https://zapier.com/blog A blog about productivity, workflow automation, company building and how to get things done with less work. Wed, 02 Sep 2026 05:19:38 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-journaling-apps There's a reason so many successful people keep a journal: it works. Taking the time to gather your thoughts and experiences, then write them down, is a simple way to manage stress, enhance creativity, increase happiness, improve health, and increase work performance. The trouble is, keeping a journal isn't easy. It takes dedication to this new habit and a willingness to open up when writing on a blank page. What have you done today? Who are you, really? Journaling apps can help you figure this Justin Pot Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:02:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-journaling-apps https://zapier.com/blog/automate-chatgpt OpenAI is rolling out new models all the time, and you can see the improvements and power even in a quick back-and-forth with ChatGPT. But as much as we all love shooting the breeze with an AI chatbot, the real question is how you can put the AI models to use in your work. All of ChatGPT's state-of-the-art models are available in Zapier. That means you can add ChatGPT-powered steps to your existing workflows, or securely access and take action in apps directly from ChatGPT, without ever leaving Steph Spector Tue, 01 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/automate-chatgpt https://zapier.com/blog/hootsuite-alternatives In another life, I ran social for a number of small companies. And if I had a nickel for every time someone said, "Social's easy. Just do [insert suggestion that's definitely been done before]," I'd have long been retired. Building a social media strategy and executing it is anything but easy.  That's why people turn to social media management giants like Hootsuite to streamline their efforts. It allows you to control your full social media presence across multiple platforms in one place. But Ho Jessica Lau Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/hootsuite-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/best-seo-audit-tools If you're like most humans, the word "audit" gives you an instant twinge of anxiety. But if you're an SEO professional (and thus not like most humans), it might fill your head with grand visions of actionable marketing insights. Digital marketers depend on tools that generate these insights, so we can learn what's bringing traffic to a website, why content is plummeting on the SERP, and how copy on a page can be improved. I've used plenty of SEO audit tools in my career, and to help you pick the Bryce Emley Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-seo-audit-tools https://zapier.com/blog/find-email-address I once spent more minutes than was reasonable looking for someone's email address. I checked their website, scanned their LinkedIn, searched their name with every Google operator combo I could think of, and eventually found myself scrolling through photos of a conference they'd attended and zooming in on the conference badge to see if their social handle was hiding in plain sight. It was not.  There are infinitely better ways to get the job done—and none of them involve pretending you're in an e Jessica Lau Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:15:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/find-email-address https://zapier.com/blog/train-chatgpt-to-write-like-you As a content creator at , I'm always looking for ways to produce more without sacrificing my voice. ChatGPT's custom instructions and the ability to build custom GPTs made it easy for me—once I figured out how to train it to actually sound like me.  The gist is that you can use ChatGPT to analyze a few samples of your writing style, including voice, tone, and structure, and then paste those descriptors into ChatGPT's custom instructions. Here, I'll walk you through the process so you can train C Matt Giaro Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/train-chatgpt-to-write-like-you https://zapier.com/blog/what-is-hubspot HubSpot started as an inbound marketing tool, and today it bills itself as an AI-powered customer platform. But what does that actually mean?  HubSpot is a one-stop shop for managing every stage of the customer lifecycle. Here's a list of some of what HubSpot offers, just to give you an idea of how wide-ranging its features are: Lead generation forms Lead management tools (CRM, call tracking, and prospecting) Social media management  Data quality automations Invoices and payment links AI-powered Hannah Herman Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/what-is-hubspot https://zapier.com/blog/add-zoom-to-google-calendar-as-default Google Meet is baked into just about everything Google makes—including Google Calendar, where it's the default video conferencing option on every event you create. If Meet isn't your thing, though, you're not stuck with it. Here's how to add Zoom to Google Calendar (and make it the default meeting option).  Table of contents:  How to add Zoom to Google Calendar How to make Zoom the default in Google Calendar  Automate Google Calendar and Zoom with Zapier How to add Zoom to Google Calendar To get Jessica Lau Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/add-zoom-to-google-calendar-as-default https://zapier.com/blog/migrate-from-dropbox-to-google-drive There's an intersection by my house where seven roads converge into one chaotic circle, all without the guidance of a single traffic light. It's a test of survival skills disguised as traffic engineering, where your only option is to white-knuckle your way through and hope you make it out unscathed. Transferring files from Dropbox to Google Drive is a lot like that traffic circle. It's a multi-step process that can feel overwhelmingly impossible to navigate and may end with you stuck in the midd Allisa Boulette Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/migrate-from-dropbox-to-google-drive https://zapier.com/blog/google-ai-mode I can't be the only person who types a question into Google, opens 12 tabs from the results, and somehow still can't find a straight answer. Google AI Mode is here to save me, specifically, from that tab chaos. AI Mode is a conversational Google Search experience powered by Gemini. It breaks questions into related searches, combines what it finds into an AI-generated response, and includes web links you can use to check the answer or dig deeper. Then you can keep asking follow-ups without starti Nicole Replogle Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/google-ai-mode https://zapier.com/blog/automate-claude With every new model release, Claude tops almost every benchmark. And chatting with Claude makes it clear why: it's good at everything. But while there's power in a back-and-forth conversation, you can accomplish a lot more when you use Zapier to connect Claude to the rest of your apps and let automation carry out entire workflows for you. Here's how it works. Table of contents: Add Claude's brain to your existing workflows Automate workflows directly from Claude Claude automation FAQ Add Claude Steph Spector Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/automate-claude https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-notes-apps Taking notes used to be a mess of notebooks, Post-its, and scribbled napkins. Tired of flipping pages, you went digital and stored everything on your devices and cloud accounts. Now, as we move forward in the AI age, you can improve the note-taking process even more to get those thoughts out of your head, shape them into powerful ideas, and maybe even start doing something with them. Using new technologies can be tricky, especially when dealing with sensitive data like your personal notes. And y Miguel Rebelo Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-notes-apps https://zapier.com/blog/best-windows-to-do-list-apps It seems like every productivity app lives in the browser these days, but there are still good arguments to be made for native software. Apps that run natively on your Windows desktop perform better, integrate into the operating system with tray icons and widgets, and won't get lost in the sea of tabs in your browser. And to-do list apps are no exception. There are a bunch of great Windows to-do list apps out there, if you know where to look. I spent a couple weeks testing all the top options to Shubham Agarwal Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-windows-to-do-list-apps https://zapier.com/blog/dropbox-alternatives A while back, a group of my friends, all professional photographers, were discussing the best place to store their digital photos. I couldn't relate: most of the photos on my camera roll are awkwardly framed photos of my dogs, and I store them…on my phone.  It did get me thinking about where I should store everything else, though. Dropbox comes to mind because it's a low-maintenance app packed with hidden features that make file syncing and sharing easy. And people love it because it just works. Jessica Lau Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/dropbox-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-website-builder Vibe coding tools like Lovable and AI coding agents like Codex and Claude Code have totally changed the concept of building. You can now create a web app from a couple of text prompts, so can you do the same with a website? In short, yes. Though it's not quite as simple as that.  The claim is that AI website builders can streamline everything from designing a site to creating the content, organizing it into the appropriate pages, and even getting it online. It's a bold claim, and it's mostly tru Harry Guinness Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-website-builder https://zapier.com/blog/gemini-apps Google's product launch events have always been a quirky grab-bag of Pixel phone updates and smartwatch announcements, with celebrity hosts like Trevor Noah doing their darndest to squeeze laughs out of teleprompter-reading Google product managers. But lately, there's been a new addition to these events: Google has begun spotlighting Gemini connections to apps like Wix, Zocdoc, and Ticketmaster. You can currently find ~18 of these third-party Gemini connected apps, and there are a couple dozen m Ryan Kane Mon, 24 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/gemini-apps https://zapier.com/blog/claude-for-small-business My friend runs a small dog boarding and training business. It's not a casual side hustle, either. She has a waitlist, a roster of regulars, and the kind of five-star reviews that take years to earn. She also has a full-time job. And somehow, she remains unburdened by the common stressors that keep small business owners up at night.  So, on behalf of all of us who are barely holding it together, working just one 9-to-5 (it's me—I am "us"), I asked her how she does it all. Her answer: Claude Cowor Jessica Lau Mon, 24 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/claude-for-small-business https://zapier.com/blog/intercom-alternatives Intercom is an impressive platform, designed to handle the entire customer lifecycle, across every touchpoint, from onboarding through retention. But not every business needs that level of commitment from its help desk. If you're looking for something a little less complex or a little less eerily omniscient, there are plenty of Intercom alternatives for customer support, customer engagement, and customer experience. The Zapier team and I have spent hundreds of hours in these apps, and based on Nicole Replogle Mon, 24 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/intercom-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/gemini-gems If a NASA engineer and an amateur cook gave Google Gemini a similar set of prompts, they'd get similar responses—down to the style and structure. Sure, they could explicitly instruct it otherwise, but neither our engineer nor our cook has time to enter detailed instructions and additional context every time they prompt Gemini.  Gemini Gems solve this problem by letting you build custom versions of Gemini tuned to your specific needs. Think of them as the Gemini equivalent of ChatGPT's custom GPT Jessica Lau Fri, 21 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/gemini-gems https://zapier.com/blog/pipedream-alternatives If you're here, you're looking for one of two things: a workflow builder to help you ship automations faster, or an embedded SDK you can drop into your own product so users can connect their accounts without you building OAuth infrastructure from scratch.  I work at Zapier, which solves both of these problems, and I'd unsurprisingly argue it's the best Pipedream alternative. But there are, of course, other automation tools and integration SDKs worth considering. My team and I have spent a lot of Nicole Replogle Fri, 21 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/pipedream-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/small-business-advertising-ideas I spent years working with small restaurants and local businesses to help them grow—and, honestly, very few of them needed a huge advertising budget to drive business. Sure, you could invest thousands in paid ads, hire a top-tier advertising agency, and work with influencers to promote your brand. But you don't have to: there are plenty of free or low-cost advertising options that will attract website traffic and in-person visits.  You might think of advertising as referring only to paid marketi Danielle Antosz Fri, 21 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/small-business-advertising-ideas https://zapier.com/blog/small-business-automation-software I've been automating small business tasks for over a decade. First, for a small law firm I worked for, and then for my own freelance business. And I can confidently say if you're looking for one tool that does it all, the answer is Zapier. It connects every app you could possibly use, works across every function of your business, and scales from a free plan to enterprise-grade workflows without requiring you to switch tools as you grow.  But if you're looking for a more purpose-built automation Nicole Replogle Fri, 21 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/small-business-automation-software https://zapier.com/blog/salesforce-alternatives Once you're in the Salesforce universe, it's hard to move out. Part of that is because it's getting the job done: it can do almost anything, it scales to almost any size, and its ecosystem is enormous. If you have a dedicated Salesforce admin, a development team, and a budget, it's the gold standard for CRM, by a long shot. But if you're ready to move on—and lots of people are—there are plenty of Salesforce alternatives that cover a lot of the same ground Salesforce does, at a fraction of the co Nicole Replogle Thu, 20 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/salesforce-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/boomi-alternatives Boomi runs the integration layer for thousands of enterprises, connecting ERPs and legacy systems and on-premises databases that most modern tools refuse to acknowledge exist. If you need SAP talking to Oracle while both of them shake hands with a healthcare system behind a firewall, Boomi says "how high?" But for everyone else, whose stack is mostly cloud apps or who wants their entire team to be able to build without an IT backlog, Boomi isn't where you should go first. I work at Zapier, so y Nicole Replogle Thu, 20 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/boomi-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/replit-alternatives My husband and I have very different relationships with starting things. He reads the entire manual before he touches anything. I open the box, press whatever looks most promising, and deal with the consequences later. We've been doing this dance for a dozen years, and obviously my approach works better. That's pretty much the Replit story. It's a browser-based coding platform that lets you skip the manual entirely: open a tab, describe your app, and the agent figures out the rest. It does front Nicole Replogle Thu, 20 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/replit-alternatives