17 Free Web Design Tools, Fall 2023

Many free resources from the design community can enhance an ecommerce site. Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from fall 2023. There are tools for color palettes, UX design, presentations, logo generation, carousels, email templates, free fonts, and more.

All of these tools are free or have free plans, though most also offer premium versions. The fonts are free for commercial projects. Before using a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Free Design Tools

Perception is an AI-powered tool to generate color combinations or palettes. Perception also leverages color psychology research data to help determine palettes likely to convey a desired mood. Quickly and easily create visually appealing color schemes that emotionally connect with target audiences.

Perception

Supademo creates interactive demos and guides. The latest update features generative AI to create how-to docs and text annotations. Personalize Supademo based on demo type, intent, and the element clicked in each slide. The update also features advanced analytics, video support, collaboration improvements, and more. The free version includes up to five demos.

Pitch 2.0 is a platform to create and share presentations. The 2.0 update features an AI presentation generator, a links overview page to manage outreach, new animations, a duplication button to create your own templates, a gallery for shared decks, and more. The premium plan includes version history.

Punkt is an all-in-one user-experience writing and content design platform, soon to launch. The platform states it will harness content to craft experiences, lead design, shape interactions, and drive user engagement. Sign up for the beta waiting list.

Punkt

Venngage Accessible Design Tool ensures accessibility to your content on the Venngage infographics platform. Explore the visual simulator to improve accessibility for people with visual impairments. Enhance accessibility with AI-generated alt text. Simplify pie charts, graphs, and more. Click “Check Accessibility” before completing your design to detect compliance issues and make necessary edits.

Told is an in-product pop-up survey tool to collect user feedback. Build event-triggered in-product surveys and announcements without code. Identify users (without asking) via hidden fields. The free plan allows 150 reaches per month.

Postnitro is an AI-powered tool to create branded carousels for social media. Access core carousel capabilities and templates and generate unlimited carousels. Instantly apply your logo, colors, name, and more to any template.

Postnitro

Zoviz is an online logo maker for branding. Get one-click logos and icons. Zoviz charges for final files; before that, you can view, create, and edit your versions for free.

Workverse 2.0 is an update to the virtual workspace platform. Meet with your teams and collaborate using high-definition video chats, screen-share, and virtual whiteboards. Manage projects and get work done through task management, AI chatbot, privacy protection, health tools, and more. Free space sessions are limited to 10 guests for 60 minutes.

Grammar Checker & Rewriter from Linguix is a multi-lingual grammar checker and rewriter for Figma, the design platform. Grammar Checker & Rewriter analyzes content as you write and underlines mistakes or sentences in a given FIgma object. Apply corrections in one click or expand them for more context.

Tabular is a no-code design tool to create responsive emails. Design high-performing email templates and campaigns using the email template builder — directly from the editor. Download up to two free HTML or PDF emails per month.

Tabular

Free Fonts

Adecko is a bold and bubbly graffiti font with plenty of energetic street style.

Adecko

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Lost Type, an update from 2018, is based on Vietnam’s rich typographic heritage, paying homage to a bygone era.

Lost Type

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Bigger is a condensed all-cap display font with minimal roundness and small gaps to emphasize the blocks.

Bigger

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Fonzie is a versatile font with four styles, offering tradition and innovation. Its basic style provides an elegant, space-saving condensed form.

Fonzie

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Murah is an elegant handwritten font infused with modernity and charm. It’s an all-caps font that helps convey info in a friendly manner.

Murah

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Lemon is a heavy, condensed typeface for display. The font family comes in nine weights and eighteen styles. The regular weight is free.

Lemon

Custom GPTs for Marketers

Custom GPTs are versions of ChatGPT created by OpenAI users for specialized tasks. Many custom GPTs launch every day.

Here are five of the most useful for marketers with ChatGPT Plus accounts.

Helpful GPTs for Marketers

Elegant Logo Creator generates logos from prompts and offers unlimited revisions. To test, I entered this generic instruction:

Create a logo for a marketing community of people helping each other.

The tool produced this logo and explanation:

Initial logo from Elegant Logo Creator.

The logo for your marketing community emphasizes mutual help and collaboration. It features a circle of interconnected abstract human figures, symbolizing unity and support within the community. The warm color palette of oranges and yellows, set against a clean white background, adds a friendly and approachable feel. This design aims to embody the spirit of teamwork, growth, and community, reflecting the core values of your marketing group.

I then asked it to include red and to make it simpler. Here’s the response:

Revised logo with extra red.

I concluded with the following:

Remove the extra dots and make it a circle of people helping each other, more like the first version but simpler (less detail). It should be less of an ornament and more like a minimalistic logo. Include the name “Smarty Leads.”

Here’s the result:

Final version with “Smarty Leads.”

I could have continued for hours. Overall this GPT was a big help in generating a logo concept to build on.

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Maestrix | All-in-one Marketing CoPilot helps formulate a value proposition, brand message, and target market.

I pasted my family blog URL, and Maestrix responded:

The value of [this site] lies in its rich, family-oriented content that caters to a diverse range of interests, from nature exploration and wildlife encounters to cultural experiences and budget-friendly travel tips. This content is valuable for families seeking unique, accessible, and varied travel experiences within the United States.

It also provided marketing tactics:

Emphasize the unique aspects of your content. For instance, your focus on family-friendly adventures, budget travel, and less-explored destinations like Connecticut or specific trails in popular locations. Highlight these unique angles in your marketing.

—

Content Helpfulness and Quality SEO Analyzer reviews content for omissions and reader benefits compared to competitors.

In a May article, I suggested using ChatGPT to analyze text. But the Content Helpfulness GPT is better, as it focuses on specific aspects of a page.

Paste your own URL and a competitor’s, and enter a target search query. The tool will provide suggestions based on Google’s helpful content algorithm, overall readability, and relevance to the query and its intent.

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Trending TikTok Hashtags Finder Tool is a free hashtag generator for a given query. First, it searches TikTok for that keyword. It then checks those videos for hashtag ideas. Finally, it pulls trending hashtags from Ads.tiktok.com.

I asked for TikTok hashtag suggestions for “traveling in NY state.” It generated a table as well as a few usage stats.

Trending TikTok Hashtags Finder Tool provided popular TikTok hashtags and isolated stats for the phrase “traveling to NY state.” Click image to enlarge.

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DesignerGPT creates quick and simple website designs. I used my earlier logo prompt:

Create a design for a community of marketers helping each other.

The tool quickly created a website layout to download and deploy immediately. It also provided instructions on how to use the design.

DesignerGPT creates quick and simple website designs.

The layout is nothing special, but the slogan, headings, and email opt-in form were helpful, saving time, especially for new sites or projects.

I could have chatted more with the tool, requesting a better top banner, a different color palette, and a revised template organization.

Will Custom GPTs Boost Ecommerce?

OpenAI and Amazon Web Services have just released no-code tools for building custom AI bots capable of automating and optimizing many ecommerce and retail tasks.

OpenAI announced on Nov. 6, 2023, that it would roll out custom versions of ChatGPT and would soon open a GPT store where developers could publish generative pre-trained transformers (i.e., “GPTs”) aimed at specific tasks.

Then, on Nov. 16, AWS released PartyRock, its experimental low-code AI app builder running on Amazon Bedock.

PartyRock is Amazon’s low-code AI app builder, currently in experimental mode.

Almost No Code

For merchants, the key takeaway from these announcements is that generative AI can be customized, at least to some degree, without a developer. The tools are about as easy to use as Zapier or your favorite spreadsheet software — assuming you’re comfortable with formulas and pivot tables.

The announcements represent a change in AI applications since customization has heretofore required advanced programming capabilities and API access (still needed for high-volume, niche apps). Already, no-code builders are enabling amazing AI bots using “instructions” and “knowledge.” Only “actions,” connecting custom GPTs to data, are low-code

Using OpenAI’s builder, let’s create a custom GPT and discuss some possibilities.

Ad Copy

Here is our scenario. Imagine you are a marketing manager for a direct-to-consumer nutritional supplement brand. Your company has purchased host-read ads on 50 podcasts. The ads were successful but required loads of copy.

Let’s build a GPT for that.

Paid OpenAI accounts now include an “Explore” link in the upper left of the ChatGPT page. This is where the custom GPTs will reside.

Paid ChatGPT users can access the GPT builder via the Explore link.

Opening the Explore link will show “Create a GPT,” the option to create a custom (semi-custom, really) version.

Not surprisingly, OpenAI has provided a chat-based tool to get started.

The bot begins:

Hi! I’ll help you build a new GPT. You can say something like, “make a creative who helps generate visuals for new products” or “make a software engineer who helps format my code.” What would you like to make?

Enter the GPT instructions manually under the Configure tab or as a chat with the GPT builder. Click image to enlarge.

Answering the initial queries launches the first round of questions. All the while, a preview of the in-progress custom GPT appears on the right side of the page. The preview informs how the new chatbot is working.

Test the output via the GPT preview while you configure the custom version. Click image to enlarge.

This back-and-forth chat and a subsequent field in the configured GPT constitute what OpenAI calls the “instructions” part of the process. Spend some time with these instructions, and don’t hesitate to ask it to change. You can exit your GPT and update it later.

Under the “Configure” tab at the top of the builder are the specific instructions for the GPT. You can modify these directly.

Assemble or edit the GPT under the “Configure” tab. Click image to enlarge.

One of the best features is the ability to add “knowledge” to the GPT. For example, we can upload the brand’s copywriting style guide, although knowledge can be more or less anything.

The GPT can include brand-specific knowledge. Click image to enlarge.

Finally, the GPT can have coded “actions.” These are similar to a ChatGPT plugin connecting to live data.

Actions allow a GPT to connect to external APIs such as Zapier. Click image to enlarge. 

Actions make the custom builders low-code rather than no-code because you work with data and APIs to extend the GPT’s capabilities. For example, we could connect our podcast copywriter to an endpoint of upcoming sales and a calendar showing a schedule of podcast ad placements. This information could inform the (human) writer about which promotions to mention in a given host-read ad.

Many Possibilities

Podcast ads may or may not help your business. Perhaps, instead, you need a GPT to analyze proposed after-Christmas promotions to know how many units to sell for a discount to be worthwhile.

Or what about a GPT that helped identify season spikes in product demand? Would a retailer want to know how weather conditions in Michigan impacted its online sales?

We’ll learn in the next few years how AI and machine learning play out. At the moment, the possibilities seem numerous.

4 AI Tools to Condense Text, Audio, Video

Generative artificial intelligence is powerful for analyzing and summarizing content. Here are four innovative tools for that task.

Claude for PDFs

Reading long reports is challenging in an era of information overload. I’ve tried many document condensers, but nothing was better than ChatGPT. Then I found Anthropic’s Claude, which analyzes and condenses text, including PDFs.

To test, I uploaded to Claude the PDF of Google’s patent in 2015 for classifying sites as low-quality. Claude produced an informed, condensed explanation without too much detail.

Per Claude, the patent:

• Assigns a quality score for each resource linking to a site.
• Groups the resources based on their score ranges.
• Counts the number of resources in each group.
• Calculates a weighted average link quality score for the site using the distribution of resources in the groups.
• Classifies the site as low quality if the link quality score is below a threshold.
• Can decrease rankings in search results of low-quality sites.

In short, it classifies sites as low quality based on their backlinks.

Claude allows for adjustments in the prompts for more detailed summaries, definitions, chapter creation, and more. Like ChatGPT, Claude saves all dialog so users can return and request more refinements and data.

Use Claude to:

• Create takeaways of your own content.
• Understand long and complicated documents.
• Summarize content in different formats, such as paragraphs, tables, or lists.
• Create glossaries from any document.

Claude pulled these definitions from Google’s patent.

Glasp for Web Pages

Glasp condenses text from web pages. Users highlight sections of a page. Glasp will then create a summary while preserving the original for comparison.

Use Glasp to:

• Curate your content for newsletters, social posts, or blogs.
• Educate your team by sharing summarized resources.

Glasp condenses text from highlighted sections of web pages, such as this example from Animalz, a content marketing site. Click image to enlarge.

Spext for YouTube Videos

Spext condenses and organizes audio and video. It works well for podcasts and YouTube videos by allowing users to choose the sections to analyze.

Spext breaks YouTube videos into chapters (with text), allowing viewers to navigate to relevant parts and skim the rest. There’s also a search option to find info within the video.

Use Spext to:

• Turn extended product demos into shorter sections that are easier to navigate.
• Create courses from long videos.
• Create summaries and takeaways from your own videos.

Spext breaks YouTube videos into chapters, allowing viewers to navigate to relevant parts and skim the rest. Click image to enlarge.

Spoke for Slack

Slack is a terrific tool for internal communication and external collaborations, but it’s easily cluttered.

Spoke uses AI to generate daily digests of Slack channels. Provide Spoke access to Slack, and you won’t have to read all the threads. You’ll get a handy digest of the previous weekday by 9 a.m.

Spoke uses AI to generate daily digests of Slack channels. Click image to enlarge.

Comparing 4 Image-to-text AI Tools

Image-to-text technology has advanced since my article in June. Bing, Google, and ChatGPT now include the feature in their chatbots.

Let’s see what image-to-text technology can do.

Captions

“Describe this photo.”

I asked four AI tools to describe the above photo:

Bard

Bard provided a description and commentary of the photo. It didn’t notice a sailboat (unlike the others) but did assume the white dots were seagulls.

The picture you sent shows a small island in the middle of a large ocean. The island is covered in lush green vegetation and has a white sand beach. The water around the island is clear and turquoise. There are a few palm trees swaying in the breeze and a few seagulls flying overhead.

The island looks like a paradise. It is the perfect place to relax and escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I can imagine myself swimming in the crystal-clear water, sunbathing on the beach, and reading a book under a palm tree.

The picture also has a sense of peace and tranquility. The only sounds are the waves crashing on the shore and the seagulls calling. It is the perfect place to relax and de-stress.

Overall, I think the picture is beautiful and inspiring. It reminds me of the beauty of nature and the importance of taking time to relax and enjoy the simple things in life.

Bard’s filters enable modifications for simpler, shorter, longer, casual, or more professional. I chose “simpler,” and the reply seemed sarcastic!

The picture shows a small island with green trees and a white beach in the middle of a blue ocean.

I hope this is simpler for you.

Bing Chat

Bing Chat was no less creative.

This picture shows a beautiful and peaceful island in the middle of a blue sea. The island has a small beach where you can relax and enjoy the sun. There are also some trees and buildings on the island, where you can explore and find some shade. A boat is sailing near the island, inviting you to join a fun adventure on the water. The island is a perfect place to escape from the busy and noisy city life. It is a dream destination for anyone who loves nature and tranquility. 

I prompted Bing a follow-up question: “What is the name of this island?”

I’m sorry, I don’t know the name of this island. I tried to search the web for similar images, but I couldn’t find any matches. Maybe this island is a fictional or a secret place that only you know about. If you want, I can try to create a name for this island based on its features and location. Just ask me to do so, and I’ll use my imagination to come up with a suitable name. 

ChatGPT

ChatGPT provided the most accurate description and, thus, the best for accessibility.

The image showcases an aerial view of a calm body of water, presumably a lake or sea. In the middle of this expanse of water, there’s a solitary sailboat drifting. To the right of the image, closer to the shore, there’s a small landmass or islet with sandy shores and a few patches of vegetation. On this landmass, there’s a discernible structure, possibly a makeshift shelter or tent. The coast of this islet has some rock formations, and the shallower waters around it show a gradient of color, transitioning from a lighter hue near the shore to a deeper blue as it gets deeper. On the far right side, a motorboat is seen moving, creating a wake behind it. The overall scene evokes a serene and peaceful mood, with the vastness of the water juxtaposed against the tiny sailboat and the islet.

Astica

Astica doesn’t allow text prompts It provided a description and an analysis of the content:

This image shows a small island in the middle of a body of water. The island is surrounded by crystal clear blue waters, and it has an abundance of lush green vegetation growing on its surface. There are several large rocks scattered around the shoreline, as well as some trees that provide shade to the area. In the background, there is a sailboat sailing away from the island, adding to its peaceful atmosphere. The sky above is bright and sunny with white clouds dotting it here and there. This tranquil scene provides an ideal setting for relaxation or exploration — perfect for anyone looking to get away from their everyday life!

• • a small island in the middle of a body of water (0.77%)
  • an island in the water (0.77%)
  • an island in the water (0.82%)
  • a close-up of a bush (0.77%)
  • an island with rocks and trees on it (0.71%)
  • a beach with rocks and trees (0.65%)
  • an island in the water (0.76%)

Overall, the four descriptions seemed fitting for social media, providing marketers with options for inspiring captions.

Product Descriptions

“Describe it as a product so people want to buy it.”

My next test was creating product descriptions based on a single photo of sneakers from Pixabay. I provided this prompt for Bard and Bing Chat: “Describe it as a product so people want to buy it.”

Bard

Bard’s description was, in my mind, near perfect. The tool apparently knew the sneaker model and likely used an actual product description.

Justice League Converse Chuck Taylor All Star High Top Sneakers

Show your love of the Justice League with these stylish and eye-catching high top sneakers. Made with durable canvas and featuring iconic Justice League characters on both sides, these sneakers are perfect for everyday wear or for special occasions.

Features:

• • Durable canvas construction
  • Justice League character print
  • Justice League logo on tongue and heel
  • Words “Justice League” on side of midsole
  • Red laces
  • Rubber outsole

Benefits:

• • Stylish and eye-catching design
  • Comfortable and durable
  • Perfect for everyday wear or for special occasions
  • Shows your love of the Justice League

Imagine yourself wearing these sneakers. You’re walking down the street, and everyone is turning to look at your awesome shoes. You’re at a convention, and everyone is complimenting you on your unique sneakers. You’re just wearing your sneakers around the house, and you’re feeling confident and stylish.

These sneakers are the perfect way to show your love of the Justice League and to express your own unique style. They’re also comfortable and durable, so you can wear them all day long without any problems. Order your pair of Justice League Converse Chuck Taylor All Star High Top Sneakers today!

I then provided Bard with a generic photo, also from Pixbay, with the same prompt. The ensuing description was equally good, including the product name, bullet lists, and short paragraphs.

“Describe it as a product so people want to buy it.”

Pink Sneakers

These stylish and comfortable pink sneakers are the perfect addition to your wardrobe. Made with high-quality materials and featuring a sleek design, these sneakers are perfect for everyday wear or for special occasions.

Features:

• • Pink canvas upper
  • Breathable mesh lining
  • Cushioned midsole for comfort
  • Durable rubber outsole
  • Lace-up closure for a secure fit

Benefits:

• • Stylish and versatile design
  • Comfortable and durable
  • Perfect for everyday wear or for special occasions
  • Available in a variety of sizes to fit everyone

Imagine yourself wearing these sneakers. You’re walking down the street and everyone is turning to look at your cute shoes. You’re at a party and everyone is complimenting you on your unique sneakers. You’re just wearing your sneakers around the house and you’re feeling confident and stylish.

These sneakers are the perfect way to add a touch of personality to your outfit. They’re also comfortable and durable, so you can wear them all day long without any problems. Order your pair of pink sneakers today!

Order your pair of pink sneakers today and get 20% off with the code PINK20.

Bing Chat

Bing’s product description for the original action-hero sneakers was closer to a social media caption (with emojis) but still helpful. Bing called the sneakers “comic book style” without identifying the characters.

If you are looking for a pair of sneakers that are not only comfortable and durable, but also unique and eye-catching, then you should check out these comic book style sneakers. These sneakers are designed with a comic book style that features various characters and colors on them. They are gray in color with red laces, and they have a white rubber sole with a red stripe around the edge. They are made of high quality materials and they are in a new condition. These sneakers are perfect for anyone who loves comics and wants to express their personality through their footwear. You can wear them with any outfit, and they will make you stand out from the crowd. These sneakers are not available in any store, so you have to order them online. Don’t miss this chance to get your own pair of comic book style sneakers today. They are limited edition, and they are selling fast. Order now and get ready to rock your comic book style sneakers.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT again provided the most accurate, detailed descriptions.

Introducing the ultimate fusion of style and pop culture: these high-top sneakers are not just footwear, but a statement piece. Crafted in a chic gray hue, they’re adorned with vibrant illustrations of iconic superheroes, bringing dynamic energy to every step you take. The fiery red laces pop against the backdrop, ensuring you stand out in any crowd. Designed with a classic white sole, these shoes offer a nostalgic nod to timeless sneaker fashion while simultaneously embracing modern design aesthetics. Beyond aesthetics, their cushioned insole ensures comfort, making them perfect for both casual strolls and adventurous outings. Whether you’re a comic enthusiast or just someone with an eye for unique fashion, these sneakers are bound to be the centerpiece of your collection. Elevate your footwear game and walk with the heroes!

Astica

Astica didn’t recognize the comic or product, but the tags it generated could facilitate Shopify collections or product categories:

• • walking shoe
  • sneakers
  • outdoor shoe
  • cross training shoe
  • colorful

Helpful Technology

Overall, AI-driven vision technology could come in handy. My tests produced helpful captions and product descriptions. Marketing teams could massage the text to fit their circumstances. Thus far:

19 Free Web Design Tools from Summer 2023

The design of an ecommerce site impacts engagement and conversions.

Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from summer 2023. There are new AI tools, color palette generators, icon libraries, motion design tools, no-code builders, free fonts, and more.

All the tools are free or have free plans, though most also offer premium versions. The fonts are free for commercial projects. Before using a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Free Design Tools

Codejet automatically converts Figma designs into functional React and HTML code. Leverage a library of pre-built components to customize and create unique user interfaces. Join the free alpha release.

Codejet

Photoshop (beta) desktop app has added a Generative Fill tool through an integration with Adobe’s AI-powered Firefly application. After clicking Generate, the space is filled with AI-produced content that naturally blends with the existing image. The Firely-powered features in Photoshop (beta) desktop app support text prompts in 100-plus languages. Photoshop (beta) desktop app is free.

Iconbuddy is a search engine and manager to query, download, customize, and edit over 180,000 open-source icons. Download icons in SVG, PNG, WEBP, JSX, VUE, and Base64 formats.

Superlist is a collaborative to-do list application. Communicate in real-time across integrated apps and platforms, including Slack and Figma. Apply to join the private beta.

Superlist

Tailkits provides free and paid templates, kits, resources, and tools to build products with the Tailwind CSS framework. Access free templates, user-interface components, ChatGPT code generators, and more.

DataPulse is a lightweight and easy-to-understand analytics tool to learn where, why, and how people engage with your product in real time. Get a deeper understanding of visitor behavior across devices and platforms. DataPulse is currently in a free public beta release.

Magic Beans is a tool to generate invoices and financial reports using Notion data. Create your own workflow to organize invoices. Export Notion invoices to PDF files. The Pro version offers automated reports. Custom templates are coming.

Magic Beans

Appwrite Cloud is an extension of the open-source version of Appwrite, a backend-as-a-service platform that provides developers with all the core APIs to build any application. Appwrite Cloud takes care of cumbersome infrastructure tasks and includes standard Appwrite features. Appwrite Cloud has opened its public beta.

ColorHub v2.0 is a new version of the palette tool and includes a library of 150 pre-made color templates. Export a palette to your project in a few clicks.

Lottielab is a web app for animated motion design. Import, create, edit, and export vector animation Lottie files. Use Animate mode and drag the play head to a timestamp. Lottielab adds keyframes during edits of the layer’s properties. Edit transitions and set easing options between keyframes. Lottielab is free during its public beta.

Lottielab

DevGPT is an AI developer using machine learning algorithms to analyze a backlog of work and identify the most critical tasks. Once tasks are identified, DevGPT creates pull requests and completes the tickets autonomously. It’s designed to work with any programming language and framework. The free plan has a 100-character limit to prompt lengths.

Illustration Kit by IconScout lets you create and personalize illustrations. Choose from a selection of illustration kits for various use cases. Set colors, themes, and styles. Mix and match elements, and apply custom colors for your design and branding needs.

Dev Mode is a new space in Figma to inspect design elements and translate them into code. Hover and click objects for details such as measurements, specs, and styles. Generate production-ready CSS, iOS, or Android code snippets from your design, or use a plugin to customize code for whatever framework you use. Dev Mode is in open beta.

Disperse is a tool to create and manage social media content across multiple platforms. Create and edit content, post or schedule it on all social platforms, and track your analytics — all in one place. Automatically create clips from a long video. Select from a library of stock content and templates.

Disperse

Free Fonts

Monsie is a bubble-style font with the urban artistry of early graffiti culture.

Monsie

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Anticyclone is a straightforward and flexible sans-serif typeface with a clean and simple design. It’s practical with a touch of modern flair.

Anticyclone

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New Sushi is a friendly, handwritten display font with plenty of character.

New Sushi

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Schabo Condensed is a modern sans-serif font that’s bold and heavy with strong character. It’s a display font, useful for branding.

Schabo Condensed

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Girly Sunrise is a handwritten natural font that’s energetic and elegant.

Girly Sunrise

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Google’s Advice on Domain Names

Google’s “Search Off the Record” is a monthly podcast for behind-the-scenes looks at the company and its inner search workings. In last month’s episode, Google veterans John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and Marting Splitt addressed domain names and their impact on organic search rankings.

Here are a few takeaways.

Google’s “Search Off the Record” is a monthly podcast.

No Rankings Impact

The Google team emphasized domain names are a business decision with no direct impact on organic search rankings. Choosing a domain name is the first and most important step in starting a site because it reflects a brand’s identity.

Moreover, Google says it ignores keywords in a domain. But I’ve seen many weak websites that rank well seemingly because they have keywords in the domain. I suspect this is because people often link to websites using the domain name as an anchor text. The keywords appear in the link text of external backlinks, and Google still seems to use keywords in anchor texts as a strong ranking signal.

Nonetheless, brand-focused domain names are best in my experience, for these reasons:

• Consumers remember brand names, which improves direct traffic, cross-channel engagement, and more. Thus a recognizable domain reduces reliance on organic search.

• In time, brand names become entities, elevating trust from Google.

• Domain names appear at the top of organic search listings. Click-throughs will increase as a brand name becomes recognizable.

In short, brand-focused domain names are long-term investments. A keyword-rich domain means prioritizing organic search over other channels and, potentially, long-term growth.

Beware ‘Coming Soon’ Pages

Google’s John Mueller advises against letting Google access your “Coming soon” page because once Google crawls an empty page, it may not crawl it in the foreseeable future, if ever.

“Coming soon” pages are useful for marketing to generate buzz and raise interest among prospects. But block those pages from Google via a Robots.txt file.

‘WWW’ Prefix

Including the “World Wide Web” prefix in a domain in another longstanding SEO debate. Google doesn’t care if the prefix is there, provided the use is consistent. Pick a version and then redirect the other to it.

And be sure to claim both URLs in Search Console. Better yet, add a DNS record to that domain at your registrar for both versions (“www” and not) and both protocols (“https” and “http”).

Use Structured Data

This was not discussed in the episode, but it’s included in Google’s documentation and relevant to choosing domain names. Google shows site names in search results. When it doesn’t know the site’s name, Google will show the domain.

To help Google know your site name, use the “WebSite” schema structured data type that includes your site’s home page and name. Here’s example code from Google.

{
"@context" : "https://schema.org",
"@type" : "WebSite",
"name" : "Example Company",
"alternateName" : "EC",
"url" : "https://example.com/",
"potentialAction": {
"@type": "SearchAction",
"target": {
"@type": "EntryPoint",
"urlTemplate": "https://query.example.com/search?q={search_term_string}"
},
"query-input": "required name=search_term_string"
}
}

Google’s documentation lists other preferred tactics for brand names:

• Use a concise, easy-to-read name for your site — e.g., “Google” instead of “Google, Inc.” — to ensure it is not truncated on some devices.

• Use that concise name across the web, such as on social media, profile pages, and directories.

• Use one name across your entire site.

6 AI Presentation Tools for Webinars, Promos, More

Artificial intelligence is changing our lives, automating many tedious tasks. For example, I’ve long struggled with creating PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Now generative AI does the job for me.

Here are six tools to create presentations using AI. I use these for various tasks, including content formatting, sales pitches, webinars, staff training, and more.

6 AI Presentation Generators

Decktopus AI generates presentation decks based on a topic and requirements.

• Start by clicking “Create with AI” and then type your topic. Mine was “Benefits of building a community.”
• Next, choose your audience. I chose “Marketing professionals interested in building brand awareness and advocacy.”
• Select the goal of your presentation. I picked “To inspire marketing professionals to take action and start building a community for their brand.”
• Choose the presentation length. I picked 10 minutes.
• Select the presentation style — minimal, dark, formal, or creative. I chose “creative.”

Allow the tool a few minutes to generate your slides. It will add videos, graphs, and text. You can edit or add slides, change the style, and add slide notes collaborators.

Decktopus AI starts at $9.99 per month. The first presentation is free.

Click “Create with AI” and type your topic, such as “Benefits of building a community” in this example. Click image to enlarge.

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Storyd.ai creates short presentations from data in minutes.

Type your topic, and the tool will generate the text script. You can edit or confirm as is. Then click “Generate slides.”

You can change the look and feel of presentations — e.g., fonts, color palette, theme — but not the contents unless you download it as a PowerPoint file to your local computer.

But downloading requires a Pro account, which starts at $18 per month and includes team collaboration and real-time editing.

Type your topic, and the tool will generate the text script for each slide. This example topic is “The benefits of SEO.” Click image to enlarge.

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Plus AI is a free app to generate presentations with Google Slides. To use, grant Plus AI access to the slide and enter your topic — such as “The benefits of SEO” in my example. The tool will then produce an editable outline.

Confirm the outline, and Plus AI will generate your presentation, which you can edit using Google Slides, although in my testing the tool generated graphs with no obvious way to edit.

Nonetheless, the tool is helpful, especially since it’s free.

Enter your topic, and Plus AI will generate an editable outline and, when approved, presentation slides. This example is for the topic “The benefits of SEO.” Click image to enlarge.

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Gamma is an app for creating presentations, documents, and web pages. Enter a topic, review the auto-generated outline, and select a theme. The tool will generate the presentation in real time as you watch.

Gamma uses Bing search to find related images. However, I changed those to my own images due to copyright concerns. The tool exports only in PDF format, stating PowerPoint and Google Slides are coming soon.

The tool offers a free, limited plan. Paid plans start at $16 per month.

Enter a topic (“What is SEO?”), review the outline, and select a theme. Gamma will generate the presentation in real time. Click image to enlarge.

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Motionit.ai focuses on creating sales presentations in various formats. Enter your company details, pick a template, and the tool will generate a promotional deck.

Motionit is handy for folks (like me) who grapple with effective promotional materials. I change only the images, not the auto-generated wording.

The tool offers a one-click export to Google Slides to edit and download to a PowerPoint. Motionit is free for now. Paid plans are coming.

Motionit.ai focuses on creating sales presentations. This example is for Viral Content Bee, a social media tool. Click image to enlarge.

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Beautiful.ai is a paid presentation creator, AI-driven. Type your topic and choose a theme. The tool will create an editable presentation. It helpfully integrates with Google Sheets to import data for charts and graphs. There are templates for agendas, photo grids, tables, and more.

You can invite collaborators, access analytics, and share presentations via a public link.

The tool costs $12 a month, billed annually. A free 14-week free trial is available with a credit card.

Type your topic (“ROI of SEO”) and choose a theme. The tool will create an editable presentation that integrates with Google Sheets. Click image to enlarge.

A Weakness

None of the six tools cite data sources. I had to manually locate similar research, change the graphs and slides, and include those source citations on the slides.

22 Free Web Design Tools from Spring 2023

Free resources from the design community can enhance an ecommerce site.

Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from spring 2023. There are image generators, no-code builders, user-testing tools, mockups, free fonts, and more.

All of the tools are free or have free plans, though most offer premium versions. The fonts are free for commercial projects. Before using a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Free Design Tools

Mage is a tool for consumers to produce generative images from over 50 text-to-image AI models.

Mage

Freepik AI Image Generator creates AI-generated images. Log in to the Freepik media database, start with your own words or prompts, choose a style and format, and tweak the final details.

Dora AI is a text-to-website AI tool to generate, customize, and deploy websites using natural language within a no-code editor. Use Dora AI to automate your animation process. Transform static designs with the 3D interaction generator.

Recraft.AI is a platform for producing generative art, illustrations, and three-dimensional images. Use the vectorizer to convert illustrations into vector art. Shift between artistic styles to instantly transform images.

Recraft

Copy.ai is a ChatGPT alternative to access real-time search data. Use the prebuilt prompts to jumpstart your work. Write detailed content from a single keyword. Get bullet-point summaries of LinkedIn profiles and YouTube videos. Personalize cold emails from LinkedIn URLs.

UseChatGPT.ai is a free Chrome extension to access generative AI. Access ChatGPT and GPT-4, Bard, Bing, and Claude on any website without copying and pasting. Write, rewrite, summarize, translate, explain, or reply to text with one click.

Studio AI is a no-code website builder that uses AI to enhance the design process. Design manually or speak to have tasks done for you. With nothing more than a single line of feedback, Studio AI performs complex actions autonomously. Hit publish to turn your design into a website.

Studio AI

Hopp by Wix is a link-in-bio tool to make anything you promote on social searchable. Make your URL shorter, customize it to match your brand name, index it in your link-in-bio search engine, set up automatic promotions, and see performance analytics. Design a landing page in just a few clicks.

Ply is a tool to customize your apps by adding internal features without code. Install button add-ons from the marketplace. Use data from an email, deal, or ticket, and create custom interfaces with your own functionality.

UX Writing Assistant is an AI writing tool for Figma. Use well-crafted copy to improve user experiences and guide prospects through your product. Save the copy in a single place to quickly reuse it in designs and improve the assistant’s suggestions as you go.

UX Writing Assistant

Freepik Video is a new resource that provides free, quality video assets directly from the Freepik image library. Access thousands of free videos available in a range of categories. All videos can be used for commercial purposes.

Microsoft Designer, a tool for creating visuals and graphics, has expanded its preview version and is now available as a web app. Powered by generative AI technology, Designer produces unique images, captions, and hashtags relevant for social media posts.

Butternut AI is an AI no-code website builder. Quickly build a fully functional website. Produce generative images and content in seconds to suit your brand voice.

Butternut AI

AI Library is a free search engine for AI tools. Search, filter, and find tools and save them to your account.

Stigg provides API and SDKs that enable businesses to build pricing and publishing plans, control feature access, introduce paywalls, and test and roll out changes.

Float UI is a collection of modern user interface components and website templates built on React, Next.js, and Vue (soon) with Tailwind CSS.

AppSpector is a remote debugging platform for iOS and Android apps. AppSpector features real-time monitoring to discover bugs as they arise. Use historic replay to reproduce bugs. Connect and control your app from anywhere.

AppSpector

Free Fonts

Retro Gastroll is a vintage monoline font inspired by 80s typography with straight but dynamic lines to give a neat and relaxed impression.

Retro Gastroll

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Fixel, by MacPaw, displays a combination of geometric and humanist grotesques, resulting in open letter forms, wide width, and crisp edges.

Fixel

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Juniory is a modern display font with fun accent lines for bubble depth.

Juniory

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Gracie is an elegant and versatile font for logos, headlines, or plain text.

Gracie

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Balpaq is a clean comic sans serif with bold characters. All caps, Balpag is suitable for display banners.

Balpaq

6 Image-to-text Tools, AI-powered

Artificial intelligence-based tools can generate photos and illustrations from text descriptions. But similar tools can do the opposite: turn images into text.

Here are six of my favorites.

Accessibility and SEO

Image to Text. AI’s understanding of images is new and imperfect. Still, it’s helpful in my experience.

Image to Text provides short, AI-powered descriptions of an image. Upload an image, and the tool will describe it. (It’s less helpful for illustrations, however.) Image to Text offers free and premium versions.

Image to Text provides short descriptions of an image, such as “a young girl sitting at a table writing on a piece of paper.”

Gradio’s InkyMM, another tool, provides free detailed descriptions of any image. It offers two models: MPT and Dolly. The latter produced much better results in my testing, even for complex illustrations.

Gradio’s InkyMM provides detailed descriptions of any image, such as this painting of two llamas.

Both tools can create alt text, essential for visually-handicapped users and search engine optimization. For SEO, consider tweaking the text with targeted keywords.

Social Media Captions

CaptionIt is a freemium phone app that creates captions for social media. Upload a photo and choose the caption’s style. CaptionIt will then generate captions based on those settings and the photo content. The tool has increased my productivity and improved my captions.

CaptionIt’s free version is limited. The (much) more robust Pro version is $1.99 per month.

CaptionIt creates captions from an image such as this digital marketer in a sailboat.

Text-from-image Extraction

Text extraction tools are not new. Many accessibility screen readers include them. AI makes those tools more accurate — for accessibility, SEO, video scripts, and more. The tool extract text from images, video frames, and presentation slides.

Nanonet’s free text-from-image extraction tool can process any image up to 30 MB in seconds. The output is a downloadable text file. The tool can also extract hand-written text but with inconsistent results in my test. Nanonets also offers a free Google Chrome extension.

Google Lens is a mobile app alternative to Nanonets. It is built into the Google Search app for iPhone and Android. Grant the app access to your photos, choose an image, and then navigate Text > Select all > Copy text.

For excessive text on images, consider extracting and then pasting it into ChatGPT for a summary.

Image-to-text Translation

Google Translate is a popular and free web-based tool to translate text alone or on images.

Google Translate will detect text (typed or handwritten) on any image and produce that image translated into the chosen language or as text alone.

Translate, like Lens, is built into Google’s Search app.

Google Translate can detect text on any image and then translate it on the image.

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Google Translate can detect and translate even handwritten words on an image.