Tools I love

There are so many tools out there, how can you keep track of what’s good and worth experimenting with? Because they do all take so much time, don’t they? To investigate and have a go with.

So here’s my (growing) list of what I use on a daily – or at least frequent – basis. Any time I add something exciting, I’ll mention it in my weekly emails, so make sure you’re signed up to my free newsletter.

Website technical help

The tools in this section help with monitoring or creating technical things that would be complicated to create yourself. (This doesn’t include tools that actually create websites, I’ll add a section on them asap.)

AiProfiles

Our own inhouse tool, of my devising, so of course I love it – a super easy way for non-coders to have a page of structured data about their business, complete with LLMS.txt file. You simply fill in a form, which asks the best questions that ChatGPT wants to know the answers to, and it generates you a page of structured data in schema.org mark up. Let the robots know everything you want them to know, for SEO and GEO (AI).
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SiteVitals

So this one hasn’t officially launched to the public yet, it’s a tool we’ve built and use inhouse to monitor our client’s sites – it tells us when things go down, or their performance slows, or they have a SEO blip, or a security issue crops up. If you’d like to be on the free tier when we make it open to the public, please leave your name on our waiting list.
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GA4

You need to be careful that you get your site visitors to opt in to you tracking their actions, but if you want statistics on who’s visiting your website, then GA4 (Google Analytics 4) is your tool. Some people will scoff that this is on the list, but if you’re new to all things website, you genuinely might not have heard of it – and you need to.
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Google Search Console

Run by Google (as the name suggests) this gives you insight into what Google thinks of your site, if anything is going wrong, and lets you dig into what’s working from a search engine optimisation point of view. Take what it says with a pinch of salt – you probably don’t need to pay a developer to make everything perfect as some of the things it raises aren’t really important, but it’s still a valuable tool.
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Matomo

Very thorough analytics / reporting which we use when we need to crunch and analyse a lot of data (beyond what you can do for free on GA4). Matomo though is also great because you can install it locally on your own server so you’re not sharing data with another company / dropping 3rd party cookies – so if privacy is a concern, Matomo trumps GA4.
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FFmpeg

If we need to convert or condense video files, this is what we use. We often also set it up on a server so a website can manage large files or carry out conversions and compressions programmatically. Not super super relevant to this section, and a little too technical, but I probably won’t have anywhere else to put it. And as a great free tool, it deserves a shout out.
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SEO and content tools

Arguably, the ones above are in part SEO tools, but these are a few more. I’ve linked content and SEO together, because the reason I use these content tools is for SEO.
A reminder of the tools above that are also good for SEO: AiProfiles, SiteVitals, GA4, GSC

AlsoAsked

This brilliant website tells you what people also searched for when they searched for your topic. So if you are writing an article about a topic, you enter your keyword/phrase into AlsoAsked, and it returns a host of related phrases that people have really truly searched Google for, in connection to your topic. It’s free for a few goes a day.
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Headline Studio

This tool (which has a free tier) analyses the words in your headline to help you make it punchier or more emotive – or whatever it deems it needs to be to get a better CTR (click through rate). It helps you craft title tags that people will want to click on when they see them in Google.
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Ahrefs

A massive piece of SEO software (that has a free tier) that helps you dive deep into everything to do with your website, with a new set of AI tools for tracking your visibility in AI too. There’s too much to say about Ahrefs so have a read through their features. I particularly like the tools that help you analyse your competitors approach.
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SEMRush

SEMRush is in the same camp as Ahrefs (somewhere I’ve written some notes comparing the 2 so I’ll dig those out for a future newsletter). But something I’ve used of theirs recently is their free toxic backlink report so as to help a client detect and eliminate back links which were damaging their SEO.
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Reddit really isn’t a SEO tool, but I’m putting it here because I won’t have another place to put it, and I use it so as to build credibility and citations so as to get myself and our work mentioned by ChatGPT. Read my article about it here.
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Iszy

Another inhouse tool of ours, Iszy is designed to help you collect content from a dispersed team – maybe a workforce “on the ground” or a team of volunteers. It was originally devised (by me!) to help a Ski School who wanted to create more blog posts of stories about the day to day adventures of their ski instructors who were also busy out on the slopes.
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Project management and organisation tools

These are the tools that keep 18a (and my holiday packing, to be honest) ticking over smoothly. Keeping projects running to budget and timescales. In case you’re wondering, Monday.com didn’t make the cut here I’m afraid – we used it for a while, and still do for 1 client, but there’s a lot I don’t like about it, mainly the price.

Trello

Basically, lists of things you can arrange across boards and tick off / set timescales for / assign to people. We used to use this – then switched to Monday – then came back again and I think we’ll stay here for a while. The thing with trello is that it’s SOOO versatile it can be a bit confusing to think how to start – you could spend ages setting up your boards and then reconfiguring them. But once you find something that fits, it’s great I think. I’ll do a blog post about how we use it soon.
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Google Meet

No cut off after 45mins on the free tier (like Zoom), no missions with logging in and restricted features unless you download clunky software (like Teams) – just free, easy, in-browser (nothing to download) video calls. I also use (free) Gmail for my email and it’s my filing cabinet.
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Google Docs

I do pay for a license for Microsoft Office so I can open docs people send me, and I still love “real” PowerPoint when it comes to presentations, but for creating and sharing spreadsheets, it’s Google Docs all the way. Our company timesheet, which counts down available hours per client, is Google. As is a presentation we update with pretty graphs for a client just by updating figures in a table each month.
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AvailabilityCal

Another inhouse tool we built to solve a problem we had with booking calls when people from different companies are involved – it can get so time consuming checking everyone’s availability! AvailabilityCal syncs with my Google Calendar, and I can share a link with whoever I want (and set an expiry date on that link). If they sign up – and my clients have – then I can toggle-on their calendar over my calendar and honestly it is SOOO easy then to just see when we both have a gap. Obviously it doesn’t show the details of what you’ve got booked on your calendar, it’s not going to tell everyone when you’re going to the doctors, but it just shows the chunks of time you’re not available.
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Loom

A picture paints a thousand words. But a video just lets you show your web developer what the problem is. Or let’s them show you how to use something. And Loom lets you easily create and share short little videos from recording your screen, but with your face (if you choose) and voice (if you choose) so you can be explaining something. If you’re not so great at explaining issues you’ve encountered, or you find you’re going back and forth with a developer, try a Loom video. I use the free tier.
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Creative tools

I’ve been a lover of Adobe Photoshop for well over 20 years, but it’s getting expensive and there are lots of other options out there now, so here are some to keep in mind…

Canva

My new absolute FAVE!!! You can spend hours getting lost in your own creative flow in Canva, especially when they give you a free trial of premium. It’s so easy to create great looking social posts, or print work. I’ve used it for PTFA posters, website graphics and a LOT of my posts on my @talking.web Insta.
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Affinity…

Not officially on this list yet as I haven’t used it… but am expecting great things so will report back once I’ve had a play.

Free stock photo websites

My faves are Pexels and Unsplash if you want to use photograph on your website or socials (or anywhere else) that is free (as long as you don’t put it on a tea towel and sell it). I also have always liked iStockPhoto – but they’re not free.

Pixlr

I’ll be honest, since stopping my Photoshop subscription, I’m using good ol’ paint quite a lot! But when I’ve needed a bit more, I’ve turned to Pixlr.com for a free online Photoshop.
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MidJourney

If you’re after AI generated images, Tom has had a lot of great results with MidJourney. Yes, it can be incredibly frustrating and yes it often gives people 6 fingers or has weird animals in the background – but can it can be amazing. Check out his Instagram for his children’s sci-fi book if you want to see what it can create.
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Figma

I don’t love Figma, but I haven’t used it loads. But lately it’s been our designer Jon’s tool of choice for designing websites. And I rate his opinion, so it’s on my list! And it’s free.
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Websites that put you in touch with journalists

I’m on mailing lists for all of these sites – and yes, it’s a full time job replying, but if you get chance, it can give you some great coverage.

Editorielle – from £10pm. I’ve used this for a few months now and whilst it has lots of interesting requests every day, lots are around beauty and fashion, so not really my remit. I might cancel my subscription as my inbox is BURSTING with all of these press emails at the moment so I’ll stick with the free ones. But if you’re a UK based PR or lifestyle/beauty brand, this is a nice service with lots of opportunities.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) – this closed down for a while but is back in business, after it was taken over by Featured. It’s free and is a great resource. You get daily emails with details of stories journalists are currently working on so that you can email back your “pitch”.

Featured – has a free tier, and a great interface for seeing what’s been accepted. You can then pay monthly or just top up with credits if there’s something else you want to pitch on. Again, you get emails with stories that you might be interested in contributing to (because you tell Featured about your niche).

Qwoted – Extremely comprehensive with the ability to follow journalists and search for things of interest, as well as setting up email alerts. It’s targeted at showing people you’re an expert – rather than some others can just be looking for “person on the street” kind of opinions. It allows you to build a profile and keep in touch with journalists.

SourceBottle – Australian – again, free to build a profile, say what you’re an expert in, and receive email alerts.

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