Website Resources: A Quick List (2020)

Whether you’re website has just been launched or is under development, how sure are you that it’s ready for the World Wide Web?

We’ve put together a quick list of handy resources for you to try out that can help identify improvements you can make on your own website. Whether it’s for a website currently in development or your own website that’s been longstanding.

We’ve split out list into three categories: Testing & optimisation, SEO tools and Keyword/Phrase tools – we have specifically chosen completely free to use tools.

1. Testing & Optimisation

Many websites online today look visually fantastic. They’ve been designed with various emerging technologies and have gone through several planning and design stages.

One important stage of web design and development we find often overlooked, delayed unnecessarily or simply left out entirely is testing. There’s many levels of testing and optimisation you can conduct using a wide range of platforms and methods from simple page speed checks to full in-depth analysis of your scripts.

• Google Chrome Devtools – https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools
  This is a must for anyone, at a click of a button you can quickly identify if anything is broken/missing (images, scripts etc).
• Checkbox – https://www.checkbot.io/
  One of our personal favourites, this handy tool gives you some basic insights on how to improve your website on a Search Engine Optimisation level from lengthening titles to correcting meta descriptions.
• PageSpeed – https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
  What good is a website if it’s too slow for your audience? Pagespeed quickly identifies issues that can easily be resolved with a few changes to the website and sometimes web server. (Another reason why picking the right website host is important!)
• Lighthouse – https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse
  Another handy tool for ensuring your website is performing as well as it should be on mobile and desktop. This particular tool was helpful when reducing the First Contentful Paint.
• GTMetrix – https://gtmetrix.com/
  A quick took but helpful nonetheless, GTMetrix is used by a lot of website owners to determine the loading times of pages. Do you really need to load jQuery on every page?

2. SEO Tools

What good is a website if no one can find it. We always recommend running your site through several SEO tools to identify improvements and broken elements. Below are some of the tools we find helpful.

• Browseo – https://www.browseo.net/
• Google Analytics – https://analytics.google.com/
• Google Search Console – https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome
• Mobile-Friendly test – https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• Map Broker – https://ipullrank.com/tools/map-broker/

3. Keyword/Phrase Planning

The keyword/phrasing tools below are fantastic for identifying keywords/phrasing for Search Engine Optimisation but also for planning future content. Instead of writing content for news that has already peaked, why not get ahead and create content for up and coming news (it’s a gamble, but it can pay off handsomely).

• Google Keywords – https://ads.google.com/intl/en_us/home/tools/keyword-planner/
• Google Trends – https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
• Exploding Topics – https://explodingtopics.com/
• Answer the Public – https://answerthepublic.com/

Where to start and where to go from here?

It’s daunting, but honestly, it’s all doable. Some elements you may need a helping hand from a developer (please do feel free to contact us, even if it’s for some advice), but using the tools above should give you some insight as to what needs addressing or at the very least, some ideas on the next step.

Of course not everyone has time to spend on all these tests and improvements so we suggest dedicating at least 30 minutes just to run the quick checks (like the speed tests/audits) just to make sure nothing is broken at least. Failing that ask a developer for a hand (remember to get various quotes). In our case, we offer a monthly maintenance agreement or a full website support retainer for tasks like these.