Finding Online Tools For Your Business
The internet is a big place. And with every angel startup investor throwing billions of dollars at every project on the planet, the internet keeps getting bigger. But as with all things, the Pareto principle tends to reify itself, and we find that most of the internet is detritus. So where’s the good stuff? We wanted to find some of those rare gems, those bits and pieces that people use all the time but not everyone knows about–not Google or Amazon, but lesser-known online tools for business and other digital resources that are essential.
So we did what we always do; we asked the experts: What is one lesser-known but crucial online tool, website, magazine, or other kind of digital resource that you use constantly for your business? Here is what eleven thought leaders have to say.
Utilize Dealfront for Lead Generation
One of the tools that I use every single day is Dealfront (Leadfeeder). It helps me understand who has been to our site and what they may be looking for. It makes it very simple to identify target accounts, tag them, and route them to the correct Sales Development team.
Not only do we see potential new customers to reach out to, we see which current customers are visiting and what they are looking for, so we can be proactive in contacting them.
This tool is a valuable asset for SMBs looking to refine their lead generation processes and grow their sales pipeline effectively.
Kate Dzhevaga, CMO, Head of Growth, SYMVOLT
Leverage Wayback Machine for Competitor Insights
I swear by using archived versions of websites through the Wayback Machine.
It’s a gold mine, especially for competitor research or when I need to understand how a brand evolved their messaging, design, or offers over time.
Sometimes companies remove campaigns, pricing pages, or blog posts that could have given you real insights—they just disappear.
But not for me. I check how their site looked at key points, like product launches or major rebrands, and reverse-engineer their pivots.
It’s also saved me when a partner’s website goes down, and I need to grab critical info fast.
No one thinks to use it this way, but it’s become a stealth tool I can’t go without.
Austin Benton, Marketing Consultant, Gotham Artists
Boost Traffic with TranslatePress
We increased the number of articles on our blog by 40X in a couple of clicks. We use a plug-in for WordPress called TranslatePress. It uses machine learning to create the highest-quality translations available and automatically sets up the site to be multilingual. After a couple months of doing this, our traffic outside of the U.S. absolutely exploded.
Ben Miller, COO, Undetectable AI
Discover Queries with AnswerThePublic
One lesser-known but crucial tool I constantly use is AnswerThePublic. It helps me uncover what questions and topics people are searching for around specific keywords. This insight is gold for content creation, SEO strategies, and understanding customer needs. By aligning my business content with these queries, I stay relevant and meet my audience where they are, boosting engagement and visibility.
Bram Louwers, Director, BrainManager
Identify Trends with Exploding Topics
One lesser-known but crucial resource I constantly rely on is Exploding Topics. It’s a unique tool that helps identify emerging trends and topics before they hit the mainstream. Analyzing search data and social-media trends provides insights into what’s gaining traction in various industries. This allows me to stay ahead of the curve and tailor my business strategies effectively, whether for content creation, product development, or marketing campaigns.
Matt Gehring, Chief Marketing Officer, Dutch
Optimize Content with TF-IDF Tool
One lesser-known but invaluable tool we use is the TF-IDF keyword tool from SEObility. It’s an SEO tool that helps us optimize our website content by analyzing term frequencies and comparing them to top-ranking pages. This enables us to identify relevant keywords and phrases we might be missing, enhancing our semantic SEO strategy.
By leveraging the TF-IDF keyword tool, we can create more comprehensive and user-focused content that aligns with search intent. This not only improves our search-engine rankings but also boosts user engagement and conversions. Staying on top of content optimization with this tool helps us drive organic traffic and supports our business’s growth.
Omër Güven, Co-Founder & CEO, Fintalent
Enhance Tours Using PackPoint App
I constantly use the PackPoint app, which helps me design self-guided tours for my customers. We focus on delivering the best travel experience to our customers across the Canadian landscape. For this, we must provide accurate weather information, packing tips, and clothing suggestions according to the destinations.
PackPoint app helps us in this process by offering valuable recommendations based on the requirements for a hassle-free trip. Its real-time data on weather forecasts and available activities make our self-guided tours valuable to our customers with practical suggestions concerning what to pack for a particular destination.
Since Canadian weather is highly unpredictable, we need a reliable source that can offer trustworthy information, and the PackPoint app allows us to deliver the best traveling experience by assessing all the possibilities.
Soubhik Chakrabarti, CEO, Canada Hustle
Audit SEO Elements with Detailed Extension
One lesser-known but valuable tool I use regularly is Detailed—a free Chrome extension that provides instant insights into any webpage’s SEO elements. With just a click, I can view the page title, meta description, word count, and heading structure. This is incredibly useful for quick audits on my own site, but it’s especially helpful when researching other websites. For example, when I want to see how another site structures its content or optimizes for keywords, Detailed offers a snapshot without needing to dive into source code or use more complex tools. It’s simple, efficient, and ideal for SEO work.
Villiam Karasti, SEO Consultant, Pardott Marketing
Quantify Tree Benefits Using i-Tree
One indispensable digital resource that’s been a game-changer for our tree-service business is the USDA’s i-Tree suite of tools, particularly i-Tree Design. While it’s not exactly obscure in arborist circles, many business owners and homeowners are unaware of its power. This free, web-based tool allows us to quantify the environmental and economic benefits of trees in urban settings. By simply inputting a property’s location and mapping its trees, we can generate detailed reports on energy savings, stormwater interception, air quality improvement, and carbon sequestration for each tree over time.
This data has revolutionized our client consultations and proposal processes. We’ve seen a 35% increase in service upsells by demonstrating the long-term value of tree preservation and strategic planting. It’s also become an invaluable asset in negotiations with city planners and developers, helping us advocate for green infrastructure. Business owners in the environmental sector should seek out government-backed digital tools in their fields. They’re often free, incredibly powerful, and can provide the hard data needed to transform your value proposition.
Ben McInerney, Founder, GoTreeQuotes
Check out our blog if you need some online tools for business that can help with online training modules.
Stay Updated with Substack Newsletters
Definitely read Feed Me, a business-and-culture newsletter, along with other writing on Substack. Amid all of the diaristic city writing, there are incredible thought-leaders across every industry, sharing their nuanced takes and engaging directly with their audience’s questions. To find out what’s next, you have to be on the lesser-traveled platforms.
Remy Smidt, Brand Strategist, Fazer
Monitor Event Trends with Glimpse
A lesser-known but crucial digital resource we rely on is Glimpse, a social media monitoring tool specifically designed for event trends. Unlike general social listening tools, Glimpse focuses on real-time event-related conversations, allowing us to stay ahead of emerging themes and preferences in the luxury event space. For instance, when preparing to staff a high-profile tech product launch, Glimpse alerted us to a sudden surge in discussions about interactive holographic displays.
This insight prompted us to quickly train a subset of our staff in managing these cutting-edge technologies, which turned out to be a central feature of the event. The client was impressed by our proactive approach and deep understanding of current trends. Glimpse has consistently helped us anticipate client needs before they’re explicitly stated, giving us a significant edge in the competitive world of luxury event staffing. By integrating Glimpse’s insights into our staff training and event preparation processes, we’ve been able to increase our contract win rate by 30% for tech and entertainment industry events.
Daniel Meursing, Founder/CEO/CFO, Premier Staff
Mandel Is Your Marketing Resource
Wouldn’t be a true Mandel Marketing article without a plug, right? Well, here it is: reach out to us if you need a resource for marketing, advertising, media, branding, and strategy. We’re more than an online tool for business. Email us directly or use the form below.