One of the most successful SEO pages we created while I was at Optimizely, was our A/B test sample size calculator. We created a fairly simple tool that visitors could use to calculate the audience size needed to reach stat sig on an A/B test. The page also had a bit of copy (helpful for both SEO and users) about calculating sample sizes.

The tool ended up being a wild success, bringing in thousands of visitors to our site per month and also becoming one of our most successful lead gen tools, with the added benefit of growing our brand and awareness in the space.

More recently, I helped Quizlet build a pomodoro timer, following a similar strategy, pairing a useful tool with content that is complimentary to our core product offering.

And this weekend, I vibe coded a music slow downer tool for my salsa dance site, releasing for free on the internet an app I previously had to pay money for on the app store.

Building free products for marketing purposes is a powerful strategy, because free useful tools are powerful link magnets that people naturally want to link to, boosting SEO. They also have the potential to drive SEO traffic, and because they are interactive, are unlikely to be replaced wholesale by LLMs, at least in the short term.

Leveraging LLMs make the practice easier than ever. There is an opportunity now for enterprising players to take tools that were previously behind paywalls and release them for free, or build new unique niche tools that previously would had a TAM too small to make it worthwhile to design custom software for.

Now, when development costs can be measured in hours and days and not weeks and months, it opens up the possibility for a whole new class of micro tools that can help brands grow and serve niche user needs.

As a novice programmer myself, it took some effort to put my first mini-tool together, but I’m extremely happy with how it turned out, and am looking forward to building more mini-tools in the near future!