You also need to do a lot of digital marketing to make sure that your small business does get lost in the crowd. Digital marketing can give you a much needed competitive edge, considering that 1 out 5 SMBs have yet to utilize it. But in order for digital marketing to be effective, it needs to be done right. And to do it right, you need the right digital marketing tools. This leads to the question: what are the right tools? Here are six of the best digital marketing tools that your small business needs right now.
1. Buffer
Social media has taken over and has become a tool that small businesses are using to build and sustain relationships with new and existing customers. You can’t do digital marketing without social media. And Buffer is a tool that makes social media management easier for small business owners. It allows you to schedule posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, which is a huge time saver. Plus, it has analytics built-in that provide valuable insight into what resonates with your audience. How powerful is social media in the digital marketing world? Well, if you own an eCommerce store it would be prudent to know that social media pages can increase your traffic by 43% and Facebook Videos are watched more than 4 billion times a day.
2. Keyword Planner
Search engine optimization (SEO) is also a major aspect of every digital marketing campaign. After all, 93% of all website traffic comes from search engines. And you need the right keywords if you want to get a good number of that traffic to come to your website. With the right keywords, your website can rank on search engines, such as Google. Enter Keyword Planner: a tool that allows you to find the best keywords for your business. This product from Google allows you to discover new keywords that are relevant to your products and services. If you already have a keyword list, it can provide you with insight on which keywords to use so you can narrow them down to the most essential. This makes Keyword Planner one of the best free marketing tools in this digital age.
3. Pingdom Website Speed Test
How fast is your website? This is something you need to know.
Website speed is one of those things that can’t be ignored. The amount of time it takes your website to load is a pretty big deal. In fact, your website should load in two second or less. If it takes longer than that, your bounce rates increase by 50% with each subsequent second. Bottom line is that you need to make sure that your website is fast, otherwise people will abandon it for a faster website. This is where Pingdom Website Speed Test comes in. This handy digital marketing tool gives your website’s performance a good once over. When it is done, it tells you what is slowing it down. Furthermore, it tells you which website optimization best practices you are not following. With such insights, it is up to you to tweak your website accordingly to make sure it loads in time.
4. Crello
With Crello, newbies and experienced users alike can create visual content for their personal and professional needs. This online graphic design tool is free to sign up and use, but they also have a Pro plan ($7.99/mo) with a few advanced features and access to some premium content unavailable for users with free accounts. Crello offers a massive library of pre-designed, customizable templates for any purpose. Here you can create impressive designs in minutes: for social media posts and ads, digital marketing content, print materials, and more. Their user-friendly interface and online drag-and-drop editor allow personalizing projects for your individual needs.
5. Copyscape
Plagiarism is not a no-no only in the world of academia. While the consequences aren’t as severe (your website won’t be removed from the internet for copying other people’s content), it is still a bad idea. With copied content, the first website to have it is the one that gets awarded points. The one that copied gets penalized, which is not good for your rankings. Ultimately, it hurts your chances of being discovered. So how do you make sure that the content on your website is unique? With Copyscape, of course. Copyscape is a popular plagiarism checker. You can use it to scan your website to ensure that all the content is unique. The more unique it is, the better in terms of search engine rankings. If it returns any hits, you can just tweak the content to make sure it is one of a kind. Furthermore, you can use one of their nifty digital badges to ward off potential plagiarists from stealing content from your website.
6. Canva
When it comes to how brands perceive your brand, visuals are everything. And not everyone has the financial resources to hire a professional graphics designer. That is where Canva comes in, and it does a good job of making you look good in the graphics department. It has tons of free assets that you can use in your digital marketing campaign. You can use them to easily and quickly design something that paints your brand in a flattering light. You can quickly create a masterpiece in just a few clicks since it has plenty of customizable templates. Plus, whatever you create will be optimized for social media, which is a big plus. When it comes to digital marketing software, you can’t do better than Canva.
5 Free Photo Editing softwares + 5 Free Photo Editor Apps = Which is Best? Top 10 Free online photo editors like Photoshop
7. CoSchedule
Any digital marketing campaign requires planning and management for it to be successful. But as a small business owner, you can’t spend too much time managing a marketing campaign. What if there was a digital marketing tool that can help you? That is what CoSchedule does best. CoSchedule’s power lies in the way it makes the process of creating, scheduling and updating marketing content a breeze. Plus, it seamlessly integrates with productivity apps, like Evernote and Google Docs. It also integrates with Chrome and WordPress for extra functionality.
15 Must-Have Chrome Extensions for Marketers 9 Awesome Apps to help you run a small business without delegating
If you are serious about digital marketing, which you should be, you have to do it right. This means getting all the right tools. This includes tools like Buffer, which allows you to schedule your posts, and Keyword Planner, which allows you to take your SEO game to another level. You even need branding tools like Canva to look good on the internet. Each digital marketing tool mentioned in this article makes your digital marketing efforts effective. So be sure to give each and every one of them a try – some of them are free and others have free trials. You have nothing to lose!
