Selling online or have a website for your business or organisation? Here is a list of must have tools to help make running your online business and website marketing easier. Best of all, they're absolutely FREE!
Social Media Management
Social media management can be tedious, HootSuite can cut down time incredibly. We regard HootSuite as one of the best free website marketing tools out there. HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard.
Launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience and distribute targeted messages using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard. Streamline team workflow with scheduling and assignment tools and reach audiences with geo-targeting functionality. Invite multiple collaborators to manage social profiles securely, plus provide custom reports using the comprehensive social analytics tools for measurement.
Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ Pages, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and more.
Graphic Design
Canva is a website that makes it easier than ever to create beautiful graphic design right from the website. It's to create flyers, presentations, social media graphics, Facebook covers, blog graphics, invitations and more. With Canva’s easy drag and drop capabilities, you’ll make designs just like a professional. This is a great tool to create custom designs for email campaigns, social media networks and landing pages. Another highly regarded website marketing tool I highly recommend.
Website Testing
PEEK is a new website that will give you unbiased insight on your websites usability from real users – completely for free. Submit your online store and you’ll receive a 5 minute video of a real person navigating your site. Peek will help you improve your online shop’s navigation and help you optimize the user experience to increase conversions and customer satisfaction.
Smarter Screenshots
Skitch is a clear screenshot tool for communicating with colleagues, developers and designers. Skitch lets you take screen shots and add text and shapes so that you get your point across faster. Skitch also lets you save screen shots and share them as a link. You’ll find Skitch to be extremely useful when working with your developer and designer to create or update your site or when communicating with clients when trying to assist on your website and a hundred and one other uses.
Marketing Webinars (Training)
Live web seminars absolutely free with everything to do about marketing your website. Here is the Moz writeup from their website:
"Our live webinars, Mozinars, let us connect directly with community members and give you a great way to learn something new about online marketing. Mozinars usually last from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, which gives you plenty of time at the end for questions and answers. As a Moz Community member, you can participate in current and upcoming Mozinars, as well as watch previous ones for free!"
Responsive Website Testing (for mobile phones)
Responsinator is a website that lets you test your website in real time across multiple devices like iPhones, Android's, Tablets and a host of other devices. You can see exactly how visitors on the various devices view and interact with your website.
Email Marketing
What website marketing tool lineup will be complete without an email marketing tool? There are many email tools out there and MailChimp is still my favourite because it's free, has powerful features and lots of integration options. If you are running an online shop like Magento or ZenCart etc or a website on WordPress or Joomla or a host of others then MailChimp is for you. Easily send out professional looking emails and have analytics tools right on hand.
How Google Indexes Your Website Pages
Find out exactly how Google looks at your website pages and any potential problems. You'll also find training and a host of other information to help you keep your site healthy and Google friendly. Essential for effective website marketing.
Blog or Content Topic Suggestions
As you know content is king and coming up with quality ideas to write about can be tiresome and sometimes you just hit a brick wall. That's when a tool like Portent's Content Idea Generator can be a life saver. Simply type in your subject and it will spew out content suggestions. It's not perfect but should supply an endless stream of blog topic suggestions.
