Build small tools

We're now at a point where there is so much content being produced that search engines don't know what to do with it all. They're giving priority to big publications and it's stamping out the little guys.

But that's where we as builders and developers have an edge and we can grow both our skills as well as our outreach.

You've maybe heard of people saying "build tools for growth", and I agree. It's a great way to get eyeballs on a tangentially relevant page of yours.

Some of my best performing blog posts have been as a result of building 50 line js tools. I'm a back-end developer by nature, however by building small SEO focused tools I've become quicker and better with front-end related work. If you're not a developer, this could be your time to learn and take the first step too.

What do I mean by "small tools"

Anything! Really, anything that is somewhat relevant to your project, business, or employment.

For example, I run a website called Temp Mail Detector. It's an API which tells you whether a domain is likely to be a disposable email service or not. Something relevant to the website would be a free tool that allows me to look up the Mail Exchanger (MX) record.

How did I come up with it? Simple. I was often googling for MX lookup tools and they didn't really offer me great UX, or they needed captchas, or were slow.

So I wrote a few lines of Go to do the actual hard work, threw together something simple to surface the data - and now I have a "small tool" which is both useful to me, and people who find me on Google. This is my MX Lookup tool. As you can see, very simple - but it has a purpose and most importantly, it's useful.

Was it fun to do? Sure. Was it complex? Not at all. Did I learn a few things along the way? Absolutely.

If you're a beginner, this is such a great way to get into coding. It'll help your website grow, and you'll expose yourself to lots of different coding problems.

I'm interested to hear if any builders have tried this method? If anything, it's a nice way to do something different from the day to day.