Useful Tools & Links
Love it, like it, link it…
As someone who has spent a great deal of time on the internet, often hopping between computers, I've tittle-tattled with a treasure trove of tools in my ongoing pursuit of organisational zen. Many of these tools such as Xmarks, Delicious and now Pocket, have come and gone.
Browser bookmark synchronisation is always an option, however I've become adverse to becoming overly dependent on 3rd party software.
This is partly a case study in how a beloved service can be acquired and eroded, and partly a genuine question. What is the current state of online bookmarking for you?
The aftertaste of something Delicious
Digital bookmarking is neccesary. Over-organising genuinely excites that OCD bit of my brain. because I think most if not all existing options for it fall well short of the functionality I wish existed — and that I think could exist.
One of the first online bookmarking services I used was Delicious, and for a few years it was irreplaceable. However it languished after being bought by Yahoo and then resold, and I've watched its slow and steady decline from afar ever since.
When Delicious was first launched, it was the first use of the term "tag" in the modern sense, and it was the first explicit opportunity where website users were given the ability to add their own tags to their bookmarks so that they could more easily search for them at a later time.
I hadn't realised that Delicious was actually the first to introduce the concept of user-controlled tagging for bookmarks. That is a significant piece of web history, and the quiet way it slipped from relevance makes it all the more worth documenting.
AddThis
AddThis was a social sharing and engagement platform that allowed website owners to easily add share buttons, follow buttons and related content widgets to their sites. These tools enabled visitors to share content across social networks with a single click, covering platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and WhatsApp.
AddThis was a free service, but it has since been terminated by Oracle. All services were officially shut down on 31 May 2023.
Its disappearance is another data point in a longer pattern: free tools that embed deeply into millions of websites tend to end badly for the sites that depend on them. Worth bearing in mind when evaluating any third-party widget or service, however convenient it appears at the time.
Ideation Analysis: Market & Competitor Research Tools
- Google Trends or Google UK Trends
- AnswerThePublic: market, customer & content research
- Wolfram Alpha
- Quantcast
- MSN AdLabs Demographics Prediction Tool
Statistics & Data
Starting a Business: UK Resources
- Business.gov.uk: Starting a Business in the UK
- UKRI: Apply to Become an Eligible Organisation
- Innovate UK: Apply for Innovation Funding
- Enterprise Nation: Small Business Support & Community
- Startups.com: Resources for Founders
Accounts and Finance
Productivity Tools
- WeTransfer: Send big or small files from A to B.
- Dropbox: Bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.
User Research, Testing & Feedback
- SurveyMonkey
- LimeSurvey
- Pardot
- CrowdScience
- UserVoice
- Kampyle
- ConceptFeedback
- GetSatisfaction
- Remote Usability UX Tools
- Foviance
- TouchGraph
- Hotjar: Website Heatmaps & Behaviour Analytics Tools
- Crazy Egg: Website Heatmaps, Recordings, Surveys & A/B Testing
Website Submission
- StatCounter: Search Engine Market Share
- Google Search Console
- Google: Add URL Tool
- Bing (and Yahoo) Webmaster Tools
- Open Directory Project
You do not submit websites directly to DuckDuckGo because it uses a variety of other sources for its search results, notably Bing and its own crawler, DuckDuckBot. To get your site indexed, submit it to Bing using Bing Webmaster Tools. Also, ensure your site is technically sound and accessible to DuckDuckBot by creating a clear sitemap and using good SEO practices.
When submitting your sitemap via Bing Webmaster Tools, note that Ecosia doesn't have a separate submission process or its own crawler, so improving your visibility on Bing will automatically improve your site's presence on Ecosia.
SEO
- Google Marketing Platform
- Google Analytics
- Google Analytics Help
- Google Search Console
- Google Structured Data Testing Tool
- Clicky: Privacy-friendly Website Analytics
- Google Ads Keyword Planner
- Keyword Tool
- Semrush Keyword Generator
- Wordtracker: Keyword Research Tool
- SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool
- Moz SEO Tools
- Moz: Backlink Explorer
Commercial: SEO Tools
- Ahrefs: Marketing Intelligence Tools Powered by Big Data
- Semrush: Suite of SEO and Online Marketing Tools
- LowFruits: Analyse the SERPs Faster, Find Weak Spots
Technical Performance Analysis
- Google PageSpeed
- WebPageTest: Performance and Optimisation
- GTmetrix: Website Speed and Performance Report
- KeyCDN Speed Test
- Pingdom Speed Test
Code Analysis
Asset Optimisation
Design & Development Resources
- Tailwind CSS: A Utility-First CSS Framework
- Apollo GraphQL: Platform for building GraphQL APIs
- Remix Icon: Open source icon library
- Helsinki Design System: Open source design system reference
- Locofy.ai: Design-to-code AI tool
- Designmodo Startup: Bootstrap builder for templates and themes
- CSS-Tricks: Front-end development reference and articles
Email Admin and Troubleshooting
- MXToolbox
- Google Admin Toolbox: Check MX
- Google Admin Toolbox: Dig
- Google Admin Toolbox: Message Header Analyser
- Google: Help prevent spoofing, phishing, and spam
Server Admin
- Monit: Open source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems.
- Munin: Resource monitoring tool.
- Jenkins: Open source automation server.
- Apache JMeter: Load and performance testing application.
- Google for Developers: Make the Web Faster.
- Project Honey Pot: Spam, Online Fraud & Abuse.
- 20i: WordPress, Website and Reseller Web Hosting, VPS.
Commercial: Cloud and DevOps
Website Uptime Monitoring
Shaun Knowles is a Creative Developer at Primitive, he helps people just like you.