Starting a business is daunting, time-consuming and expensive – often leaving you with little budget to market your products and services after all the start-up costs. In the digital age, having a user-friendly website is vital for any business, but this often requires paying a talented web developer and designer to create something unique but beautiful.
So, how do make the most of your limited budget when it comes to your website and digital marketing initiatives? Your main focus should be on the provision of your services and goods, but marketing your offerings in the digital sphere is a crucial factor for success.
Here are some of the best digital and content marketing tools for entrepreneurs and website owners that won’t break the bank:
Google Analytics
This is probably the most essential tool for any website owner. Google Analytics forms the spine of any marketing campaign as it can break down the performance of any metric on your website. The sheer amount of information made available to you about your website and its users makes this platform a key tool for future success.
You will be able to action new strategies from the insights given by Google Analytics and make changes to your website and marketing campaigns where necessary. The platform will track and record how many users you have, how many times your website is visited, where these users come from, where they go after visiting your site – the list goes on. Setting up a Google Analytics account is easy and should be one of the first steps you take.
SimilarWeb
This site looks at websites that are similar to yours and at businesses with the same kinds of offerings. It will show you what your competitors are doing right, where they are falling short and how you can change your strategy to improve your business.
The platform can be a great tool for learning from your competition, especially if you are new to your field or are starting a new business. It is free to set up an account and you will be able to see your market share, the industry’s benchmark companies, and spot new trends as they emerge. You can also see how your competitors get their traffic.
SpyFu
Like SimilarWeb, this tool lets you see how your competitors are marketing their products – SpyFu will show you their PPC and SEO strategies. You can also see the top keywords for which your competitors rank on Google.
SpyFu is free to use and will give you insights on the top performing websites in your industry. It provides useful information that can help you with research and with strategising new campaigns. If you want to use a keyword for your marketing initiatives, SpyFu can tell you how it performed on other websites and whether it will be successful or not.
Sumo
This website focuses on building a larger audience for your company by suggesting possible leads and tracking your success. Sumo will help you capture more email subscribers through polite pop-ups and effective share buttons on your site.
You will be able to create beautifully-designed calls-to-action for your site and track your audience’s moves with Sumo’s heat map. This free platform also gives you an easy-to-use image optimiser that encourages users to share your content.
Sitechecker
This tool lets you improve your SEO and increase your organic traffic through search engines. Sitechecker will generate a comprehensive SEO report for your website, highlighting your errors and suggesting effective ways to improve them.
Sitechecker is free to use – simply put in your URL and see where you can improve. The tool will suggest changes to your content, images, meta tags, links and site speed – all of which will boost your SEO score and increase traffic to your site.
Buffer
Buffer is a free social media management tool that will help you streamline your social media posts from one platform. You can engage with your audience and followers on the site, which is great for brand building and keeping track of your target market.
Buffer also lets you schedule posts in advance for all your social channels, create drip campaigns and track the performance of your posts. If you need to build a social audience with a regular posting schedule, then this tool is ideal. More options are made available to you through one of their structured, paid plans.
A slightly better tool (but you need to pay) is Hootsuite. Consider spending a little bit of money every month to use this extensive social media management site.
MailChimp
This tool allows you to build a solid email marketing campaign and link it directly to your site. You can create customised emails and newsletters and send them out to all of your subscribers. MailChimp will also integrate with your Facebook account to source new subscribers.
MailChimp will provide regular reports and feedback that lets you see your email campaign effectiveness. It will also report on the performance of each of your newsletter topics or articles, showing you your top performing content and what topics your subscribers are interested in.
SurveyMonkey
This is a highly popular online survey tool that lets you collect audience information, uncover trends and gain real insights into your industry. The free site lets you compile a professional survey in minutes and analyse the results once all the information has been captured.
SurveyMonkey is a great tool for creating new marketing campaigns and strategies to target emerging markets and niches. You audience feedback is a valuable tool for understanding what they’re looking for and how they go about finding it.
GetSiteControl
This platform is a great engagement tool for WordPress sites. It allows you to develop your own widgets, contact forms, live chat platforms and pop-ups for your site. You can also create your own surveys to gather information about your target market.
GetSiteControl aims to have your users take action on your site through a range of methods, leading to a higher conversion rate. Increase your email subscribers and social media followers by implementing some of their well-designed widgets and buttons on your site.
Canva
Need a creative and visual team but don’t have the budget? Canva is your solution to developing a great visual marketing strategy, offering graphic design, infographics, logos and web design.
Canva is free and simple to use. The site is also able to gear their offerings to specific industries, so whether you’re an NGO or an engineering start-up, Canva can create the visual content you need.
WriteWell
This tool is geared towards essay writing but is a great site for your content marketing initiative too. If you need to write blog posts, e-books or articles for your site, WriteWell will help you organise and structure your content.
You can manage your research and writing on the same screen, break your content down into visual chunks and utilise a range of templates to streamline your writing. A good content marketing strategy relies on well-written articles, so this site can give you the edge when it comes to effective written communication.
Chattypeople
If you want to create a customised ChatBot for Facebook then take a look at Chattypeople. You can develop your own bot that promotes your brand to potential customers through Facebook Messenger.
The tool’s artificial intelligence can recognise and respond to users’ requests. Chattypeople can also test, deploy, measure and manage your bots on your behalf if you don’t have the time. Bots can be an automated way of funnelling users through the sales process from Facebook.
___
Discover the latest trends and tips that shape an ever-evolving digital world.
___
Mobimeme offers content marketing, SEO, analytics, social media management and expert direction in the digital sphere. Building and growing online audiences for your business is what we do best. Get in touch with us to find out more about our package offerings and how you can improve your website and following.
___
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Google+ for more articles, videos and content to keep you inspired.