Free E-business Building Gear

By Kevin Taylor, MBA
CEO and President, KT Graphics LLC.

A new online business would always have to ensure that all its vital e-business tools are reliable, high-quality products and services but like any average entrepreneur, you would probably wonder if there were free tools and resources available on the Internet that were worthwhile trying.
A note of caution is, however, necessary.  While free tools are numerous and easily available, they can be undependable and come with veiled catches, often with minor requirements that you would need to display certain advertisements if you use that particular tool.  Having said that, there are a number of good reliable resources and tools available on the Internet that are free and can be used to accompany existing tools at no extra cost for a more efficient user-friendly website that can help make keywords more effective, monitor competition and even find potential business partners.
This essentially means giving up reliability or having to give up advertising space on your website would be necessary to utilize a free tool.  The following 13 tools and resources can be used to give your online business that extra edge to stay ahead.

1.  Link partner evaluation.  One of the most useful tools for online business, Alexa provides a free downloadable toolbar that opens in your web browser whenever online.  This includes a "site info" option where all the details of the site you're on are listed out.  Details would include:

Information thus gained could be used for research on high-traffic websites of similar industries when looking at link partnerships or joint ventures.  This information can be used to make a decision on the actual budget for advertising, make educated decisions on the joint venture partner itself and eventually determine credibility and value of the website.
Detailing related links on the toolbar itself is a simple way of finding popular or similar websites that would be good linking partners or joint venture partners.  This list helps determine other sites used by the target market as well as looking at your own site checking out what the suggested related links are.  The Alexa toolbar, in addition, also has a Google search option which directly searches without having to leave the current page.
In the event that downloading the toolbar is not an option, an entrepreneur can still take advantage of these features from the Alexa website.

2.  Market research.  The good news for successful online businesses is that the initial stages that are spent researching target markets and competitors can be easily completed with a variety of free tools available from Google that make the whole process more efficient and much quicker.  However, it should be noted that when downloading the Google Toolbar, “Enable Advanced Features” should be checked to make it more productive.  Simple but optimal ways of using the search option on Google are:

Using these influential tools that come free with Google is an easy but efficient asset to your online business, saving you hours spent on market research and giving you much more time to concentrate on developing innovative products, new advertising strategies and other ways to enhance your income.

3.  Image reducing and tool-kit trials.  Numerous image trials can be used from NetMechanic which is a tool kit resource that helps locate potential problems with your website and repairs the same immediately.  Common problems that can be addressed through this are:

Most of these tools can be downloaded as limited versions unless you pay a certain fee, and often have a free monthly update.  The NetMechanic image-reducing tool, GIFBot, however is absolutely free and above all a very practical resource.  GIFBot enables reduction of the file size of images so that your web pages load much quicker and impatient websurfers do not move on before the site loads completely.  The best part about using GIFBot is that images can be reduced by as much as 50% to 85%, and it is so simple to do that the longer huge image files take to load on your site, the more unprofessional you would appear.

4. HTML editor and tutorials.  Creating our own website is no longer an expensive time-consuming ordeal with HTML editors and web design software.  What exists instead is Nvu, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor that is not only free to download but also comparable to FrontPage or Dreamweaver, and allows you to manage and create a professional-looking website without any prior familiarity with HTML programming.  Nvu has numerous features, some of which include:

The following two websites also have first-rate tutorials that help you learn how to code HTML yourself:

Alternatively, if you are more tech-savvy, there are a variety of free CGI script resources available on the Internet.  The following two are simple sites to begin with:

5.  Keyword selector.  The Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector tool is an uncomplicated way of finding out keywords are the most commonly used to search on the Internet.  The keyword selector lists out searches that include the exact term you would like to target as well as related searches, and also tells you the exact number of times those terms were used to search Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture, in the past month.  Using this tool not only optimizes search engine rankings, but enables you to find target keywords and phrases that are habitually used by the online visitor.

6.  Browser-compatibility service.  Any free tool you need to make your site viewable can be found on a site aptly named AnyBrowser.  The most efficient tool, however, is SiteViewer which will allow you to see your web page as surfers see them on multiple browsers, as different as they may look on Netscape Navigator than Internet Explorer.  Anybrowser ensures that the needs of every browser are met, tables do not shift, images are not broken and much more.
AnyBrowser also guarantees links are not broken and the coding checks out, while allowing an example of how your listing would appear on a search engine including what description and title would be used, etc.  This also has an immense resource directory for various free tools, HTML tutorials, banner exchanges, CGI scripts and many more free resources such as HTML editors, classifieds, fonts, graphics, Java scripts, message boards and more.

7.  Search tool.  The Answers.com search engine has a free downloadable search tool named 1-Click Answers that allows you to search a variety of information sources and get instant responses with concise information on the exact topic being searched for.
Upon downloading the free personal version, the search bar would appear right on the desktop itself.  Searching for terms could yield results from some or all of the following resources in just one single step:

1-Click Answers consolidates responses into one source to save both the time and energy of an entrepreneur, helping him to avoid using multiple search tools and the need to sift through a lot of unnecessary information.

8.  Content.  A useful site to find cheap or free content for your website is FreeSticky.  This helps you keep content on your website fresh and interesting for visitors to ensure they keep returning for more.  FreeSticky offers articles, news briefs, tickers, tips of the day and much more on a broad variety of topics that can range from financial advice to music headlines, from travel guides to even lottery results.  FreeSticky also enables you to give away free software applications directly from your site, many of which are available for co-branding.
Free content and articles designed for both websites and e-zines can also be found on www.EzineArticles.com.  However, you should always be careful not to generally load your website with content that you simply think is interesting but make sure that it is relevant to your business and customer base.  Make note of the fact that sponsors’ links do tend to draw traffic away from your site, and sponsorship information, when strategically placed, could draw your readers’ attention away from your site itself.  It would therefore be prudent to use your discretion when posting content on your site to make sure it is worth the risk.

9.  Email campaigns ROI calculator.  Determining marketing costs is not as huge a task as it used to be.  Marketing Today’s ROI Calculator is a simple user-friendly device that can estimate precisely the kind of return on an investment that can be expected from an upcoming direct mail or email campaign and promotions.
Operating this tool is uncomplicated and straightforward. All that needs to be done is to enter the number of emails you would be sending out, your total costs, the response rate you expect, the conversion rate expected and how much each buyer is expected to spend and you would be able to get your ROI for future mailings.  When you do not have previous response and conversion rates to base your figures on, you can estimate lower than what you think necessary; with a lower estimate you would always have extra cash at hand whereas with a higher estimate, you would end up with a loss instead.

10.  Web design.  The lack of web-design knowledge does not necessarily have to be an obstacle to creating a professional-looking website.
The toughest task in web design is the initial color scheme choice for someone with no design experience.  ColorMatch 5K is a free tool that allows you to create a complete color scheme for your website at a single click along with the HTML codes for the colors chosen (every web color has a code, for instance black has #000000), so that these can be used on your site easily and you would not have to worry whether green really matches pink.

11.  Site search.  When your website is more than a few pages, the lack of a good internal search tool probably loses you many an annoyed visitor.  With SiteLevel, however, you can set up free internal search tools for your website with effective results that would help your users find what they need on the site immediately.
The search tools from SiteLevel also allow you to keep a track of what visitors search for on your site and whether they find what they are looking for or not.  This would help you adapt to their list of items and increase visitor satisfaction with the use of your site.  You can also customize your own search results page to the look and feel of your website with SiteLevel.  This free tool allows indexing up to a thousand pages and includes a variety of search approaches for small businesses.

12.  Marketing.  As obvious, Free Site contains free stuff, and how much.  Although not all the content on this site is e-business related, there is a lot that is.  The “webmaster” section would probably be the most relevant for e-businesses, and this is where you would find the “Internet Seer” site-monitoring tool that provides downtime alerts immediately to avoid losing valuable customers.  Other tools available are:

You can also find details of free technical support and online tutorials, free personal management tools, Java script resources, free fonts, clipart, graphics, icons, and buttons, and a lot more on Free Site.  As always, proceed with caution when using free tools that ask for advertising space in return, start with bookmarking this page.
13.  Caution.  While starting online businesses, as opposed to ones in the real world, you will find that costs are so much lower, website hosting fees being so much more affordable than renting office space and creating and building your website along with marketing even more cost efficient with the numerous free tools and resources available on the Internet.  Although the tools mentioned above are incredibly useful, always be careful when choosing free services or software, stay in control with each decision, double check before downloading any tool, and make sure you ensure whether advertising will be included or if you would be limited by any restrictions or commitments.