Make
Make
- What it is
- A visual automation platform that connects thousands of apps into scenarios that run on their own.
- Best for
- Automating multi-step tasks without code, with a clear view of how data flows.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Resources
Useful websites
Sites I come back to at work: for learning, marketing, design, research and automation. Each with what it is, who it suits and why.
I checked these details on the official sites on 29 September 2026. Providers change their catalogues, so check the official page before enrolling.
Automation
Zapier
Zapier
- What it is
- An automation platform that links apps together through easy-to-set-up "Zaps".
- Best for
- Quick connections between common tools like email, spreadsheets and forms.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
n8n
n8n
- What it is
- An automation platform you can run free on your own server (under a fair-code licence) or use as a paid cloud service.
- Best for
- Teams with technical support who want control over their data or lower costs for heavy automation.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Marketing
Mohamad's pick
Google Trends
- What it is
- A Google tool that shows how interest in a topic or search term changes over time and across countries.
- Best for
- Checking demand before a campaign or product launch, and timing seasonal content.
- Why it's useful
- The fastest way I know to test an idea against real data before spending on it; sometimes it is enough to stop an idea nobody is searching for.
- Cost
- Free
Mohamad's pick
Meta
Meta Ad Library
- What it is
- A public library for searching the ads currently running across Meta technologies, by advertiser or keyword.
- Best for
- Studying competitors' ads and creative angles before you write your own campaign brief.
- Why it's useful
- I look here before any paid campaign: you see what competitors actually run, how many ads they keep live and how they phrase the offer.
- Cost
- Free
Ads Transparency Center
- What it is
- Google's public centre for searching the ads shown across its services by advertiser name or website.
- Best for
- Seeing what competitors advertise on Google Search and YouTube, alongside the Meta Ad Library.
- Cost
- Free
Google Search Console
- What it is
- A Google service showing how your site appears in search: the queries that bring visits, which pages are indexed and what technical issues exist.
- Best for
- Anyone with a website who wants to know where search traffic comes from and what is blocking it.
- Cost
- Free
HubSpot
AI Search Grader
- What it is
- A free check that asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini how they describe your brand.
- Best for
- Seeing how answer engines describe you today, or a competitor.
- Why it's useful
- It complements the AI Search Visibility Check on this site: my tool helps you get your site in order; this one shows what the models actually say about you.
- Cost
- Free
Design
Mohamad's pick
Canva
Canva
- What it is
- A browser and app-based design platform for social posts, presentations and print, with a huge template library.
- Best for
- Small teams and NGOs who design in-house without a full-time designer.
- Why it's useful
- The free plan covers most needs, and not-for-profits can get most premium features free, which matters when budgets are tight.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Figma
Figma
- What it is
- A collaborative design tool for website and app interfaces and clickable prototypes, running in the browser.
- Best for
- Sketching and reviewing the screens of a digital product with your team before development starts.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Unsplash
Unsplash
- What it is
- A library of high-quality photos free to use for commercial and non-commercial work under the Unsplash License.
- Best for
- Images for websites, decks and posts when you don't have your own photography.
- Cost
- Free
Coolors
Coolors
- What it is
- A fast colour-palette generator for finding, adjusting and saving harmonious colours.
- Best for
- Choosing colours for a campaign or a simple identity for a new project.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Google Fonts
- What it is
- An open-source library of fonts and icons covering 135+ languages, including good Arabic typefaces.
- Best for
- Pairing an Arabic and a Latin font for a site or identity without licensing worries.
- Cost
- Free and open source
Font Face
Font Face — فونت فيس
- What it is
- A library of 140+ free Arabic fonts to download or use on websites.
- Best for
- Anyone choosing an Arabic font for a brand, a website or print.
- Why it's useful
- The site states its fonts are licensed for private and commercial use, which is rare for Arabic fonts. Test a font on your own text and at small sizes before adopting it.
- Cost
- Free
Research
Internet Archive
Wayback Machine
- What it is
- An archive of saved web pages over the years that lets you see how a site looked on an earlier date.
- Best for
- Tracking how competitors' offers and pricing changed, and recovering old content from your own site.
- Cost
- Free
Mohamad's pick
Gemini Notebook
- What it is
- A Google research tool (formerly NotebookLM) that answers and summarises based on the files and sources you upload.
- Best for
- Digesting long reports and studies, preparing training material and answering from internal documents.
- Why it's useful
- I recommend it because answers are grounded in your own sources and show where each point came from, which cuts down made-up answers in serious work.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Perplexity AI
Perplexity
- What it is
- An AI search engine that answers questions and cites the sources it used.
- Best for
- Quick first-pass research on a market or topic, with links you can go back to and check.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Productivity
Notion Labs
Notion
- What it is
- A workspace combining documents, databases and tasks in one place.
- Best for
- Documenting procedures, a team handbook and tracking simple projects.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Excalidraw
Excalidraw
- What it is
- An open-source browser whiteboard for quick diagrams and sketches, no sign-up needed.
- Best for
- Drawing a workflow before you automate it, or a rough sketch of a screen or idea.
- Cost
- Free and open source
Build & code
PageSpeed Insights
- What it is
- A Google tool that measures how fast any page loads on mobile and desktop and suggests what to fix.
- Best for
- Checking your site, or a vendor's delivery, and comparing performance before and after changes.
- Cost
- Free
Mozilla
MDN Web Docs
- What it is
- The best-known open reference for web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), with a structured curriculum for beginners.
- Best for
- People learning to build for the web, or checking what a developer or AI tool suggests.
- Cost
- Free
Hugging Face
Hugging Face
- What it is
- A platform hosting thousands of open models and datasets, plus demo apps (Spaces) you can try in the browser.
- Best for
- People exploring and comparing open models before choosing one for a product.
- Cost
- Free with paid plans
Data
Data Studio
- What it is
- A free Google tool (previously called Looker Studio) for building interactive dashboards and reports from many data sources.
- Best for
- Monthly marketing or sales reporting instead of copying numbers into slides by hand.
- Cost
- Free
Global Change Data Lab & University of Oxford
Our World in Data
- What it is
- A non-profit site bringing together data and research on 120+ topics such as poverty, health, education and climate, with clear charts.
- Best for
- NGOs and anyone writing proposals or reports who needs sourced, reliable figures.
- Cost
- Free
Career
Mohamad's pick
مهارات من Google
- What it is
- Google's Arabic-language hub for the Middle East and North Africa, collecting free courses and tools in digital marketing, careers, productivity and AI.
- Best for
- Arabic-first learners, and NGOs training volunteers or beneficiaries.
- Why it's useful
- Good, official, free learning in Arabic is rare, and this is one of the few sources: courses from Google itself, filterable by topic and length.
- Cost
- Free
Edraak
Edraak
- What it is
- An Arabic online-learning platform with 300+ free courses in career readiness, technology, business and personal development.
- Best for
- Young people, job seekers and anyone who needs Arabic-language certificates in core work skills.
- Cost
- Free
No affiliate links and no partnerships. Tools are listed because they are useful; paid plans are flagged where they exist.