All digital marketing needs to be researched, made, tracked and evaluated. These tools can help with all different aspects of digital marketing. More important, all are FREE (or provide a free version)
SEO/Website
#1 Google Analytics
The free tool from Google allows you to track your website’s traffic. It can give you an idea of what your customers or potential customers are doing. This gives you great insight into the customer journey to your website, what pages they are visiting and for how long. Why are people stopping on a certain page and not continuing? Why are they visiting a page and disappearing? Google Analytics gives you the data which means you can check your website. A page tweak here or there will make them better for your customers and their journey. Every website we create is automatically added to Google Analytics.
#2 Plerdy – HeatMaps
This heatmaps tool allow you to see where people are clicking, hovering or ignoring on your website. And by see I mean SEE. It can help you rearrange pages and improve customer journeys. It can also help if potential customers are missing vital information on a page.
Let’s take a newsletter sign up as an example. You are wanting people to sign up to a newsletter but the first time it is visible is at the bottom of the home page. You use Plerdy and realise that nobody is even scrolling down that far. You can now re-arrange the home page to have the signup form higher on the page. Better yet, place it before where most visibility and interaction takes place.
#3 Neil Patel – Ubersuggest – Keywords Researcher
Want to know what your competitors are ranking in or know how to compete with the same keywords as them? Then the Ubersuggest tool is perfect for finding the keywords. It can also let you know how people are finding your website. You can also scan your website to find keyword suggestions. The free version allows you up to 3 scans a day on your website. Get more tips about SEO keywords here.
Social Media
#4 Later – Social Media Scheduler
Later is one of my favourite tools for individual business posting and scheduling. The free version allows short videos to upload. It allows 30 posts on each social media platform per month and allows you to save captions. With Instagram, you can also create a linkin.bio section. This allows users to click on images that have a link to your blog, website or other sources from your profile. The paid version allows you to collect analytics. It also provides your Instagram section with a first comment post. This means you can put all your hashtags in there without overfilling your main post. It’s recently added LinkedIn to their social media platforms too.
#5 Canva – Graphic Design
New to graphic design or can’t get the hang of Adobe software? Don’t worry, Canva is here to save the day. If you ever need to create a graphic, poster, invitation, logo, presentation – or anything that looks good — give this tool a go. Its free option still allows for a large amount of free professional images and has amazing designs to suit any business. You can create social posts in a flash, saving you time in design and effort. Get our 10 top tips on graphic design here.
#6 Bitly – shrinking your URL
Many URLs are long and wordy for SEO purposes and to help get better rankings on Google. But do they need to be that long when they are sat on Facebook? Or especially Twitter when your character count is much more important? Bitly can also improve your tracking. It shows where customers are coming from, when they are coming, and what interests them.
Learn more about Social Media tactics here.
Blogging
#7 Hemingway Editor – Readability
Making sure your writing is clear for the reader is very important. You need to ensure it makes sense and is not too complicated. This is what the Hemingway Editor tool can do for you in their own words…
“Hemingway App makes your writing bold and clear.
The app highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors; if you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic — try editing this sentence to remove the red.
You can utilize a shorter word in place of a purple one. Mouse over them for hints.
Adverbs and weakening phrases are helpfully shown in blue. Get rid of them and pick words with force, perhaps.
Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voice.
You can format your text with the toolbar.
Paste in something you’re working on and edit away. Or, click the Write button and compose something new.”
#8 Answer The Public – Blogging Ideas
Do you ever come up short of what to write for blogs? Then this tool is one of those tips that is right up there in getting some genuine ideas for writing for your customers. Answer the Public takes your keyword, business, or product and gives you a wide variety of different questions you could answer in a blog.
Learn more blogging tips or things to avoid in your blog.
Email Marketing
#9 Mailchimp – Email Marketing and CRM
Mailchimp is, in my opinion, the number one go-to web app for email marketing. It’s simple to set up good looking emails. Due to easy integration with your website, it’s even simpler to grow your audience. The Free plan includes up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 2,000. What’s not to like. And… with Email Marketing still one of the best ROIs out there, it’s a marketing tip and tool you cannot avoid. Learn more about email marketing here.
Other
#10 GMail/Google Account – Because you need it for Digital Marketing.
You may not see this as a Digital Marketing Tool but it’s the best freebie out there for anything you need to start creating your digital marketing content. Do you know the number of Freebies you get just by signing up to a google account? Here are just some small reasons why.
Free cloud space on Google drive – Have the important things saved in the cloud. Ready for when you need it and anywhere you need it.
Google Docs, sheets, slides, forms – easily share information with others via a link or email. Or download and send as a word document, excel or PowerPoint if needed. Yet, there is no need for a Microsoft office account with using this. Docs, xmls and ppts can all be opened using Googles software. It also stores them safely on your Google Drive and can be accessed easily on any computer when you need them.
Google My Business – Probably the most important reason why this is part of your Digital Marketing Strategy. Ensuring your business is set up for local searching on Google.
Youtube account – provides you with a free youtube account to share those videos.
Google Meets – a free way to face to face rather than using Zoom.
And more… There is so much stuff Google provides small businesses for free.
Final Thought…
So these are the 10 best things that will improve your digital marketing if you are a small or startup business. There are obviously lots of other free tools or paid tools out there. Yet, if you are missing these easy to use starters, you will soon get lost with the number of things out there.
Have we missed anything? Let us know in the comments if you have a preferred Digital Marketing freebie for startups or small businesses.