My Favorite Tools for Online Business in 2022

I go over my entire tech stack of tools I'll be using for my online business in 2022. Plus, some of the tools on the chopping block and just not worth the time or the money.

Show Notes

Talk to me:

1. Twitter: @MattGiovanisci
2. Email: [e-mail]

Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Giovanisci

Founder of SwimUniversity.com

What is Money Lab?

Matt Giovanisci and friends drop the gauntlet of truth about being self-employed, serial entrepreneurs. They're not "teaching" how to build a successful company. Instead, they run business challenges and experiments offering a transparent view of what it takes to make money online.

Matt: Hello everybody.

Well, my name is Matt Giovanisci
welcome to the money lab podcast.

It's 2022.

January 3rd.

Uh, 20, 22 to be precise in this episode.

I'm going to go over all of my
favorite tools that I use for

all of my online businesses.

And these are the only tools
that I'm gonna use in 2022.

So let's jump into it.

Yes, here we are.

2022.

Welcome to money lab.

My name is Matt Giovanisci welcome.

I'm your host.

It's a new year and you know
what that means on Twitter.

Everyone's telling us what they're going
to do for the new year, including myself.

So that's just what, let's just what
we do as entrepreneurs on Twitter.

Especially in 2022.

What's great about this episode.

It's going to be really easy for me
to make because of how organized I am.

I am.

I pride myself on my
organization as a child.

I was a scattered brain lazy.

Dumdum.

And as an adult, I got, I got,
once I got my own house, I was

like, I gotta be organized.

And so now I take pride of it and why
I say that is because I don't even have

a list because all of my tools, every
tool that I use, my entire tech stack

for my businesses are all in my Chrome.

Bookmark.

Toolbar and they're all
organized into folders.

I have I think it looks
like six folders here.

I have Google.

So all of my Google tools,
these are all my free tools.

I have finance.

I have marketing.

I have content, which
is my content creation.

I have a data folder, but
that's not a, that's not a tool.

It's just Google sheets.

And I have affiliates, which is also not
a tool folder, but we can go over it.

Before we get into my tools of the year,
and I'm going to be honest with you.

I'm kind of going on a little.

Tool.

Crusade and saying that I am not going
to start using any new tools in 2022.

And the reason I decided to do
that, or I'm deciding right now, the

reason I'm deciding that is because.

Come on man.

Like.

Last year.

I was like, Ooh.

You know, you don't, you're on
Twitter, you follow your friends and

they're like, oh, check out this new
tool called And it does whatever.

Or check out this new tool
it's called spark loop.

And it's great to be grew.

My email list by 30%.

And I'm like, I got to try it.

Come on, man.

I got to try that.

And then of course I waste a.

That's not even really about the money.

It's about the time you waste learning
the new tool and then realizing yeah.

I, whatever.

That's it didn't really work for me or.

You know, I could have done this with
this other tool, blah, blah, blah.

You know,

So it's really just like kind of a pain.

To just learn a new it's a, it took
a lot of time to learn a new tool.

But I did start a lot
of new tools in 2021.

And so they have carried over to
20, 22, but I am going on a diet.

And what I'm going to do is I'm
going to go through all of my tools.

And I'm going to tell you the
ones I'm keeping and tell you

the ones that I'm not keeping.

All right.

Before we jump into it, though.

I really want you to go over to
money lab.co/subscribe or no, I

don't even want you to, well, you can
go there I guess, but go to money.

lab.co/cheat sheet.

And download for free.

My perfect post cheat sheet.

Now this is a cheat sheet that
I put together and it's kind

of growing throughout the year.

It's going to be continued
continually, continuing to grow words.

Matt say them.

Your brain is moving
too fast in your mouth.

So this, this.

PDF at the moment.

And it's just going to continue
to be a PDF, I guess, is the

checklist that I go through.

Whenever I publish a new post on any
one of my sites, including money lab.

So.

It's, it helps me to make
sure that the content is good.

Make sure that it's going to be.

Rankable, the SEO is good.

The formatting's good.

All of that.

And I'm going to continue
to grow this cheat sheet.

So get it now.

And once you have it, if
any, if I add anything new to

it, you'll get that as well.

All right.

Money lab.co/cheat sheet.

And that is the sponsor of this show.

You know, I've looked into.

Getting sponsored somebody who the hell.

Hold on.

Somebody wants to sponsor.

The show.

Who was it?

I don't know somebody I use, I
can't remember who it was now,

but I'm like, Hey, if you want.

Glad.

I mean, it's probably,
probably one of my tools.

I'm probably gonna sponsor you right now.

Except I won't be paid for it.

All right.

So let's jump into the Google tools
that I use, because these are all the

mostly free ones, I guess, because I
do use Gmail and I do pay for that.

I think it's called Google workspace now.

So that's what I use for my email address.

I run a business where I have one.

Email address one email address
and it's [e-mail].

And it has three aliases.

So it's [e-mail] Matt
ITSM, university.com and

Matt at brew, kevin.com.

They're all the same email address.

They just, you know, and then
I use a tool called front.

Do you sort of manage
those different inboxes?

They're like fake inboxes, you
know, they just get like poured it.

According, you know, It's not
that difficult to set up, but

I also have my private email.

So my private email and my
business email are in the same

tool and it's called front.

Right.

And I have one.

Employee or one contractor who goes in and
answers all of the swim university emails.

And so I have to pay for two
seats and I believe I pay.

You know, what.

Let me pull that up because I
actually do know the price of that.

And I guess it's important to know, right.

So front, I pay $48 a month for front.

And that's my email.

Okay.

Then I have, I use Google
calendar, although honestly,

I'm not very good at it.

I'm better at other things.

Analytics, Google analytics.

That's my analytics tool.

I still like it.

I still think it's great.

Data studio is a visualizations
of analytics and other things.

I was really kind of into it at
the beginning of the year of 2021.

And I've been into it into the, into
the past, but honestly, It takes a

lot of time to set it up and then
you kind of have to maintenance it.

So I'm not a huge, I don't
really use it anymore.

If I'm being honest.

I have search console, which
I don't really use all that

often because I use other tools.

But I still have it's there.

Ad sense because of YouTube ads.

I get paid through that,
but it's not really tool.

I do use URL builder, which is a
free tool from Google where you

can build out UTM tracking code.

So if you have like, I use UTM
tracking codes when I'm doing

Facebook ads or Google ads or
five giving a link to somebody.

And I want them to put that on their site.

I can I'll know in Google analytics
where it came from, that sort of thing.

I don't use it that often, but it's there.

Google optimize is in here.

I don't use it.

It's an AB testing software.

It's free.

I highly, I mean, if you're gonna
use AB testing software, use

Google optimize because it is free.

All the other ones are really expensive.

And if you don't have like a shitload
of traffic to test against, then.

It's kind of not worth it.

And unfortunately like, So I
use a tool and I'll get into it,

but the tool has like a lot of
tools have built in AB testing.

So I'll just use those as
opposed to Google optimize.

But I honestly like.

I don't know.

I think sometimes I think optimization or.

You know, like doing AB tests,
which if miles Beckler is listening,

he would be very mad at me, but.

I don't know, sometimes I know
that there's value to it, but I

kind of feel like every time I
run a test, I always got it right.

The first time, which could be
just because I spend a lot of

time crafting a really good sales
page and designing it really well.

And, you know, and then it's
like, oh, I have this other idea.

It wasn't as good as my first one or
it's nominal, you know, it's a nominal

thing and I do get a lot of traffic, but
it still feels like, oh, I just wasted.

You know, two weeks of my life doing
this test and it didn't really move the

needle when I could've just made a new
product or I could like, you know, just

add it more testimonials to the existing
page or done a better video or, you

know, just improve the page that was
there without like having to AB test it.

Well, just like in just knowing like, Hey.

I had the sales page.

If I add a video to it, it's
probably going to do better

than if I didn't have a video.

Instead of going, like, what if I test
the video because then you're going to

make a shitty video because you're like,
well, I almost, I'm only running a test.

So I'm just going to throw
up some shitty video.

You know what I mean?

I hope I'm making sense.

Another tool on here, which is like
the, like sort of like the backbone

of my entire business is Google drive.

I pay for two terabytes.

I used the Google drive backup system, you
know, so I have a new computer this year.

I have the Mac book.

Mac book pro 20.

Or 16 inch max.

I had just like maxed out my computer.

I got four terabytes on my computer.

Which before I always used to
have like one terabyte and then

it, because I would use Google
drive as like my main hard drive.

But unfortunately, like it meant I
was spending a lot of time managing,

like what could be on my hard drive
versus what could be up in the cloud.

And that was kind of annoying.

And so I decided to just go, Hey,

Instead of using all these
external hard drives.

And what have you, especially
when I do video editing, I just

went with a big, hard drive in
my computer and then mirrored.

And I know I'm probably saying
that like a south Jersey

person, but I mirrored the two.

So, I have two terabytes up on, I
have like 1.5 terabytes up on Google.

Dr.

And I have 1.5 terabytes on my
local hard drive and they're the

exact same file system, right.

Besides like applications, but yeah.

So all of my files are backed up onto
the cloud, just in case, you know, I'm on

my phone and I need to access something.

I can access it on my phone.

I can access it on my iPad.

I can access it through
someone else's computer.

Because everything that I do on my
local computer is up in the cloud

and Google drive is my favorite.

I freaking hate Dropbox.

My dad uses Dropbox.

I do do not like it.

It's not as flexible as
Google drive, in my opinion.

Plus with Google drive, you get
Google sheets, you get Google

docs, you get Google forms,
you get Google presentations.

Like you get all these extra tools that
are just like that work with each other.

And so I'm a huge fan of Google drive.

All of my files are there.

It's very, very organized.

It's all.

Color-coded.

And I have this habit of
like naming I can like.

All of my file name, not my file
names, but all of my folder names

are like either one to two words.

And I never like to go to three words.

That's just me.

I have YouTube studio, which is like,

You know, Not really a tool.

And then moving on to finance.

Finance.

QuickBooks is the tool
that I use for accounting.

I've been using it for many years
before that I used a company called

zero and I know people like wave app.

But honestly, QuickBooks
is like the, oh, gee.

And it's pretty cheap and it just,
it allows me to what's great.

The one thing I love about QuickBooks
specifically over the other two.

Is I can classify.

The different expenses because
I technically have one LLC.

I have one business.

And under that business
are three different brands.

I have some university
brew cabin and money lab.

And I, and you know, sometimes
I'll spend money on brew cabin

equipment, or I'll spend money on.

You know, maybe some
software just for money lab.

And so I want to allocate
those expenses to the proper.

Business or, or to the proper, I guess,
entity, but again, all under one roof.

So that has this ability to
classify different expenses.

And so I have three classifications
which are kind of like categories and

it allows me to like split up my profit
and loss statements to be like, okay,

how much did money lab make versus how
much did money lab spend specifically?

And.

I do have an accountant.

That I pay on retainer and he can log
into the QuickBooks account and check

things and balance the books and all that.

But personally I do all the bookkeeping.

So I go in every single
month and I categorize all my

expenses and all my income.

And my accountant just like,
basically make sure I'm good.

He's just there and then helps me
with taxes at the end of the year.

Then I use mint personally.

To just track.

Personal expenses.

Mainly my net worth don't
really track much else.

And it's kind of automatic from there.

And I use.

Gusto.

For payroll.

So, my company is an LLC, but
we are taxed as an S-corp,

which means that I have to pay.

My employees.

And I'm saying that with
air quotes a salary.

So I am an employee of my own company.

And Steph is an employee of the company.

And we are both paid a
salary twice per month.

Just like normal.

We get direct deposit into our accounts.

And that's how it works.

And I use Gusto to do that.

Gusto also pays workers' comp
because I have one employee I need

to pay worker's comp for Colorado.

And it also pays for our health insurance.

So I do our health insurance
through Gusto as well.

So a little bit comes
out of our paychecks and.

The business pays the rest.

And that's all done through Gusto,
which is the best absolute of your.

If you need payroll, just use Gusto.

It's so frigging easy.

And we're even thinking about setting
up a company, 401k, which means that

we can do that through Gusto too.

And they do all kinds of other
things and you can actually

talk to them on the phone.

It's awesome.

Okay.

So moving on to the marketing folder.

We have quite a few here, so I'll
try to get through them as fast.

We already talked about
front front is my email app.

I'm pretty much in it.

All day, every day.

I use podia to sell all
of my digital products.

So on money lab, it sells.

You know, all of the courses that I have.

Right.

I on SUNY university, I have four courses.

It sells those.

It's a separate account.

So I have three separate podia
accounts and on brew cabin, we have

one course there and it sells that.

For email marketing, I use active
campaign and I have one active campaign

account and all three of my brands
live underneath that one account.

So it actually saves me
a little bit of money.

Because inactive campaign, you can
have different lists as opposed to

what I used before, which is convert
kit, which is just one giant list.

And then you had to sort of categorize
everything with tags, which can get

really messy with active campaign.

You have lists, you have tags, you have.

You know, custom fields, you have
all this stuff and the visual

automations and, and just the way
that you can like set up automations

just made a lot more sense to me.

Then convert kit date,
and that's why I switched.

So I switched.

For two reasons, one.

Because actually it would save me.

I think it saved me like a hundred
bucks a month because I could take

all three of my businesses and put
them under one account where with

convert kit, I had to have three
separate accounts, which was not ideal.

And.

It allows me to create Seasonal
automations, which is what

I use for some universities.

So you can check that out.

If you go to money, lab.co.

I have an article about why I
switched to active campaign and

all the things I can do with it.

And so that's what I use.

For.

Individual pages.

Like, let's just say I have to create
like a quick page, like an opt-in page.

Or I had to create like a page where
somebody can go to download something or.

You know, just whatever.

I started using lead pages thanks to
miles Beckler because I was setting up.

All this like funnel stuff in the
beginning of 2021, which can read

about I'm at the gazillion dollar
sales funnel experiment on money lab.

And it allowed me to just spin
up a landing page very quickly.

And.

Connected to active campaign and
connected to podia and do all

this like really fancy stuff.

Without coding anything.

When I used to use just WordPress
pages, but if you wanted to do any

customization to them and make them look
like sales pages, you had to do that

manually or use like a page builder.

And it just got like,

It's just messy.

And then there was like caching issues
because I obviously care about page speed.

And so, it was just like, it
was just harder to manage.

But with lead pages, I have one account.

I can create a page.

I have three separate.

Domains.

So I have like pages dot, some university
pages dot brew, cabin pages.money, lab.co.

So it's a sub domain that I use.

And so all of the pages
are hosted on lead pages.

They're all really fast.

And they're pages that
don't need SEO juice.

Like they're kind of
like, again, opt-in pages.

There, you know, OTO pages or like
one time offer pages or like just, you

know, maybe a sales page where I can
AB test the sales page really quickly.

Because with lead pages, you duplicate
the page, you make some changes.

Boom.

You let it run and you see what happens.

So that has been like actually one of
the best decisions that I made in 2021.

And I'm going to continue.

To stick with it.

And I love lead pages.

It's just like, and I
host everything there.

I don't connect it through WordPress.

Highly recommended.

Instead of using WordPress pages.

Okay.

I have deadline funnel
is a tool that I use.

I use that for my OTO.

So if you sign up for any of my
websites you will get taken to

a page where I have an offer and
that offer has a deadline to it.

Whether it's 24 hours,
three days, whatever.

Truthfully, I don't know how well this
works, but I've been using it for a year.

I'm happy with it.

It's it's good.

You know, so I like it.

It's expensive, but.

You know, it's probably, I think it's like
a hundred bucks a month and it's probably.

You know, it's probably, I mean,
it's more than paid for itself.

I'm sure.

So.

I'm going to stick with
it because I like it.

It's simple to use.

I use HRS H refs is my SEO tool of choice.

And I say this all the time.

To anyone who's looking
to get into sort of like.

Entrepreneurial.

Endeavors online, especially
when it comes to like affiliate

sites, authority sites, et cetera.

You got to take SEO seriously.

And in order to take SEO
seriously, you need a tool.

You need a professional SEO tool.

And there are three that I've used.

I've used SEM rush or SEMrush.

I've used a Moz and I'm on H refs.

I do think it's the best.

I, I am sort of like wanting to
check out SEMrush a little bit.

I kind of just want to
see what's going on there.

Cause I know they've
made a lot of changes.

I know they've gotten some like funding.

I know they're Nash.

They're like publicly traded now.

Which is just an interesting.

I don't know.

I just, I'm just interested in it.

So like, and I think it's,
it's the same price as H refs.

But I'm using eight drafts and
I'm kind of glued to it by now.

I've been using it for
like four years, I think.

Ad it costs a hundred bucks
a month, but you know what.

Probably the best.

Investment.

I have like all the tools that I use.

It's probably like the, the one that
like, it's literally like the, the.

The linchpin of my entire
business is that tool.

So I think you need to get it.

I use genius link.

Right now I'm on genius link.

Mainly for international
monetization on Amazon.

I don't use it for anything else because
lasso is the other tool that I use.

My other plugin that I use.

That does a lot of that.

And I know that Amazon has one
link, which is kind of like.

I, I just don't know if genius link.

Is that much better than one
link, although they do claim that.

So I'm currently paying for it.

But.

I'm like just waiting for Andrew
to tell me that like, Hey you

know, Lasso can do all that now.

And so I don't need to pay for
two tools that do the same thing.

But genius link is good for
the international monetization.

If you're using Amazon.

You can check it out for other
things, but I don't think it's

like a tool that I would recommend.

You know, like for my specific, you know,
where I am and the tools that I use.

I'm not saying, I think it's great
if you have like, if you don't have

a website, And you don't want to use,
or you don't want to use WordPress.

You don't want to use lasso.

You can use genius link to kind of
centralize all of your affiliate links.

If you have like a YouTube channel
or you're just like outside of

WordPress, I think it's great for that.

I use Zapier.

To connect some different things
and do some automations for me,

the reason I started using it
was because I was using podia.

To sell my membership.

So I have a membership
site called money lab pro.

That uses a tool called circle.

That's the community platform.

And at the time circle did
not offer any sort of paywall

solutions or payment processing.

And so I had to use.

Podia to sell it.

And then like send an invite and
connect the two using Zapier.

And you might know it as Zapier,
but I don't know why you call

it that, because that sounds.

Wrong and you make zaps,
you don't make zips.

So I don't why you call.

Zapier Zapier.

Oh, I gotta have a lot
of fucking tools now.

I'm like, I feel like I'm
not even halfway through it.

And even talking about like
WordPress plugins, there's

going to be a WordPress blog.

It's going to be like a
whole different episode.

Which is probably good.

But yeah, I use that.

So.

I started using it for that,
but then I'm like, you know,

what, what else can zap your do?

So I have it, like, I
started using it to like,

Do some like marketing automations,
like every time I publish a new

podcast episode, it gets tweeted.

It gets puts on Facebook.

Every time I publish a new
YouTube video, it gets tweeted.

It gets Facebooked.

You know, every time.

Every week, it automatically posted
my community, like a specific thing, a

call to action and it there's, and I'm.

I'm still messing with it.

I do like it for those reasons.

Like this.

Like, instead of paying somebody to
do these like automated things, like,

let me see if Zapier can do it first.

And then if Zapier can do it and that's
pretty decent, then, like, I don't

need to hire somebody, which is great.

So just I don't know.

I like it.

It's cheap.

I use a tool called.

Email subject line tester, which is just
a little tool that I have in my bookmarks.

It's okay.

It's made by CoSchedule, which
makes headline analyzer, which

I do love and continue to use.

The email subject line tester
is not the best built out thing.

Although I think they really should
invest in it because I think it

could be great, but it does have
a lot of contradictions within it.

So it's not really a good indicator.

But it's just something that
helps me sort of like craft email.

Headlines or subject lines.

And it cause its stores, you know,
every everyone you test and it gives

you a score and just that sort of.

Alone is good enough for me.

All right, so let's move on to
content and we'll end it here.

Okay.

And I'm going to.

Get through this, and this is
kind of like, there's a little

bit of marketing in here.

There's a little bit of

You know, There's some
other stuff in here.

So for podcasting, I've been,
you know, I'm recording this

on an app called descript.

I call it descript because
it's like description.

It's like the short version, right?

Because it's description.

But they call it de
script, which that's wrong.

It's like.

Guys.

Folks.

Citizens.

It's like.

SCM rush.

It's SCM rush.

Okay.

It stands for search
engine marketing rush.

But then they're like, well, we're
more than just search engine marketing.

So it's now SEMrush.

I'm like, God fucking drives me nuts, man.

It just drives me nuts.

It drives me nuts.

Because like, you don't
have to explain it that way.

Also just call it.

Who cares?

What people call it?

ATF is the worst.

Cause it's like, it's not even.

It's whatever.

I don't understand how, why
people name things that are

hard to say it doesn't like.

It just drives me nuts.

And I can go on a whole rant about that.

Maybe I want to write that down
because I can go on a whole rant.

About naming, just like brand naming.

I have a great story
about brand naming too.

That is hilarious.

And I'm not going to tell
it I'm going to right now.

I'll I'll keep it for a future episode.

Anyway, moving on, I'm using these gripped
or descript to record this podcast.

And I host the podcast on transistor.fm,
which is run by Justin Jackson.

And I love it very simple.

And what's great.

The reason I use the script or the
script, as opposed to say like, I like.

I use logic to do all my music recording.

It's what I recorded all my podcasts.

And before that I like descript because
it works directly with transistors.

So when I hit publish it automatically
uploads to transistor as a podcast and

I'm done, it's like super easy to use.

Okay.

And I just did the overdub same thing.

So if I make any stupid mistakes or
I say something awful, I can just

like change it in my own voice.

So that's cool.

Anyway.

Then I've been using Canva to do some
stuff, but from being honest, like.

It's just a little clunky for me.

Like I started using it and I was
like, oh man, Canva's the shit.

I get it.

I understand it.

It's great.

When you have like, a team, a team and
you can all work in the same thing, but.

I don't know, it just, there's just
some, I guess, as a designer and

somebody that has used like Adobe
products, my entire life, and I'm just,

I don't have as much control and the.

The organization of files
is a little wonky to me.

I wish they had like
layer control and stuff.

So.

Personally I'm I think I'm probably
gonna stop using Canva this year.

But if you are not a designer and
you need to get designs up, it

is actually a pretty good tool.

I actually used it to make a youth.

One of the biggest reasons I started
using it was earlier in 2021.

I did a challenge where
I had a published 31.

YouTube videos in a row.

And I hired my VA to
create the thumbnails.

And she's doesn't design anything.

Like she's not a designer.

She doesn't have like,
you know, Adobe tools.

And so I signed up for Canva and gave
her access and showed her how to use it.

Like the video.

And it worked.

It was good, but.

I think You know, I have to lean on my
design skills a little bit more this year.

I really want a, I always want to
outsource my design skills, but

I know that they're like decent.

And so as like, You know, it's something
I'm actually good at where it's like, I

really should be leaning on other people
to do things that I'm not good at, or that

don't really need my specific talents.

So again, I think Canva is going to
be on the chopping block for 2022.

I use headline studio.

I mentioned that by CoSchedule.

I do love it.

Anytime I write.

Any headline for anything?

I run it through their first.

Last year I started using
a tool called reform.

Which is a really simple version
of Typeform, which is way cheaper.

It's sort of like Google
forms meets type form.

It's very, very simple.

There's still a very small company.

And I can actually talk with the owners.

It's pretty cool.

I use it.

It's great.

I'm using it for like, anytime
you need to send out a survey and

I have an automatically pipe, all
that data into active campaign.

So I'm constantly collecting data
for my subscribers through forms.

Yeah, it's just kind of on autopilot
right now and I do love it.

I use zoom for all of
our meetings on circle.

We do like, you know, live.

Meetings and stuff.

I'll continue to use zoom because
I don't see anything better.

And I use Zapier to automatically
set up my hat, my weekly happy

hour calls, which is great.

I do have Jarvis, which is
the hot, new tool of 2021.

Which is, you know, the
AI thing for, for writing.

I will say I will continue
to pay for it this year.

Although I'm using it
less and less frequently.

I use it as sort of like
a writer's block push.

Mostly for marketing stuff,
like product descriptions.

Or Facebook ads or Google ads or, you
know, little, little sentences that I need

where it kind of spins some stuff for me.

Writing blog posts.

No, it does not.

No, I am.

No, I'm better than it.

And I'm sure most people
are better than it.

So yeah, for marketing
purposes, little like.

Just, I don't know.

I just, every once in a while,
I just need like a couple

paragraphs for like, maybe it's a.

Description for an affiliate product
or one of my digital products or, you

know, a little blurb and it's great.

Cause it like.

It spits out like a very salesy.

Block of text.

That sounds good from a sales perspective.

And then I just kind of
take that and massage it.

So it fits my voice a little bit better.

And then.

Go from there.

So I'm going to continue to use it.

It's I don't know if it's worth.

The a hundred dollars a month that I
spent on it for as much as I use it.

So it's probably better, like,
you know, the time it takes

for me to pull up the tool.

Literally type in.

The things I wanted to spit out
and then it haven't spit out at me.

I probably could have just wrote the
three sentence thing that I need it.

So I don't really think
it's saving me time.

And I don't really think it's
moving the needle on my business.

If I'm being honest,
it is the hot new tool.

I get that it does a lot of things, but.

As somebody who writes very
technical stuff and doesn't

really have an issue with.

You know, getting things started.

I'm slowly realizing that it's like
probably not worth the money for me.

So I'm unfortunately I think Jarvis might
be on the chopping block as well as Canva.

This new year.

The last tool that I want to bring up.

Which we are currently
using and testing out.

We, we sort of got into it
late in 2022 or sorry, 20, 21.

And we're trying it out this year.

It's called clear scope.

And it is, it's probably one of
the more expensive tools that

I have besides active campaign.

It is a SEO tool that
connects with WordPress.

And basically you run
what it does is like.

I can run a keyword through it.

It runs a report and
its scans like the top.

30 websites in Google.

And it sorta collects like
a list of all of the words.

That are commonly used
throughout the top 30 results.

And it compares that to
your tax within WordPress.

And so it'll say, you know, Hey,
you're not using this word, but like

five other websites are using this
word, so you may want to use it.

So it's.

I think it's good because we
talk about in the SEO course.

We talk about cousin keywords or, you
know, you have your primary keyword,

your secondary keyword, your tertiary
keyword, like these are, you have your

main, you always have to have your main
primary keyword that you have to target.

But there are like different
phrasings and different sort of like.

Keywords that are not worth.

You know, creating a whole
separate article on, but could

be kind of wrapped into it.

And there's just certain keywords
that are just related enough where

we call them cousin keywords.

And so.

Clear scope, just kind of.

Instead of like doing that
research with an H refs.

And finding all those keywords
and then having to manually

enter them into the content.

I'm using a tool like clear scope to
sort of do that for me as we're writing

or as we're optimizing old posts.

The tools that 170 bucks a month,
and you only get 10 keywords a month.

So.

That's quite a bit of money.

Whether it's actually moving the
needle or not, or, or, you know, how.

Much it itself is being
like, you know what I mean?

Like how much it's effective.

Versus like, you know,
Let's say we didn't use it.

We don't have that.

We're not testing the single
clear scope variable in our SEO.

But I do see its value just
from an SEO perspective.

I'm just, I just don't have any data
that says, you know, this tool is like

directly responsible for, you know, our
position and certain keywords or whatever.

So, I do like it because it does make
sense to me again, like if everyone

on the internet is talking about
this one product and I'm, you know,

I have an article about, you know,

Around that product and I don't
mention it well, it's like,

well, then I'm missing out.

Like my contents.

Do you know, sort of missing the thing
that the Internet's talking about.

And so it kind of helps me
like plug into the SEO site.

Like Geist of.

Whatever keyword I'm trying to
rank for, if that makes sense.

But anyway.

The last tool that I'll mention.

Which I know I said I was going to
mention that, but how could I not mention.

Sauna, baby.

That's I run my entire business
and I run my entire life.

Through a sauna sauna
basically is my calendar.

My Google calendar.

It is my personal to-do list.

It is my business to do list it's.

If it's not in a sauna,
it doesn't get done.

I have an entire course on it, which you
should check out this year, especially.

It it's, I use it as
my editorial calendar.

This was actually in a sauna.

This, this episode was in
a sauna, my favorite tools

for online business in 2022.

And I'm going to record it,
which I'm doing right now.

I'm going to publish it on transistor and
I'm going to hit check and I finished it.

C.

And I have the entire.

First quarter of 2022.

Audio and video planned out for money lab.

And that is an upcoming episode.

On this podcast, we're
going to talk about.

Planning an editorial
calendar using a sauna.

So.

That's it.

Those are the tools
that I'm using for 2022.

And the tools that I told you are
on the chopping block for 2022.

Reach out to me, send me
an email [e-mail].

Let me know if you, if you
want, you know, maybe you're

thinking about getting a tool.

Maybe you want to downgrade
and maybe you want to upgrade.

Maybe you just want my personal
opinion, which I gave you most

of, but Hey, just reach out to
me and I'm happy to talk to you.

In fact,

I want to talk to you.

Because podcasting is so lonely.

I'm sitting here in my
basement, talking to myself.

Making stupid hand gestures
that no one can see.

And telling.

You know, you.

About my stuff.

Off the cuff with no script.

I'm just talking.

I like it, but it's a little
lonely when I publish.

I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot.

I did that.

No one emailed me.

No one.

You know, there's no comments.

I can't respond.

So the only, you know, there's.

Until there's comments on podcast
episodes, which there should be,

but there's no universal platform.

Send me an email [e-mail].

And go download it's free my perfect post
cheat sheet at my lab.co/cheat sheet.

If you have a website, which
you probably do, if you're

listening to the show at all,

Okay.

Besides that.

Happy new year.

And that's the only time I'll say it.

And Yeah.

See you next week.

Bye.

Computer: please tell your
friends about this show.