Create A Free Online Tool Site To Make Money

A free online tool site (web tool or SaaS) can be one of the 3 types with quality Adsense revenue according to the Google Adsense article, with the example of GIFmaker.me (>100K monthly searches).

Gif maker keyword volume from Google Ads Keywords Planner

Google Adsense clearly points out what is actually pivotal for the success of a free online tool site:

Google’s Adwords Keyword Planner for free estimations of average monthly searches ( e.g. more than 100K searches can be good)
Providing a valuable tool to have visitors keep coming
Promote your tool for valuable backlinks and social media shares and rank better

How to create a simple online site tool quickly

There are at least 2 ways we can accomplish this: Manually code or purchase a (PHP) script and install it.

We can accomplish more for a unique tool site with manual coding but it is hard work and time-consuming. Scripts will require payment, installation at the server, and customization.

Build A Ping Tool Site Project

Let us take for example creating a really simple tool site to ping a website with some manual coding. What is and why a build ping site? Ping is a simple old command-line command to test if an IP or hostname can be reached or not. This simple tool can be a good learning ground to put together some basics for a working tool site, much like a ‘Hello World’ project. Although it does not cover database creation and connectivity, the YouTube video below does. I believe any decent programmer can take it off from here.

Why use WordPress with a PHP plugin?

To implement this tool site quickly and easily, I choose WordPress with a free highly-rated WordPress PHP plugin. WordPress is a common and stable publishing software and implementing PHP comes with certain advantages: Leverages upon existing WordPress site and experience for quick implementation with a basic aesthetic one-page theme, may offer certain security protection and other site benefits with plugins (7 Types Of Good WordPress Plugins Not To Ignore), and potential future monetization with Adsense or Ezoic (11 Reasons Why Ezoic Continues To Impress).

Insert PHP Code Snippet WordPress Plugin

And I got this basic working site tool in a day or two with Googling and YouTube despite my rusty programming skills. Admittedly, my codes below have much room for improvement, but you get the idea of how powerful and useful PHP can be for rapid web development.

Logic and code of a simple Ping web tool

Below are the codes to get the basic ping site up. The top part is the HTML with the form in it which also checks if it is an empty entry (which displays a message to enter a valid URL if so). The bottom part is where PHP gets into play, it starts with the valid form submission and goes on to check for a period in the text to validate the URL format or execute the ping command twice and runs a for loop to output the result on the screen.

Here is the 👇👇 PHP snippet code (basic functionalities) for this Ping tool site

<html>
<body>
<head>
<title> Ping Web Tool</title>
</head>

<div id="main">
<h1> Ping Web Tool</h1>
<form method="POST">
   Web Url:  <input type="text" name="urlname" class="text" autocomplete="off" required placeholder="google.com">
                   <input type="Submit" name="submit" id="sub">
</form>

</div>
</body>
</html>


<?php

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {
   $wu = $_POST['urlname'];
   if (strpos($wu, ".") !== FALSE) {
      exec("ping -c 2 '$wu'", $output, $result);
      foreach($output as $response){
         echo nl2br("\n".$response."\n");
       }
   }
   else {

     echo "Please enter a valid URL";
    }

}


?>

However, the interface looks very basic. So I have to touch up with theme page customization and with on-page and in-line CSS codes in the snippet below. It goes beyond the scope of this post, but it is basically a process of trial and error with Googling and YouTube to get it right.

Here is the 👇👇 PHP snippet code (with CSS improvements)for this Ping tool site

<html>
<head>
<title></title>
   <style type="text/css">
          #main{
               background-color: black; 
               width: 600px;
               height: 150px;
               border-radius: 30px;
           
          }
         h1{
           color: white !important;
         }
         hr{
         width: 250px;
          border: none;
          margin-top: 0px !important;
          }
         .text{
           width: 250px;
           font-weight: bold;
           font-size: 20px;
           border: none;
           padding: 10px;
           text-align: center;
           margin-top: 25px;
         }
         .text:focus{
         outline: none;
         }
         #sub {
        width: 250px;
        height: 30px;
        font-weight: bold;
        background-color: white;
        border: none;
         }
   </style>
</head>
<body><center>
<div id="main">
<h1></h1>
<form method="POST">
                  <input type="text" name="urlname" class="text" autofocus="autofocus" autocomplete="off" required placeholder="google.com" style="-webkit-border-radius: 10px;">
                   <hr>
                   <input type="Submit" name="submit" id="sub" value="Go" style="height:30px; width:100px; -webkit-border-radius: 10px;">
</form>
</div>
</center></body>
</html>


<?php if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {
    $wu = $_POST["urlname"];
    if (strpos($wu, ".") !== false) {
        exec("ping -c 2 '$wu'", $output, $result);
        foreach ($output as $response) {
            echo nl2br("\n" . $response . "\n");
        }
    } else {
        echo "<script>alert('Please enter a valid URL.')</script>";
    }
}

?>

Below are some screenshots of the ping web tool developed in WordPress, and even coded directly in the PHP snippet plugin without an external editor.

Whether it is building PHP manually or ready scripts, being able to create a web tool or SaaS is only part of the story, anybody can purchase a script and a domain name. It is also about whether there are enough people looking for this low or high competitive service, the value of the tool, and how much we let people know about it.

Challenge For Programmers (optional)

Quickly build a simple tool site that can execute a suitable basic command-line command and display the results on the site.

Bonus: Can you improve the appearance and outlook of the page?

How fast did you manage? Leave a comment below.

How to monetize a tool site?

Apply for Google Adsense (Easy Guide: Getting Your Site Adsense Ready For Approval). Alternatively, Ezoic (11 Reasons Why Ezoic Continues To Impress).

Where to get PHP scripts to create an online tool site or web tool?

Codecanyon has over 2300 PHP scripts for purchase to install. However, some knowledge is needed to install a script. How to install a PHP script? This technical article on Codecanyon PHP Script for web installation can help.

What are some benefits of PHP web application development?

PHP is a good programming language for web applications with server-side scripting. HTML and CSS lines can be inserted into a PHP file. Actually, PHP can do much more than that, including command-line scripting, outputting to different formats, supporting different databases, using various network protocols, and text processing features.

Conclusion

Serious online entrepreneurs creating site tools for ad monetization can do well by first researching for monthly averages searches traffic, providing a really good and useful tool, and thereafter promoting it. Rinse and repeat.
Good Passive

The first step can be an important one. How many websites are turning up when we Google search? A simple tool site can be difficult to rank on the first page when there are pages of similar ones out there.

Admittedly, this is not for everyone. But the more hard work we put in to make a good tool service site, the more likely it will stay popular and harder to replicate.

A better question for an online tool site’s success can be: How can we set ourselves apart from the competition?

Be wholesome.

More Information

Is creating online tools sites a get-rich-quick scheme?

No. However, not all online tool sites may be approved by Adsense automatically, here is an example. An online tool site will still need to adhere to Adsense definitions and requirements for approval.

Why and how do I learn PHP quickly?

About 77.5% of websites use PHP according to W3Techs.

For those with a programming background, a 15 minutes quick YouTube course may do. Beginners may benefit from this less than 5 hour of a YouTube full course.

For example in the case of quickly and manually implementing a tool site with WordPress, PHP is a natural choice.

Where to learn PHP basics?

PHP is pretty productively straightforward. Even HTML and CSS codes can be embedded in a PHP script. Other than YouTube, PHP Tutorial can be a modern site to start.

What are some interesting block elements for bloggers?

I find the quote block for highlighting certain content useful. And for expanding codes, I like the expand block from the free Gentenburg Ultimate Block WordPress plugin. The Call To Action block can also be an interesting one for modern marketers. Modern WordPress editor block can be activated with the slash ‘/’ shortcut. I used the quote block.