Everyone needs a little help with implementing and tracking their internet marketing endeavors.
Here are 10 tools that will make it easier. I use these every day, so I can vouch for their effectiveness:
- Google Analytics — If you don’t track the results of your marketing, you might as well not be marketing at all. Google Analytics gives you a great overview of your site’s statistics plus some very nitty-gritty details that help you track internet marketing campaigns.
- XML Sitemap Generator — If you want good search engine rankings, Google likes it if you have an XML sitemap on your site. You don’t have to worry about what XML is, just use this generator and it will create the XML file for your site (up to 500 pages per site).
- BrowserShots — Are you aware that your site looks completely different on some browsers? Use this browser compatibility tool to see how your site looks in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. For some real comparisons, check older versions with newer ones (like IE6 versus IE8). Why check older versions? Because 20 percent of people have IE6 loaded on their computer, even though it was created in 2001 and is not fully CSS compliant. Better safe than sorry.
- Google Keyword Tool — Want to know which keywords are popular and what people are searching for via Google’s search engine? This tool allows you to do some great market research.
- Alexa.com — Alexa allows you to see the traffic rank for your site and your competitor’s sites. When you enter the Alexa site, click on the Site Info link at the top.
- Compete.com – Compete also allows you to see ranking information about your site and your competition. Use Alexa and Compete together to get a fuller picture.
- SurveyMonkey — If you’ve been looking for an easy way to do market research, SurveyMonkey is the tool for you. It allows you to do online surveys, and I also use it for course evaluations and brainstorming in my mastermind groups.
- Search Engine Spider Simulator — Want to know how the search engines really see your site? Are they picking up all your keywords? Use a search engine spider simulator and see for yourself if your site is search engine friendly or not.
- WordPress — You can host your blog for free on WordPress.com or use their free software on your own domain via WordPress.org (note the different domain names…WordPress has two of them).
- SpamCheck — There’s nothing worse than sending an email that gets caught in filters and never reaches the recipients. This tool will show you which parts of your email text will trigger a filter.
