Resources

 

Small Business Resources & Tools

These tools for entrepreneurs and startups are resources for entrepreneurs looking for marketing & social media tools, free email marketing tools, and even data science tools for their business website. A majority are free to use, some require a fee. The important thing is that these business tools act as a collection of resources that we know small business websites can benefit from. Research competitive intelligence, refine conversion rate optimization, and use a few to have fun. As the premier web hosting provider for small businesses, we know what we’re talking about!

   Competitive Intelligence

      
  • Similarweb Analyze your website data, or look at a competitor’s site data            
  • Alexa Search the rankings of your website and competitor websites            
  • Ahrefs This tool checks for backlinks and explores a website’s data              
  • SEM Rush Learn where your competitors are ranking for keywords, and see their traffic         

    Conversion Rate Optimization    

  • Optimizely Have different ideas for optimizing a webpage? Change them without a programmer   
  • Hello Bar A/B test your website’s content, CTAs and copy with this tool          
  • HotJar Find out where your customers are clicking the most, with heatmaps & more             
  • Google KeyWord Planner The greatest free resource to help you find keywords and how they perform on the Internet        
  • Down For Everyone or Just Me? Check if your website is really down for everyone, or it’s just you         
  • Qualaroo Create popup surveys for your website to ask important questions to your visitors
  •  Unit Converter

    Data Science for Business       

  • Wetransfer Transfer up to 2 GB of data for free        
  • Nibbler Test your website and get a good overview of the navigation       
  • Bitly Shorten any URL – and track your link performance
  • Google Analytics Get detailed insights about your website like traffic, referrals, and organic searches      
  • Feedly Save article and online content to view later – organized in one place    
  • Google Trends Find out what the Internet is searching for

    Email Marketing Tools         

  • MailChimp Send 12,000 emails a month for free using MailChimp’s vast email marketing tools      
  • Aweber The original autoresponder email service provider.
  • Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin popularly used to collect emails from a contact form
  • SumoMe List Builder Build your email list with this email pop up tool

    Finance & Budgeting Tools

  • SlimVoice Simple invoices to create online           
  • Mint Manage your personal finances, and stay up to date with your credit score        
  • Xero Want to manage your accounting online as an alternative to Quickbooks? Try XeroGusto Make paying your employees and freelancers easier
  • Coffitivity Love the sound of a coffee shop? Stream the sounds of one!
  • A Soft Murmur Stream the sounds of rain, fire, and even a singing bowl while you work
  • Spotify Everyone needs a great set of their favorite jams in one place – keep working while groovin’
  • Sporcle Need a break, but still want your  mind to be active? Try Sporcle’s database of mind games and trivia

    Marketing Tools

  • Blog Topic Generator Don’t know what to blog about? Let HubSpot’s tool find one for you  
  • Meme Generator Generate the internet’s most popular graphics with a click of a button
  • Withoomph Instant Logo Design on demand
  • Portent Create titles for your content marketing articles and blogs            
  • Woorank Check your website’s SEO and digital marketing potential
  • Pablo Create quote posters and simple ads using Pablo
  • The Noun Project Find icons for everything – use them for your graphics or marketing
  • Manta Capture leads, market your business, and implement push/pull marketing
  • Favicon Generator Generate your logo into a favicon
  • Material Up Browse different designs by freelancers to inspire your next project               
  • Crayon Find popular Marketing Designs on Crayons.co              
  • One Page Love Sift through “one-page” website designs to inspire your next project              
  • Boots Watch Look through free themes created specifically for BootStrap             
  • Logaster Look through logos, or create your own for free. Be generic or original
  • Invoice to Me Need a free template to generate invoices? Use this tool
  • Templated 850+ CSS and HTML5 Site templates for free
  • WordPress Do we need to say much more? WordPress is the most popular CMS on the Internet. And it’s free
  • I So Republic Free images for creatives and designs
  • Fontello Free icons for your website, pages or posts
  • GrassHopper Turn your cell phone into an 800 number for business calls

    Online Business Course

  • We Video Create and edit videos to upload and use for marketing and distribution
  • SkillShare Learn new skills, and find new ways to get creative with free online classes
  • Khan Academy Access a world of free education from digital marketing to programming
  • Coursera Take courses from the world’s top 80+ universities for free
  • Code Academy Learn how to code Java or Python so that you create your own apps; or just to learn the lingo
  • Start Up Talks Watch entrepreneurs, startup founders, & investors talk business and provide tips
  • Rocket Ship Watch entrepreneurs, startup founders, & investors talk business and provide tips

    Project Management Tools

  • Trello An easy to use Project Management tool. Manage projects, ideas, and teams
  • EverNote Not only a digital notepad, but a document and content organizer
  • Google Drive Share files, stories, designs, photos, and have documents with real-time editing with your teams
  • HipChat Chat with your team(s) and categorize team members
  • Join.Me Combine screen sharing and host digital meetings
  • DropBox An on-the-go cloud storage for businesses with 2GB of storage
  • Shake Law Always protect yourself with contracts, and agreements that you can generate for free
  • MyHelpster Hire freelancers and virtual assistants for your work
  • Upwork.com Hire freelances and virtual assistants for any task ready to be done digitally
  • Fiverr.com For five bucks, you can hire data miners, researchers, or graphic artists
  • Slack Collaborate with your team across the globe with Slack
  • YOAST In page – and pre article WordPress SEO plugin
  • Moz Local Make sure that your local community and customers can find you online

    Social Media

  • Social Locker Ask visitors to “pay” for your original content with a “like,” or “tweet”
  • Riffle Profile information on Twitter users that helps increase interaction
  • Redditlater Advises when you should post in a specific subreddit on Reddit.com
  • Buffer A social media management for marketers
  • Spruce Creating quick and easy photos with text for your next viral tweet
  • LaterGram Organize, schedule and manage your Instagram posts efficiently
  • Hoot Suite A classic Social Media Manager dashboard where you can control all your social media accounts
  • RiteTag Shows you the trending hashtags online (namely Twitter) for pre-post research
  • WolFramAlpha Get your Facebook page’s report and see if your efforts are effective
  • LinkedIn Obvious? It better be. Where else can you get access to professionals that you’re trying to reach, for free?

    Stock Photography [Free]

       
  • Stock Snap Free High Resolution Images without copyright restrictions
  • UnSplash Free High Resolution Images without copyright restrictions – Instagram style
  • Gratisography Photos from Ryan McGuire, Free High Resolution Images without copyright restrictions
  • Negative Space Free Photos released under Creative Commons CC0
  • Death to the Stock Photo Get Free photos delivered monthly free of copyright restrictions, or sign up to get them all for a price

    Web Design Tools      

               
  • Placeit Simple mockups for smartphones, tablets, and much more    
  • Pic Monkey Edit photos with designs, and touch ups – or make photo collages  
  • Sessions Color Calculator Synchronize colors, and explore new color combinations
  • Moqups Mock up new ideas for your teams and create wireframes
  • Freebbble Free designs, mockups, vector images, and icons
  • Dribbble.com Free designs, mockups, vector images, and icons
  • Graphic Burger Find free UI Kits, Icons, text effects, mockups and more
  • Pikto Chart Infographics, the best marketing tools – learn how to make them quickly and easily
  • Tech and All Tech news with vetted lists of free design resources
  • UI Space Free PSDs, mockups, text treatments, font treatments, icons, +more
  • Material Palette Define a palette for your website and lock in your style
  • Couleurs Download this app and you can “eyedrop” any colors on your screen
  • Paletton Find your color and read the corresponding hex codes to use for your graphic assets
  • 1001 Free Fonts Look for, and find your website’s style in the realm of fonts
  • GIMP Freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring
  • Pixlr Edit photos and images within your browser with this robust tool
  • Social Image Resizer Tool Need to readjust a photo quickly for Social Media? This is your tool