Small Business Web Resources & Tools

A curated collection of tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners — marketing and social media tools, email marketing platforms, competitive research, and more. Most are free to use, some require a paid plan. As a web hosting provider, we know these tools well — this is the shortlist we actually recommend.

AI Tools for Copywriting & Content

Each of these has a free option you can test before you commit.

• Grammarly — spelling, punctuation and grammar help in your browser
• Rytr — draft emails and blog posts
• Anyword — keep your content on-brand
• Wordtune — rewrite and polish text, handy for internal teams and HR
• Simplified — copywriting plus image and video editing in one place
• Text Metrics — SEO optimization made easy
• ProWritingAid — grammar checking and writing style improvement
• Writecream — generate text, audio and images
• QuillBot — rewrite, paraphrase and repurpose content
• DeepL — translate your content into another language
• ContentForge — improve academic and technical content
• Hypotenuse AI — turn a brief or keywords into expanded content

AI Tools for SEO

Some SEO tools with AI features that are worth a try.

• Diib — grow your search rankings
• CanIRank — advanced keyword research
• KeywordTool — keyword ideas built from search suggestions
• Jasper — optimize your web pages
• SEO.ai — generate long-form, SEO-optimized content
• Surfer SEO — research, audit and write SEO articles
• Scalenut — keywords, content briefs and articles

Competitive Intelligence

• SimilarWeb — analyze your website data, or a competitor’s site data
• Ahrefs — check backlinks and explore a website’s data
• SEMrush — see where competitors rank for keywords, and their traffic

Conversion Rate Optimization

• Optimizely — test different page ideas without a programmer
• Hotjar — find out where customers click most, with heatmaps
• Google Keyword Planner — free tool to find keywords and how they perform
• Down For Everyone or Just Me? — check if your site is really down or it’s just you
• Qualaroo — popup surveys to ask visitors important questions

Data & Analytics

• WeTransfer — transfer up to 2GB of data for free
• Bitly — shorten any URL and track link performance
• Google Analytics — detailed insights on traffic, referrals, and organic search
• Feedly — save articles and content to view later, organized in one place
• Google Trends — find out what the internet is searching for

Email Marketing Tools

• MailChimp — email marketing with a generous free tier
• AWeber — a long-standing autoresponder email service
• Contact Form 7 — popular WordPress plugin for collecting emails via forms

Finance & Budgeting

• Xero — online accounting, an alternative to QuickBooks
• Gusto — makes paying employees and freelancers easier

Marketing & Design Tools

• HubSpot Blog Topic Generator — don’t know what to blog about? Let it find one
• Woorank — check your website’s SEO and marketing potential
• The Noun Project — icons for graphics and marketing
• Favicon Generator — turn your logo into a favicon
• WordPress — the most popular CMS on the internet, and it’s free
• Fontello — free icons for your website, pages, or posts

Online Learning

• Skillshare — learn new skills with online classes
• Khan Academy — free education from digital marketing to programming
• Coursera — courses from the world’s top universities, many free
• Codecademy — learn to code, or just learn the basics

Project Management

• Trello — manage projects, ideas, and teams visually
• Evernote — a digital notepad and document organizer
• Google Drive — share files and collaborate with real-time editing
• Dropbox — on-the-go cloud storage for businesses
• Upwork & Fiverr — hire freelancers and virtual assistants for any task
• Slack — collaborate with your team from anywhere
• Yoast SEO — a popular WordPress SEO plugin
• Moz Local — make sure local customers can find you online

Social Media

• Buffer — social media management for marketers
• Hootsuite — a classic dashboard to control all your social accounts
• LinkedIn — connect with professionals in your industry

Free Stock Photography

• Unsplash — free high-resolution images, no copyright restrictions
• StockSnap — free high-resolution images, no copyright restrictions
• Gratisography — free high-resolution images from Ryan McGuire
• Negative Space — free photos released under Creative Commons CC0

Web Design Tools

• Placeit — simple mockups for phones, tablets, and more
• PicMonkey — edit photos and create collages
• Dribbble — free designs, mockups, vector images, and icons
• Paletton — find your color palette and matching hex codes
• 1001 Free Fonts — find the right font for your site’s style
• GIMP — free, full-featured photo editing and image authoring
• Pixlr — edit photos and images right in your browser
• PageSpeed Insights — check your website speed and performance

Want us to just handle the technical side for you instead? Get in touch.