12 Free Tools for Online Businesses

the following 12 tools and resources can be effectively used to give your online business that extra edge you need to stay ahead of your competition.

1. Free link partner evaluation tool. Alexa provides a free, downloadable toolbar that opens in your web browser whenever you're online. The Alexa toolbar is one of the most useful tools around for online businesses. The most useful feature is a "site info" option. When you click on this button, Alexa lays out all the details of the site you're on, including:
The traffic ranking of the site. This is also listed right on the toolbar itself.
A list of related links. Two or three of the most popular links also appear on the toolbar.
The number of other sites that link to the site
The contact information of the site owner
All site/user reviews

2. Free market research tool. When you're building a successful online business, you'll probably need to spend hours at a time researching your competitors and your target market and looking for new product ideas. The good news is that there are some nifty free tools available on the Google Toolbar that can make this whole process faster and a lot more productive. (Be sure to check the "Enable Advanced Features" option when you download it to enable all the options.) Take a look at some of these options:
"Google Groups" search: This is great for product or market research, as you can search for your keywords within the thousands of Google Groups online and find forums relevant to your site. By checking these forums regularly, you'll get to know what's important to the people in your target market.

3. Free image-reducing tool and free "tool kit" trials.NetMechanic is a tool kit resource, offering a number of free trials that are great for easily locating potential problems with your site and repairing them quickly. With this tool, you can address such problems as:
HTML code errors
Browser display problems
Lengthy load times
Broken links
Site downtime

Some of these tools will even give you a free monthly update! However, you'll get a limited version of each tool unless you're willing to pay the fee. But NetMechanic's image-reducing tool, GIFbot, is totally free and is a particularly useful resource.

Using GIFBot is an excellent way to reduce the file size of your images so your web pages load faster--and you don't lose those impatient surfers. Image files can be reduced by as much as 50 to 85 percent in many cases, and it's so easy to do that nowadays you'll look totally unprofessional with huge, lagging image files that take forever to load on your site.

4. Free HTML editor and HTML tutorials. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on HTML editors and web design software to create your own site. Nvu is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor that's similar to FrontPage or Dreamweaver--but completely free to download. The software allows you to create and manage a professional-looking website without any knowledge of HTML programming, and includes the following features:
WYSIWYG editing of pages, meaning you can see what your web page will look like as you're creating it
Integrated file management via FTP, so you can upload your pages to your web host
Easy-to-use interface
Free tutorials

5. Free keyword selector tool. Using Yahoo! Search Marketing's Keyword Selector tool allows you to easily discover which keywords are frequently searched by web surfers. Type in a term you'd like to target, and the tool will give you a list of searches that include your exact term as well as related searches. It will also tell you how many times those terms were searched in Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) in the last month. A tool like this can help you optimize your search engine ranking by targeting keywords and phrases that are frequently searched by the online audience.

6. Free browser compatibility service. The browser compatibility experts at AnyBrowser offer every tool you'll need to make your site viewable, as the name suggests, in any browser. The most useful tool is the "SiteViewer," which allows you to see your web pages as surfers will see them on multiple browsers. For example, your site may look different in Netscape Navigator than it does in Internet Explorer--images may be broken, tables may shift and so on. With AnyBrowser, you can ensure you meet the needs of every browser.

7. Free search tool.1-Click Answers is a downloadable search tool available from the Answers.com search engine. It allows you to search multiple information sources and find instant answers containing concise information on the topic you're searching for.

8. Free content.FreeSticky is a good place to find free (or cheap) content for your site, so you can keep your site fresh and interesting for your visitors--and keep them coming back for more. Find articles, news briefs, headlines, tickers, tips of the day and more. The broad variety of topics range from financial advice to hip hop headlines, from travel guides to lottery results. You can also give away free software applications directly from your site, many of which are available for co-branding.

9. Free e-mail campaign ROI calculator.Marketing Today's ROI calculator is an easy-to-use device that allows you to accurately estimate what kind of return on investment you can expect from your upcoming direct mail or e-mail campaigns and promotions. The calculator is a simple tool that acts as an excellent reality check when you're determining your marketing costs.

10. Free web design tool. Most internet entrepreneurs have very little, if any, web design knowledge. That doesn't have to be a barrier, however, to creating a professional-looking web site.

One of the hardest tasks for someone with no design experience to do is to choose the color scheme for your site. Well, this easy-to-use, free tool from ColorMatch 5K allows you to create a complete color scheme at the click of the button. It also gives you the HTML codes for the colors you choose--every web color has a code, such as #000000 for black--so you can use them on your site and not have to worry if that pink really does match that orange.

11. Free site search tools. If your site is more than a few pages and doesn't have a good internal search tool, you're probably losing many a frustrated visitor. SiteLevel can set you up with effective, free search tools for your website.

12. More free marketing tools. You got it...Free Site contains free stuff! And lots of it!

Although not everything on this site is e-business related, you'll find plenty that is. Probably the most useful section for e-businesses is the "webmaster" section. Here you'll find the "Internet Seer" site monitoring tool that provides downtime alerts so you don't lose valuable customers. You'll also find:
Tools to help you check your keywords and your link popularity
Suggested methods of winning awards for your site
Scripts, banners and polls
Guestbooks, message boards and more