Website Magazine recently asked 'Net professionals what technology their Web-based business cannot operate without.
From real-time analytics tracking website visitors to virtual assistants, the answers were as diverse as they were interesting.
This week, we're releasing their answers by category: social and mobile technology, development and infrastructure, content management systems, analytics and optimization (found below) solutions and other software types (coming soon) to run your digital business.
"A Web based business imperatively needs Google Analytics which is a widely used analytics tool. Crazy Egg, Piwik or Woopra can also be useful. SpyFu, SEMrush or others may be used to monitor competitor activities. MailChimp, AWeber or Listrak are few email marketing tools used to monitor email campaigns."
+ Swapnil Bhagwat, Senior Manager at Orchestrate Technologies
"For us and our clients, Google Analytics is hands-down the most important piece of technology we use. Without understanding from where users are coming, what traffic is converting to sales or leads, and what is working to bring traffic in, you can't know what is working!"
+ Matthew Sockolov, Mindful Marketing
"We cannot imagine living without our Google Analytics suite of tools. We use Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Optimize to meet our analytics challenges, delivering us with actionable insights about our users motivations and behaviors."
+ Michael Reddy, Founder & Chief Analytics Officer at Digital Acumen
"In my 10-plus years' experience into online business, I have tried countless technologies and tools. But, one tool that I simply cannot imagine doing a Web-based business without is Google Analytics. It helps you get a 360-degree view of your site's performance and get right inside of your customers' experience."
+ Jitesh Keswani, CEO of e intelligence
"One component that gets frequently overlooked is analytics. We use a combination of Google Analytics, internal analytics dashboards and Amplitude. We have tracking set up across the site to measure funnel conversion rates, ensure optimal user experience and to understand what actions users take that lead them to success."
+ Phillip Alexeev, Head of Growth at Sketchfab
"If I can't see how my content and layout are performing I might as well close up shop. I can't operate effectively without Google Analytics, Google AdWords (specifically the Keyword Search Term Report) and Hotjar. Without these tools, my business is flying blind."
+ Daniel Davidson, Owner of ByDan
"Hands down the best tool I have is the Salient Theme on WordPress. It's a super flexible theme, perfect for rapidly testing designs and it doesn't take a lot of coding to optimize this theme to blazing fast load speeds."
+ Mason Pelt, Owner of Push ROI
"Optimizely is crucial for the success of my online business. It's an AB testing platform that I use to test different offers for my audience. I've used it to increase conversion rates 20 percent or more and I've learned so much about my customers in the process. Can't recommend enough."
+ Cynthia Brown, Founder and Chief Editor at Only Top Reviews
Read: Essential Tech Part 1, Essential Tech Part 2 and Essential Tech Part 4