When you're establishing a web business, you have to be sure
that your most important e-business tools are high-quality,
dependable products and services. But if you're like many new
online entrepreneurs, you're probably curious about the various
free tools and resources you may have heard about or discovered
yourself while surfing the net for information. And you may be
wondering if it's worth your while to give them a try.
My first word of advice on free tools and resources is this:
Always be cautious. Free tools can be unreliable or come with
hidden catches, like requirements that you display certain
advertisements if you use the tool.
However, now that I've told you the downside, there are a
number of very good--and reliable--tools and resources available on
the net that are free. And these can be excellent ways to
complement your existing tools at no cost, helping you make your
site stickier and more user-friendly, make your keywords more
effective, keep an eye on your competition, find potential business
partners, and more.
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Of course, you should still take care in the "free"
world, and always be aware of what you may have to give up--like
reliability--or give over--like advertising space on your site and
potential customers. But the following 12 tools and resources can
be effectively used to give your online business that extra edge
you need to stay ahead of your competition.
1. Free link partner evaluation tool. Alexa provides a
free, downloadable toolbar that opens in your web browser whenever
you're online. The Alexa toolbar is one of the most useful tools around
for online businesses. The most useful feature is a "site
info" option. When you click on this button, Alexa lays out
all the details of the site you're on, including:
- The traffic ranking of the site. This is also listed right on
the toolbar itself.
- A list of related links. Two or three of the most popular links
also appear on the toolbar.
- The number of other sites that link to the site
- The contact information of the site owner
- All site/user reviews
This is the exact information you need when you're
researching high-traffic sites in your industry and considering
link partnerships or joint ventures. You can use this information
to:
- Decide how much you're willing to pay for advertising;
- Make educated decisions about the worth of a joint venture
partner; and
- Determine the credibility and perceived value of the site.
The list of related links--which also has its own button on the
toolbar--is an excellent way for you to find other popular or
similar sites that might be good linking partners or joint venture
partners. Use this list to determine other popular sites that your
target market visits. Start by looking at your own site with
Alexa's toolbar, and see what related links are suggested. The
toolbar also contains a Google search option, so you can jump
directly into a search without having to leave the page you're
on.
If you prefer not to download the toolbar, you can still take
advantage of these features right from Alexa's site
2. Free market research tool. When you're building a
successful online business, you'll probably need to spend hours
at a time researching your competitors and your target market and
looking for new product ideas. The good news is that there are some
nifty free tools available on the Google Toolbar
that can make this whole process faster and a lot more productive.
(Be sure to check the "Enable Advanced Features" option
when you download it to enable all the options.) Take a look at
some of these options:
- "Google Groups" search: This is great for product or
market research, as you can search for your keywords within the
thousands of Google Groups online and find forums relevant to your
site. By checking these forums regularly, you'll get to know
what's important to the people in your target market.
- "Search News": This feature lets you find news
stories relevant to your website, e-zine or blog within news pages
indexed by Google. It's great for sparking content ideas or
just keeping up with the latest developments in your market or
industry.
- "Web Directory" search: This option lets you search
Google's directory for sites that match your search terms.
It's ideal for finding out how many competitors you may have
for a new product and for seeking out potential linking
partners.
- "Search Froogle": Froogle lets online shoppers search
for products and compare prices. It displays pictures, prices and
links to online stores in the results, so you can use it to quickly
research how the pricing of your products or services compares with
other offerings across the Web. If you have an idea for a new
product, Froogle is a great place to check out your potential
competitors.
Once you get the hang of them, these powerful tools can become a
great asset to your business, as they can save you hours spent on
research--leaving you more time to concentrate on developing new
products, new marketing strategies and other ways to boost your
profits.
3. Free image-reducing tool and free "tool kit"
trials.NetMechanic is a tool kit resource, offering a
number of free trials that are great for easily locating potential
problems with your site and repairing them quickly. With this tool,
you can address such problems as:
- HTML code errors
- Browser display problems
- Lengthy load times
- Broken links
- Site downtime
Some of these tools will even give you a free monthly update!
However, you'll get a limited version of each tool unless
you're willing to pay the fee. But NetMechanic's
image-reducing tool, GIFbot, is totally free and is a particularly
useful resource.
Using GIFBot is an excellent way to reduce the file size of your
images so your web pages load faster--and you don't lose those
impatient surfers. Image files can be reduced by as much as 50 to
85 percent in many cases, and it's so easy to do that nowadays
you'll look totally unprofessional with huge, lagging image
files that take forever to load on your site.
4. Free HTML editor and HTML tutorials. You don't
have to spend hundreds of dollars on HTML editors and web design
software to create your own site. Nvu is a
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor that's
similar to FrontPage or Dreamweaver--but completely free to
download. The software allows you to create and manage a
professional-looking website without any knowledge of HTML
programming, and includes the following features:
- WYSIWYG editing of pages, meaning you can see what your web
page will look like as you're creating it
- Integrated file management via FTP, so you can upload your
pages to your web host
- Easy-to-use interface
- Free tutorials
If you're interested in learning how to code HTML yourself,
here are two excellent tutorial and resource sites where you can
learn everything you need to know:
And for those of you who are a little more technically inclined,
you may want to check out some of the many free CGI script
resources out there. Two good places to start are:
5. Free keyword selector tool. Using Yahoo! Search Marketing's Keyword Selector
tool allows you to easily discover which keywords are frequently
searched by web surfers. Type in a term you'd like to target,
and the tool will give you a list of searches that include your
exact term as well as related searches. It will also tell you how
many times those terms were searched in Yahoo! Search Marketing
(formerly Overture) in the last month. A tool like this can help
you optimize your search engine ranking by targeting keywords and
phrases that are frequently searched by the online audience.
6. Free browser compatibility service. The browser
compatibility experts at AnyBrowser offer every tool you'll need to
make your site viewable, as the name suggests, in any browser. The
most useful tool is the "SiteViewer," which allows you to
see your web pages as surfers will see them on multiple browsers.
For example, your site may look different in Netscape Navigator
than it does in Internet Explorer--images may be broken, tables may
shift and so on. With AnyBrowser, you can ensure you meet the needs
of every browser.
You can also make sure your coding checks out and your links
aren't broken, and view an example of how your listing will
appear in the search engines (what description will be used, what
the title will be, and so on).
AnyBrowser is also a great resource directory, pointing you
toward a variety of really useful free tools. It's a great
place to find online HTML tutorials, banner exchanges, CGI scripts
and a ton of free resources such as HTML editors, classifieds,
fonts, graphics, Java scripts, message boards and more.
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