The Top Must-Have Online Digital Marketing Tools & Resources to Put your Online Marketing Campaigns into Overdrive
Our guide to absolute-best most-essential web marketing, resources, tools and services as recommended and hand-picked by the DoneSmart team
If you want to put your online-marketing into overdrive and bring in tons of traffic, then checking out these tools is the perfect place to start!
Online Marketing is a complicated and highly-competitive market that incorporates many fields; Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Email Marketing and this list gets longer and longer each year as consumers change with technology trends and diversify to more platforms—in such a cut-throat market choosing poor tools or doing things by hand that could be automated is a prescription for failure, wasted money, and missed opportunities. With that in mind, the DoneSmart team have carefully compiled a relatively long-list of all of the tools, sites, resources and software that we think has A-grade potential to help you reach your and hopefully exceed your online digital marketing goals and to take your traffic and sales to higher levels.
Email Marketing Tools
- AWeber
AWeber is a heavy-weight email marketing tool and probably the leading player in the industry. It's ideal for small-business that don't want to manage the many technical hassles of handling email newsletters and marketing in-house. Key features include: auto-responders; easy integration with tons of major platforms such as Wordpress, Facebook, PayPal, Salesforce and Shopify; mobile ready sign up forms and email templates; and "industry leading deliverability". At time of writing they are offering a 30-day free trial.
- Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi is an email newsletter management solution that makes it easy to create, send, share and track email newsletters online. Mad Mimi has a beautiful and elegant interface. Key features include: easy integration with CRM and Social networks; ready made email templates and web-forms; and "A+ Deliverability."
- Drip
Drip is an elegant and feature-rich hosted email marketing automation solution that takes the hassle and time out of email marketing, especially "drip" campaigns ("a sequence of emails, such as an email course"). Its automation system allows you to setup actions to be performed automatically in reaction to built-in and custom triggers; for example when an existing-subscriber signs up for a new trial or indicates interest in a product by visiting a certain page a number of times, Drip could automatically move him to a different more relevant campaign, send him a one-off email, and apply a tag to his account - to identify him later for further personalization. Drip is easy to add to your site as it provides a customizable elegant opt-in form that overlays your website design thus no extra site modifications are needed beyond pasting in a code snippet. Other key features include: identification of best leads/most engaged subscribers; a flexible template system with support for conditions; reports and tracking of opt-in form metrics, conversions, engagement, growth and ROI; split testing; email templates and ready-made drip campaign blueprints; integration with most landing page providers, payment gateways shopping carts, etc; localization support; and a JavaScript and Server Side API. .
SEO Tools
- RankTrackr
RankTrackr allows you to track your organic keyword rankings on Google, Google Places and YouTube. It has a beautiful and easy to use interface and is feature packed. Key features include: charting; competitor analysis; keyword volume and CPC stats; tracking by country language, city or zip code; and an API to integrate RankTrackr with your own tools. At time of writing they offer a 5-day free trial.
- Positionly
Positionly is another great SEO tracking tool with a beautiful and easy to use UI. It allows you to track your keywords in Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex. Key features include: sophisticated charting, backlink analysis, automated reports for clients, competitor analysis and Google Analytics integration - allowing you to view your SEO and Google Analytics data both from within Positionly.
- SEO PowerSuite
SEO PowerSuite is a very-comprehensive and powerful software package that allows you to track your search engine rankings, audit and analyse the SEO factors of your website, monitor and manage your link-building, perform keyword research, and analyse and break-down your competitors' linking strategy. It also provides insights and actionable blueprints to improve your rankings based on the collected data. SEO PowerSuite is downloadable software as opposed to a hosted solution.
- SEMrush
SEORush is another powerful feature-packed search rank tracking tool with many useful unique features to help maximize your returns from search engine and PPC marketing. Key features include: ability to see competitor's best performing keywords, monitoring for new competitors, ability to analyse and uncover your competitors ad strategies and spot new publishers in the sector, deep link analysis, analysis of your and competitors product listing ads to see which are the best performing, gather related phrases and keyword suggestions. And of course it also includes the typical features you'd expect from an SEO tool, such as keyword position tracking including for desktop and mobile devices and on-site SEO audits.
- Alexa
You've probably already heard of Alexa (owned by Amazon) which has been around a long time, but if you have checked it out recently it's worth another look, since they've added a lot to the feature set over the years. Alexa provides analytical insights, competitive intelligence to help you benchmark and optimize your site. Some of the data is free, such as top sites, but if you want the full benefit look into the paid solution which is feature rich. Some key features include: site comparisons which show historical trends, reputation metrics, traffic sources, keyword research, site screener - which enables you to search their database to easily find competitors, and comprehensive site metrics and SEO audits.
Keyword Research Tools
- Keyword Planner from Google Adwords
Keyword Planner is a free tool provided to Google AdWords users (anyone you can setup an account for free) that helps you find keyword ideas and gives you estimates how they may perform. A very useful simple tool to help work out which keywords to focus your SEO campaigns on. Since the data is based on Google searches, the suggestions are extremely robust and comprehensive.
- Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a great way to monitor new trending content and news for any niche. Just type in the most relevant keywords for the topics you want to follow, and Google will deliver alerts right to inbox of new content on the subject. Great for monitoring keywords for new competitors and for staying alerted to mentions of your own brand on blogs, forums and in the news.
Social Media Marketing Tools
- Sendible
Sendible is a social media management platform that allows you to monitor, analyse and update multiple social media accounts all from one place. It allows you to update to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and your blog all at the same time. Key features include: in-depth analytics of your marketing efforts; monitor mentions of your brand across social channels; and algorithmic post scheduling that posts when your audience are most likely to engage.
- Heyo
Heyo is a service that makes boosting traffic by running mobile-friendly Facebook contests and promotions a breeze. They offer ready my multi-device friendly templates and widgets that you can easily customize and publish via their easy-to-use interface with no coding required. Everything about their product is designed to maximize virality.
- Hootsuite Pro
Hootsuite Pro is an all-in-one social management tool for business. It allows you manage all your social network profiles (including Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, and Tumblr) all from one place. You can save lots of time by posting to all your social media accounts simultaneously and monitor them all as well all from one single app. Features include: ability to handle up to 50 profile, enhanced reports, message scheduling, ability to add team members, RSS feed integration, and Hootsuite University which provides social media training courses.
- Agora Pulse
Agorapulse is another excellent Social Media Management platform that allows you to manage your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts all from one place. Features include ability to run custom contests and promotions based on ready-made templates, customizable ready-made Facebook apps for your page, benchmarks against competitors, fan ranking and qualification, advanced statistics and personalized content recommendations.
- BuzzBundle
BuzzBundle is a powerful Social Media Management App for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Similar to HootSuite, it allows you to save time by managing multiple social media profiles at once. You can quickly post to multiple accounts and monitor all your social mentions and interactions all from one place. It supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube blogs and even forum posts. It also has some useful unique features that are potentially used for grey-hat but also legitimate purposes; such as ability to run accounts behind a proxy and act as multiple personas.
- Commun.it
Commun.it is a social media management platform for Facebook and Twitter with all the features you would expect from such a platform; such as management of multiple profiles and ability to schedule posts, as well as lots of useful extras features; such as ability to keep track of your most valuable followers and interactions, highlight your most active conversation buddies, recommendations of you who to follow/unfollow and what content to tweet based on your followers interests, as well as twitter list management and automated responses, and more.
E-commerce and Affiliate Management Tools
- Shopify
Shopify is beautiful and featured packed e-commerce solution that provides everything you need to sell online. Key features include: multiple sales channels (including web-stores, mobile, Facebook, Amazon, and Etsy); website builder with 100s of themes and optional blog; integration with 70+ payment gateways; gift cards and discount codes; SEO optimized pages; global tax and currency support; and thanks to a unique partnership with Pinterest shoppers can buy from you via Pins of your products which adds a totally new sales channel, They also offer comprehensive analytics and reports on traffic and sales.
- OSI Affiliate Software
OSI Affiliate Software is a web-based platform that that enables you to create and manage an affiliate program to drive new customers through referral. If you have a product worth buying, then an affiliates program can be one of the most successful and cost effective ways to generate new business by outsourcing your marketing to partners in return for them receiving a cut of the profits on any leads they send your way - a tactic used very successfully by internet giants like Amazon and eBay but also hundreds of thousands of other smaller businesses. The software is easy to use, feature packed, doesn't require any coding knowledge, and includes ready-made templates to get setup quick with the option to integrate it into your existing design if needed.
- E-junkie
E-junkie makes selling digital goods on your website or blog super-easy by providing a shopping cart, buy now buttons and affiliate system that's easy to integrate with your existing blog or website. They handle pretty much everything for you, including; payment, checkout and digital goods delivery. Other key features include: inventory management, discount codes, auto-responders and newsletter management and much more - all managed from a single easy to interface.
Landing Page Creation Tools
- Wishpond
WishPond is a tool that makes creating effective landing pages, promotions, ads and email campaigns a breeze. It includes tons of flexible templates, including landing pages, subscription pages, sales pages, registration pages and other forms, product launch pages and download pages. It has an easy to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor which makes customization super simple with no coding required. All the templates are mobile ready and also have the added benefit of out-of-box integration with WishPonds built-in A/B split testing.
- Lander App
Lander is another simple to use and powerful online tool to create landing pages. It has tons of templates, ranging from templates for products, events, portoflios, coming soon pages and e-commerce. It also has an easy to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor which makes creating beautiful landing pages easy with no coding needed. Other features include: A/B testing, email sign-up integration, Facebook tab generation, Google Analytics integration and conversion charts.
Marketing Blogs and Forums
- Copyblogger
Copyblogger is one of the highest ranked (in terms of traffic) online marketing blogs - it consistently offers insightful and timely advice to bloggers and online marketers that's actionalable and hype-free. Their central focus is copywriting, but that covers a large sub-set of topics such as copywriting for SEO, email marketing, and content - they also cover other aspects of running a succesfful online business such as split testing, social media marketing, and podcasting. It's a must read for any online-marketer regardless of skill level.
- Convince and Convert
Convince and Convert is top tier Marketing Agency, and their Blog named "#1 Content Marketing Blog" by the Content Marketing Institute is a must-read with consistently solid posts on how to boost and measure your online marketing campaigns. Post topics range from content marketing, social media strategy, community management, case studies, and email marketing.
- Shoe In Money System
Jeremey Shoemoney is a leading internet market and Amazon #1 best-seller—he was named FastCompany magazine's "Most Influential" person on the internet. In other words, he knows what he's talking about. That's why I recommend his gimmick-free Shoe-In Money Guide in which he describes and breaks-down how he went from being a broke failure (in his own words) to being a successful multi-millionaire online marketer. And, he shows you how to do it either by selling your own product or other peoples (affiliate marketing). His guide is made of 7 modules which cover all aspects of making money online marketing from scratch: from finding a product to sell, copywriting and pitching your product, social media promotion, setting up a website and traffic building.
- Think with Google
On their Think with Google website, Google share a plethora of marketing trend insights based on data pulled from their vast network. Since many of the posts are based on data only Google has access to, it's a unique chance to discover insights you probably wouldn't find anywhere else. Examples of the sort of insights posted includes; "Fashion Trends for Spring 2015 as Told by Google Data," "Mobile App Marketing Insights: How Consumers Really Find and Use Your Apps" and their Monthly "YouTube Ads Leaderboard" report.
- Social Media Examiner
Social Media Examiner is a high-traffic blog and probably the leading blog on the subject of social media marketing. They offer regular solid-insights and new ideas to help maximize your social media campaigns. A total must read.
- eMarketer
eMarketer collects thousands of data points from word-wide marketing studies and then distills the data into in easy-to-read charts and reports bringing quick and valuable insights into current trends. It's an excellent resource and a total must to add to your reading list.
- Marketo Blog
Marketo—a marketing software company—has an excellent must-read blog full of robust and valuable marketing advice with topics ranging from email marketing best practices to marketing automation trends.
- Feedly
Feedly is essentially an RSS reader in the style of a personalised magazine with a beautiful layout - plus it's available for virtually every platform desktop and mobile. If you want to keep up with industry topics and trends then using an RSS reader is a going to save you a lot of time (so long as you pick the right feeds and don't add too many), and Feedly is probably the best in terms of usability and portability and also the fact it just looks and feels great.
- Warrior Forum
Warrior Forum is a highly active community dedicated to Internet Marketeting. Probably the biggest focus of the forum is SEO but it covers all aspects of online marketing. It's by and large a friendly community and among its members are plenty of seasoned veterans ready to answer questions, offer advice, and share their ideas.
Other Useful Tools
- Virool
If you use video as part of your marketing strategy you need to check out Virool. Virool is a video advertising network that allows you to "get targeted YouTube views to your videos." Your videos will be served on Virool's publisher partners who range from blogs, social games and mobile apps. You can bid for your video to be seen based on (CPM) (cost per 1,000 impressions) or CPC (cost per view). It's a cost-effective way to get your brand known and to seed viral video campaigns.
- Piktochart
Lots of studies have confirmed that images and particularly infographics convert better than text alone especially on social media. But creating compelling images on a subject can be time-consuming and difficult task especially if you have no design skills, that's where Piktochart comes in. Piktochart is a super easy-to-use infographic generation app that requires very little effort to produce beautiful, high quality infographics - it includes tons of customisable templates, graphics and icons to make the job easy, all you have to do is plug in the data make a few tweaks and you've got yourself a beautiful social media buzz friendly infographic.
- Olark
Olark allows customers to live chat with your company on your website, giving you an opportunity to learn what your prospects want to know just before buying, potentially saving leads who would have left your site otherwise. It's a great way to discover where you're going wrong so you can tailor your marketing better in the future. If no company rep is available Olark will simply prompt them to leave a message so you can back to them. Finally, adding Olark to your site is super-easy, it just requires pasting in one block of code and your customer chat box is live.
We hope you found this best-of online-marketing article useful. If you think we missed of any utterly-essential online marketing resources then please let us know.
