After reading some of the other articles we’ve recently discussed on Exabyzness, you can get the feeling that small businesses need all of the help that they can get. We of course agree and will therefore present twenty must have tools for small businesses that can help increase productivity, efficiency, reduce costs, and take certain aspects of your business to new heights. The list was generated by Forbes but the commentary in italics is our own. A lot of these will be familiar to readers of Exabyzness but many of them will be new and we hope you find them useful.

• 1.  Google Analytics
• If your small business has a website, which we definitely think it should, you need to have a way to properly track the visitors that come to your site. Google Analytics is the gold standard when it comes to site analytics as it will provide you with details ranging from where people are visiting your site from, what browsers they are using, and if they are using mobile devices, to how long they spend on your site.
• 2. EchoSign
• Document management is always an important issue for small businesses. Important items must be stored and copied and sometimes said documents require a signature which can involve more copies and the mailing of items. EchoSign fixes this by making the whole process digital eliminating the extra paperwork and management for both you and your now thankful clients.
• 3. DropBox
• Converting many of your documents to digital is great but they still need to be stored somewhere. An onsite storage server is the most secure from outside intruders but is generally an expensive option and still subject to office accidents. This is where DropBox comes in as it is a cheap cloud computing storage solution that protects your data online and files can easily be shared with anyone, anywhere in the world.
• 4. Wix
• Developing a website or blog for your small business is important way for you to better connect and interact with current and potential customers. However, the whole process of actually creating such a site can be intimidating for the less computer savvy and the thought of having to do any coding can be outright scary. Luckily, services like Wix help simplify and streamline the whole process by giving a simple question and answer type process for creating a site. They take all of the coding out and leave you with an elegant creation process and helpful tips. Wix is also powerful enough for more experienced users to maximize their design talents.
• 5. Odesk
• When starting your small business or moving forward with a new venture, there is a good chance you are not completely staffed to handle every new task that should arise. The natural way to overcome this problem is through the use of per-project contract workers. Finding them can be a problem but Odesk simplifies this whole process by giving you an easy step-by-step instruction based system to find out what it is your company is looking for and then showing you a list of the contractors whose experience best matches what you require.

The list is long so we saved the majority of the items for Forbes to explain in greater detail. You can find the rest of the twenty tools that your small business needs listed below and by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page you will be taken to the details for each.

• 6. OmniFocus
• 7. MailChimp
• 8. Skype
• 9. Go Daddy  
• 10. LinkedIn
• 11. Slideshare
• 12. Square
• 13. Uber
• 14.  Haro
• 15. Jira  
• 16. HootSuite 
• 17.  Evernote 
• 18. LastPass  
• 19. WordPress  
• 20. Quora