Web Tools to create a lightning fast website
Having a website for your business might seem obvious to some, but it turns out more than 50 percent of U.S. small businesses still don't have even a basic website. To many customers, your presence on the web is their first impression of your business. It should be critical to have a website that showcases who you are and what you do.
If you haven't created a website yet, some simple tools can help you bring your business online, where the customers are, so you can keep doing what you do best:
Weebly
Weebly offers a drag-and-drop website builder with 40+ mobile-friendly themes. It includes a blog, image galleries and an online store. Next to the free plan there is Weebly Professional at $12/month, which is the cheapest ad-free plan and lets you use your own domain name.
Colors
Pick colors that are complementary and match the characteristics of your brand.
Pigment - This awesome tool by shapefactory helps showcase complementary colors with a vibe that kind of looks like an early 70s carpet.
Adobe Color Wheel - A great way to experiment with different color combinations.
Brand colors - If you ever wanted to know what colors your favorite brand uses, this site has a fairly comprehensive list.
Coolors - A fun way to generate color schemes with an image uploader that can read the colors from your image and output a color scheme.
Color Palette Guide - They do an excellent job of laying out this information, so if you want to learn more, check it out!
Font
Fonts can say a lot about your brand, and like colors, it’s important that you choose fonts that pair well with each other. You can have one font for our titles or headers and another font for the text on the body of our site.
Font Pair - Extremely comprehensive list of font pairings.
Logos
As mentioned earlier, logos are really fun. Playing around with logo makers can easily become a new hobby. That being said, it can be difficult to get an output from a logo maker that doesn’t...look like it came from a logo maker.
Here are some services that make hiring a designer easy and hassle-free:
99Designs - We love this service. It’s a great way to find a designer, while already specifying what exactly you need. There’s also a wide range of prices — from hiring a super professional logo designer to someone still in college who just might be the next Paul Rand.
Fiverr - An easy service for hiring freelancers.
If you’re set on going with a web-based logo service, here a few of the best:
Logo by Shapefactory - A bit more expensive than other services, but there’s a feeling of high design to the logos that is hard to find elsewhere.
Logojoy - Another great logo design program that’s only getting better. A good one to try with a very fun onboarding process.
Tailor Brands - Another logo building tool with an easy onboarding flow.
Logo Maker - A great tool that’s in the Weebly App Center.
Content
Once you have your colors, fonts and logos, you’re probably going to want to do something with them. Here are a few tools that help you apply your brand identity to things like Instagram content, blog posts and more.
Adobe Spark - Adobe’s tool that helps you make elements for social media, using your brand guidelines. It’s easy to use — and more importantly, easy to make your assets look good.
Canva - Easy-to-use tools that help make adding text to images a breeze.
Copywriting
If you’re someone who has difficulty with typos, or always needs a proofreader, there are apps that help clarify your language and make sure what you’re writing is readable and clear.
Grammarly - This tool is an amazing spelling and grammar checker that also tracks how well you’re doing with your accuracy. Great for writing copy — and generally just helps you write better.
Hemingway App - This app will help turn your boring, everyday paragraphs into powerful, concise novellas about the human condition and very nature of man. Just kidding! It just helps you write clearer sentences — which is always good for copy and marketing materials.