List of SEO Tools & Other Useful Resources from Portent

Repost from Protent.com (links not verified)

I’m just about to reach the 5 year mark working in the online marketing industry, and one thing that I’ve always found remarkable is how open and sharing people in this line of work tend to be. Whether it’s strategies, tactics, updates, techniques or tools – folks in this space do a lot of sharing, and often the depth and breadth is outstanding.

I find this to be true online and offline – I read a lot of industry blog posts and attend many workshops and conferences and people are typically quite passionate about what they do; and that passion frequently translates into contributions to the rest of us in the online marketing community.

Nowadays, as an SEO Strategist on Team Portent, the bulk of my day-to-day professional work involves a lot of, well, SEO-related diagnosis and recommendations. And just like you wouldn’t send a carpenter or a plumber out to do a job without a proper set of tools, we online marketers need tools that help us to be more productive than we would be otherwise. During my day-to-day work, I use a combination of Portent’s stellar internal toolset and a host of other tools as well.

Some time ago I started keeping a list of tools on an Excel spreadsheet because it’s just too hard to keep everything in my head (I named the file my “forget-me-not” list of tools). I read a lot of industry blogs every day and if someone mentions some tool and it seems like something I can use now or in the future, I log it on my spreadsheet for future investigation or use.

So now I have this giant list of tools that I want to share with you. But first, a shameless plug:

Cut the Talk – It’s Time to Rock

You probably already know about many or most of these tools, but I’d bet that you’ll find at least one cool tool here you’ve never used before – and that will make it worth your time to scan the list or bookmarking this page for future reference.

I’ve broken this down to logical-to-me categories, but you may prefer a different organizational scheme. Also, it’s true that many of these tools “fit” into more than one category and can be used for multiple tasks, so there is that to keep in mind. I’ll also mention that you may find my extremely short descriptions inadequate (please be kind, I typically would enter the tool to my spreadsheet with some hastily-typed or copy/paste from the site to cue me as to what the tool could be used for). But setting all that aside, what’s important is that someone, hopefully you, will find this list useful.

Last notes: I’ve been keeping this list just for my own personal benefit, and I’m not being compensated in any way by any tool or resource you see on this list. My descriptions are purposely very short making it easy for you to scan this list. So without further ado, here’s my insanely large list of tools. Want to download the spreadsheet? No problem, do that at the bottom of this post.

Categories (click to jump to that specific list of tools)

Competition Research

Content Strategy

Conversion Rate Optimization

Design

International SEO

Keyword Research

Link Building Earning

Local SEO

Online Reputation Management

PPC

Rank Checking

Site Analysis

Social Media

Structured Markup

Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets

 

Competition Research

Sure, you don’t want to “take your eye off the ball” with respect to your site and overall digital marketing strategy – but you don’t want to be caught sleeping either while your competitors pass you by (excuse the mixed metaphors). You can learn a lot from what your competitors are doing well or even doing poorly when it comes to online marketing. I recommend you do periodic research on your competition and keep your finger on the pulse of your industry at large.

AdWords Keyword Planner

Use Competitor URLs in Keyword Planner tool, review suggested keyword groups and keywords.

Ahrefs

Batch Analysis: very fast overview of backlinks & social metrics for any list of URLs you enter.

Fresh Web Explorer

Where are your competitors being mentioned? Are there feeds that highlight their content frequently? FWE is a good tool to build up your outreach list.

Market Samurai

Top 10 SERP comparison module outputs a color-coded grid of various key ranking metrics.

Mozbar

Browser toolbar – provides wealth of metrics & data on web pages and SERP listings.

MozCheck

Bulk URL checker to grab Moz stats on multiple URLs via SERPs scrape/download.

Open Link Profiler

“The freshest backlinks, for free”.

Open Site Explorer

Get most linked-to URLs for popular content research – many, many more uses.

Reverse Internet

Serious competitive intelligence including finding all GA accounts!

SEMrush

Use the domain vs. domain tool to see what keywords competitors rank for with associated metrics. View Competitor keywords, ad copy, organic or paid.

SEOmoz

“On-page report card” – grade a page for a Keyword.

SERPIQ

Analyze competition and discover keywords.

Similar Sites

Easily find similar websites.

Similar Web

Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a *&%$load of data on your site and other’s sites.

Site Alerts

Instant insights on any website: can also get email subscription to alerts.

Web Me Up

Backlink profile checker, not free.

Woorank

Get a quick overview of site metrics.

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Content Strategy

Content Gems

Quickly find and share the most valuable content in one easy-to-use platform (paid tool).

Content Strategy Generator Tool (updated)

This very cool tool from Richard Baxter and the Builtvisible team helps you plan your content strategy intelligently, using keyword research and estimating your audience size. Their description of the tool is “Easily consolidate trending news from across the web, and find inspiration for your research topics quickly and easily”.

Contently

Content “story” creation service via Mike King.

Copyscape

Copyscape serves both as a plagiarism checker and a duplicate-content checker. Great to use if your content has been distributed across the web.

Enigma

Navigate the world of public data.

FAQ Fox

Find questions your target demographic is talking about online.

Fresh Web Explorer

FWE allows you to check on or keep track of a set of terms over time, and helps you get a sense for what type of content gets a lot of mentions, shares, and links. Many more uses, features keep getting added.

Google Public Data

Drawing on vast public databases, Google public data offers a great starting point for content research, infographics, and more.

Headline Analyzer

Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.

Similar Page Checker

Use this tool to check for duplicate content issues. The Similar Page Checker will give you a score of how closely the HTML of two pages resemble each other.

Speechpad

Transcription service.

Trend Hunter

Paid tool.

Triberr

A community of bloggers and influencers come together to read and share great content.

Wiki Mind Map

Create mind map out of Wikipedia topics & articles.

Content & Headline Idea Generator

Enter a subject (or topic or keywords) and get all kinds of titles and ideas.

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Conversion Rate Optimization

ClickTale

Heatmaps.

Formisimo

Form Analytics.

Inspectlet

Heatmaps, screencapture.

iPerceptions

Get visitor feedback.

Kampyle

Get visitor feedback.

Kiss Metrics

CRO, A/B testing, analytics.

Mouseflow

Live click tracking.

Optimizely

A/B testing.

Survey Monkey

Get visitor feedback.

Visual Website Optimizer

A/B & MV testing.

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Design

Canva

“Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more”.

HTML Color Picker

Use the online image color picker right to select a color and get the html Color Code of this pixel.

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International SEO

Flang

Hreflang testing tool.

Hfreflang Generator

Hreflang tag generator from Aleyda Solis.

HREFLANG Sitemap Tool

Create HREFLANG Sitemap.

Impersonal Me

Search de-personalized, via Portent SEO Kaitlin McMichael.

International Geo-Surfing

Search international, get SERPs.

Lexipedia

Displays a handy little chart with every definition of a word and synonyms. It’s a lexicon-builder’s dream.

Search From

Simulate using Google Search from different location or device or perform a search with custom search settings – useful for searching Google as if you were somewhere else and for SEO & SEA testing.

Search Latte

Build Google searches in any combination of Google supported top level domain, country and language.

Word Reference

Online translator.

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Keyword Research

AdWords Keyword Tools

Generate keywords from a seed keywords or enter a list to obtain search volume and other data points.

Google Analytics

Look at the keywords that drive traffic – especially historical data before the onset of (not provided). Matched Search Queries – the keywords a searcher typed before clicking on an AdWords ad.

Google Correlate

Find searches that correlate with real-world data.

Google Search

Look at related searches at bottom.

Google Suggest

Don’t hit enter when you start searching. Thanks to Wil Reynolds.

Google Trends

Get idea of up or down trend & also look at hot trends for new ideas.

Google Webmaster Tools queries

Look for striking distance keywords. Export for further analysis in Excel or other tools.

Keyword Eye

Free section requires signup.

Keyword Spy

Organic & paid info. Recently added killer backlink analysis.

Keyword Tool

Like Ubersuggest: get 750 google keyword suggestions for free.

Lexipedia

Create “wonder wheels” of related terms – hover for definitions.

Local Keyword Tool

Local SEO keyword research tool – enter Zip & KEYWORD, get list of KEYWORD plus local cities.

Market Samurai

Research a list of keywords you enter or enter a seed keyword to generate related keywords; huge amount of associated metrics is available.

Merge Words

Concatenation tool.

Meta Glossary

Get definitions and related terms for keyword research.

Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool

Keyword difficulty tool.

Moz On-page Grader

Grade a page for a keyword.

SEMrush

Enter site: get keyword list export, organic or paid

SEO Chat

Keyword suggestion tool.

SEO Chat Keyword Suggest Tool

Like Ubersuggest, you can generate lists of related keywords using a root term. Need to play with this, check it out.

Social mention

Download top keywords; use wordle/compose to create word cloud to visualize. Hat tip to Ben Lloyd.

Sonar Solo

Visualize social trends.

Spyfu

Organic & paid info.

Suggester

Suggester is another free tool like Ubersuggest where you can input a seed term and generate variations – download to CSV is desired.

Tag Crowd

Make your own tag cloud from any text.

Topsy

Enter keyword, look at trends & spikes.

Trend Hunter

Trend Hunter.

Ubersuggest

Generate list of keywords from seed; enter into AdWords tool for volume etc.

Wordle

Create word clouds.

Wordstream

Generate keywords – paid tool.

Wordstream Free Keyword Tools

In addition to its paid offerings, Wordstream offers a suite of free keyword tools offering access to thousands of keyword suggestions.

Wordtracker

Generate keywords – paid tool.

Yahoo Glimmer

“An RDF Search Engine”.

Yelp Trends

Yelp Trends tool.

YouTube AutoSuggest

Just like Google Autocomplete.

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Link Building Earning

Author Crawler

You’ll end up with a report allowing you to sort your backlinks by the social standing of the authors of those links.

Advanced Search Operator Auto Generator

Incredible: enter a keyword, it outputs links to Google SERPS of your keyword plus various advanced search operators.

Banana Tag

Email Tracking service, via Ross Hudgens.

Bookmarklet – Domain Hunter Plus

Checks for broken links on a page. Browser plugin.

Broken Link Check

Checks a site for broken links.

Broken Link Finder

Garrett French’s tool – Citation Labs.

Broken Link Index

Scrapes the web for broken links based on keyword input!

Bulk Doman Authority Checker

Check DA of up to 200 domains at once.

Buzzstream tools

Various tools & uses.

Domain Hunter Plus

This magic extension for Chrome not only helps you find important broken links, but also tells you if the links point to an available domain.

Easel.ly

Free tools for creating and sharing inforgraphics. The templates allow anyone to create a professional-looking graphic.

Email Format

Find email address via domain name entry.

Free Email Verifier

Verify email addresses.

Fresh Web Explorer

Find recent mentions where you aren’t being linked-to.

HARO

Help a reporter out.

Image Raider

Automated reverse image search! Search who’s using your image, request a link from them.

Infogr.am

A great free Infographics resource that allows you to easily create graphics and data visualizations.

Keyword Typo Generator

Create domain misspellings (add TLD) add to bulk backlink checker like Majestic or Ahrefs, find links that point to you then go and ’em.

Link Search Tool

Enter keyword, generates clickable advanced search operators!

LinkRisk

Mine our database and identify opportunity for content placement whether as a link builder, an affiliate or a website owner.

Linkstant

Discover new links immediately, even as they’re being placed (via Mike King).

MailTester.com

Need to send an email to an untested address, but you don’t want to spam them? Check it first with this mail tester to verify.

Majestic SEO

See competitor’s link profile.

MyBlogGuest

Community of guest bloggers.

Open Site Explorer

Look at competitor’s links for good opportunities.

Outdated Content Finder

Find outdated content, build fresh, and ask for links.

PyScape

Grab OSE data via API with this tool.

Scrapebox

Scrape, check, ping, post!

Search From

View all your tweets on one page.

Tagul

Word cloud tool – use to see influencer names.

Twitter Archiver

Via Richard Baxter, Mozcon 2013: twitter archiving Google spreadsheet.

Vsnap

Send email with a 1 min video (via Mike King).

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Local SEO

Best Darn Local SEO Client Questionnaire

It really is.

Census.gov Tools

US Census tools for audience demographics.

Generate local AdWords and Keyword Lists Tool

Your Local SEO not-so-secret weapon.

Moz Local

“In one easy step, Moz Local ensures your business listings are correct, consistent, and visible across the web so search engines and new customers can find you.”

Google Gadgets Driving Directions Widget For Your Webpage

Google Gadgets driving directions widget for your webpage.

Google Map Maker

Among other things, Google Map Maker allows you to contribute to public map information, which may be shared and incorporated into Google Maps.

Google Places for Business Category Tool

Google Places for Business Category Tool.

Google+ My Business Page Finder

Michael Cottam’s Google+ My Business Page Finder.

Whitespark Offline Conversion Tracker

Offline Conversion Tracker

OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool

OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool.

Plagiarism Checker

Plagiarism Checker

Schema Creator

Create HTML with schema.org microdata.

USPS ZIP Code Tool

You’ll need a specific address, so be ready for that.

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Online Reputation Management

Complaint Search

Search all complaint websites at once.

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PPC

Note: although I’ve been AdWords certified for years and have run some small campaigns, I don’t necessarily consider myself a “PPC guy” or expert (we have those here, though) – so my list of PPC tools is not particularly extensive, to put it nicely. Feel free to send me your non-commercial suggestions to add here via Twitter (@dportney) – thanks!

Unbounce

Landing Page Creator.

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Rank Checking

The relative importance of checking rankings is debatable. In fact, it was at @SEMpdx SearchFest industry conference where I heard my first full-blown rant from @ConradSaam about the uselessness of checking rank (he recommended focusing on traffic and conversions) – that was 4 years ago and before the Google Hummingbird algorithm update and before Google started rewriting queries based on perceived user intent. I’ve used and still use rank checkers, but the effectiveness of SEO strategies based on keyword ranking really seems to be dying if not already dead. That said, here’s some tools I’ve used:

Rank Checker for Firefox

This light and easy desktop tool checks rankings with the click of a button. Quick, easy and free.

Advanced Web Ranking

Actually, AWR does much, much more than just rank tracking and is definitely worth checking out (this is a paid tool).

Authority Labs

I haven’t used AL in awhile, but have used their service and it’s generally very good – I’m sure they’ve made improvements since (this is a paid tool).

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Site Analysis

I love doing site analysis. Whether it’s a relatively quick SEO Triage, a comprehensive SEO Audit, or even a full-blown SEO Strategy Playbook, conducting a thorough site analysis and providing recommendations is one of my favorite tasks in SEO-land. Here are some tools that I use and that will make your analyses faster, easier, and more comprehensive.

Aardvark bookmarklet

Mouse over page elements to see HTML data like div classes & IDs.

Backlink Over Optimization Analyzer

Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing users will thank you.

Builtwith.com

Get an overview of site metrics.

Check All the Links on a Website

“Find Broken Links, Redirects & Site Crawl Tool.”

Compression / gzip test tool

A simple online web page compression / deflate / gzip test tool.

CSS Sprites

Create CSS Sprites Online.

Developer Toolbar for Firefox

Many use cases – a Swiss Army Knife of tools.

Fiddler2

Website Debugger.

Foxyseo toolbar

Get various site metrics.

Frobee Robots.txt Checker

Many robots.txt files contain hidden errors not easily visible to humans. Run your file through this tool and you never know what you’ll discover.

Google Page Speed Insights

Tools, data, and insights to improve your page speed.

Google Penalty Checker

Google Penalty Checker tool.

Google Plus 1 Checker

Google Plus One Checker in Bulk!

Gtmetrix

Pagespeed & Yslow grade, great report!

Gzip Check

Check if Gzip is enabled.

HTML Markup Validator

W3C HTML markup validator.

HTTP compression and conditional GET test tool

Some web servers enable HTTP compression and conditional GET to reduce bandwidth usage with browsers that support these technologies. Use this tool to test whether a webpage supports HTTP compression and conditional GET.

HTTP Compression Check

Check if compression is on.

IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit

IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit.

Image & Link Analyzer

Check All Links or Images on a Page.

META SEO Inspector

Inspect Meta Data via Chrome Plugin.

Mobile Test Me

Check how a site looks on various mobile devices.

Moonsy

Various tools – check dmoz, backlinks, DA etc.

Neil Patels Website Analyzer

Get various stats on your site and where you might make improvements.

On-Page Optimization Tool

Check the Important SEO Content on Your Webpage.

Page Speed Tool

Check the Speed of your site and your competitors.

Pingdom

Pingdom offers an entire suite of speed tools to help analyze page load, DNS issues, and connectivity.

Qualys SSL Labs

Enter domain to test SSL Certs and get a report.

Rex Swain’s HTTP Viewer

See URL HTTP status.

Robots.txt Checke

Use robots best practices and discover hidden errors in your robots.txt files that may cause search engine crawling problems.

Screenshots dot com

Better than way back machine – easy way to quickly see past versions of sites.

SearchMetrics

SEO, Social, Rankings, keyword and backlinks report tool

SEO Crawler

Crawler – cloud based, allows export – max 250 URLs – plus other tools.

SEO Quake

Get key metrics & data quickly – use plugin or toolbar.

Similar Web

Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a sh*tload of data on your and other’s sites

SPDYCheck.org

Check if a website properly supports the SPDY protocol, the super-fast HTTP replacement, and troubleshoot any problems with the configuration.

Sprite Me

Create CSS Sprites out of background image using bookmarklet

Sprite Pad

Create CSS Sprites – drag and drop interface

Spy On Web

You Can Disclose Websites With The Same Google AdSense Code, Google Analytics Code, IP Address etc.

SSL Server Test

Analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet

URI Valet

A great tool for digging into server headers, canonical information, analyzing redirect problems and more.

Wayback Machine

Want to see the history of your website or your competitor’s site? The Wayback Machine allows you to step back in time and track important changes.

Web Page Test

Page Speed Tool via Ian

Woorank

Get a quick overview of site metrics

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Social Media

Circle Count

Google Plus Analytics

Facebook Debugger

Debug your OG tags

Facebook Power Editor

Facebook Power Editor Download page

Find People On Plus

The ultimate Google+ directory that’s great for research, outreach, and link building. Sort by keywords, profession, country, and more.

Follwerwonk

Find influencers; competitive research.

Hashtagify

Search and find the best twitter hash tags.

Hootsuite

Create tabs to listen on a particular topic or hashtag

Know Your Meme

Internet Meme Database

Knowem.com

Check for if your brand is available across multiple social sites

Meme Generator

Easy way to generate those images with text at top and bottom like “what if I told you…”

Pinterest Rich Pin Validator

Test structured markup and get approval in same process (per Cyrus’ Moz post)

SharedCount

Want to know how any piece of content was shared socially across the major services? This is the tool to use.

SharedCount API

Harnessing the combined statistics of Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more, the SharedCount API puts a ton of social data at your fingertips.

Social Authority API

How much reach and social authority do your followers have? How about the people you’re trying to connect with? The free Social Authority API will tell you.

Social Crawlytics

ID competitors most shared content

Social Sites Image Size Template

Complete data on all image sizes for major social media sites

Sonar Solo

Visualize social trends

Twitter Land

Social media analytics

Twitter Validation Tool

First submit domain (per Cyrus’ Moz post) – then check URL

Twitteronomy

Analytics and more for Twitter via Matt McGee glowing recommendation.

 

 

Structured Markup

Good Relations

Good relations snippet generator

Google Data Highlighter

Use to grab HTML Markup

Google Plus Schema Creator

Google Plus Schema Creator

Google Structured Data Testing Tool

If you use Schema.org microformats or any other type of structured data, this tool will verify your markup.

Schema Creator

Everyone loves using Schema.org, but the microformats are difficult to write by hand. This generator from the folks at Raven simplifies the task.

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Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets

Ontolo – Extract Unique Hostnames

Extract unique hostnames

Ontolo – Remove Dupe Hostnames

Remove duplicate hostnames

Scraper Tool (Desktop)

Desktop scraper / data harvester

Seer Toolbox

SEER opened up its internal toolbox for everyone in the world to use. These are the same tools used in-house at SEER, and they rock.

SEO Automatic

Lots of great tools here

Small SEO Tools

All kinds of tools to choose from, pretty cool!

Virante SEO Tools

Virante offers a number of high quality SEO tools to the public. These are often the same tools developed for the Virante team, opened up for public use.

A/B Test Calculator

Creates a bell curve.

Aleyda Solis’ Tools List

Aleyda Solis’ Tools List.

CloudFlare

How do they make CloudFlare free? It works both as a CDN and a security service to provide your website with speed and safety.

Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML

Despite the rise of Google Docs, Word still dominates much of the world. Copying and pasting has always been a hurdle, but this tool makes it easy.

Dingus Markdown to Markup

Convert HTML markup to markdown – via Matthew Henry at Portent.

Evernote

Keep stuff in the cloud, notes, screenshots, etc.

Free download tool

We help to download files from many popular sites.

Google Local Search Weather

Like MozCast – Daily Ranking Changes for Google Places for Business.

Google Page Speed Service

Singed up several times, never heard back.

Google Play URL Builder

Link tagging for Google Play Apps.

Google Scraper Report

Report if a site has scraped you and is outranking you too.

Google URL Removal Tool

Remove outdated content from the search results, public tool.

Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools

The Ninjas are some of the best SEOs and online marketers out there, and they’ve put some of their best tools online for free.

IP Address Range Tool

Creates regex for IP address range.

ITTT (If This Then That)

If this then that – general usage.

List of Tools

List of tools on OnlineSales.co.uk

MozCast

Look at SERPs volatility.

Nerdy Data

Search code online!

Newsle

News story notification service, free.

Page2RSS

Turn any URL into an RSS feed – use with IFTTT.

Pixabay

Free images!

Ranks.nl

Great toolset here.

Remove Duplicate Items

Ontolo offers a suite of link building software and a few helpful productivity tools for link builders. The remove duplicates tool solves a common problem.

Scraper for Chrome

If you’ve never scraped a webpage, you’re missing out. Scraper for Chrome puts the power of simple web scraping in your hands without the need for code.

Secure Referer Quick Check

This web page shows your secure (i.e. HTTPS) referrer.

SEO Automatic

Bulk status code response checker.

SEO automatic toolbar

Browser toolbar – various uses.

SEO Book Toolbar

Browser toolbar for SEO.

SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

Preview SERP snippet live while writing it.

SERPS.com

Look at SERPs volatility.

Sitemap Generators

Google offers a slew of free, top-notch sitemap generators. Most of these live on your server and generate new sitemaps automatically.

Talk Walker Alerts

Like Google Alerts.

Text Expander

Expand text like MS Word autocomplete.

User Agent String dot com

Shows your user agent string.

What’s My Info

Get your complete browser information.

Yahoo Pipes

A great mashup tool that combines different feeds into content and other magical creations. Used for link building and whatever you can dream of.

Caption Tube

Free and easy resource used to create captions for YouTube. Helps with usability and offers viewers a readable transcript.

Screencast-O-Matic

One-click screen capture recording on Windows or Mac computers with no install for FREE!

Video Embed Generator

Create custom embed code for video to include a link: via Phil Nottingham.

Wistia

Video hosting.

LongURL

Expand a shortened URL.

 

Conclusion

You can greatly improve your efficiency and productivity by using these tools – that certainly has been my experience. I’m confident that you’ll find at least one tool on this list that will be beneficial to you. If you want to download an Excel spreadsheet containing all of these tools you, grab that here. I’m also confident you’ll know of a tool or two that is not listed here that you think should be, so feel free to share those with all of us in the comments below.