golles

Originally Posted by golles

Hi

I though it may be worth a quick post to share some of the tools we have built up over our time on the internet. Focused on website / domain investment. I have been earning a living on the web through one form or another since 2002 and many of these tools have been found along the way. I know when I was starting out the lack of tools was a hindrance so I hope this list helps those on the early part of their web career as I sure the seasoned professionals have most of these in daily use already.

I haven't linked to the tools, but you can Google and quickly find them if you are interested.

In no particular order.

• artisteer - site development this is in no way leading web design / development tool BUT it is extremely useful for quick site makeovers and especially useful for non technical people. It allows you to create a layout then automatically generate a theme / template etc for popular content management systems - wordpress, joomla, drupal etc or static html
• Content Management System - Wordpress - can be a royal pain managing a multitude of sites on a CMS especially when their updates etc, but wordpress is about the most flexible and easiest to use with some great plugins.
• Xenu Link Sleuth - spiders a site and grab a list of page s/ urls, status codes, broken links, title tags etc and allows generation of a site map - great for du-diligence work when buying a site and seeing some quick wins from an on page SEO factor.
• Screaming Frog Spider - as per xenu but with a few more features - free up to 500 pages - then will need paid version.
• SEO Tool Bar from SEOBook - firefox toolbar allows quick sense check on any site from and SEO perspective
• Chrome Extension - SEO Site Tools - as per SEO Book tool bar but does same things in Chrome
• Chrome Extension - Chrome SEO - As above just by a different provider.
• Firebug - firefox / chrome plugin that allows analysis of web page analysing html, javascript, css and page load time with extra page load plugin.
• Web developer toolbar for Firefox - as per firebug with a few different features too.
• Rank Checker from SEObook - for quick and dirty keyword rank checking for a particular site.
• Advanced Web Ranking - more advanced website rank reporting (this is a paid tool and quite expensive). We also run a very small SEO agency and use this tool for ranking reports for clients. It is very extensive and powerful.
• Roboform - password management and a host more - I literally couldn't live without this.
• MySQL Administrator - use for administering databases and create autobackup schedules for databases from your PC.
• Filezilla - FTP client.
• Tweetdeck - although we are not huge social media players you cant avoid it these days - tweetdeck allows us to manage multiple twitter (and other) accounts from one place.
• Camtasia Studio - allows for very professional looking screencasts - we use this mainly for tutorials but may be of use dependant on your web business model (paid tool).
• Notepad++ - great simple text editor.
• PDF Creator - generate pdf from anything - installs as an extra printer and literally anything you can print you can turn into a pdf.
• Sizer - allows you to see what youe website looks like at different screen sizes.
• Faststone Photo Resizer - it me me literally years to find this tool. Bulk image resizing and optimisation - amazing software.
• Skype - for the obvious.
• WinHtTrack - allows copying of an entire website - great if you have just purchased a domain and content - quick way of getting all the content copied. Or if you are moving a site to a new domain etc.
• Winmerge - for comparing two text files - we use for comparing files for things like version upgrades a and looking for changes. It has a multitude of other use too.
• Winrar - winzip alternative with a few more features.
• network-tools.com - find anything you need to about a domain, ownership, technical / server setup etc.
• domaintools.com - as above
• google keyword tool - keyword research - we have nothing as good for keyword research - any other suggestions?
• domainlore - uk domain drop / auction
• freshdrop - find recently dropped international domains.
• outlook - email - yes we still use it I am looking for better ways to manage email - but not found one that we are 100% happy with.
• ietester - test your wesbite on all versions of internet explorer
• paypal - for obvious
• escrow.com - for obvious
• odesk/elance/scriptlance/99designs - for all the stuff we don't want to do or can't do in house.
• 123-reg / moniker / godaddy - for some domain name registration management.
• opensrs - we have a reseller account with tucows under their opensrs platform for some domain name registration and management.
• dropbox - sharing files on occasion.
• graphic river / themeforest other envato sites - for quick graphics / themes etc.
• textbroker - for quick and dirty content creation - not exceptional but serves a purpose on some occasions.
• majestic seo - paid for tool but handy for backlink checking and analysis.
• open site explorer - as per majestic seo
• gravity forms - wordpress plugin for form creation

ok, this is getting too long.......that's enough to start things off - there are a few other bits but nothing out of the ordinary.

what tools do you use?