talk in real life

Sorting out your keywords is the first step you need to consider when creating content.

answerthepublic.com is one of my favorite sites useful for any marketing team, creatives, PR, content or SEO.. Type in your core word & recieve a highly visual, aggregated view of data drawn from user searches, basically giving you an overview of what your customers are searching for.

Watch the entertaining video & give it a shot – you’ll be addicted in not time at all.

Swipe-Worthy is a handy tool for Profitable Marketing Inspiration & Analysis. This is the place for copywriters & marketing minds to dissect & discuss great marketing examples.

Need some inspiration? Check it out!

Adobe Post is a new kid on the block! It’s a fun & fast way for anyone to create social graphics. It’s easy to get started with tons of eye-catching templates that you can tweak in simple steps. Pick a photo, add some text and apply design filters to instantly create stunning designs.

Download the iPhone app ♥ for iPhone

Designed in Sydney, Canva has taken the social media image world by storm with it’s easy-to-use drag & drop interface. They offer a library of free templates & images but you can also pay $1 to purchase their premium ones. Although you have to sign-in, it is a free service (unless you use their premium content) or you can pay a monthly subscription to their ‘Work’ environment

Canva is not just for social images, you can also do print files but be sure to save them for print, with printer marks, if you’re sending them off to a print shop.

They have a great design school which is worth looking at & I am one of 3 administrators on the Fans of Canva facebook group where you can ask questions & learn the ropes.

Oh, and they have an app so you can work on ♥ Canva – Graphic Design & Photo Editing – Canva” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>iPad or iPhone

Design Wizard is a free online design graphic software. With Design Wizard you can create impressive videos and design images easily with the use of the readily-available templates in the site. Every element in your selected template is editable. Change or upload backgrounds, images, videos and colours and add your own branding.

Pablo (by Buffer) is a relatively new kid on the block so it is still in BETA (testing) mode. It specialises in images for social media & has a library of 50,000+ photos & loads of fonts for you to choose from. If you can’t find what you’re looking for you can upload your own images. Don’t have your own image library yet? Use our ultimate list of free image sites to start building your own library of CC0 images.

Unlike many other on-line editors, there’s no need to sign-up or log-in so there’s no excuse not to give it a try & create your own branded social images to make your posts pop.

PicMonkey is an alternate on-line image editing tool. It’s free to use, although you also have the option to sign up for their ‘royale’ package (currently* you can sign up for a 14 day trial for ‘royale’) which removes ads as well as adding many additional filters & tools.

Edit & touch-up your photos, turn them into a collage or design your own images. Don’t have your own images library? No problem … check our our ultimate list of free stock image libraries.

Oh, & did I mention there is an app on its way? The world is your oyster with PicMonkey.

*correct May 5, 2016

Pixlr is a free image editor brought to you by autoDesk. It’s a powerful photo editor that lets you quickly crop, rotate & fine-tune any picture. It’s easy & intuitive to use.

Pixlr online probably has the most comprehensive set of drawing & painting tools I’ve come across. There are apps for both iPhone ♥ & iPad ♥ but you can also download a desktop version for PC or Mac.

Take a look, you’re sure to be impressed!

Get Stencil is designed to help you create beautiful looking images faster than ever before. Even if you’ve never used an image editing program, you can pick Stencil up and use it in seconds.

The free version allows you to create 10 images per month with limited backgrounds & icons while the pro option lets you create unlimited images with loads & loads of photos, templates & images.

Desygner is a free online image editor. The platform provides graphical ready-made templates that can be easily tweaked and lets you create remarkable images that you can use for social media posts, banner ads, emails, blogs and websites.

Small business owners, bloggers and advertisers will have a feast using Desygner.

Another platform for graphic design, RelayThat allows bloggers, marketers and content creators to make amazing visuals faster. The program provides templates and themes that can be readily used for social media, websites, banners and ads.

RelayThat boasts of the built-in SEO, tagging and scheduling so messages are given the boost on online search.

Another feature that sets this platform apart is the One Click Resize which promises to resize your graphic for every platform with no additional tweaking required.

Easil is an online image maker that offers thousands of professionally-designed templates which can be used in creating graphics for social media, blog posts, or printed materials.

Easil also has the drag-and-drop feature for ease of use.  This is a paid application and only has a 30-day free trial.

Stencil is another great site to help you create simple imagery, especially for social media, bloggers and very handy for small business. Stencil is perfect for creating social media posts, ad graphics, content marketing visuals, email images & more! They also have over 890,000 background photos for you to choose from!

Create stunning personalised quotes and download, share or post using PosterMyWall.

PRICING:
Free – Limited

Premium – $29.95 per quarter
Unlimited image downloads

Premium Plus – $89.95 per quarter
Unlimited video and image downloads

IconsFlow is an online icon generator. It’s a good place to start to a create high quality icon sets without any photoshop or illustrator skills.

iPiccy is an online photo editor, collage maker and graphic designer very much like Canva.

Adjusting and enhancing photos is so easy with iPiccy.  You can add filters, effects, frames, texts, overlays and so much more to your photos. Edit your photos like a pro.

Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It’s free and open source.

It is a flexible and sophisticated drawing tool with capabilities comparable to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Xtreme.

Create device mockups in seconds with Device Shots!

Get high-resolution device mockups with the screenshot of your website or mobile application, for free.

BACKGROUND BURNER:

Okay, so you’ve found the perfect image but you want to remove the background, Background Burner is an online tool which allows you to upload your image, mark out the area you want to remove & then download your burned image as a .jpg or .png.

SIgn-up for a limited free trial, then decide whether you need a personal, small biz or professional plan.

COMPRESS PNG/JPG:

Compress PNG/JPG is an online free tool which aims to help you compress your image (jpeg or png). Basically, you have a few solutions to reduce the size of an image but most of the time it will decrease the quality too. This tool allows you to keep the quality as is while decreasing the size. It allows you to compress pictures that are up to 50 MB!

LunaPic is an easy way to edit images. This free online photo editor not only allows basic photo editing such as crop, resizing, brightness and contrast, adding texts; it also lets users to create collages, add effects and filters as well as overlays – all with a few clicks of the mouse.

Optimizilla is a free online app for image optimisation and compression. JPG and PNG file format images will be compressed to the smallest file size possible while maintaining its quality.

Optimizilla can compress 20 image at the same time, but you can set the compression level for each photo separately.

If you’re anything like me I prefer to own rather than pay monthly subscriptions to tools I use a lot, & yes I remove a lot of backgrounds from images, both stock & my own. Yes, sure, I can use masks & channels in Photoshop but sometimes I just need to do something quickly this is where my secret tool, Photoscissors, comes in.

It is a tiny but super powerful program in fact I used is on the image on my ultimate list of free stock images.

This a brilliant tool for under $30AUD! It is available for ♥ Mac & ♥ WIndows.

PhotoScape is a fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos.

From editing, colour filters, resizing and much more, this FREE app has everything you need to edit and create imagery without the need for a subscription.

Picresize.com makes it a breeze to crop, resize or edit your images online. Simply upload your image then rotate, crop, reduce size, chosse a special effect then save as png, gif, jpg or bmp & click the big yellow button & wit for the program to work its magic.

I found Loom ♥ recently and it is absolutely fantastic! A super easy video tool to help you show exactly what you need, when you need it!

Faster than typing, save time every day with quick videos for free. The ultra-flexible communication tool with endless use cases.

Loom ♥ is essentially taking a video screen shot of what you are working on to be able to show your team mates, co workers or staff. This is a super handy tool to help your team visualise the tasks at hand and it is 100% FREE!

With social media videos becoming increasingly important in your social media marketing mix you need a simple, cost-effective, way to edit your fabulous videos.

I recently discover the Filmora video editor made by Wondershare. I must admit I can use the high end programs like Final Cut & Adobes Premier but, let’s face it, they are expensive & complex to use. This is so easy, the interface is yummy & it has titles & templates to die for.

You can download it for PC or Mac but there is also an app for the iPhone although that is probably better for personal use rather than business.

Check out the Intro Video | Guide for Mac | Guide for PC

Need a pattern tile for your website? Off you go to Subtle Patterns. All absolutely free.

Design outlined, solid, webby and flat icons for free at iconsflow

Get high-quality freebies from Free Design Resources (or F.D.R.). The site provides mock-ups, fonts, web and logo templates, icons, stock photos all for FREE.

AdobeStock: used to be the dollar club which was brilliant for funky images. Adobe stock is designed especially for adobe software users who can jump-start their next project and make them look amazing. It allows you to purchase, access and manage your images directly from Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, inDesign CC and other Adobe CC desktop apps. Choose single images or subscriptions.

ingImage ♥: provides 4 million edited professional royalty free images, vector graphics and stock videos. Their content is not ‘crowd sourced’  which means you will always be assured technically usable imagery for your creative work produced by some of the best artists in the industry. THey have a number of different subscriptions & credit packs. The prices are in UK pounds to do your conversions before you commit. We have a conversion link in the site footer.

BigStock: also owned by Getty Images, BigStock claims to have images & video for everyone. They offer subscriptions from $69USD per month for 14 images  or credit packs from $35USD for 10 image credits. You also have the option of purchasing videos, great for the recent video craze.

iStock: is owned by Getty Images, promoting itself as “the web’s original resource for crowd sourced royalty-free stock images, media and design elements, offering millions of hand-picked photos, illustrations, videos and audio tracks. A site “by creatives, for creatives.”

You can join iStock to get for free stock files every week to build up your personal image bank.

Fotolia: was the biggest daddy of them all, until Adobe bought them out in 2015.

Screenfly is another great tool brought to you by Quick Tools! Helping you with a responsive way to test screens on your monitors, tablets, smart phones and more.

Creating a website or joining social media? Namechk is a super simple, easy way to check if your username or website domain is available! It’s as simple as typing it in and away you go!

Wires is a great tool brought to you by Quick Tools! An easy way to help you build wireframes in your web browser without the use of any plugins.

Run by security expert, Troy Hunt, Have I Been Pwned? is a website used solely to check if an internet user has been a victim of data breach – if they were pawned or hacked.

One just have to enter their email address and the site will notify if their account has been breached or compromised in any way.

Course Cats is a platform where you can build & host your own online course.  What makes it different with the other platforms is that it doesn’t require you any design or programming skills so there’s no need to hire a designer and a programmer.  There is a step-by-step guide so you can do it all yourself.

This is a nifty little tool. Type into your browser https://placeholdit/sixeXsize for instance http://placehold.it/1600×900

now click on may link & see what you get.

A brother site to this one is https://placeholder.com/ where you type you image size after their domain & you’ll get the html code to add that size placeholder into your site. Try it, I’m sure you’ll love it.

KWFinder is a paid keyword research tool that can be helpful in SEO affiliate marketing.

The platform contains three search options – Suggestions, Autocomplete, and Questions. You can enter a keyword as well as specify Location and language, and KWFinder will generate related keywords with search volume, CPC and difficulty displayed on the left-hand side of the dashboard. You’ll also see SERP results with some valuable SEO metrics on the right hand-side.

Vertex 42 Calendars provides free printable calendars and planners. There are a lot of calendar and planner templates to choose from: yearly calendars, calendar with holidays, birthday calendars, personal planner, meal planner to name a few.  Get organised with Vertex 42 Calendars.

If you are unsure how to price your product or service, this is a brilliant tool for you. It’s also useful when you need to review your pricing structure. Brought to you by Flying Solo.

Grab your readers attention with this list of 822 Emoji for your Newsletter Subject Lines

Forgotten the keyboard shortcut for a symbol? Here my dear is your reference guide to all things alt.

Turn your handwriting or calligraphy into a font with Calligraphr.

Registration is required. Basic version is for free with limited amount of controls. Pro version is $8 per month with prioritised processing and you can create your own ligatures.

Character Count Online is a free online word count tool very handy most especially for Twitter and other social media platforms, or if your teacher is requiring you to write a 100-word essay.

Copy and paste your texts or simply type them in the text area provided, and the counter will be updated generating the amount of characters, words, sentences, paragraphs and whitespace in your texts.