You probably know how important marketing is for your business, but you may also be working with a limited budget. These 10 free marketing tools for your small business are a great place to get started.
[Read More: How to Measure the Success of Your Marketing Strategy]
Facebook for Business
Your Facebook for Business page is one of the best free marketing options available. Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites in the world — the site currently has over 2.6 billion monthly active users. If you haven’t already, you can set up your Facebook for Business page for free and start posting immediately. You can select a category for your page, post helpful information about your business and schedule weekly posts.
LinkedIn is another powerful free tool for businesses, especially for B2B companies. With 610 million members, it doesn’t have the same reach as Facebook, but LinkedIn is one of the fastest-growing social media networks. It’s easy to create a profile for your small business and start networking with other professionals. It’s also a great place for distributing thought leadership content.
Google My Business
If you rely heavily on local business, then you need to claim your Google My Business listing. That way, when customers go to Google and search for a business that’s similar to yours, you won’t get edged out by the competition.
Don’t just claim your listing and leave it at that. Optimize your listing by adding photos, updating information about your business and encouraging customers to leave reviews.
Manta
Manta is a local business directory, and it’s completely free to sign up and get your business listed by category. It’s not going to be as powerful as using Google My Business, but there are still some benefits to signing up with Manta. It’s a good idea for businesses to show up in as many places as possible, and Manta could be a potential source for new leads and customers.
Ubersuggest
Incorporating the right keywords on your website and in your blog posts can help you rank better in Google search results. Yet many SEO tools can be expensive and difficult to use. Ubersuggest is a free SEO tool owned by digital marketing expert Neil Patel. It’s an online tools that can help you do basic keyword research and evaluate your site for SEO problems.
Claiming your Google My Business listing is one of the simplest and most impactful ways to start online marketing.
Yoast SEO
If you have a self-hosted WordPress site, then you need to download the Yoast SEO plugin. This free tool will evaluate your blog posts and show you how well you’re optimizing your site for SEO. It’s also a great way for beginners to understand SEO.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that helps small businesses track website activity and engagement. It can help you evaluate how well your SEO strategy is working, and give you in-depth information about customer demographics.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is one of the best free marketing tools available for businesses. You can sign up to receive alerts anytime your company is mentioned online. You can also sign up to monitor mentions of your competitors, so it’s a great way to engage in competitor research.
Help a Reporter Out
If you’re hoping to gain publicity for your business, Help a Reporter Out (or HARO) is a great resource that connects journalists to qualified sources. Using HARO can be a great way to get someone in your business quoted in a well-known publication. Plus, it can be a great way to generate backlinks to your website, which will help with SEO as well.
MailChimp
Building a robust email list is one of the best things you can do for your small business. Social media is important, but you don’t truly own those followers, but you do have complete control over your email list.
MailChimp is one of the most popular email management services available, and it’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers. This makes it a great option for small businesses that are just getting started with email marketing. It lets you send surveys, create tags and do basic audience segmentation.
[Read More: 5 Easy Ways to Get Started With Email Marketing]
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What the new stimulus bill means for small business
Join us on Tuesday, January 19, at 2 p.m. ET for our latest discussion on the new coronavirus relief bill and how it pertains to small businesses.
Published July 17, 2020
