The Top 10 Online Marketing Tools That Will Help You Boost Your Business

Marketing your small business can be hard and daunting at times, but with the right tools it doesn’t have to be! We all know that it’s crucial to find the right marketing tools and create a strong online presence to ensure our business grows in this competitive digital market, so we’ve made this handy list of top 10 online marketing tools that will help you get ahead of the game. Check them out and start using them today!

1) Aweber

Aweber offers email marketing tools that are simple to use and efficient in terms of how much time you spend on your emails. With Aweber, you can set up a mailing list for customers who want to subscribe to your newsletters. Then, with just a few clicks, you can send mass emails out to everyone on your mailing list at once or schedule an automatic email campaign. In addition, if one of your subscribers unsubscribes from your list, Aweber will automatically remove them so they aren’t counted as another email lost. This way you have an idea of exactly how many subscribers are still getting and reading your emails, which is great when it comes time to plan out campaigns and other marketing efforts.

2) MailChimp

MailChimp has been around since 2001 and has a free version that comes with 2,000 subscriber emails per month. MailChimp is one of the easiest email marketing tools out there to use and make professional-looking emails. It’s also quite useful for companies that don’t have an in-house designer or developer to create a custom template. There are three different paid plans available: Starter (up to 500 subscribers), Pro (up to 5,000 subscribers) and Business ($199/month). All of them offer unlimited emails sent per month, but you can access additional features if you pay for a plan. One cool feature is Salesforce integration so you can sync your leads into Salesforce easily if you use it as your CRM.

3) SumoMe

An indispensable tool for researching keywords and setting your budget, Google Keyword Planner is something that can’t be ignored. It’s simple to use (just enter a relevant keyword and see how many times it’s been searched in Google over the past 12 months) and helpful in different ways (it tells you how competitive a keyword is as well as how much volume there is in that particular industry). In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if Google will eventually phase out AdWords with its own integrated keyword-planning platform. Until then, it's still worth paying attention to what keywords are most commonly used by your target audience.

4) Canva

Buffer is one of those apps that makes a lot of sense once you start using it. Buffer helps you plan and schedule your social media posts so they’re more aligned with when your followers are online. It also helps to keep your publishing more consistent, which can help create better engagement from your audience and improve search results on sites like Google. There’s a free option for up to 3 social profiles, but if you want to use as many profiles as you have connections for, or give access to a manager account, then you’ll need one of their paid plans.

5) Buffer

Grammarly helps you write with confidence by identifying and correcting errors in your writing. It will also help you improve your overall writing style. Some of its features include plagiarism checking, improving word choice, finding hard-to-spot errors, providing style suggestions and giving grammar tips. Grammarly’s browser extensions are convenient for those who want to make their documents error-free at all times. In addition to English, Grammarly supports 13 other languages such as French, Spanish and Chinese. The free version is ideal for students who want to learn more about English grammar rules and wants to do a basic proofreading job online.

6) Grammarly

Grammarly helps you write better, no matter what language you're writing in. Even if English isn't your first language, Grammarly has excellent machine learning algorithms that correct over 250 types of grammar and punctuation mistakes to save you time. With Grammarly installed on your browser, all it takes is a simple right-click to highlight any grammatical errors. The extension's advanced editing capabilities also allow you to customize spelling suggestions, check for plagiarism, or add special elements (emoticons and emoji) when appropriate.

7) Skitch (now Evernote Skitch)

Bitly is a link-shortening service that’s great for marketers. Users can select how long they want their links to be shortened, and then Bitly will turn them into clickable links. This is very handy if you’re trying to fit a lot of words in a small space—like on Twitter, where every character counts. It also has analytics capabilities, so you can track clicks and leads easily.

8) WhatCounts (now Mautic)

WhatCounts is a new email marketing platform that’s taking email marketing to a whole new level. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you start building your email list and manage your opt-ins, but WhatCounts is unique because it connects directly with Facebook and Twitter, making it easy for you to automate your social media strategies. Beyond social media integration, WhatCounts has all of your standard email marketing functionality: setting up custom automation rules, segmenting contacts based on how they sign up, creating targeted newsletters—all in one place. And when you’re ready to add some text or image-based emails into your repertoire, WhatCounts makes it simple by offering simple drag-and-drop templates that make writing content easier than ever before.

9) Google Analytics Section: 10) Powerpoint

Google Analytics is an invaluable tool, but unless you’re a math wiz or have a business degree under your belt, you may find it tough to decipher. A great alternative that anyone can understand and use effectively is Powerpoint. Developed by Microsoft, Powerpoint gives users easy-to-use visual representations of data that most people can immediately grasp and identify with. Start tracking your website analytics with Google Analytics or free alternatives like Piwik or Mint. Powerpoint is perfect for businesses looking to grow their online presence with help from social media strategies and link building efforts.

Ahrefs

Do you want to search for a specific keyword and see if other popular websites have mentioned it in their content? The best way to do that is through Ahrefs, which allows you to check out their database of over 1 trillion web pages. Once you find a page that has been written about, you can click on it and see how many people are linking back to it and how much social activity that page is receiving. Aside from that, Ahrefs also gives you lots of other helpful SEO-related tools like showing keywords’ popularity over time, letting you know if your keyword is getting more or less popular, along with its linkbuilding tool.

Google ads

While many of us rely on search engines to help us find products and services, others use those same search engines to reach new customers. While there are hundreds of places you can buy advertising space, Google’s AdWords is one of the most well-known for small businesses. As a result, it's important that you know how to use it effectively if you want your campaign to stand out. Here are some tips on getting started with Google ads

Google Analytics

We live in a data-driven world, which means that knowing what is working and what isn’t with your online presence is imperative. Google Analytics not only tracks your website’s traffic, but also where visitors come from and what they do while on your site. It’s one of many free tools you can use to keep track of important statistics like impressions, clicks, time on site and more. Don’t miss out on being able to find hidden trends among your data; set up Google Analytics as soon as possible.

Facebook Ads

With Facebook advertising, it’s possible to target any kind of audience you want—without getting into their email addresses or phone numbers. In other words, you can be as broad or as specific as you want with your targeting, and you don’t have to pay for information from third parties. Want to advertise to recent college grads in Seattle? No problem. How about dog owners in Los Angeles who enjoy craft beer? Yep! It’s all possible with Facebook ads. Best of all, these ads are easy and quick to set up, so you don’t have to waste a lot of time developing strategies that might not pan out.

Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is one of my favorite places to run ads. The audience tends to be highly engaged and has a lot of purchasing power. With Pinterest Ads, you can include multiple images, links, and CTAs that work together to create an offer. They allow you to target your audience by interest or demographic and find people who have a higher chance of becoming paying customers. Sign up for Pinterest Ads here.

Push ads

Think about what you want to accomplish with your campaign. For example, if you’re trying to drive awareness and traffic to your new website, start by creating a Facebook page for your brand. If you want more people to interact with your business on social media, try adding a Like button or installing a comment box. Think of each platform as another way of connecting with customers—you can even integrate several platforms together into one cohesive marketing campaign that connects all of your audiences across various channels. Make sure you choose which platforms will be best for reaching each audience (like Facebook or Twitter) so you can optimize everything properly!