Heading into Q4, make sure that your local business takes advantage of 2015 digital marketing trends so that you can reach new customers. Here is a recent list of our favorite tools for creating successful marketing strategies, these online marketing tools can help you end the year on the right foot.
Blogging / Content Marketing
One of the most effective and efficient ways to market your business online is by having a company blog. The following tools will save you time and make sure your content is SEO friendly:
- Copyscape: The free version lets you check a page on your site to see how often it’s been copied (and if you rank wellà it probably has been). Also good for testing upcoming copy for potential issues.
- Grammarly: I’m terrible at Grammar. I probably have half a dozen comma splice errors in this post as well. This is why I trust Grammarly to spot the errors I can’t catch, all for free.
Social Media
Obviously, social media should be one of the foundations of your event marketing. There are literally hundreds of tools out there to make social media marketing easier, but for my money, I’d pick these:
- Buffer: Helps you schedule social media posts across a number of social channels. I highly recommend Buffer.
- Monarch: Take social sharing to the next level on your WordPress website, this is a social media plugin with Style.
Video / Presentation
- Animoto: Animoto is the easiest video editor around – it will help you create a stunning video in just 3 simple steps: add your photos and videos, customize your video with music, styles and other features of your choice, embed it on your website and voila – you got yourself a great video in a matter of seconds! The tool is also available as an app to help you share videos on mobile.
- Prezi: This presentation tool helps users organize and share ideas by creating visualizations.
- Google+ Hangouts: A free, interactive video production tool that lets you host live video conferences with 10 participants, while other viewers can watch, message questions, and comment in real time.
- Canva: Create graphics for your blog, social channels, website and much more with this online image creation tool that also comes with a stock photo library.
- Slideshare: Probably one of the best presentation tools on the Internet. Using the platform, you can create documents, PDFs, slideshows, videos, and webinars; all presentations and keynotes at your event can further be streamlined and gathered into one place. Factor in the platform’s ease of use, and it’s clear to see why most everybody utilizes it: because it works.
Search Engine Optimization
Want to start driving quality traffic to your site? These resources cover a variety of tools to better optimize your site and some basic strategy behind why SEO is important:
- Keyword Research Tools:
- Bing Keyword Research Tool: A popular Bing product to know what people are searching for and getting keyword ideas and suggestions.
- Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Yes, we all know how we can use this tool to see the performance of a list of keywords and create a new set of keywords.
- Google Analytics: Say Hi to Google Analytics- increase sales, find more visitors and enhance your mobile app. Go through this checklist from Google to find out how you can drive maximum advantage out of Google Analytics.
- QuickSprout: Neil Patel’s SEO and Content Marketing site called Quick Sprout is the best. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from his posts and newsletters and guides. What I can tell you is that while we do a great job for our clients using SEO techniques, his Advanced SEO Guide is the absolute best resource for rocking search engine optimization. After 3 months of work on a client’s site following the instructions in that guide, we have already seen a massive increase in traffic for our targeted keywords and it just keeps growing.
- Link Building Tools:
- Ahrefs: One of the most powerful tools for checking links.
Local SEO: Get More Customer Reviews
Reviews very often contain relevant keywords, drawing attention to your product but their biggest strength lies in how Google perceives them. Each opinion written by a client contains unique wording and style. Search engines see that and prioritize your websites over other outlets:
- Wisestamp: Email signatures that can utilize social, productive and engaging apps and features.
- Moz Local: Improve visibility online at a price that works for your business. Consistent, visible local business listings across the web—and the reporting to prove it.
Online Marketing
- Primer is powered by Google and meant to offer the best way to learn without ever spending a penny. Topics include things like branding, SEO, analytics, ad buying/selling and how to target the right audience. Primer is meant to be for Internet users but the marketing guides can apply to many different industries.
