7 Web Development Tools We Love [and Why]5 min read
February 18, 2021All web developers collect tools along the way that enhance their abilities to create super websites. These tools can also save time.
At Sharp, financial stewardship is one of our core values and one of the reasons web developer Peter Stevenson uses development tools.
He shares seven web development tools that are among his favorites and explains why they are included in his web dev “toolbox.” These help him work smarter and not harder. Four of these tools aid development in general and three focus on web optimization.
If you need help with web development and/or website optimization, schedule a free consultation with us!
Bonus: Honorable mentions web dev tools are available as well!
Web Development
Sublime has been around for a long time, and while it may be bare-bones, it has a large plugin community that allows it to be easily modified to your personal preference. Even out of the box, it comes with a plethora of shortcuts built-in to make it easy to work quicker and more efficiently. Sublime remains a very fast and responsive coding tool that gives you just what you need, and nothing more.
Honorable mentions:
VS Code
Atom
SFTP (for sublime text)
“Run JavaScript Everywhere.” NodeJS is more of an environment than an actual tool, much like how Windows or Apple are environments that allow you to do virtually limitless tasks. From a website-focused side, Sharp Innovation web developers often use it to simplify daily tasks, such as minifying large files and quickly removing extra white space from files. We also have developed more advanced tools for processing data, scraping website data, reporting SEO metrics, …the possibilities are endless with these.
Version control has changed everything. Not only does version control allow larger teams to work together on the same parts of a website at the same time, but it also allows an infinite history of what changed, when, why, and how. Beyond that, it makes for a great backup system. It’s also easy to move the project you are working on to different computers, or remote servers as well. With that comes other huge benefits: (git-based) sites like GitHub host a lot of free and open-source projects that you can implement as needed into the project you are working on.
Honorable mentions:
BitBucket
Sometimes development can be slow and repetitive, especially when dealing with third-party code source you don’t have access to (lots of trial and error). This is where Postman’s benefits shine! With this tool, you can write out simple calls to any website or API and instantly test it for a response, then revise and test again, and again. Those quick tweaks make it easy to get your concept nailed down. To top it off, you can then export that logic into a ton of different coding languages for your specific needs.
Website Optimization
This free tool improves onsite search engine optimization by extracting data and auditing sites for common SEO issues. SEO Spider doesn’t tell you what you need to do to enhance your site, but it does a great job of looking at all the site data and pointing out any issues with it that can be found. There are many other paid competitors who do similar services online, but the simplicity, ease-of-use, and free option to Screaming Frog make it a standout.
WCAG, Section 508, and other compliance testing can be difficult to find, especially when we want and need to optimize for numerous disabilities. Using this tool, you can more easily diagnose issues or shortcomings in your website to ensure the best experience for all users. It does not fix the issues but is very helpful at finding them. It offers explanations and links to potential solutions.
Honorable mentions:
WAVE Evaluation Tool
Speed is important as it keeps your current or future customers on your site, loads the items your users are seeking, and improves the overall site experience. This increases the chance of converting a site visit into a sale. Also, Google and other search engines will rate your site based on its speed, which can improve SERP. The benefit to Page Speed Insights is that it shows potential speed issues using the recommended best practices from Google, so you can have a better understanding of how the biggest search engine perceives your site.
Honorable mentions:
Pingdom
Other Tools for Web Developers
There are a ton of other tools and fantastic add-ons to these tools that we use daily. This list is more of a top-level list to point you in the right direction. If you want to learn more about any of these tools or want to know how we could use some of these to improve on your site or application, reach out. We’d be happy to tell you more!