Here's a great article by Titus Hoskins of marketingtoolguide.com, listing 10 of his most useful and free marketing tools to help build your online business...
My Top 10 Most Useful Free Marketing Tools Of 2010
At the end of the year, everyone is making lists and I thought it would be helpful if I gave you my most useful marketing tools of 2010. All of these are free and there's no reason why these tools can't also help your website or your online marketing.
While they are geared towards marketing, they can also be used for getting traffic to any website. I also believe it is the "USE" of "ALL" of these tools in combination which has helped me succeed online.
So here, in no particular order, are my most useful free marketing tools of 2010:
1. SeoQuake for Firefox
This invaluable SEO tool will give you vital stats about your site and those of your competitors. I use this extensively to check out my linking partners and how I can better challenge my competition. Besides checking the traffic ranking, Google indexed pages, age of site... the most important stats for me is the SEMRush numbers, these will roughly tell you the worth of the monthly keyword traffic a site is receiving. Very helpful.
2. Google Analytics
Getting traffic is only half the battle, knowing what that traffic does on your site is extremely important. I use this program to make my pages perform better and bring in more sales. Knowledge is everything on the web. I find Analytics good for fine-tuning my "money pages" on all my sites. I use it to build the conversion rate of my traffic. And that as they say has made all the difference in the world.
3. Microsoft's Commercial Intention Tool
Picking the right profitable keyword phrases is the first step to earning revenue from the web. This very useful tool from Microsoft will tell you the probability, or how likely, your chosen keyword will have commercial intention or results. This tool will give you some indication if the niche market you're considering will be worth it.
4. Addthis Social Bookmark Button
Social bookmarking has become very important for getting targeted traffic and for getting higher rankings. You simply must have an easy way for your visitors to bookmark your content in all the social networking sites. I find the Addthis button extremely useful for this purpose. The more social bookmarks your content has in these networks, the higher they will rank in the search engines, not to mention all that traffic.
5. WordPress Blogging Software
Using WordPress blogs are very beneficial because they are SEO friendly and search engines really like and favor them. This is one of the easiest ways to create profitable websites and adding helpful "plug-ins" makes them even more useful. One marketing strategy is to use a WordPress blog with its own domain to complement your main site; make sure to have them keyword related.
6. YouTube Videos
Videos are the future of marketing on the web, so using YouTube videos to promote your site or product is a no-brainer. I have also found videos are very important for SEO reasons mainly because Google will place a popular video on their first page listings, almost instantly. Some webmasters suggest you shouldn't use YouTube videos because it will draw traffic away from your site, but I find it's a good trade off for me.
7. Twitter
Simple, direct and very effective for getting your message on the web and into the search engines. You must include this social bookmarking/messaging site in your campaign and marketing. You have to make sure you integrate your Tweets into all aspects of your marketing... web content, articles, videos, pdf downloads, etc. ... tweet them all.
8. Alexa
Surprisingly, along with sites like Compete, I have found myself using Alexa as one of my most valuable information gathering tools. While not entirely accurate, it does give you information you can use to further your marketing goals. Especially for very competitive keywords, finding the links your competitors have on the web is invaluable information.
9. GoArticles | Ezinearticles
Article marketing is still my most effective marketing tool on the web. I find using sites like Ezinearticles and GoArticles vital to my whole online campaign. I know using articles is considered "old school" but this method still works, especially using unique articles.
10. Search Engines
Hands down, getting top rankings for your lucrative keywords in the major search engines, is still the most valuable marketing tool you can have in your tool-kit. I find gearing my marketing and promotion towards Google has paid off handsomely for me. Achieving and maintaining those top rankings in Google will make or break your online endeavors in 2010 or in any year for the foreseeable future.
All these marketing tools are free to use and are very easy to implement on your site or sites. Using and having all these free tools at your disposal will greatly benefit all your online pursuits. Just use them.
If you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on Facebook or subscribe to our feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog
You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509 and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
http://www.facebook.com/DereksHomeandBusinessBlog
Until my next post, have a great week!
My Top 10 Most Useful Free Marketing Tools Of 2010
While they are geared towards marketing, they can also be used for getting traffic to any website. I also believe it is the "USE" of "ALL" of these tools in combination which has helped me succeed online.
So here, in no particular order, are my most useful free marketing tools of 2010:
1. SeoQuake for Firefox
This invaluable SEO tool will give you vital stats about your site and those of your competitors. I use this extensively to check out my linking partners and how I can better challenge my competition. Besides checking the traffic ranking, Google indexed pages, age of site... the most important stats for me is the SEMRush numbers, these will roughly tell you the worth of the monthly keyword traffic a site is receiving. Very helpful.
2. Google Analytics
Getting traffic is only half the battle, knowing what that traffic does on your site is extremely important. I use this program to make my pages perform better and bring in more sales. Knowledge is everything on the web. I find Analytics good for fine-tuning my "money pages" on all my sites. I use it to build the conversion rate of my traffic. And that as they say has made all the difference in the world.
3. Microsoft's Commercial Intention Tool
Picking the right profitable keyword phrases is the first step to earning revenue from the web. This very useful tool from Microsoft will tell you the probability, or how likely, your chosen keyword will have commercial intention or results. This tool will give you some indication if the niche market you're considering will be worth it.
4. Addthis Social Bookmark Button
Social bookmarking has become very important for getting targeted traffic and for getting higher rankings. You simply must have an easy way for your visitors to bookmark your content in all the social networking sites. I find the Addthis button extremely useful for this purpose. The more social bookmarks your content has in these networks, the higher they will rank in the search engines, not to mention all that traffic.
5. WordPress Blogging Software
Using WordPress blogs are very beneficial because they are SEO friendly and search engines really like and favor them. This is one of the easiest ways to create profitable websites and adding helpful "plug-ins" makes them even more useful. One marketing strategy is to use a WordPress blog with its own domain to complement your main site; make sure to have them keyword related.
6. YouTube Videos
Videos are the future of marketing on the web, so using YouTube videos to promote your site or product is a no-brainer. I have also found videos are very important for SEO reasons mainly because Google will place a popular video on their first page listings, almost instantly. Some webmasters suggest you shouldn't use YouTube videos because it will draw traffic away from your site, but I find it's a good trade off for me.
7. Twitter
Simple, direct and very effective for getting your message on the web and into the search engines. You must include this social bookmarking/messaging site in your campaign and marketing. You have to make sure you integrate your Tweets into all aspects of your marketing... web content, articles, videos, pdf downloads, etc. ... tweet them all.
8. Alexa
Surprisingly, along with sites like Compete, I have found myself using Alexa as one of my most valuable information gathering tools. While not entirely accurate, it does give you information you can use to further your marketing goals. Especially for very competitive keywords, finding the links your competitors have on the web is invaluable information.
9. GoArticles | Ezinearticles
Article marketing is still my most effective marketing tool on the web. I find using sites like Ezinearticles and GoArticles vital to my whole online campaign. I know using articles is considered "old school" but this method still works, especially using unique articles.
10. Search Engines
Hands down, getting top rankings for your lucrative keywords in the major search engines, is still the most valuable marketing tool you can have in your tool-kit. I find gearing my marketing and promotion towards Google has paid off handsomely for me. Achieving and maintaining those top rankings in Google will make or break your online endeavors in 2010 or in any year for the foreseeable future.
All these marketing tools are free to use and are very easy to implement on your site or sites. Using and having all these free tools at your disposal will greatly benefit all your online pursuits. Just use them.
If you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on Facebook or subscribe to our feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog
You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509 and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
http://www.facebook.com/DereksHomeandBusinessBlog
Until my next post, have a great week!
Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteNice Info , I did tried Google Analytics Tools but it never give me much info before , but now I will look into it to see.
Do visit back and give some suggestion to me.
Thanks.
Vivek
a good list of traffic resources!
ReplyDeletei use all of them everyday now and they are usefull ...every has its unique use
http://www.humortechblog.com/
Thanks for the comment Vivek. If you have your own website, Google Analytics is an essential tool to see where your visitors are coming from and what they are doing while on your site. I've never tried it on the blogspot domain...it's worth a try though :)
ReplyDeleteVery high tech...but at the same time,very informative for a lay person like me, I hope to follow your tips to be more computer savvy.
ReplyDeleteNice Post Derek :D
ReplyDeleteA very good list of resources for any website or blog owner.I use most of them but found some new ones too.
http://filmedit.blogspot.com/
I already tried some of them and they are quite effective. Maybe I'll try the other tools too. I hope they would be more effective than the tools I already used.
ReplyDeleteI just discovered your post and thanks for the helpful list. I found a few of these tools on my own, but you have made my marketing efforts much easier.
ReplyDelete