Top 10 Free Website Resources

Tags: dropbox, free website, iconspedia, jquery, simplehelix, top 10 free, top ten free, website resources

August 10, 2009 - Post written by Jeremy 0

Now and then you will come by a website that you bookmark because the person writing the post is a huge geek, spends wayyy too much time online and knows a lot of great resources. This is one of those websites, and I am that geek:)

Anyway, here is my list of Top 10 Free Website Resources

Iconspedia - is a great resource for people who want some help with designing their website. They have a wide selection of icons you can search for and they are all FREE. These are great for blogs and personal websites. Some examples include RSS feed, Twitter, YouTube, shopping cart, and browser icons.
DaFont.com is a free typograhy website that has over 9,000 fonts for you to choose from. When you are creating your brand typography is usually the #1 overlooked aspect for most businesses. It speaks volumes to how you present your business. I would recommend checking out DaFont before looking into some of the paid fonts that are out there.
DropBox is an online storage space that enables you to share files across multiple computers and with other people such as colleagues or clients. Simple to use and a beautiful and friendly interface. I cannot believe Orli Yakuel from TechCrunch did not put Dropbox in her top 16 apps that make sharing large files a breeze. I’ve tried all of them and Dropbox is simply the best. Orli you really dropped the ball buddy. Just look at your comment section here. Oh yeah, and Dropbox provides you with 2GB of free space.
If you are doing any kind of online research Forrester is the web’s most relative and credible source of references. If you want to impress your CEO, colleagues, or whomever your presenting or researching for then this should be your first stop in finding your information. Amateurs who don’t know what they’re doing go to Wikipedia for research, the pros and top execs head directly to Forrester.
Simple Helix is not free but I had to add it in here because its simply the best hosting company I have ever had. They provide amazing customer support and they have lightning fast servers. I always recommend them to my friends and its not overly expensive for what you are receiving. If you are looking to get your own professional Blog or website on the web, then this is the company you want to host it with. I’ve tried the cheaper solutions and trust me, you don’t want to go through that mess. These guys aren’t the most expensive but they are the best bang for your buck on the web and they will literally take your stress away.
Google Analytics just may be the most valuable website tool for business owners. This is a beast of an analytic tool and its 100% free. I install Google Analytics on all of my sites and I have made most of my web related decisions based on the information I get back from the statistics. Some examples of its power are its ability to do click tracking, demographics, new and unique visitors by day, and my favorite - what keywords people are clicking on in search engines to get to your website.
Whois is a place where you check to see if a domain name is currently registered or not. If someone tells you they know computers quite well and you want to test their knowledge, ask them about whois. If they have no clue then they really don’t know their stuff too well. People that live on the web will check out whois every so often for either a domain they own, would like to own, or a friend wants to own. It’s simply the most reliable place to check for domain registrations.
Toob Player is a website flash player that is of course completely free. Many websites embed YouTube videos right into their pages with the default player and that’s fine but having a sleek looking flash player that works great like the Toob Player just enhances the overall feel of a website. The great thing about this player is that it is super lightweight (14-18kb) and you can play any YouTube videos in it. Thanks to the guys and gals at FX Components for this one.
jQuery is a open source Javascript Library that enables developers and designers to do flash like things on websites fairly easily. It’s probably my favorite web resource and it has changed the way you and I look at websites. For the non-techy type jQuery comes packed in many plugins for people to pop into a CMS like Wordpress. Having a small blurb about jQuery doesn’t do it justice so I recommend Googling, bing banging, or Yahooing (whatever you do) “jquery effects” and check out some of the examples. Here are a few - Menus - Gallery - Popups.
One of the most important parts to building a website is making sure it works on all major web browsers. Browser Shots enables you to type in your URL and it generates what your website looks like in all the browsers you choose. This saves thousands of dollars for people like me who do QA Testing. This tool is probably my biggest time saver and after using it I couldn’t live without it.