Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting president of Click Rain, Paul Ten Haken. Click Rain just opened doors a few weeks ago servicing a niche in the web market that is right up my alley - online marketing.
We swapped ideas about how to make web sites work for businesses; processes and methods too often overlooked by web owners thus making their site ineffective. A site without a marketing plan is like whispering into the wind. No one is going to hear you and you’ll loose out.
A marketing plan consists of a variety of solutions (all nicely outlined on Click Rain’s site). So I won’t get into that right now. I promised Paul I would share some of my favorite free web tools with him. So I decided to write it up in a post and share these with everyone.
Unfortunately my “favs” are stored on two computers, so this list will be a little incomplete. But I will update - it’s about time I finally got these pulled together in one place.
A Few of my Favorite Freebies (version 1)
- Google Webmaster - Google is the king daddy of the net and this is a must read for anyone in the web world.
- Google Key Word Tool - you site isn’t anything if the search engines can’t find it. This tool will let you help you find those perfect key words.
- Keyword Tracker - not a freebie, but they do offer a trial version. Find the keywords you need to succeed online.
- Ethnio - a friendly new way to recruit people from your website for research.
- Website Optimizer - Another Google freebie
- Crazy Egg - awesome heat map tool
- Ajax Whois - looking for an open URL?
- Google Analytics - I used a number of analytics tools and this one comes out on top.
- Poll Daddy - create stunning polls and surveys
- Fleck -Add a note to any page, then send it to your friends or use it in a blog
- Foldspy - Different browsers, operating systems, screen sizes and user preferences mean a visitor to your site doesn’t see what you see.
- Denim - An awesome tool to create mock-ups and click-thrus
- Bubbl.us - a simple and free mind-map web application that lets you brainstorm online.
There are quite a few more, so version 2 will be much more complete and far better organized. Enjoy!
October 28th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Well written article.