Resources, resources, resources!

Companies House Register Search

This is a great tool to check company details, and to find information including accounts filing history, details on directors and secretaries and much more.

Companies House Name Availability Checker

If you are thinking about setting up a new company (a Limited company or otherwise) you can search the Companies House database to see if your proposed company name(s) have been taken by another business.

NameChk

When thinking about a new business name, its important to check to make sure your proposed business name is available as Social Media profile usernames. NameChk makes it quick and easy to check just about every Social Media platform imaginable to see if your chosen name is available. NameChk also checks for username availability for websites and applications like SoundCloud, PayPal, Trip Advisor, Spotify, Plenty Of Fish, Houzz and many others too!

WhatsMyDNS

For the more technical amongst us, WhatsMyDNS is a global DNS propagation checker, and is used to check MX and NS records, CNAME records and all the other DNS records.

WhatsMyIP

WhatsMyIP.org is a simple website to find out what your IP address is.

Adobe Color CC

If you are deciding on company colours or perhaps re-branding, or just want to know what colours look good together, Adove Color CC is the perfect website to experiment with different colours / shades. Using the colour wheel, you can drag the tabs round to select desired colours, change the colour harmony, explore other colour themes and much more.

Expired Domains

Fancy bagging yourself a great Domain Name or two? If so, check out the Expired Domains website. Thousands of domain names expire every day, and this website lists them all. Have a browse as there are some real gems to be had!

Microsoft To-Do

If you love a list (and who doesn’t!) then Microsoft To-Do is for you. This is a downloadable tool to help you organise everything into lists, from tasks at work, Christmas presents, the weekly food shop and much more.

TinyPNG

If you do graphic design of any sort for the web, or maybe you’re an editor of a website or blog and need to upload images, check out TinyPNG. This website is a great resource for compressing PNG and JPG files to the smallest size possible without losing quality.

SmallPDF

Just like TinyPNG, SmallPDF (owned by a different company) provides a really handy website where you can upload and compress PDF files. Those in the know understand that PDF files can sometimes be massive, this website squishes them down. The only downside is you can only compress two PDF’s an hour, but even still, it’s a great website and really useful.

Hootsuite

A lot of people know about the Social Media management dashboard, Hootsuite, but if you don’t then definitely check it out. It’s great for small business owners that manage their own profiles, allowing you to update all your accounts from one dashboard rather than having to log into each. With the free plan you can add 3 social profiles under 1 user account.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Many people use Outlook to check emails with, however if you don’t have Outlook, then we thoroughly recommend Thunderbird. Created by the makers of the popular FireFox browser, Thunderbird is an email application that is free to download and use. Whats more, it comes with loads of addons and extensions, to make your emailing life even easier.

Final thoughts and summary

There are literally 100’s of tools and applications available to use within your business to make life easier – some are paid tools, but many are free. Some of the tools listed above might not be relevant to you whereas others will be. It’s always worth looking online to see if there is something that can use to automate a process either partly or fully, or make your life easier in any way when doing tasks.

If you use any online tools you use to make your life easier, please let us know and we will add them to the above list!