Most companies depend on technology and digital marketing tools to make their jobs easier and connect to the biggest audience. Today, this technology isn’t optional: if you’re not using some of the industry’s most popular tools, you may actually be behind your competition. The good news is that there are plenty of tools you can explore and utilize in every digital marketing category.

In this article:

• What Are Digital Marketing Tools?
• Why Should You Use Digital Marketing Tools?
• 5 Multipurpose Digital Marketing Tools
• 8 Analytics Tools
• 3 Audio Tools
• 4 Collaboration Tools
• 9 Content Research Tools
• 5 Content Syndication Tools
• 5 Customer Data Tools
• 4 Email Marketing and Messaging Tools
• 6 Graphic Design and Image Tools
• 8 Lead Generation and Sales Tools
• 4 Performance Tools
• 13 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Keyword Research Tools
• 8 Social Media Management and Publishing Tools
• 3 Survey and Form Tools
• 3 Video Tools
• 5 Website Creation Tools
• 7 Writing Tools

What Are Digital Marketing Tools?

Digital marketing is any type of marketing that uses technology or electronic devices to convey advertising messages. By that definition, digital marketing tools are software programs, apps, and other services that you can use to create, plan, and track your online promotional goals. Some programs serve multiple purposes, while others have specific uses. Digital marketing tools may be free to use or come with paid plans. Some offer free trials that let you test the capabilities before making a purchase. You can purchase some software programs and downloads for life, while you pay for others on a subscription basis.

Why Should You Use Digital Marketing Tools?

Using digital marketing can help you reach a larger audience than you might when using only non-digital options. These tools can help you launch campaigns more quickly and make immediate revisions if you change the material. Digital marketing tools may save you money, depending on which ones you use. At the very least, they may cost less than their comparable traditional marketing methods.

5 Multipurpose Digital Marketing Tools

Multipurpose digital marketing tools serve more than one primary marketing function. They may combine similar resources to offer a more comprehensive experience or better data and service integration. Five helpful multipurpose tools include:

1. CopyPress

Image via CopyPress

CopyPress and other marketing agencies are a type of multipurpose tool. You can use us to get help with most parts of your digital marketing campaigns. Need quality writing? What about getting more exposure for your content? Maybe you need some stunning infographics? CopyPress can help you with these needs and more. Set up a call with us today to start creating a strategy!

2. Meltwater

Meltwater provides a variety of services, including social media management, public and media relations, and brand management. You can use its platform to conduct social listening with online and print news, podcasts, social media, and TV and radio broadcasts. It can help you develop contacts and add to your media database to build relationships with the right influencers. The social media tool lets you post to all your channels and get real-time analytics and reporting. Other services include follower engagement and community management.

3. Mention

The Mention program lets you monitor conversations across platforms and around the internet. With this tool, you have access to over 1 billion resources like reviews, forums, blogs, and press articles. Use the resources to look for trends, filter, and analyze data from the largest social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also schedule social media posts from this service.

4. Sprout Social

SproutSocial offers tools for engagement, publishing, analytics, and listening on social media. For each category, you may take advantage of resources like:

• Engagement:
  • A smart inbox that connects to all your social networks in one stream
  • The ability to build chatbots
  • Message delegation to assign tasks to certain team members
  • Team reporting features
• Publishing:
  • Choices of where and when to publish content on social media
  • Content suggestions
  • Organizational elements for your visual post assets
  • Analytics for URL tracking and other metrics
• Analytics:
  • Charts, graphs, and data for a variety of social sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Listening:
  • Audience analysis
  • Customer feedback
  • Consumer research
  • Trends searches
  • Keyword competition gaps

5. Sumo

The Sumo app suite provides multiple standalone digital marketing tools that can enhance your site’s performance. There are six different categories of apps to help you with things like:

• List building
• Social sharing
• On-site analytics
• Traffic boosting
• E-commerce
• Communication

The benefit of a service like Sumo is access to a variety of tools via one site rather than using multiple programs to do the same things.

8 Analytics Tools

Analytics tools can help you monitor metrics related to your online presence. They may let you track data for things like your website, email communications, or social media profiles. Seven tools that you can use include:

1. Barometer by agorapulse

Image via Agorapulse Design System

The barometer tool can help you compare your Facebook page performance to the average performance of over 66,000 other Facebook pages. The service lets you measure the engagement and other differences among Facebook pages with similar ranges of fans. You can view data from your last 50 posts to create a large data set. The heat map color-coding spectrum in red and green lets you know which areas of your page receive the most and least interaction.

2. Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is a free, native analytics tool that lets you track user interactions across the Facebook platform. Any administrator on your page can use the tool to look at your follower lists and monitor how people respond to your content. This service can help you track your number of active users and determine the best times to post content.

3. Followerwonk

Followerwonk lets you look at all things Twitter analytics. You can search bios for keywords to find the right connections. You can also compare accounts to find influencers and choose the best ones for your company. Other metrics to track through Followerwonk include tracking your followers’ demographics and comparing your Twitter relationships with other organizations in your niche. The follow and unfollow data lets you understand how your content affects your audience and matches activities to spikes and drops in those numbers.

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular programs for tracking your interactions and engagements on the internet. This could be because of its compatibility with other programs and the fact that it’s free. Its basic features let you see how much traffic your channels receive and where it comes from. You can also discover the pages where people spend the most time. There are also more advanced features that help you plan and track events and conversions.

5. Mentionmapp

Mentionmapp gives you a better look at your Twitter network. It uses a mapping tool to search handles and hashtags for conversions and interactions. This way, you can determine the most important contributors to a certain conversation, then track if you’re a principal player in that same category or find people to contact for partnerships and connections. You can also see where you have the strongest engagement on Twitter in real time.

6. SharedCount

SharedCount is an integration tool that you can add to your website or another analytics program. It generates data for your main and social platforms. You can search URLs to see where you’re getting shares, comments, and reactions. This tool can help you learn more about your engagement across the web.

7. SimilarWeb

You can use SimilarWeb to learn about the ranking and engagement of any website. With this tool, look at the search engine rankings globally and in your country to find the categories in which you rank. The program summarizes your traffic and engagement in categories like direct visits, referrals, social media, search, and email leads. You can also compare data for more than one site.

8. WolframAlpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

WolframAlpha provides a variety of solutions for online issues. This one focuses on analytics for your Facebook page. You can use it to discover insights about your social network. For example, you can examine the types of groups that make up your follower network and how they relate to one another. It can also tell you where your followers are located and your global reach. Other analytics include your most used words on the platform, the times at which you use the website or app, and additional demographic information about your network.

3 Audio Tools

Audio tools help you create and edit sound files for your marketing efforts. They can help you clean up audio and video files or create music tracks to accompany advertisements. Some audio tools to try out include:

1. Adobe Audition

Image via Wikipedia

Adobe Audition is part of the company’s suite of digital solutions. With this program, you can mix, record, edit, and restore audio files. It has tools for precision editing and remixing on videos, podcasts, and sound effects. You can also fix audio for frequency and diagnostic purposes. The service comes with step-by-step tutorials to help you navigate the program and get the most out of your audio projects.

2. Audacity

Audacity is a multi-track audio editor for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. It’s an open source platform developed by a group of volunteers with an interface that translates into multiple languages. The software is free of cost, but it’s also free to share and improve. With Audacity, you can record live audio and computer playbacks. You can also convert tapes and records into digital recordings. Editing capabilities let you split and mix sounds and change the speed, pitch, and tempo.

3. GarageBand

GarageBand is the Apple proprietary version of Adobe Audition. It comes with a complete sound library of instruments and preset sounds. Apple designed this program for music production, but you can use it for many types of audio recording and editing. If you own Apple products, GarageBand comes pre-installed on many of these devices or is free to download from the App Store.

4 Collaboration Tools

Collaboration tools help teams work more effectively together. They may also allow programs and systems that normally don’t integrate to become compatible with one another. Some examples of collaboration tools are:

1. Edit Flow

Image via Edit Flow

Edit Flow helps teams collaborate in WordPress. It provides a month-by-month content calendar and custom statuses for your workflows so team members can see what others are doing on the site. You can also add editorial comments and metadata, receive notifications for content you follow, and group users by department or function. You can download this free plug-in from the WordPress directory or find it on GitHub.

2. Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking app that makes it easier to integrate schedules, tasks, and other team information. You can save content from the web to reference later and use templates to take more structured notes. It also has document scanning capabilities and a file search. Evernote works with most operating systems, including Linux, Android, and iOS. It also integrates with other apps like Google Drive, Slack, Gmail, Outlook, and MS Teams.

3. IFTTT

IFTTT lets you connect apps and devices in ways where they don’t communicate in their native design. You can make your own commands or use a list of creative apps and programs that combine the features of multiple apps to create a new function. For example, YouTube and Spotify don’t normally integrate, but this app lets you take the videos you watch on YouTube and make a corresponding playlist on Spotify automatically. You can find other commands that work with your social media and digital marketing tools by downloading the IFTTT app for iOS or Android.

4. Zest

Zest lets you use a single keyboard shortcut to open and send any of your information to the cloud. It’s meant to work as an alternative to programs like Google Drive, where you can store content from different places around the web. Organize your files in a way that makes sense to you and access everything without switching apps. The artificial intelligence (AI) component can help you find, link, or attach the files you need just by typing the same or similar keywords into emails and document programs.

9 Content Research Tools

Content research tools help writers and editors find topics and reputable resources necessary for content creation. They also help you save that information to reference later as you create. Some content research tools include:

1. Blog Idea Generator

Image via Topic

Topic’s blog generator works like a search engine for blog ideas. Type your keywords into the box and receive multiple examples of longer keywords to use. It also gives you a suggestion for a blog title and an opening paragraph to get started. While the program only produces one idea at a time with the free version, you can run the search more than once to get a new result each time.

2. Content Idea Generator

This service generates ideas for blog posts to help you get more traffic to your website. You can use the service for free, but it requires a sign-up to get a username and password to access the program. To get started, you’ll answer 18 questions about the content you’d like to create to generate your list of hundreds of results.

3. Feedly

Feedly is an AI program that learns your search habits and finds relevant content for you from across the internet. Feedly pulls information from many types of sources, including social media, websites, blogs, and newsletters. This tool can help you find the right sources for your exact topic, which saves you time during the research process. You can prioritize feeds so that you’re seeing topics that relate to your business, and you can share collected information and insights with your whole team.

4. Google Alerts

Google Alerts lets you set updates and reminders about the latest releases in your niche areas. You can set keywords, phrases, and topic reminders so that any time there’s new content available online, you get notified. You might set email alerts if you want to be notified immediately when other sites release content or choose a selected time if you’d prefer to receive a collected batch of notifications once per day.

5. Google Scholar

Google Scholar lets you find scholarly articles or case law studies related to your research topics. This service is an alternative to the academic journal search engines you may have used in school or had access to as a student. Google Scholar works the same way as the regular Google Search engine: type your keywords into the search box to access peer-reviewed articles and cases. You can view most results online on their host sites or download the PDF versions.

6. Pocket

Pocket is a program that lets you save content from all across the web in one convenient place. It’s compatible with different media forms like videos, articles, page content, publications, and apps. You can read or listen to content online and offline after saving. This tool may help you get organized for your content research.

7. Portent Content Idea Generator

Though it’s called the Portent Content Idea Generator, this tool suggests titles and headlines for your content. Type your keyword into the search box to get a title idea. Then click on the suggestion to view a word-by-word explanation about why it chose that title. You can use that information as a guide for writing corresponding content, and you can save your favorite ideas for later. It also lets you generate additional ideas or change your subject to start a new search.

8. Quick Sprout

Quick Sprout is a resource for articles on marketing, sales, and business topics. The company segments these guides into categories like:

• Blogging
• HR
• Marketing
• Startup
• Tech
• Websites

The business advice comes from entrepreneurs and managers in their respective fields. These articles may help you research these and related topics.

9. The Latest

The Latest is a simple website that automatically creates a list of the best links on Twitter. It updates in real time and lets you visit the trending article on its home site. You can also share articles on Facebook or Twitter.

The program curates links from people who it considers the most interesting people on Twitter. There’s also a notification feature where you can leave the site open in a separate browser window and get alerts when the list updates.

5 Content Syndication Tools

Content syndication tools help you share your content with other sites and sources. This can help get your company more exposure and grow a readership or audience. Some helpful content syndication tools may include:

1. BuzzStream

Image via BuzzStream

This program can help you find influencers, bloggers, websites, and social profiles to work with for content syndication. You can connect with people and conduct outreach to find new partners. BuzzStream keeps track of all your conversations and saves emails and tweets automatically. You can set reminders to follow up with discussions and prioritize your most important contacts.

2. Medium

Medium is a site for sharing blog posts on any topic, all for free. Anyone can write for Medium, from well-known publishers to bloggers to independent authors. The site has a readership of over 100 million that continues to grow. Many companies and authors use the site for content syndication. You can post the full text of your articles on the site but also link back to the original content, portfolio, or business page.

3. Mix

Mix is a content curation platform that allows users to make collections for content and share those collections with their social followings. For content marketers looking for syndication, you can upload articles to Mix and create themed collections of your own work. Then Mix distributes your content to relevant readers. It has browser extensions that let you collect URLs from anywhere online and add that content to your collections. This allows you to pull material from your live websites and blogs as an alternative to uploads.

4. Quora

Quora is a social media platform where users can ask questions which have answers that are more complex than you might find on a Google search results page. It’s a community-based platform where people answer each other’s inquiries to establish themselves as personal authorities on a subject. Quora also has a blogging platform. You can use Quora for content syndication by posting articles on the blogging platform. You may also work to answer questions within your niche communities and share links to your content, along with responses.

5. Reddit

Reddit functions similarly to Quora as a community-based social media platform where people share content from around the web. It’s different from Quora, though, because there’s less of a focus on professional expertise and more attention on sharing content and chatting. Reddit organizes its content by subreddits, or communities for specific topics. This makes it a suitable site for link sharing as content syndication.

5 Customer Data Tools

Customer data is critical to understand how your target market interacts with your brand. Digital marketing tools for customer relationship management let you research, track, and analyze customers’ behavior as they move through your sales and marketing funnels. Some examples of customer data tools include:

1. Countly

Image via Countly

Countly is an analytic platform that looks at the customer journey. It can help make better experiences for users on the web and mobile applications. You can install the program on your hardware at the office or access it through the cloud. You own 100% of the data collected from customers and have access to any analytics that come with it. You can create your own plug-ins to monitor specific actions for customers and track custom events to learn more about your conversion funnels and user retention.

2. Khoros

Khoros is a platform for all methods of digital customer engagement. It lets you work through sales by making offers, connecting with customers in their channels of choice, and creating a branded community for contacts. You can also use Khoros for social listening. The focus is on building digital relationships throughout a customer’s journey with the company, both before and after sales and everywhere in between.

3. Meaningful Conversation Score (MCS)

The MCS from LivePerson is an unbiased metric that lets you learn how your brand relates to consumers. Its purpose is to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of your customer relationships. The company says it eliminates some biases of surveys, where you receive responses only from your most enthusiastic or most frustrated customers but not the large group in between.

MCS reviews real-time conversations between brand representatives and customers. It assesses the tone, content, and sentiments of individual messages and the entire conversation. MCS then assigns a score to each message and the full interaction to determine if you had a beneficial conversation with the customer. The program runs in English and five other languages, and it works in the background so it doesn’t disturb the consumer’s actions.

4. PeerReach

PeerReach is a client and lead assessment tool. It looks at your connections and interactions to see which potential customers best match your expertise and niche. This can help you start conversations with people that might be your best options for collaboration.

PeerReach can also look at your follower list to see who is the most influential and how they connect to create topics called PeerGroups. Using these collections, you can find new people to follow on social media and join conversations relevant to your business.

5. Segment

Segment is a customer data platform that collects information from your website and mobile apps about your visitors. You can learn what products a customer views, the emails they open, or the activities they do on your website. For example, you can create groups called “audiences” that segment people who do or don’t complete the same types of actions. You can customize these audiences to make them as specific as you’d like. Segment also offers options for A/B testing and analytics on a variety of the data you collect.

4 Email Marketing and Messaging Tools

Email marketing and messaging tools help you connect directly with customers. They use chat features, text messages, and email correspondence to get the information you want to the right people. Examples of email and messaging tools include:

1. Constant Contact

Image via Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform that allows you to create branded messages and campaigns. Its list segmentation feature allows you to group contacts by criteria and send target emails to certain groups. This can help increase your engagement. The company also provides guides for specific industries to help you get the most from email marketing in your field. Constant Contact also offers website-building tools and services for online stores, social media, and advertisements.

2. HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot’s email marketing tools can help you create professional-looking messaging campaigns. The templates use a drag-and-drop editor that lets you customize the layout, branding, and calls to action. You can manipulate your lists by membership, subscriber lifestyle, or information from your contact records to create relevant subject lines and links. The scheduling feature lets you send emails at certain times of the day so they appear promptly, no matter the time zone of the recipient.

3. MailChimp

Mailchimp helps with your email campaigns and social advertising. One of this program’s best features is its campaign automation abilities. You can schedule emails and plan drip campaigns to run on their own with little or no intervention. It also integrates with other software programs to share data. This allows you to get more information about your target audience and their expectations and behaviors.

4. MobileMonkey

MobileMonkey offers messaging services for Instagram, marketing agencies, in-house marketers, and small businesses. Its primary focus is to develop chat marketing tools and procedures that can grow your business. MobileMonkey caters to direct messaging platforms to grow your audience and follower list. You can also respond to messages automatically and boost visibility. For agencies and businesses, it provides chat solutions for lead generation, client communication, and automation support.

6 Graphic Design and Image Tools

Graphic design and image tools help provide visuals you can use to accompany your written content. Some of these tools include:

1. Canva

Image via 1000 Logos

Canva is a graphic design program that uses a drag-and-drop platform to create visual imagery. The templates and the stock library include pictures, shapes, and fonts to customize your projects. Consider using this program for creating your presentations, logos, social media posts, and other visual aids. You can use Canva even if you don’t have design experience.

2. Pexels

Pexels is a stock photo website for creatives. It has both videos and images for download to accompany the content on your websites, apps, or print materials. Search for material based on keywords or use the trending searches for suggestions. You can save images to a collection for repeated use. You can also check the usage notifications for each image to discover any special instructions from the photographer for sharing.

3. Piktochart

Piktochart is a graphic design tool for presentations, reports, social media posts, flyers, and infographics. You can choose from a variety of templates created by the design team and use the drag-and-drop editor to customize your chosen template. Additionally, you can add brand elements like your logo, font, or a screenshot from your website. The program pulls the colors from your upload and auto-adjusts the project’s color palette to match.

4. Pixabay

Pixabay is a stock site for images, videos, vectors, and music. It has over 2.4 million pieces of content you can use royalty free. The search bar lets you choose which type of content to browse. There are also options to view popular image and video searches or the editor’s choice content in each category.

5. PlaceIt

Placeit is a graphic design site that offers a variety of templates to create social designs, logos, and videos. This site can help you create product mockups for your e-commerce store. Try using the drag-and-drop features to customize your products with images, colors, and fonts. Then you can use these mockups to promote items in your online store.

6. Stencil

Stencil is a graphic design tool that lets you create ads, blog headers, and social media graphics. It offers over 1,350 templates and 5 million stock photos. Stencil provides libraries of Google web fonts and quotes to enhance your projects. You can also upload and store multiple logos, fonts, and graphics for branding. The program has browser extensions for Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome.

8 Lead Generation and Sales Tools

Digital marketing tools for lead generation can help you find potential customers. They can also help you create better sales experiences to increase your client base and revenue. Some lead generation tools to pursue include:

1. Detective by Charlie

Image via Detective by Charlie

Detective is a lead research and generation app for sales and marketing. The Charlie company created it to help automate the prep and prospecting process that goes with finding leads. It can help you create personalized outreach and get more cold call conversions. Salespeople can use the data collection features to be better prepared for these types of interactions. Detective by Charlie is only available on a limited basis right now, but users can request early access to the service and take part in the testing phase for the product.

2. Hello Bar

Hello Bar is a plug-in tool that works with WordPress, Shopify, SquareSpace, Wix, and other web builders. It lets you attach announcement bars, sliders, and pop-ups to your web pages to advertise special events or calls to action. You can target users by location, device, or page visits. Hello Bar also lets you customize each element with themes and styles, and it provides analytics and tracking.

3. Hotjar

Hotjar helps you understand how people browse your website. It can give you a better picture of where and how you receive conversions and where to improve your layouts. The heat map technology takes a video recording of a visitor’s exploration of your page, identifying where users stopped, clicked, and completed other actions. This can help you determine if your pages flow logically and if your calls to action are clear.

4. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a conversion optimization toolkit. It uses a variety of apps and services to help you get more leads and make more conversions. Tools like the lightbox pop-ups, scroll boxes, geolocation targeting, and floating bars may help you reach more subscribers. OptinMonster comes with analytics to help you watch how your elements perform in real time and make adjustments if necessary. Other features include lead capture forms, A/B testing, page-level targeting, and advanced traffic redirection.

5. Peek Pro

Peek Pro is online booking software used mostly for scheduling tours, trips, and activities. It lets customers book experiences online with a mobile-friendly interface. You can combine its booking powers with your in-person sales to take walk-up reservations wherever you’re located with the same software. Peek Pro includes digital check-ins with QR codes. It also integrates with other digital marketing tools like Mailchimp and Google Analytics to put all your insights in one place.

6. Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is part of the LinkedIn network of services. It has options for both individuals and teams to get better insights about their leads. Use it to browse potential client accounts in your target audience and build relationships with customers and prospects while getting real-time outreach insights. The team option lets you share all this information across your department and collaborate with others to pursue leads.

7. Scrab.in

Scrab.in is another lead generation tool that works with LinkedIn. It allows you to automate your actions on the site for your profile, sales navigator, and recruiter. You can send invitations, messages, and validate or endorse people’s skills without actually being online. The program scans up to 45,000 profiles per month and can visit up to 15,000 to give you insights. Other features include auto-following for targeted accounts and a Google Chrome browser extension.

8. Sniply

Sniply is a link shortening program focused on lead generation. You can overlay a custom message onto any piece of content, creating the chance to share a call-to-action with every link. With Sniply, you can add third-party content like connections to your social media pages with embedded buttons on your website. Sniply also lets you curate an entire journey that guides people through the steps you want them to take to make a conversion. Other features include analytics, charts, and graphs to measure whether you’re getting the desired results from each link.

4 Performance Tools

Performance tools help you determine how well your website works for viewers. They can also help correct accessibility issues. Performance tools to consider include:

1. Browseo

Image via Software Enterprises

Browseo is a free online tool that doesn’t require installation. It lets you view web pages without their formatting and style to understand how they work. The program highlights the parts of your page that are relevant for SEO and provides text and link information, a search engine results page (SERP) preview, and a list of all your headings. You can click links within your content to navigate to other pages and test their SEO performance.

2. Down for Everyone Or Just Me?

This site can tell you if your website is offline and not working. Sometimes a particular machine or internet connection may show a site as being down when it isn’t. Down for Everyone Or Just Me lets you check the status of the site and determine if “the site is down” or “it’s just you.” This can be a helpful test if you receive inquiries about your site status and to fix any issues customers may experience.

3. Siteliner

Siteliner can help you diagnose a variety of different issues on your page. You can find duplicate content that may lower search engine rankings. You can also discover broken links that impact user experience. Siteliner can tell you how easy it is for web crawlers to browse your site and provide reports about the crawls. This product is from the makers of Copyscape, a popular web search engine for plagiarism and duplicate content.

4. Website Grader

Website Grader from HubSpot lets you see how well your site performs in important metric categories. Enter the website name and your email address to get the report. Your site receives a total grade out of 100 points in four categories: performance, SEO, mobile, and security. The grader also assigns a value for each individual category. Click on each one to get more details about why your site works and suggestions on how you can improve it. Specific metrics include page size and speed, meta descriptions, and font size.

13 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Keyword Research Tools

SEO and keyword research tools can help you optimize your content and websites to perform better in search results. They can also help you research and track keywords to inspire content. Some SEO and keyword tools to use are:

1. ahrefs

Image via ahrefs

The ahrefs site lets you explore the top organic search keywords for any URL. You can check your own web pages and look at the competition to see how your rankings and theirs compare. The program also provides information about a site’s best-performing content and the source of its backlinks.

2. Alexa Keyword Research

Alexa by Amazon isn’t just a device for your home. It’s also a keyword research program to help you create SEO strategies. Look at your competitors’ top keywords to find holes in your profile. In particular, Alexa may help you find missing keywords that can better target organic traffic and rankings. You can also find out the keywords for which your site has the best chance of ranking. In addition, the “keyword share of voice” feature lets you learn how much of the market share you have for a particular word or phrase.

3. AnswerThePublic

Answer The Public lets you search for long-tail keywords by question word, preposition, and comparison words. You can view search terms related to ones you looked up and view the data visually in diagrams and lists. The paid version allows you to download and compare data from your keyword searches.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends lets you look at the trending data for specific keywords and related queries. You can see how keywords gain interest over time and compare two or more to see which is more impactful with an audience. The program has filters for location, time, category, and search type. You can also view a breakdown of keywords by state, metro area, and city.

5. Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer is a Google Chrome extension for keyword research. You can search for terms directly in Google search results. The program gives keyword ideas, the volume for each one, and similar terms to the ones from your search. You can change the country of search and add ideas to your clipboard for reference on other projects.

6. KeywordTool.io

KeywordTool.io offers free research services without requiring you to an account. It looks through Google’s auto complete results to generate long-tail keywords for a topic. Though primarily used with Google, the program also supports searches in YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, the Google Play Store, Instagram, and Twitter. Choose a specific Google domain from the 192 supported and one of 83 languages for your results.

7. Moz Link Explorer

The Moz Link Explorer lets you explore backlink profiles for any website. Create a free account, then enter the URL for the website for which you want to gather data. The program looks at 40.6 trillion links, 718 million domains, and 7 trillion pages. You can see the links to any site, research competitor backlinks, check your own broken links, and discover new link-building opportunities.

8. Page Optimizer Pro

Page Optimizer Pro is a keyword and SEO tool that works in all languages and alphabets. It has two setup modes: full control and express. In full control, you decide which information to upload to help guide your keyword research. In express mode, you add your domain name and geo-targeting features, and the program does the rest. It has multiple output modes for analyzing data, including a Google Chrome extension. It can tell you the best placement on each page for keywords, variations, header tags, and other variables.

9. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog can help you determine if you’ve optimized your website is for an SEO campaign. As a web crawler, it can tell you about the “behind the scenes” aspects of your site, like architecture and metadata. It can help you discover technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, and local redirects. You can download the program for free, but the paid version includes more features.

10. SEMrush

SEMrush is a great tool for some of your biggest SEO questions and needs. It allows you to track the position of priority keywords and see how your content compares to others in the same niche. It also has features that let you explore new keywords for which you can try to rank. The difficulty rating can tell you how hard it may be to rank for certain words. The “Variations” tab gives you suggestions for easier and more effective keywords.

11. SpyFu

SpyFu lets you search a domain and see all the places it appears on the internet. You can see every Google search, keyword purchased on Google Ads, ad variation, and organic rank for the last 15 years. Monitor progress on your own website or search for competitors to see where you can improve. SpyFu can help increase website traffic, track keyword rankings, and make better partnerships and connections.

12. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest provides keywords and services that may not be available through programs like Google Keyword Planner. To use the software, type the keyword into the form and click the “Suggest” button to generate a list. You can get content ideas from other sites around the internet to pair with your keywords. Like several other tools, Ubersuggest offers a Google Chrome extension.

13. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a helpful tool for WordPress users. Its plug-in works with both the Gutenberg and Classic editors. Yoast can help you choose your cornerstone content and give a Flesch reading score to tell you how easy it may be for others to read and understand your content. The program lets you know which focus keywords can help you rank and lets you add internal links to other content. It updates every two weeks to align with Google’s latest algorithms, so it stays up to date.

8 Social Media Management and Publishing Tools

Social media management tools help you create and curate your social presence through scheduling, posting, and tracking activity. Some helpful services include:

1. Buffer

Image via Rbcafe

Buffer lets you manage all of your social media platforms in one place. Plan, create, schedule, and track all your posts. With built-in analytics, you can learn about your performance and engagement and compare numbers across platforms. You can even communicate with your followers one-on-one with the social media inbox. The tool is collaborative, so everyone on your team can use it.

2. Crowdfire

Crowdfire helps you search for articles and images for your audience so you can curate content. It also has options to let you publish content from your own sites and blogs. Schedule posts with the calendar to publish them automatically. You can also create one post and tailor it for each social network. This can save you time by eliminating the need to switch programs and duplicate content.

3. Dlvr.it

Dlvr.it is a tool for auto-posting content to social media. It’s compatible with Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business, LinkedIn, and other services. Post items from anywhere across the web, like e-commerce sites, photos sharing sites, and video-hosting platforms. The program can scan your RSS feeds and other approved content sources to find news articles and blogs to share. It also posts on your predetermined schedule. Dlvr.it works with Google Chrome, WordPress, and Google Analytics.

4. Fanpage Karma

Fanpage Karma can take care of almost all your social media needs, including analyzing profiles, sharing analytics, finding influencers, and creating and publishing content. The community management tools have inboxes for all channels, so you can talk to people on all apps in one place. The discovery features let you find the most interactive profiles across all platforms, search for topics by keywords and hashtags, and see the trending topics from the previous day.

5. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another tool that lets you upload, schedule, and post content to all your important platforms. Store your approved content in the cloud so everyone on your social team can access it at any time, and schedule multiple posts at once and use customized tags and keywords to track your content. As a bonus, Hootsuite lets you calculate conversions for your brand and specific subjects.

6. Tailwind

Tailwind works specifically with Pinterest and Instagram for specialized marketing. It uses AI to review your content and create posts so you don’t have to have any design skills to create amazing pieces. If you choose, you can customize every design with your brand styles and logo. The scheduling features let you post on-demand with automated publishing. You can also let the program pick the best times to post based on the data highlighting audience engagement.

7. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a Twitter layout experience that helps you view multiple timelines in one interface. With this tool, you’ll be able to manage your Twitter presence by monitoring multiple accounts, scheduling and posting Tweets, and building Tweet collections to group similar content. Feed columns allow you to segment information by:

• Followers
• Likes
• Lists
• Notifications
• Search terms
• Trends

8. Zoho Social

Zoho Social is a solution to help you manage your brand on social media. Its scheduling capabilities let you choose the times you want posts to go live and on which services. It also has a best time predictor feature, which can tell you the best times to post to capture an active audience. The content calendar can help you organize campaigns, and the dashboard allows for multiple account monitoring and responding to direct messages in real time.

3 Survey and Form Tools

Survey and form tools help you create online questionnaires for visitors. You can use them for email list sign-ups or feedback collection. Tools for this purpose include:

1. Qzzr

Image via CB Insights

Qzzr lets you make quizzes for your brand to generate engagement. You’ll be able to customize the look and style of each quiz so that it integrates with your website or another layout. Add your own text, images, GIFs, and videos for even more personalization. The program supports translations into other languages, and it also provides analytics to tell you how many people have taken your quiz.

2. SurveyMonkey

This survey software can meet a variety of your online needs. SurveyMonkey lets you collect feedback and conduct market research to track your brand. Other uses include testing ideas with a target audience, like a focus group. SurveyMonkey has a host of specialized survey products to:

• Increase employee engagement
• Get real-time feedback from digital channels
• Create marketing content
• Review online applications
• Gather online payments

3. WPForms

WPForms is a drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress. It lets you make contact, payment, survey, newsletter, and registration forms with over 100 templates. The plug-in makes integration with WordPress easy, and it’s also mobile-friendly. You can receive instant notifications when someone responds to a form. The spam protection feature helps prevent fake submissions.

3 Video Tools

Video tools help you create and host dynamic content online. Some useful tools include:

1. Wideo

Image via Wideo

Wideo uses templates to help you create animations and videos for marketing and social media. The drag-and-drop graphics and stock footage provide a video library to supplement your own content. You can export videos as an MP4 file or share them directly to YouTube or Facebook.

2. Wistia

Wistia is a video and podcast hosting site for businesses and professionals. You can upload and customize your materials with your brand elements and logos. The service integrates with ad platforms and marketing tools to share data. Lead generation tools can help you with email marketing, and embedding features let you share your content anywhere.

3. YouTube

YouTube is a social media and video hosting site. You can upload, edit, and create videos online and in the app. Other features include live streaming and the new shorts clips that compete with other services like TikTok for entertainment viewership. Create playlists to group your content, and schedule premieres to alert followers of your latest releases. YouTube offers its own set of analytics to track views and engagement.

5 Website Creation Tools

Website creation tools help you develop a web presence and host your content. They also let you control your branding and how visitors and potential customers experience your content. Some common website builders include:

1. Blogger

Image via Wikimedia Commons

As the name suggests, Blogger is for designing blogs. Choose from a variety of templates with customizable layouts. Get a free domain name using the .blogspot.com option or purchase a custom name through the service. Use the built-in analytics to learn about your audience and connect your blog to Google Analytics for more insights. The storage component also integrates with Google to store files, photos, and videos.

2. Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce website creators. It uses an all-in-one interface that lets you build your website, market, and manage your business from one dashboard. You can integrate the service to operate your in-person sales shop, your social media, and other online marketplaces.

3. Squarespace

Squarespace is a website creation service that allows you to make sites for any purpose, including stores, blogs, and portfolios. You can customize the mobile-friendly templates to create a layout that fits the look and feel of your business. Squarespace also offers domain purchasing services, access to marketing tools, email marketing, a logo maker, and the ability to take online reservations.

4. Wix

Wix is a web creation platform for all kinds of sites, including blogs and portfolios. Access the templates and logo maker to create a custom branded design for your site. Wix offers options for advanced web developers who know more technical requirements for building and coding websites. These tools can help them make highly customizable products. Other services include free web hosting, website security, an SEO toolkit, and domain purchasing.

5. WordPress

You can build a WordPress website for any purpose, but the service distinguishes between websites and blogs. The website side lets you do multiple site hosting or open an e-commerce store. Both options let you buy custom domains. WordPress offers a variety of themes and plug-ins from third-party services to help you create a customized user experience. There’s also a logo maker and a business name generator to help with site development.

7 Writing Tools

Writing tools can help you perfect your spelling and grammar. They may also help you create eye-catching headlines. Some quality writing tools include:

1. After the Deadline

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After the Deadline is a spelling, style, and grammar checking program. The open source platform uses AI and natural language processing technology to generate its suggestions. The program works with WordPress and other plug-ins, add-ons, and extensions for different platforms. It supports English and four other languages.

2. Grammarly

Grammarly is a useful tool for those who need additional help with self-editing. It checks your writing for spelling and grammar mistakes, redundancies, and flow. You can use the online tool to copy and paste your written work for review. Alternatively, the browser plug-in checks your writing within other word processing documents.

3. Headline Analyzer – Emotional Marketing Value

The headline analyzer lets you submit a title between four and 20 words for analysis. The program looks at the emotional marketing value of the headline. It generates a percentage of how emotional the headline may feel to readers and numbers to compare it to the industry standards. The program also provides a predominant emotion associated with the headline. The description explains how people may feel when they read it or who your target audience may be.

4. Headline Generator

Headline generator can give you a list of hundreds of potential headlines to match your keywords. Just type your phrases in the box and wait for the list. The program also suggests ways to compare headlines and run testing to see which option may get the most readership.

5. Hemingway

Hemingway helps you understand the readability and construction of your written text. The online editor or the downloadable services give the content a readability score and word count. It also highlights the text to tell you where you can improve your writing for clarity and grammar.

6. ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is a spelling, grammar, and style checking tool. It helps you look at common mistakes in areas like:

• Sentence variety
• Passive voice usage
• Dialogue tags
• Emotional tells
• Readability

The program offers plug-ins for browsers and applications that you can use in real time as you write. There’s also an online editor where you can copy and paste texts or write your pieces to get insights.

7. Readable

Readable scores your written content to decide how easy it is for others to understand. It uses algorithms like the Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning-Fog methods to determine the score. It can audit an entire website to determine which pages and content could use a refresh to make them easier to understand. You can also review individual pages with URL analysis. Bulk scoring and email scoring help you look at the readability of your other communications.

Though there are many options listed here, these 100 digital marketing tools are just a sampling of some services available to help you with digital marketing. Choosing which ones to add to your strategy may depend on the size of your company, target audience, and familiarity with these and other types of programs.

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