Awesome web development tools to give your website an edge

Developing a new website for your business is an exhilarating experience. You need to work through designs for all the pages your site needs and decide how visitors will move from one page to another. You may decide to pay for expert skills for the design, the build, or both. Custom web development is a fairly straightforward task, thanks to the wide range of web services and tools now available. You can do the web development and design yourself or use web development services. Whichever path you choose depends on your confidence and your computing skills.

A number of web services now offer online templates that automate the web development and design process, making custom web development a task that anyone can perform. Consider the web development tools outlined in this review before you decide whether you can tackle the job yourself.

Balsamiq may influence your decision about whether to perform your own web development and design. This easy-to-use web service enables you to create mock-ups of your webpages. If you want to have the program on your computer so you can work with it offline, Balsamiq offers a downloadable version. Nowadays, you have to produce several different versions of your site because people may access it from desktop and laptop computers as well as smartphones. The mobile versions of your webpages will require different layouts because a phone screen is much smaller than a laptop screen. This makes custom web development a little more complicated than it was a few years ago. Creating mock-ups of your pages before the final build means you can test their appearance and get feedback from others on the look and feel of your new site before you go to the trouble of building it.

If you aren’t going to do your own web development and design, you need to find someone to do it for you. 99 designs enables web designers to showcase their abilities and pitch for work. You fill out an online form with your requirements and specify how much you are willing to pay. This information is then accessible to freelance web designers, who come up with a pitch and post their ideas for your project. The competition closes after seven days, and you pick the design you like the best. Don’t forget to specify that you need SEO web development, because that will get you search engine-friendly web services built into the submitted designs.

You probably know Amazon as an online retailer. The company extended its platform from selling books to creating a marketplace for a wide range of products. Selling online requires many specialized web services, not just web development and design. For example, you will need a shopping cart and some form of payment processing. Amazon Web Services helps users of the Amazon platform set up their online shops through a series of web development tools. You can create your own pages online with the Amazon templates, which simplifies the decisions that must be made in custom web development. Amazon is highly experienced at web marketing, so you can be sure that its templates include search engine optimization, thus guaranteeing SEO web development for your enterprise. Another advantage of Amazon Web Services is that the company is so well known; plenty of blogs and web development and design advice sites can give you tips specifically related to using Amazon Web Services. Some small businesses, however, may find Amazon’s standardized design procedures too restrictive for their needs.

If you like the idea behind Amazon Web Services but want a little more originality in your web development and design, take a look at Wufoo. This company offers web development services similar to Amazon’s in that you can create your own pages using templates. However, one big limitation in Wufoo’s web development tool is that it is restricted to producing forms. Forms can be used not just to input data but also to display it. If you have a catalog of products, you can set up input forms that only you can access and then construct the main product pages of your site as forms to display search results based on the data you input into your database. But not every website needs input forms, and those that do have forms also need other pages that are not centered on forms. However, you can integrate your Wufoo forms into an Amazon shop. Websites are more than just the layout you see in the browser. Often there are complicated behind-the-scenes programs and databases at work in a webpage. Wufoo generates all these programs for you. Handling forms input, storing the input data, and accessing it is a complicated programming task, so if you need forms on your site, look into Wufoo.

Swiftype won’t help you with your web development and design, as it isn’t a web development tool; however, it is a search facility that you can integrate into your website. A search facility is more complicated than just an input field labeled “Search.” The search engine needs to index the site and record keywords against different points in your webpages. Swiftype stores this information on its own server, and the Search button on your site prompts a call to a program on its computer. This may slow the response of the search, depending on the performance of the Swiftype computer and the speed of the Internet connection when a user tries the function.

If you are completely new to web development and design, Amazon Web Services is probably the best solution for your custom web development project. The limitations of design decisions in this system will actually help you get the job done, and the automatic integration of a shopping cart and payment processing simplifies the work you need to do to get your online shop running. If you don’t need to collect payments through your website but have a lot of products to display, you might be more interested in Wufoo’s web development services, where you get more design options but fewer services. The prototyping facilities of web development tools such as Balsamiq will enable you to test the usability and visual appeal of your planned webpage layouts. Remember to create mobile-friendly versions of all your pages, and check them out on a range of devices before settling on your design.

Operations management is the process of running the day-to-day functions of your business. Although these functions tend to be the main activities of a business, most small-business owners tend to slip into a routine and rarely examine these tasks to form an operations strategy. Taking just a little time to consider these things will enable you to identify operational weaknesses in your organization and start to think about what tools could assist you in improving the efficiency of your business processes.

New, cloud-based services can help any business save money and improve efficiency through proper operations management. You don’t have to be an online business to benefit from these online tools for operations. Take a look at this list of the latest tools for operations, and see whether any of these would fit your business’s needs.

“Collaboration” is a buzzword in business at the moment. Basically, it means keeping team members informed. In the old days, managers would send endless streams of memos to keep everyone informed. The most recent method of collaboration is based on email systems. Yammer is a business collaboration platform that mimics social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Yammer is a cloud-based service, so your employees out in the field, such as the sales team, can access the network on their smartphones. You can also integrate the applications you use in your day-to-day operations. As Yammer is all about business collaboration, very small businesses would probably not find a social network like Yammer suitable for their operations strategy.

One service that no business should overlook is data backup. If your laptop gets stolen or your hard drive crashes, the loss of data could ruin your business. Carbonite is one of many cloud-based services specializing in data storage. A major benefit of Carbonite is that it is affordable and scalable. It is not one of those tools for operations that suit only multi-employee businesses. Sole traders and small businesses also need to build data recovery into their operations strategy, and Carbonite has a range of plans to suit all business sizes.

Trello is a business collaboration tool that could also be used by a sole trader for operation organization. The user assembles all the information for a project onto a board, which can then be accessed by others; it is a way of allocating tasks to a team or just gathering all your thoughts in one place. Because Trello is a cloud-based service, the boards you create can be accessed from any other device, including a tablet or a smartphone. So, if you are a decorator or a handyman, you can compose a library of guides and checklists at home or at the office and then access that information when you are out on site. Trello combines many tools for operations, such as a calendar for scheduling and a method for centralizing project documentation.

NetSuite is a big system that covers all operations management for a company. Its tools for operations include an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that covers financial functions, such as accounting, financial planning, order management, invoicing, and bill paying. The NetSuite ERP system is the world’s most implemented cloud-based service for operations management. It enables you to track inventory, order supplies, and write sales orders. The system also helps you ship packages and issue invoices to customers. The company also offers a customer relationship management (CRM) module that controls the customer contact aspects of operations management. NetSuite isn’t designed for small businesses—the NetSuite website only mentions midsize businesses and enterprises—so the product is less suitable for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Deputy is one of the tools for operations in this list that focuses on the workforce management aspects of your operations strategy. This is a cloud-based service, so information you post in your Deputy system can be accessed from mobile devices—making it a business collaboration platform as well as a scheduling and task allocation system. The operations management functions of Deputy are comprehensive. Nevertheless, sole traders or small partnerships probably wouldn’t benefit from the team management and business collaboration aspects of the system enough to justify Deputy’s expense. Consultancies and agencies, however, would find this a useful tool for operation organization.

AOMi stands for Active Operations Management International, but you don’t need to be a multinational to run your operations management through this system. The “international” part of the name just refers to the fact that the company is active in many different countries. AOMi is probably the most targeted of the tools for operations in this list in that it doesn’t focus on business collaboration or form part of an ERP system. It is specifically targeted at supporting operations management. The AOM methodology focuses on staff allocation and goal setting. Many businesses overlook the concept of capacity when planning their operations strategy. AOMi starts with HR capacity, including the availability of in-house skills and outsourced services. If your business has many employees, or if you operate with independent contractors to fulfill your orders, you would benefit from the performance and resource utilization capabilities of this system.

As you work through this list of reviews of tools for operations, you will probably see immediately which of these systems match the needs of your business. If you are a sole trader or a small business with very few employees, you probably wouldn’t need the business collaboration features of some of the products in this list. Some of the systems reviewed here, such as NetSuite and AOMi, are better suited to midsized companies with a number of employees and sales activities to track. Other services, such as Trello or Carbonite, fulfill operations management needs of all sizes of businesses.

Online sales tools can help you win new business

You don’t have to run an online business to benefit from online sales tools. Even if you generate all your sales in the real world and have little presence on the web, you can benefit from web-based sales tools to support your sales management functions.

A sales strategy is easier to implement if it involves a well-motivated sales organization and is fully supported by sales tools. If you are struggling to improve the conversion rate of your initial contacts and you want to know how to increase sales, you should try to move to an online sales strategy that includes conversion optimization. The nine sales tools detailed in this review should get your sales management buzzing with technology.

Put very simply, the Highrise sales tool is an email address book that allows you to add notes to a contact’s details. That description may be an oversimplification; the system also includes a calendar section to enable you to schedule meetings and follow-up calls. The purpose of this sales tool is to improve the conversion rate of your sales organization by making details about the client available for future reference. If your sales management extends to a team, you can choose to share the details you note about a client with one, some, or all of your sales force.

Velocify is the new name for Leads360. It is cloud based, which means you access the software and store your data on a host computer in the Velocify office. You don’t need to run your own servers to operate this system as your sales management tool. The system can integrate with other software popular with sales organizations. There is a version of Velocify specifically written to interact with Salesforce, which is a well-known sales management tool. The company’s other sales tools are called LeadManager and Dial-IQ. LeadManager enables a sales manager to schedule tasks for team members and track their activities in the field. You can set up automated follow-up emails in the system to keep a potential client informed while you attend to other tasks. Velocify Dial-IQ was written for telesales teams. Outgoing calls can be channeled through an area code that is local to the client, so a remote call center can appear to be in the client’s neighborhood.

Not all sales tools are about customer relationship management. If your tenders and proposals need extensive details, then you may need a sales tool that specifically focuses on presenting bids. Examples of detailed proposals are those presented by advertising agencies or interior designers. Such proposals have to detail more than just a list of tasks and materials. Bidsketch allows you to communicate your proposal online, mixing text, calculations, and graphics. You can include a contract in PDF form with your bid, which the client can approve and commit to using the digital signature technology integrated in the Bidsketch sales tool.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems track contacts with sales leads and store customer and sales information. Full CRM systems also include customer support systems, such as a help desk. Highrise is a CRM tool, but ZohoCRM is a more comprehensive package of customer relationship sales tools. The system is accessible from smartphones, so a sales team member can check customer details before and during meetings. Another feature for conversion optimization is access to social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter. ZohoCRM has many features, so if you are searching for ways to increase sales and improve the conversion rate of your sales organization, check out the ZohoCRM website for all the sales management facilities the package offers.

Contactually is similar to Highrise in that it is an email address book, like a contacts database married to an appointments calendar. This is a much smaller CRM system than ZohoCRM, so if you are an individual, you would be more likely to buy the single-user version rather than shell out for all the team functionality of ZohoCRM. Like ZohoCRM, Contactually offers access to customers through social media and is also accessible from smartphones.

Bloomfire is a comprehensive CRM system. In fact, this sales tool extends beyond the boundaries of usual CRM functions to those such as staff training. The Bloomfire website explains the ethos of this package as “enterprise collaboration software.” The system can be integrated with other sales tools, such as Salesforce and SharePoint, and also includes interfaces to social media sites, such as LinkedIn.

HubSpot specializes in services to facilitate digital marketing efforts, and they produce Sidekick. You don’t have to be an online business to use this sales tool, however. Sidekick is like Highrise because it centers its CRM on an expanded contacts database that acts as an email address book. HubSpot is developing a full CRM system, and Sidekick customers will gain early access to the new sales tools before they are released to the general public in 2015.

Salesforce is a sales management package that is well known among sales organizations for its ability to support conversion optimization. RelateIQ is a sister product of Salesforce, so it integrates well with its stablemate. RelateIQ is an email contact list-based system, much like Highrise and Contactually. If you find the customer contact features of Salesforce weak, add on RelateIQ.

Shoeboxed is a data scanning service that digitizes your receipts, business cards, and other sales documents. The documents are stored as images and uploaded to cloud storage, so expense receipts can be printed for tax returns. The information from the documents is also indexed so you can search your data store for any relevant information.

Some of the products in this list complement each other, while others compete to offer the same service. If you are a sole trader or small business looking for a CRM system, the lighter features of Highrise and Contactually would be suitable. As your company grows, you may find the extra features of Velocify worth the money. Larger sales organizations focused on customer contact would be better served by ZohoCRM or Bloomfire.