The 28 Best Miscellaneous Online Tools for Marketers

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The 28 Best Miscellaneous Online Tools for Marketers
May 16, 2017
Welcome to the 47th 
and final
post in the Best Online Business Tools series. Hopefully you’ve found the posts helpful and have perhaps even implemented some of the tools covered.
The tools and apps reviewed here previously have fallen into fairly well-defined categories (e.g., the best rank-tracking tools ) within a defined area on the website visibility and engagement model for marketing technology.
The two-dozen-plus tools in this post, on the other hand, are those without a clear group (or at best a small group), most falling squarely into the “none of the above” category. These include tools for blog commenting, direct mail automation, website hosting, language translation, link shortening, password management , mileage tracking, and website performance monitoring, among other functions.
Best of all—most of these are free.
Blog Commenting
1) Disqus
Google Review Count: 245
A platform that combines commenting (on WordPress, Tumblr or Squarespace blogs) with native advertising. Readers get easy-to-use commenting with the ability to add images and video to comments. Publishers get moderation and analytics plus a way to monetize comments on their content.
Sample review: “Implement disqus as a commenting system and you’ll get more comments.  Mainly because your users won’t have to login all the time.” — RazorSocial
Pricing: free
1) WhoIsHostingThis
Google Review Count: 221
Discover who is hosting any website—get information about the web host, IP address, name servers and more. Also compare hosting providers based on cost and user reviews.
Sample review: “(With) whoishostingthis.com, find the web host of any website.” — Siasat
Pricing: free
2) iwantmyname
Google Review Count: 143
Search for availability of domain names across domain extensions. Easily register or transfer domain names, add email and website services with one click, and investiage new naming options like .club and .link.
Sample review: “iwantmyname.com helps you search domains across all TLDs.” — Siasat
Pricing: domain name searches are free; domain name registration ranges from $10 to $149 per year
Showcase reviews: Siasat
1) Bitly
Google Review Count: 206
Enter any URL and create a trackable shortened link. Share the link, then see how many times it was clicked and when, as well as geographic regions.
Sample review: “Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that allows you to include URLs in character-restricted social media sites like Twitter, or to use them as a citation in your infographics.” — ExpressWriters
Pricing: free for personal use; contact vendor for enterprise pricing
Showcase reviews: Express Writers, RazorSocial
2) Google URL Shortener
Google Review Count: 142
Enter any URL to create a trackable shortened link or generate a QR code. View clicks, timing, region, browsers, and platform.
Pricing: free
RB.GY
Google Review Count: 85
RB.GY by Rebrandly is a free URL shortener for transforming long, ugly links into memorable and trackable short URLs. Use it to shorten links for any social media platforms, blogs, SMS, emails, ads, or anywhere else. Once you have created and shared the short URL, just add a “+” to the end of it to get real-time analytics showing the numbers of clicks received from your shortened URL.
Pricing: free
3) Share Link Generator
Google Review Count: 17
An open source link generator that lets you create Facebook share links, Twitter “tweet this” links, Google + share links, LinkedIn share links, Pinterest “pin this” links and email “mailto” links that will work anywhere online or inside emails.
Pricing: free
pixelfy.me
Google Review Count: 17
pixely.me enables you to create branded shortlinks (e.g., yoursite.com/offer) that help build brand trust and increase clicks and are fully trackable. Additional features include retargeting pixels, QR codes, and extended capabilities for Amazon sellers.
Pricing: $20/$50/$100 per month
1) Dashlane
Google Review Count: 192
Keep track of passwords securely. Create new, strong passwords on the fly. Get automatic login for all your accounts with the free password manager. Even on complex logins with two steps or three fields, like bank accounts. No clicks or keystrokes required. Sync passwords across all your devices.
Sample review: “Stop trying to keep track of your passwords, and instead let Dashlane do the work for you. And the beauty in this tool? You can get your passwords wherever and whenever you need them!” — Rebekah Radice
Pricing: free or $40 per year
Showcase reviews: Rebekah Radice
2) 1Password
Google Review Count: 187
Collect all of your passwords in one place. Log into any site with a single click. Also store notes and important numbers securely. Only one master password to remember. If you are a small organization and want to test it out first, you can use their  free tool  as well.
Sample review: “1Password is the solution for protecting your passwords and giving you quick access to them. The app will store your passwords securely, and autofill them whenever you need them. It’s available for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android and as a browser extension.” — Social Media Examiner (Productivity)
Pricing: $3/$5/$12 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
Showcase reviews: Social Media Examiner (Productivity)
3) Strong Password Generator
Google Review Count: 127
Generate a secure password. Enter the desired password length and specify whether it needs to contain symbols, numerals, uppercase and lowercase letters, and whether or not you want it to exclude similar or ambiguous characters.
Sample review: “Strong Password Generator spits out a random, strong password to protect your online accounts, along with a mnemonic device to help you remember.” — Wrike
Pricing: free
1) Postcardly
Google Review Count: 47
Send postcards from your phone or your computer using either your email or the Postcardly app. If you’re using email, just create a new email with an attached photo the way that you normally send an email: your photo will be on the front of the postcard, your words will go on the back. Originally designed as way to stay in touch with older relatives who don’t use computers, it’s also a great tool for getting in touch with busy executives who ignore emails.
Sample review: “For content marketers who still use direct mail marketing as a part of their promotional strategy, there’s Postcardly. This innovative platform allows you to upload any photo of your choice and print it as a postcard. You can upload addresses in bulk – which makes this platform fantastic for holiday greetings or for announcing new promotions.” — Express Writers Media Explorer
Pricing: $5/$10/$20 per month
2) Inkit
Google Review Count: N/A
Inkit enables direct marketing and sales professionals to send (postal) direct mail pieces as easily as sending an email. The company partners with printers across the U.S., so campaigns are printed and mailed near the target delivery area, saving time and cost. Create targeted lists based on industry vertical or zip code. Automate mailing based on a variety of parameters including holidays, company events or milestones, and lead status changes. Run A/B split tests to optimize mailer design.
Pricing: $50/$100/$175 per month
1) MileIQ
Google Review Count: 150
MileiQ uses automatic drive detection to capture every mile you drive—no need to manually log every trip. Classify trips, report mileage to Freshbooks or Concur, and store all your mileage data in the cloud.
Sample review: “MileIQ is a smart drive detection app that will help save you money if you deduct your driving miles from your taxes. When you start driving, the app detects your drives and logs them automatically. It then calculates those drive distances, as well as their value, based on the deduction per mile that‘s already in the app.” — Social Media Examiner (Tools)
Pricing: free, $6 per month, or $60 per year
Showcase reviews: Social Media Examiner (Tools)
Online Calculation and Conversion Tools
1) Online-Convert.com
Google Review Count: 118
A highly versatile free online file converter. Convert audio files (e.g., MP3 to WAV), video files, documents, images, eBooks, and zip/archive files.
Sample review: “There are plenty of sites around that perform some useful file conversion, such as transforming HTML code into a PDF document. Online Converter goes a little further, though, by providing tools to transform audio, video and image files, documents and eBooks from one format into another. There’s excellent format support, so for instance the site can handle 11 image file types, and 9 eBook variants.” — TechRadar
Pricing: free
2) Percentage Change Calculator
Google Review Count: 60
A simple tool with one specific purpose: enter two values and find the percentage change. For example: your site had 1,156 visits from Google last month, compared to 949 visits the month before. What was the percentage of growth in Google-driven visits? (21.8%)
Sample review: “I can’t even begin to tell you how useful this little calculator is when looking for and analyzing data. Ever want to know the percentage change of two values without having to remember the formula? Simply enter the two values into this calculator, and it’ll spit out the percentage change.” — HubSpot
Pricing: free
1) PDFescape
Google Review Count: 347
PDFescape is a free online PDF reader, editor, form filler, and form designer. Rotate and zoon PDF pages, select and copy text, add text and shaps, create links, encrypt PDF contents, design and complete forms. Desktop version offers premium features.
Pricing: free or $3/$6 per month
Showcase reviews: Siasat
2) Online OCR
Google Review Count: 155
A free online optical character recognition (OCR) service that lets you upload any image files (TIFF, JPG, BMP, PCX,  PNG, GIF or PDF) containing text and convert the text into editable Word, Excel and text output formats. Supports 46 languages including Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Pricing: free or $3/$6 per month
Showcase reviews: Siasat
DocFly PDF Editor
Google Review Count: 59
Cloud-based PDF editing software that includes concealing and adding customizable text, highlighting, uploading images, and even placing symbols and shapes within the document. DocFly enables you to create PDFs; convert Microsoft Office files or images to PDF; create, fill, and sign PDF forms; and access your files from anywhere.
Pricing: free or $4 per month
Printing Utilities
1) PrintWhatYouLike
Google Review Count: 196
Print the parts you want from any web page while skipping ads, sidebars, or any other elements you don’t want. Simply enter any URL, edit out any unwanted parts of the page, and print what’s left.
Sample review: “(Using) PrintWhatYouLike.com, print web pages without ads or other clutter.” — Wrike
Pricing: free
2) Print Friendly
Google Review Count: 163
If you’re looking for an even simpler way to de-clutter web pages for printing, PrintFriendly automatically cleans and formats web pages for printing. It removes ads, navigation and other web page “junk,” saving paper and ink. Send output to a printer or PDF file.
Pricing: free
1) TinEye
Google Review Count: 219
Wondering what other websites are using your images (or any web image, for that matter)? Just enter an image URL and see all the places online where that image appears.
Sample review: “Have you ever tried to hunt down one specific image? Whether you followed a dead end link or are looking for attribution information to credit an original source, TinEye can help. Use the TinEye browser extension to do a reverse image search and find the original source of any image.” — Social Media Examiner (Productivity)
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Social Media Examiner (Productivity)
URL Identifier
1) unFurlr
Google Review Count: 186
Copy or enter any shortened link (bit.ly, t.co, goo.gl, Owl.ly, etc.) and see the real URL behind it—without “risking the click.”
Pricing: free
1) Pingdom
Google Review Count: 196
A tool that continuously monitors your website, and alerts you immediately if your site goes down. Once alerted, root cause analysis helps you identify what caused the issue so you can prevent any recurrences, and analytics help you optimize site performance.
Sample review: “Set up monitoring  on your blog using pingdom.  If your blog is not available you’ll get an e-mail about it.” — RazorSocial
Pricing: five levels from $12 to $454 per month (free trial)
Showcase reviews: RazorSocial
2) DownForEveryone
Google Review Count: 144
Having trouble accessing a website? Enter or copy in the URL here to find out if the site is down for everyone, or just you (so you know you’ve got a local access problem).
Sample review: “Is it your Internet connection, or is your site (or someone else’s that you’re desperately trying to reach) really down? Find out with this simple website.” — Buffer Social
Pricing: free
3) StatusCake
Google Review Count: 128
Automatically and continually monitor your website’s uptime from more than 28 countries. Ensure that you never forget to renew your domain name registration or SSL certificate. Monitor your page speed from different locations. And across all of this, choose how you want to be alerted: email, SMS, Twitter, Slack, Discord, Pushover, PushBullet, or by other means.
Pricing: free or $25/$80 per month
Website Performance Tuning
1) GTmetrix
Google Review Count: 250
Analyzes your (or any) website’s load speed and provides specific recommendations on how to fix a wide range of potential issues, as well as grading the site’s performance against the tool’s universe of pages analyzed. With an account, you an also monitor pages, set up alerts, test from different geographic regions, and analyze mobile load speed.
Sample review: “gtmetrix.com (is) the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.” — Siasat
Pricing: free or $15/$50/$150 per month
Showcase reviews: Siasat
1) ManageWP
Google Review Count: 137
Manage multiple WordPress sites from a single portal. Stay current with theme and plugin updates, back up sites to the cloud, clone existing sites, migrate a site to a new host, run proactive security checks, benchmark performance, monitor uptime and more.
Sample review: “If you have more than one blog than use ManageWp to manage them.  It’s a great tool for managing multiple blogs.  You can update wordpress on all blogs at the same time, update plugins, take backups and lots more.” — RazorSocial
Pricing: free; optional add-ons run $1 to $5 per month
Showcase reviews: RazorSocial
Emamo
Google Review Count: 105
There are lots of great tools to produce virtual events . Emamo extends those tools. It’s an agenda Builder for virtual events that integrates with popular video streaming platforms like Google Meet, Zoon, and Hopin. Emamo enables you to create a professional, attractive event page and embed it anywhere. Attendees can view all of your sessions and presenters, save their favorites, and get email reminders. It also simplifies the process of amplifying and promoting your event on social media.
Pricing: $25/month; enterprise pricing by quote
Subscribers
Google Review Count: 61
Keep your visitors coming back with custom, schedulable, dynamic, and even automatable push notifications. Skip the email inbox and spam filters by avoiding email entirely and sending direct push notifications. Even if a subscriber isn’t online when your message is sent, they’ll see your notification immediately once they get back online. Unlike other methods of customer communication, web push notifications are always viewable. Schedule alerts by time zone.
Pricing: free or $16/$24 per month
Video Plus Print
Google Review Count: 26
Want to send a direct mail piece that really stands out? Video Plus Print puts a new spin on the old product brochure by incorporating a video screen (4.3″ to 10.1″) in printed materials. Send engaging, personalized video content to select high value prospects.
Pricing: $20 to $70 per piece
Nudge by Strata
Google Review Count: N/A
Nudge extends the capabilities of popular virtual event platforms , making it easy for attendees to reach out to speakers and sponsors. Attendees simply click on a speaker name/profile and request to connect. If the speaker approves, the attendee can send a message directed to the speaker’s or sponsor’s email inbox, but without revealing their email address. Event organizers have a complete record of all connections requested and accepted.
Pricing: free