15 Best Task Management Software for Small Businesses

As a webmaster, I know how difficult it can be to juggle a thousand tasks and responsibilities while running a website or online business. You have to constantly switch between wearing different hats – writer, project manager, marketer, designer – sometimes in the span of just a few minutes!

It‘s no wonder staying on top of your daily to-do list can feel impossible, let alone thinking about long-term projects.

The right task management system makes all the difference. In my 15 years of experience managing websites, implementing the right software can be a total game-changer for productivity and organization.

These tools give you a central hub to plan projects, break down big tasks, and ensure work doesn‘t fall through the cracks. Studies show structured work management leads to a 92% completion rate for projects.

But with hundreds of options on the market, how do you choose? Don‘t worry, I‘ve done the research for you to determine the top 15 task management software for small businesses and online brands.

What Exactly is Task Management Software?

Task management software provides a shared space where you and your team can:

• Break down big ambiguous projects into clear, actionable tasks assigned to specific people.
• View all tasks in one place and track progress.
• Set due dates and dependencies so work happens in the right sequence.
• Automate repetitive tasks to save time.
• Pull useful reports around blockers, workloads, and productivity.

The benefits for managing a website or digital brand include:

• Improved collaboration – Team members communicate in real-time instead of long, scattered email chains.
• Increased transparency – Everyone has clarity on who owns what task.
• Organized workflows – Tasks can be automated as they move through custom stages.
• Better prioritization – Important work gets finished first with dependencies and due dates.
• Enhanced productivity – People spend time on meaningful work that moves the needle.

Studies by Wrike found that 81% of employees feel overwhelmed due to lack of organized task management. Implementation of the right software prevents your team from getting buried.

Top 15 Task Management Software for Online Businesses

Here are my recommendations for webmasters and digital brand owners based on 15+ years of experience running websites:

1. Asana

Asana is my top choice – I‘ve used it for over 5 years to run my WordPress site.

It‘s flexible for any workflow and integrates with 1000+ other apps. I like that it links tasks directly to high-level goals and strategies for your site.

For example, your goal might be to "Grow blog traffic 20% this quarter." Asana connects all your tasks like optimizing pages for target keywords or pitching influencers back to that goal.

This helps ensure your team focuses on meaningful work that actually moves the needle, instead of getting distracted by busywork.

I also appreciate how customizable it is. As a webmaster, you can create conditional rules and automations for when certain tasks are marked complete, approved, etc. This eliminates redundant manual work as content moves through your production workflow.

Asana‘s free plan works great for small teams. It provides unlimited tasks, projects, storage, and essential features like workload view and timeline.

2. Monday.com

In my experience, Monday.com excels for managing complex long-term projects with lots of moving pieces.

For example, migrating a WordPress site or launching a new brand requires coordinating many intricate tasks across multiple teams.

Monday.com‘s templates help you manage web design sprints, marketing campaigns, product launches, and more. Teams can instantly create workflows for these projects versus building from scratch.

I also like the advanced visual reports to track how projects are progressing. Charts and graphs provide clarity when briefing clients on timelines and next deliverables.

Monday.com‘s Gantt chart illustrates the order and timing of project tasks in a format that‘s universally understood. I use it extensively for any web project with interdependent tasks.

Overall, it‘s one of the best full-featured task management systems out there. The downside is it can feel overwhelming at first for users accustomed to simpler tools.

3. Kanban Boards for WordPress

If you run a WordPress site like I do, Kanban Boards for WordPress is an obvious choice. It lets you turn your WP dashboard into a customized workflow management system.

For digital teams creating content regularly, Kanban boards help you visually map out what stage each post is in – from ideation to approval to production.

I like how incredibly easy this plugin is to use. Simply install, drag and drop tasks into columns on a Kanban board, and attach them to team members.

The free version is good for startups, but upgrading to premium adds useful features like task dependencies, reminders, filters, and progress metrics.

4. ClickUp

Don‘t let ClickUp‘s playful branding fool you – this is one seriously robust tool. It‘s quickly becoming one of the most fully-featured task managers out there.

For web businesses, I like how it supports both task-level checklists and bigger picture goal setting. This combination keeps your team aligned while knocking out the small daily work.

ClickUp also offers an AI assistant to eliminate repetitive tasks that suck up your time as a webmaster. For instance, their AI can pull data from sites to generate content drafts, social posts, and even client emails in seconds.

Between its custom views, fields, statuses, and reminders, ClickUp can streamline all types of workflows beyond traditional project management.

For example, web producers could track video production or social managers could create tailored views to manage campaigns. The possibilities are endless.

5. Airtable

Airtable wins for being extremely adaptable to any use case. It essentially lets you build your own software solution from scratch.

Don‘t want to reinvent the wheel? Airtable offers templates for managing web projects, content production, software releases, real estate listings, and much more.

As a webmaster using WordPress, I leverage Airtable as a turnkey content calendar. The WP plugin lets me schedule and manage posts right from Airtable‘s interface.

You can connect Airtable to other website tools too, like analytics for performance tracking or your CRM to track interactions.

The learning curve is steeper than other options here. But once you build out an Airtable solution for your needs, it can be a total game-changer for organizing workflow.

Project Management Tools for Marketing and Creative Teams

For website owners with in-house or freelance creative teams, the following options prioritize easy collaboration:

6. Teamwork

Teamwork stands out for facilitating collaboration with clients and coworkers. Comments, video chat, markups, and session recordings make it easy to work together.

Let‘s say you want client feedback on a design mockup. Simply upload it to Teamwork, @mention the client, and they can instantly provide feedback right on the image.

As a webmaster, I appreciate that it directly integrates with WordPress. You can manage tasks and track time right from your WP dashboard.

For creative agencies and web marketing teams, Teamwork also offers extensive reporting on project performance. Their charts give teams insights into budgets, billable hours, and delivery timelines.

7. Wrike

Wrike caters squarely to digital marketing and creative teams. It‘s oriented around visual content, design reviews, and asset proofing.

For collaborating with clients on website designs, content, and branding, Wrike delivers. Features like real-time co-editing allow you to work side-by-side on copy docs and presentations.

What I like most about Wrike are the tools to manage workload. As a webmaster, monitoring the team‘s bandwidth is crucial to meet deadlines.

Their analytics offer a bird‘s eye view into capacity planning and whether your team is stretched thin across too many tasks.

The main downside is the price point. Wrike‘s plans are costly compared to other featured options on this list. Their free version is limited as well.

8. ProofHub

ProofHub strikes a nice balance of being intuitive enough for everyday users while still offering enterprise-level functionality.

As a webmaster who works with remote freelancers often, ProofHub makes it easy to collaborate across time zones.

Team members can @mention others and hold discussions right in tasks about blockers or next steps. You have full context instead of relying on fragmented email chains.

For client work, ProofHub offers proofing and review tools. Stakeholders can annotate designs, provide comments, and give final approvals all in one place.

Their essentials plan starts at $45/month including unlimited users, tasks, and projects. It works well for small teams that need to streamline collaboration above all else.

Top Task Software for Developers

For webmasters with in-house or contracted development teams, consider these specialized options:

9. Jira

Jira is built for agile software teams. It plans roadmaps, manages issues and bugs, and facilitates Scrum sprints.

As a webmaster, I rely on Jira most for product development. When redesigning a website or launching a new SaaS app, Jira helps coordinate all the intricate dependencies.

Your development team can break down larger epics into digestible user stories. As work is completed in each sprint, new issues and requirements come to light.

Jira gives total visibility into tracking what‘s fixed, what‘s next, and the team‘s velocity.

The one big downside is that Jira isn‘t exactly user-friendly. There can be a steep learning curve compared to other project management tools. But it‘s a powerful solution for development teams once you get the hang of it.

Jira Software is free for up to 10 users – reasonable for most small developer teams. From there, pricing scales based on users and add-ons.

10. Scoro

If your website relies on both creators and developers, Scoro could be the solution your team needs.

Scoro combines task management with project planning, billing, and reporting. For webmasters, this consolidates all the tools needed to manage projects end-to-end.

Your creative team can organize tasks and collaborate on deliverables in Scoro. Then when it‘s time for development work, tasks can be marked "In Development" with notes for the technical team.

From a business operations standpoint, Scoro allows you to generate job quotes, track budgets versus actuals, bill clients, process payments, and more.

While Scoro isn‘t solely focused on development teams, it‘s a uniquely holistic solution for web companies relying on both creators and developers.

Honorable Mentions

Here are a few other options I considered:

• Trello – A popular starter option many teams love for simplicity
• Notion – Flexible for managing knowledge and workflows
• Podio – Great custom fields and automation
• MeisterTask – Intuitive kanban boards with useful integrations
• Quire – Simple, affordable, great for small dev teams
• Avaza – Combines task management with time tracking and billing
• Paymo – Tracks time and expenses against tasks
• Bitrix24 – Social collaboration combined with task management

How Do You Determine the Right Task Management Software?

With so many options on the market, here is my 5-step checklist as a webmaster to pick the best solution for your website or digital brand:

1. Integrations

The tool should integrate seamlessly with the other platforms you rely on to run your site – email, analytics, CRM, Slack, etc. This saves you from having to manually cross-reference data across apps.

2. Learning Curve

Some project management platforms take a while to master. Others offer intuitive interfaces you can pick up quickly.

Trello, Asana, Airtable tend to be easier for everyday users compared to more complex tools like Jira.

3. Use Case

Certain solutions are tailored to specific team needs. Jira helps dev teams build software, Hive suits agency collaboration, Monday.com tracks detailed roadmaps.

Outline your team‘s responsibilities and must-have features before deciding.

4. Onboarding and Support

Even user-friendly software benefits from quality onboarding and customer support.

Look for live chat, phone support, video tutorials, community forums, and other enablement resources.

5. Pricing

Pricing ranges widely from free plans up to enterprise-level quote-based pricing.

Determine if it‘s worth investing in premium capabilities now that you‘ll grow into versus starting free and upgrading over time.

Get More Organized With Task Management Software

As a webmaster, implementing the right task management tool can make a world of difference for you and your team’s productivity.

Suddenly you have total clarity into who is doing what and when. Your team spends time on the high-impact tasks that actually move the needle for your website.

Meetings become more efficient and strategic when you easily pick up past conversations in centralized tasks. Dependencies get mapped out so work happens in the proper sequence.

While all the options in this guide will organize your workflows better than no tool at all, I recommend Asana as the best bet for most websites and digital brands.

Asana strikes the perfect balance of being easy to use out-of-the-box yet still robust. It keeps your team aligned to overall goals and strategies for your online business.

No matter which solution you choose, I wish you and your team the all best as you grow your online presence and take your business to the next level this year! Let me know if I can help explain anything in more detail.