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Best Web Development Tools (Free & Paid)

14 Jan 2023 — Updated 12 Aug 2023

A web developer in the engine room
Matthew James Taylor

“I've been developing websites professionally for over two decades and running this site since 1997! During this time I've found many amazing tools and services that I cannot live without.”
— Matthew James Taylor

Table of contents

Website Monetization Services

Turn website traffic into monthly revenue with display ads from a trusted ad network.

Ezoic

Ezoic — Best ad network for publishers

Earn more than double the revenue of Google Adsense. It's easy to set up and there's no minimum traffic requirements.

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Mediavine
Extract the most ad revenue possible from high-traffic websites (50k sessions per month required.)

Content Creation Tools

Speed up your content creation process and improve the overal quality of your website with the following writing tools.

Jasper

Jasper — Best Content Creation Tool

Plan, outline, and write long-form website articles with the power of AI and produce content faster than ever.

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Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO — Best Content Optimization Tool

Use the power of AI to optimise your website content and increase article rankings on Google.

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Grammarly

Grammarly — Best Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar Checker

Write professional copy that's clean, direct, and a pleasure to read even if English is not your first language.

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ChatGPT
Use AI to outline documents, write engaging copy, and explore potential ideas and topics.
WordCounter
Count characters, words, sentences, and paragraphs, and determin the reading level for your copy.

Website Optimization

Fix technical SEO issues, improve website speed, and accessibility.

Structured data testing tool
Validate webpage schema markup to ensure you qualify for Google's rich SERP results.
ScreamingFrog
Improve onsite SEO by auditing for common SEO issues such as broken links, redirects, duplicate content, and more.
SERP Snippet Optimizer
Fine tune Meta title length and optimize how your web pages look in Google search results.
Responsive ad checker
Check your responsive HTML5 ads in all the common ad sizes in a single test.
Disavow spammy backlinks for your website. Hilkom Digital offer a free service to create a disavow file that you can upload to Google.

Topic Research Tools

Reasearch your niche, monitor competitors, and plan your content strategy.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs — Best Topic Research Tool

Research writing topics, monitor your website keyword rankings, analyse your backlink profile, and so much more.

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Compare international and local keyword search traffic trends on Google.
AnswerThePublic
Brainstorm keyword ideas based around any topic including questions, prepositions, and comparisons.

Website Hosting

Get your ideas online and reach a global audience.

SiteGround

SiteGround — Best Website Hosting

Professional Wordpress hosting with 24/7 customer support that is the best in the industry, hands down!

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Squarespace

Squarespace — Best Website Hosting For Non-Developers

Easy-to-edit website templates, no coding needed. Full commerce and marketing features to run your business online.

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AWS
Enterprize-level hosting and web services for mission-critical online systems.

Website Marketing Tools

Stay in contact with your customers and promote your latest content.

Brevo

Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue) — Best Digital Marketing Platform

Manage your email list, promote your services, and send international SMS messages to your customers.

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Design and imagery

Design graphics, layouts, illustrations, and generate images.

Canva

Canva — Best Graphic Design Software

Create professional graphics and social media imagery with an intuitive online interface.

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Midjourney
Use the power of AI to generate art and imagery in the blink of an eye.
DALL-E
Create realistic images and art from natural language descriptions.

Image Optimization

Speed up your website by compressing images or converting to more efficient file formats.

Compress jpeg
Easily compress your JPG images in bulk using this free online tool.
ImageAlpha
Drastically reduce the size of your PNG images by intelligently reducing their color palette.
SVG OMG
Reduce the size of your SVG images by removing unnecessary elements and cleaning up messy vector paths.

Coding

Write clean and efficient code that's a pleasure to work with.

Codepen
Prototype interfaces in HTML, CSS, and Javascript and share your creations.
CSS Minifier
Reduce your CSS code size and speed up your website.
JavaScript Minifier
Compress and minify your JavaScript code to reduce the bundle size of your website. Also has API access.

I'll keep this page updated as I discover more amazing tools and services.

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How to add CSS to HTML

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