Continuing with our Freelance 101 – A Suggestive Guide (part one available here!) , this week Web Tips Magazine wants to point out some fantastic free and paid online services for you to host your portfolio.

An online portfolio is a necessary and convenient way to showcase your works.  The benefit for you is that you don’t have to mess with the website you’ve never created, or the domain name, the hosting and everything else that comes with going the traditional self-hosted method.  Using a service that is created explicitly for uploading and maintaining a portfolio is a great way for freelancers to not just display their works, but gain momentum to their careers, link up with other like-minded individuals and receive exposure to possible clients.

It’s not just for the novices. Some experienced freelancers use these online portfolio services to help broaden their capture market and run them simultaneously with their personal portfolio sites and blogs. The benefit of doing this is quite obvious, further exposure to your work, social media hounds help pass on the links and search engines pick up your name and links to your site – food for thought for any struggling freelancer out there.

Web Tips Magazine has searched out some examples for you, some free, some paid, some traditional and non-traditional solutions.  Take a look and see if any of the following solutions could work for you.

Carbonmade

Carbonmade has not only a free service with limited projects and pictures you can upload but also a paid service.  No html experience is necessary.  It’s easy to use management tools will allow you to have up to 5 projects with up to 35 images on the free service.  It includes building a profile page to give information about you, allows you to order your projects however you want them to display and also includes uploading Flash projects.  You can also use Google Analytics to monitor your traffic to your portfolio.

The paid service allows you to have up to 50 project with up to 500 hi-res images and 10 high quality videos.  For $12 a month you not only increase your project and images, you get the feature to upload videos.  With no super-compressed videos – if it plays in Quicktime, you can display the video here.

One of the drawback to this service is that you can’t design your portfolio page to match in more with your company identity.  Your styling is limited.

FigDig

FigDig is another free portfolio.  Some of the cool features for this online portfolio is that you can upload and view 1224 x 792 high definition portfolio samples as well as FigDig has safeguards in place to help prevent theft of your work as well.

With this being a free service you are limited to only uploading 8 pieces.  But you do have the portfolio ratings so that you can rate your best work so if someone does a search, your best pieces will display.

The profile piece will let you input or even upload in .pdf format things that you want viewers to see about you.  With the ability to upload in .pdf format, you can focus more on your creative talent rather than the “sell me to anyone” details.

Every few months, the FigDig team will vote one member to the FigDig Hall of Fame which wins them an Apple iPod Nano as well as having their work displayed for all to see.

Coroflot

Coroflot is not only an online portfolio but also has a job board section.  Your portfolio is free of charge, not only free but has unlimited amount of uploads allowed.

This service will give you details on your traffic, an easy-to-remember URL to point your visitors too.  You can make your portfolio public or confidential.  The grouping and ordering of your projects and pictures is as easy as drag and drop.

The best thing about this service is the built in job board.  You can get new job postings that match your criteria via email or RSS feeds.

Envato

Envato and any of it’s marketplaces, such as ThemeForest, Graphic River, or Video Hive is probably not the first place people think of when it comes to portfolio hosting.  However, I can tell you from experience that if you are looking to firstly improve your skills, and second, gain new clients, this is a really great resource. Think about it for just a few moments, you are trying to make your mark on the world of freelance, or you are currently attempting to push yourself through college, so you are trying to build your portfolio, you have no money for a domain, hosting etc then why not create your portfolio pieces.

Envato’s marketplaces cover almost every creative field there is from html and css, to video animations and even music and sound files, so it doesn’t matter what your creative talents are, they offer a place to join a community to receive help and advise, and a review team to ensure your work is up-to standard. Once accepted this work is then sold and you receive a share of the revenue. All your work is tied to your account and you have a portfolio page displaying all your current items across all the marketplaces (for those that are multi-talented) – you can use this to drive traffic to your items, gain exposure and earn some extra income at the same time, not just from item sales but buyers will contact you with regards to alterations, modifications and even complete new projects.

The draw back for using the Envato sites for your portfolio are that if  your are trying to get clients, they will see the $12, or start browsing and they will loose your showcased works.  They amy decide it’s better to purchase one of the items through this avenue rather than sign up for contract work with you.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt is a simple and free online portfolio source, but has a huge following.  This service has an audience of over 12 million viewers.  You can set up your profile and create galleries to start building your fan base.

DeviantArt also has a shop where you can sell your item.  You can use their print service to make money while they handle the fulfilling and shipping of your orders.

The uploads are unlimited and you can dynamically present your artwork with the slideshow feature as well as get feedback from others on your uploads.  This service also has a feature where you can track your page views and stats. Obviously DeviantArt has a huge following, but this will mean you are a small fish in a very, very large pond of both amateurs and professionals, plus it’s exactly the place to gain new clients.

Host My Portfolio

Host My Portfolio is another free service.  With the ability have unlimited projects complete with 50 image uploads you also receive your own personal domain name to make the presence more targeted toward you and your business.

As with the other services, you don’t need any web experience to create your portfolio.  You can create and attach your profile information to share with your prospective clients.  You can share your portfolio or make it private or a little of both.

Flickr

The always expanding Flickr is not always a first choice for freelancers, but the benefits are quite large. Flickr offers both free and paid accounts, with limitations on uploads being one of the main decisions you will need to make. With groups, streams and sets it’s very easy to define sections for your account and provide direct access to particular creative work based on the client you may need to pass a link to.

Because of the size of  Flickr and an extensive API it’s a really good choice for those that may have a basic self hosted website because you can dynamically draw in sets, or streams etc in to your site pages quite easily thanks to Wordpress plugins, Jquery scripts etc and even free flash based services. Most people think of Flickr as just a photography site, however browsing around you will find that most freelancers do use the service to some degree to help promote their portfolio of work whether it’s screen shots of websites and themes, through to photography and images / graphics.

Me.com

For Apple computer users they have the ability to sign-up for a Me.com account (free for 60 days!) and using programs such as iWeb you can immediately and very effectively create a smart portfolio full of your images direct to your account from your computer, without the need to know html and css. They even offer simple uploading of images (could be graphics, photos or screen shots) to create some really rather nice online portfolios you can then share with contacts. Again this is not a “standard” portfolio site, but really does offer new freelancers a cheap and easy way to get an online presence very quickly.

FolioLink

FolioLink offers a complete paid solution that offers elegant HTML and Flash based portfolio website solutions. Not only do they offer the website solution, but  your Image Archive is an online destination with 1000s of images and /or videos where your visitors and clients can search, proof, select, save, order and download content in public and restricted areas that you manage. Because this solution is a paid service you will need to seriously consider the benefits of their system compared to the pricing, however if you are looking to sell your work, deal with proofing with clients and an online portfolio this could well be a good decision – FolioLink do offer a free 7 Day Trial – although that may not be quite long enough to be able to test out the full system.

Squarespace

A relative newcomer to the online portfolio service market – Squarespace seems to of done it’s homework when it comes to freelancers. Their system runs on templates, all professionally created with many options for customization regardless of your skill levels. Their photo galleries are quite stunning and certainly the entire system is clearly built on a professional appearance and ease of use.

Squarespace offer many tools and widgets to get you up and running and stay running with social integration, a blog, form building and stats it really is quite an impressive solution and definitely one of the best out there. They offer a free 14 Day trial, and plans start from $8 and run all the way up to $50 for the “community” solution, however I would presume that the “pro” or “Advanced” packages would be most suitable to freelancers.

And your solutions are….?

Do you have a service or solution that you are using that you feel we should of included? We would love to hear from you. Drop a comment below and share your knowledge with us all – we’ll love you forever.

Congratulations to Jessie Watts!

Jessie is the winner of the Wonderland of Illustration competition.  She is an 18 year old Graphic Design student at Bradford School College in Columbus, Ohio.

Web Tips Magazine would like to thank Jessie for taking the time to enter our competition and look forward to seeing more works from her in the future.

A designer in training with the heart and stamina to move forward to the future, we expect to see great things from Jessie.

Jessie told us that she’s always had a passion for drawing – since she was a little girl.  In high school her Art teacher was trying to get Jessie to veer away from the popular Manga that most kids her age was “in to” and steer more towards the actual digital art formats.

Jessie’s drawing was picked as the winner as the many details she portrayed as well as the time she took to hand draw the picture which is very much a lost art these days.

“Thank you Web Tips Magazine for this opportunity.  I had a lot of fun thinking of what to design for this competition and look forward to any other competitions you may have in the future.  Super excited for the movie – hells to the yeah!  :) –Sincerely, Jessie Watts”

Competition Winner

Some of her works can be found on deviantArt, which is a free online portfolio network.

Since it’s been a week or two since Web Tips Magazine has created a Flickr Focus.  We searched carefully to find the perfect person to focus on this week.

Meet Sean McGrath.  Sean is a web developer who handles everything from the front end to the back end, even iPhone Apps.  Sean lives in a small city of Saint John, NB, Canada where he has been his whole life.  

Sean’s love of computers, programming and all things creative is what got him interested into photography and developing.  Photography started as a past time but with the amazing eye and skill Sean shows through his photo’s, we sure hope that he continues to increase the time he dedicates to it.

We recently had a chance to engage Sean a little to find out what drives him, inspires him and we’d like to share some of his quotes with you now…

Q:  Who inspires you and why?

Sean:  ”Everyday people in the world that can rock it just as well as the big shots, especially in photography.  There are so many people out there, that few have heard of, that are just killing it right now.”

Q:  Any personal or professional goals for 2010?

Sean:  ”I’ve currently challenged myself to do a 365 project, and while only 30 days in, it is proving to be a massive challenge.  Seeing that through to the end would be amazing, so for right now – that is my goal.  I’m really hoping that it pushes me further as a photographer and gets me thinking in new and creative ways.”

Well Sean, we’ve seen some of your 365 pictures on your Flickr page and we can’t wait to see the rest.  You have the skills, now you have the fans.  We’re looking forward to seeing more of Sean and his works.  Visit Sean’s website to see more.

Here are some of our favorites from Sean’s Flickr collection.  Thank you Sean for sharing your inspiration with us so you can continue to inspire us all.

Freelancing is a great thing.  You work your own hours, you set your own salary – you are your own “The Man”.  But what does being “The Man” really involve?  It’s not as glamorous as people think it is.  As a freelancer we all work long hours, we lay out the project complete with timeline and estimate for our clients, the client signs off on that estimate, but the next thing you know there comes unforeseeable forces at hand that threaten your budget.  Things sometimes take a little longer than expected, but are you getting paid for that time?

There’s no point in trying to do it all by jotting it down in a text program.  We’ve scoured the net and we think we’ve come up with some pretty handy-dandy little tools for you to use to help you enjoy being “The Man”.

Although there is a host of “freebies” out there, that doesn’t always mean it’s the best.  If the freebie doesn’t offer exactly what you need, or maybe you had to get 3 different free apps to complete what it is you need for your business, that involves time and as we all know time is money.  So maybe the best choice for your business is to pay that little bit extra just to have some free time for yourself or time to start on another project.

Over the next few weeks, WebTipsMagazine has decided to throw some information and reference material out there for different types of applications needed by freelancers to not only try to give you some tools to help you stay organized but to also help you track your projects from the concept quote to the paid invoice.

GnuCash

GnuCash is a a freely licensed personal and small-business financial-accounting software under the GNU GPL and is available for FNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Windows.

Some of the featured highlights include Double-Entry Accounting, Small-business Accounting, Reports & Graphs, Invoicing.  That’s just to name a few.

The checkbook-style register gives you a custom and convenient interface for entering financial transaction and supports common checking and credit-card transactions as well as income , stock and currency transactions.

This software can  handle multiple currencies.  Different accounts can be denominated in different currency movements between accounts to insure balance accuracy when double-entry is enabled.

Income/Expense Account Types allow you to categorize your cash flow and can generate reports such as Profit & Loss that ordinary freebies can’t handle.

QuickBooks Simple Start Free Edition

QuickBooks is a simple and easy.  It’s one of the more “Big Name” freebies out there but provides what most small-business’ need to manage their accounting.  The Free Edition provides the basic accounting needed with tracking sales and expenses for up to 20 customers, allows you to create invoices, pay bills, print checks all from online.  Since the software is completely online, you can access your information from anywhere in the world, even from your iPhone or BlackBerry.

With such features as online back-up, automatic upgrades and free support.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the other features offered with this software.

• Easily print checks, pay bills & track expenses.
• Track sales, sales taxes and customer payments.
• Track up to 20  vendor contacts.
• Manage payroll & payroll taxes (Direct Deposit sold separately)
• Email estimates, invoices and reports including creating your own invoices and forms to match in with your corporate colors
• Organize and back up documents by attaching them to your QuickBooks records.

The main drawback for using QuickBooks whether you use the free version or want to upgrade to Basic or Plus is that this software is only available on Windows and  the free edition only supports up to 20 vendors.  So depending on the size of your business or the operating system you use, this may not be your best option.

Express Accounts

NCH Software has created Express Accounts.  This software provides basic accounting features such as tracking and reporting on cash flow such as sales, receipts, payments and purchases for a single company and multiple companies.

Some of the features provided  include creating invoices, orders and quotes as well as creating and printing checks.  One of the cool features with this software is that not only do you get Profit and Loss reports as well as Balance Sheets, you can automatically email or fax your report directly from this software.

The software isn’t provided as a free version, but  at $79.99 USD isn’t badly priced.  Depending on your needs might just be what your looking for.

iRatchet

iRatchet is a freebie that is only available to Mac users (yay – we have exclusiveness). iRatchet features include Address Book and iCal integration, mileage tracking/reporting, tax support, invoice/report generation.  iRatchet is simple and easy to use.  iRatchet uses CSS templates for full customization for your invoices, however the reporting feature offered isn’t the best for polling information from your system about each client.  There is no limitations to  the clients you can add to this software.  It’s not one widely used software out there with some known bugs listed in the forums but does get the job for invoicing and payment tracking.

MyCake

MyCake is used in UK only for our good ole’ Blighty readers.  MyCake is offered for 2 months free trial and if you like, you can get for 12.50 GBP / month.  This software is accessible from anywhere in the world via the online interface.  There’s no fancy accounting terms that you need to know, it’s simple to use and of course provides free support on hand if you need it.

There’s a lot of advice offered and explanations offered with this software to build best practices for book keeping.  You can run reports that can be added to your business plan or use to talk to bank managers.  Email reminders can be set up with overdue invoices.  This software also provides anonymous and confidential comparison’s to other businesses.

FreeAgent

FreeAgent is an awesome program.  This software can be customized to your business regardless of the country you are in.  With such features, you can view through the tour, such as estimates, time tracking, invoicing, accounting and those dreaded taxes you can customize this software to match in with your company identity.  This software is also an online software so there’s no downloads or installs to be seen.  You can access your information from anywhere.  Your information is backed up every  minutes and is encrypted and backed up offsite every 15 minutes.  FreeAgent uses the same technology banks use to protect your data.

Your estimates, proposals and quotes can be tracked through approval or rejection history and can be easily converted into invoices with one click.  It doesn’t get any easier than that.

All accounts have unlimited invoicing, users, clients, projects, estimates and bank accounts plus expense tracking, time tracking, account reports and data back-up.

This software provides a no contract pay-as-you-go and includes a free 30 day trial.  For $20 a month (does not include VAT for UK businesses), this software could get you exactly the software you need to manage your business.

BlinkSale

BlinkSale is an excellent simple tool to use for invoicing.  With several different packages offered, BlinkSale is the most affordable if all your looking is an invoicing bundle.  One of the best features provide with this software is that it is integrated with BaseCamp.  BlinkSale offers the same CSS option to create your own invoices that match in with your company as well as unlimited user accounts, clients and can also receive PayPal payments straight into your software.  With Bronze, Silver and Gold options available you can pick which package is best for you ranging from $6 USD to $24 USD.  For a complete list of options and payments, check out BlinkSale and sign up for a free trial.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks also offers multi-currency options and automation of payment reminders as well as automation of recurring invoices for things like your standard hosting and web maintenance, with the ability to enter your client’s credit card for auto-billing.

You can even collect online payments through this software by allowing clients to pay your invoice with no hassle through the major online payment gateways such as PayPal, Authorize.Net and FirstData (aka LinkPoint) just to name a few.

With other features not limited to invoicing, you also have the time tracking, the estimates, expenses.  You can do things such as setting up a support ticket area for your clients that you can then assign staff and prioritize, track expenses so that you can bill these back to your client/project, manage and document the estimate acceptance process, invite contractors to join your team and track time on projects as well as receive their invoices all in one place.  You can even brand the login page with your logo and colors to give you software a company theme – however, they 1-time fee charged for this is $279 uSD and may not be that important depending on the size of your business.

FreshBooks also offers a host of packages/plans for you to pick the package that meets your business needs.

LessAccounting

LessAccounting software is a widely used application.  This software offers a host of packages including letting them do your bookkeeping for you for a charge of $300 USD per month with other packages starting at $12 USD.

Some of the features for this software include:

• Multiple currencies and taxing information
• Reports such as Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and many other easy reports
• Inviting your accountant to monitor your books and export the data from their own office
• Tracking expenses with nightly bank data aggregation
• Sending invoices and proposals
• Mileage Tracker
• Export Data
• Track Sales Leads
• Manage your contacts

This software can integrate with Highrise, BaseCamp, LessTimeSpent, PayPal, Shopify and billFlo and is available through the AppStore from your iPhone.

Your dashboard will give you an instant snapshot of where you are with your business.  Log-in and see your expense overview, a chart for your cash flow and which invoices haven’t been paid yet.

Las Vegas, Nevada – the lights, the sounds, the people.  What a place!  Vegas isn’t just about the hopes of going and coming home a winner though.  We just came back from Vegas and it was my very first trip.  Since I was too busy loosing money, I didn’t get to capture the essence that is the ‘City of Sin’.  So I searched Flickr and found some awesome HDR images.  Some of the images you will see can inspire you to keep going back for more.

Let’s explore Vegas through some of the amazing images created for us in HDR by people from across the world.

Posted by shoebappa

Posted by Talke Photography

Posted by MarkoShoots

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Posted by Daniel Raphael Cooper, the Sorry Shutter

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Posted by slideshow bob

With most of us across the country snowed in and just about snowed out, we hope that Mother Nature is taking a long sleep as she’s been a very busy lady lately.

To follow through with nature’s mood, let’s take a glance at some astonishing HDR images of nature at it’s finest (or worst as the case may be) from the Creative Commons area at Flickr.

HDR Images on Flickr

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This week we’d like to focus on Paulo Brandao.  Paulo is originally from Coimbra but currently resides in Caldas de Reis, Spain.  Working as a graphic designer Paulo has an amazing eye for catching the moment whether it is an insect enjoying the breeze or a fierce lightning storm dramatically approaching the city. Especially appealing about Paulo’s portfolio is the breadth of subject and style. He seems to have the ability to take on any subject and produce an interesting angle, effect or color spectrum, which results in a collection of eye candy.

Check out the small collection of Paulo’s stunning photography below and then head over to his full Flickr set to check out his extensive collection!

About Flickr Focus

Every week we will showcase a fantastic photographer from Flickr’s creative commons selection. Flickr provides both amateur and professional photographers an exceptional platform to springboard their careers and share their work with like-minded individuals, and with some absolutely exceptional work on display coveringe just about every category you can think of.

Do you know someone who deserves to be included in a Flickr Focus feature in the future? If you do please leave a link to their Flickr stream in the comments below – no promises but we will certainly check each and everyone.

UPDATED 3/4/10:  See the contest winner here!

A timeless classic from the original Lewis Carroll 1865 book and the animated movie from Disney in 1951 to the new 2010 Disney live action movie, ‘Alice In Wonderland‘ has been a childhood favorite for many generations.

For a cast of characters that are now some 145 years old, it’s interesting to take a look back in time just to see how the initial lithograph illustrations, up to Disney’s full motion, computer enhanced version have altered the appearance, and display trends in illustration through many different mediums over the ages.

Competition Time!

For our first competition, we want to send 1 lucky winner (with guest) to the movies to watch the new 2010 Disney’s Alice In Wonderland.  The prize will be supplied as a $50 USD Moive Tickets or Fandango gift certificate.

All you need to do is pick your favorite character from the book (or movie) and illustrate in any style you choose and send your entry by email to the madhatter@webtipsmagazine.com by 3/1/10.  Judgeing will be completed by the Web Tips Magazine staff with all decisions being final.  Winner and runner-ups will be featured on our site.

Follow us down the rabbit hole and through the magical land that is a ‘Wonderland Of Illustration’…

Alice

Mad Hatter

The Queen Of Hearts

Cheshire Cat

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

White Rabbit

You know Flickr never stops to amaze me. The quality of photography on the wildly popular website is simply awesome, and puts some of the so-called photography stock image sites to shame. In recent times the popularity of HDR images has been fueled, in part, by the staggering number of photographers contributing their latest works to the site.

So what exactly are HDR photographs and images? Wikipedia probably explains it best:

High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard photographs, often using exposure bracketing, and then merging them into an HDR image. Digital photographs are often encoded in a camera’s raw image format, because 8 bit JPEG encoding clips the camera’s possible dynamic range (and also introduces undesirable effects due to the lossy compression).

We find these images so amazing, and inspiring, we wanted to share in a regular feature some simply stunning images from around Flickr’s creative commons area and offer some links to popular tutorials and information with regard to this unique process. Let’s get started -

HDR Images on Flickr

Posted by Daniel Raphael Cooper

Posted by Lone Primate

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Posted by Danny Sotzny

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Posted by Ryan Desiderio

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Tutorials

HDR Tutorial – Everything you need to know about HDR Photography – StuckInCustoms.com

How to Create Professional HDR Images – Backing Winds

HDR Tutorial Guide Thing for Photomatix – Vanilla Days

HDR Tutorial – SandMania Photography

How to create HDR photographs – Abduzeedo.com

Gritty HDR Photo Effects – photoshoptutorials.ws

How to easily fake an HDR effect in Photoshop - KolNedra’s photostream

HDR 101.com Tutorial - HDR101.com

OK I know it’s rather a boring subject for the majority of us out there, but analytics really do help everyone. Sure the client wants pretty graphs, the marketing department need to know if there current “push” is converting, and management love all those acronyms such as ROI, SEO, SEM BLAH BLAH BLAH – but for a designer what does it me to us? Well for one it proves wether or not your design works or falls flat on its face. Being able to see what clicks were made can tell you a great deal on your design, and you can take this information and use it to help either improve that current design, or take with you to the next client.

Reading the stats is one thing, and surely something for another (long) post, but in the real world taking away all the fluff, bells and whistles, we can see immediately if once a visitor lands on your home page if they are then dropping off the radar – a sure sign that they either A – came here for the wrong reason, B – came here and didn’t see what they wanted immediately, or C – came here, saw the interface, couldn’t work out where to press to get to what they wanted, and moved on.

With the exception of reason A we can start to learn some things. Large corporations and advertising / marketing companies use focus groups for these kind of studies, but really it’s not needed at all. We all have a friend (or two), relative or even spouse and child (all of which I have used myself) for testing new site designs – simply sit them down, stand over their shoulder and ask them to do a simple task – “ok so here is a new site I’m developing for a company that sells widgets – can you please attempt to purchase one for me” – do not let them ask you a question, don’t offer advise, just watch and take some notes, you will be amazed at some of the results – I guarantee it.

Create a simple questionnaire for them to complete on paper for you with simple direct questions such as, “how do you rate the usability of the site”, “what did you think about the overall design”, “would you use this site”, “am I awesome” etc. Collectively this information, once studied, will no-doubt improve the site, before it gets to your client by 30 – 50%, and you can now boast some facts and figures to your client with regard to “focus group testing”.

The process is quick and priceless, but sometimes demoralizing. We all like to think we know what we are doing, heck I’ve designed sites for 10 years but constantly I have to learn, improve and push to make the interface and browsing experience the best it can be. So, once we have run our mini focus group testing and refined things to the best of our knowledge and ability, we can then switch our focus to the analytics of the site, you know, the boring stuff.

Analytics are rather like a focus group we cannot see, but yet we receive feedback just as valuable as if they were in the same room. Look for the entry points on your website, sometimes you can find that a large portion of your traffic do not hit your home page first, and that means that the first impression they have is of that page you spent 20 minutes creating because you spent 6 days on the home page – time to refresh that “landing” page possibly. Look for your referrals, see where they are coming from, if 90% are coming from google and hitting that one page, two categories down, you may want to try and target that audience with something specific to the search that led them there.

Overall analytics are not just for the white collars, us jean wearing “designer types” can make use of them and here is a short list for you of some useful applications to help you become friends with facts, figures and graphs.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an excellent tool to use with it’s flexible customization – slice it and dice it exactly (or near enough) how you want it.  Offering a host of resources and information – Google Analytics also offers some workshops through their blog and research studies.  It’s one of the best analytical tools out there, especially at the price – free.

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is another free handy dandy little tool.  SurveyMonkey provides a very easy way of sending out surveys to gather results of how customers  feel about your company or your site.  With templates to choose from or even creating your own survey – you have the ability to add your logo and either email your survey or create a custom link while analyzing real-time results that can easily be converted into charts, graphs or even .pdf’s.

Userfly

Userfly is free for the basic package.  You have the ability to watch videos of your real users.  You can see every mouse movement and click.  It installs within seconds with just 1 line of code.  There are many different plans, both free and paid for, although for quick testing the free account proves invaluable.

Crazy Egg

If you don’t mind paying a small fee of $9/month.  Crazy Egg is the way to go.  Other tools will tell you what links your visitor’s click, but Crazy Egg will tell you which parts of the pages your visitors clicked on.  Displayed as a “heat map” – Crazy Egg will even show you what visitor’s clicked that isn’t a link, but maybe it should be.  At a glance – you can see which parts of the page are getting the most attention.  If, for example, you have several pages that have a link that leads to the same page – Crazy Egg can tell you which one of those pages drove the most traffic to your desired page.

ClickTale

ClickTale is more of an “in-page” web stats solution.  Telling you things such as how far a users scrolled down a particular page.  Want to see if they get bored with the story – how far they made it through your story, is the tag line getting their attention – but the content isn’t keeping their interest?  You will be able to watch movies of your visitor’s screens, study how people are interacting with your forms.  ClickTale provides several packages ranging from free to $790 p/month.

Is there some other tools out there that you would like to share with us?  Post your comments and suggestion below please!

Happy analyzing!