Are you a newbie website developer looking for free tools to improve your website? Look no further.
I’ve been building a website for the past year, and it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be! There are several “tricks of the trade” that no one tells you about. How do you write concise content? What about search engine optimization (SEO)?
Below are my favorite free tools that I use to improve the design, content, and SEO of my website.
1. Swipewell Marketing Examples
Need website design inspiration? Design is still tough for me especially because I don’t have a traditional background in web development. To spark inspiration, I use these marketing examples by Swipewell. Find examples of numerous web pages including about, pricing, and landing pages. In fact, I built this landing page based on an example SaaS competitor comparison page from Swipewell.
No need to reinvent the wheel. Use Swipewell to quickly search for relevant marketing examples.
2. Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway Editor is my secret to writing clear, concise content. Simply, copy and paste your text to the app. The editor will then highlight in yellow any difficult-to-read sentences. It will highlight in red any very difficult-to-read sentences. Additionally, it highlights adverbs, passive voice, and phrases with easier-to-understand alternatives.
The editor also gives your writing a “readability” score based on grade level. You may think writing at a higher grade level is best. But, it often means more complicated writing that will be difficult for the reader to follow. I always try to aim for Grade 6 readability or less.
This is a great tool to use to shorten and clarify any content on your website, especially landing page copy. The more concise you can make your landing page copy, the easier it’ll be for your reader to understand. Concise copy also makes it more likely that a reader will keep reading instead of bouncing due to frustration.
3. Undraw Illustrations
Let’s be clear, I understand that websites should include images relevant to your business or product. But, that’s not always easy to do. That’s why I use Undraw for any stock illustrations that I need.
Undraw lets you search for any illustrations that you want! You can also change the color of the images to match your existing website UI. The images are clean and classic, perfect for any website.
Undraw is also an open-source platform, so you can use any of their illustrations for free. No need for attribution either (of course, unless you want to!) Fun fact, the illustration for this blog post is from Undraw.
4. Google Lighthouse
Lighthouse is a free, open-source tool. It rates website performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and progressive web app (PWA) on a scale of 0 to 100.
The easiest way to use Lighthouse is to install it as a Chrome extension. Navigate to the website you want Lighthouse to review and click generate a report. Ta-da! It creates a free report with your website scores. Click on each score to see suggestions for improvement.
Don’t worry about scoring 100 in every category. Take the Lighthouse scores with a grain of salt and fix any issues that you can. I like to use Lighthouse to find any major issues with my website.
5. AHREFs
AHREFs is an “all-in-one SEO toolset” that you can buy to improve your website's SEO. But, there’s a secret. AHREFs offers a free website checker tool. First, input your website address. The tool will then check for website health, performance issues, technical problems, and SEO issues.
This is the best free SEO tool I’ve found! It provides extensive information in an easy-to-read format. If you’re not quite ready to pay for an SEO tool, I recommend checking it out.
Caitlin Fithian spent over 10 years working as an environmental consultant before becoming a SAHM in 2020. She is working to make a career change to tech. Currently, she works part-time for Simple File Upload as a marketing strategist. Follow her journey here or on Twitter as she learns more about marketing and no code while raising two small kids.
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