A selection of websites we use in our work every week. All of them have a free version, and most don’t require registration. Bookmark them—they’ll come in handy, even if you don’t build websites.
Check the website
- Google Search Console — the only source of accurate information about how Google sees your site: which pages are indexed, which search queries they appear for, and where there are errors. It’s free—all you need is access to your site. If you don’t have access, start here.
- PageSpeed Insights — Download speed with recommendations. Check the “Mobile” tab—the numbers there are more accurate.
- W3C Validator — checking the page code for markup errors.
- Rich Results Test — Does Google recognize your microdata and will it display an expanded snippet?
- Checking Meta Tags — Our tool: title, description, H1, and social media preview for any page with just one click.
Learn about competitors and the market
- Google Trends — Demand trends for any search query, broken down by region. Free and with no restrictions. The best way to see if there's any demand for your idea at all.
- Similarweb — Estimated traffic for any website and where that traffic comes from. In the free version, the data is general, but you can get a sense of the order of magnitude.
- Wayback Machine — The Internet Archive: what a website looked like a year or ten years ago. Indispensable when you need to recover lost text or see what a competitor has removed from a page.
- BuiltWith — What every website is built on: CMS, analytics, payment systems.
Safety
- Have I Been Pwned — whether your email address has been leaked in any data breaches. Enter your email address to see a list of compromised services. If you're still using a password from one of those services, change it today.
- VirusTotal — Scanning a suspicious file or link with dozens of antivirus programs at once.
- Google Safe Browsing — Is the website flagged as dangerous?
- SSL Labs — a thorough review of the certificate and encryption settings.
We have compiled a separate list of practical steps for protection: How to Protect a Website from Hacking and How to Avoid Scammers on Messaging Apps.
Images and Design
- Unsplash and Pexels — Free photos, including those for commercial use. But remember: stock photos are easy to spot; real photos work better.
- Figma — a standard for interface mockups. The free plan is enough to view the mockups the designer sent you.
- Excalidraw — Quick sketches "off the top of your head": website structure, page layout, any idea jotted down on paper. No registration required.
- Coolors — selection of color palettes.
- Image Compression — Our tool: reduce file size and convert to WebP right in the browser, without uploading to a server.
Working with Text
- OnlineCorrector — Checking the Ukrainian language in documents: punctuation, calques, common mistakes.
- DeepL — The translation is noticeably higher in quality than most similar services, especially for long texts.
- Diffchecker or any text comparison service—when you need to see exactly what has changed between two versions of a document.
Domains and Email
- Who.is — Domain information: when it was registered, when it expires, and who it is registered to.
- MXToolbox — Check your email settings and make sure your domain hasn't been blacklisted. If emails to customers are ending up in spam, this is where troubleshooting begins.
- Mail-tester — Send an email to the address provided and receive an assessment of why it might end up in spam.
- Downdetector — Is this a problem on your end, or is the service down for everyone?
Little Things That Save Time
- TinyURL and similar ones—short links. But don’t use them where people need to see where they’re going: that’s the main sign of scam emails.
- Any QR code generator — or our, no registration required, and with Wi-Fi support.
- Time.is — the exact time and time zone difference when scheduling a call with an international client.
- Randomizer — our tool for fair giveaways.
How to Use This
Don't try to learn everything at once. Here's the minimum every website owner should know:
- Search Console — Set it up and check the report once a month.
- PageSpeed — Check your mobile data speed.
- Have I Been Pwned — Check your email right now.
- Mail-tester — Make sure your emails are getting through.
These are four checks that take about 20 minutes and usually turn up something unexpected.
All of our free tools are available at on a single page. I need a website that doesn't have these kinds of problems— Let's calculate the project in three steps.
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