Online entrepreneurs are faced with all kinds of challenges as they try to grow their business. Even when you do achieve some success, you then need to consider how to expand your enterprise and scale-up effectively. One of the keys to running a slick operation is the use quality free marketing tools that streamline many of the processes of building and marketing a business. There are various marketing tools you can choose from, with many coming at a premium. The following products, though, all offer significant benefits at no cost.
Cyfe
There are a number of dashboard products, but they are usually built for individual aspects of business. Cyfe is so effective because it lets you track a range of factors, including social media, sales, marketing, customer support, and more. The power of the tool is the integrations, with the ability to work with WordPress, Instagram, YouTube, Shopify, Stripe, LinkedIn, and numerous other brands. The premium version gives you unlimited dashboard widgets, but you can still get a lot done for free.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool offering a wealth of information to site owners. You can get a broad view of site traffic, finding out the pages receiving most visitors. The bounce rate will also be useful for understanding when your content is not meeting searchers requirements. It is possible to go further, though, with the option to set goals. For example, you could develop a funnel and monitor the number of users who access each page and perform the desired action.
TomatoTimer
Productivity is a huge part of the success of an online business. There are so many distractions when you work online, making it vital you perform focused work for large portions of the day. TomatoTimer is a very simple tool, focused on the Pomodoro Technique. The concept is that you separate your work into blocks of 25 minutes, allowing for complete focus within the duration. These blocks of time, along with scheduled breaks, can be monitored easily with TomatoTimer.
Ubersuggest
Anyone looking to rank in the search engines will need at least one tool to assist them. A quality free tool is Ubersuggest, offering more than many paid options. You can perform keyword research, looking at the search volume and cost per click data. There is detailed analysis of backlinks, so you can study your competitors link profile. Additionally, you can see which pages are gaining the most traffic, proving useful for generating content ideas.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix is a tool for analyzing the speed and performance of a site, providing instructions for improving any issues. A scan of a web page will reveal the time taken to load and page size, with scores derived from PageSpeed and YSlow. You can then see a prioritized list of issues to resolve, using the recommendations for how best to optimize each element. Page speed is an important factor for users and search engines, so it should become a regular factor for testing.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is similar to other keyword tools, but it offers a large number of questions that users are asking. The information is presented in either a visual graph or list, depending on your working preference. Questions are important as they can help generate ideas for content. You can then create articles and videos based on questions that real users are asking. You can also create an SEO structure that actually benefits users with particular queries.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, allowing you to turn your site into a functioning e-commerce platform. Most e-commerce products are offered at a monthly cost, while also forcing you to use their website builder service. WooCommerce lets you continue using WordPress, but with the added options for setting up a store and selling products. While the plugin is free, many of the additional extensions will come at a premium.
Simplifying many of the processes you use to run your business ensures you use your time efficiently. While it is possible to add too many tools to your operations, careful use will enable you to free up time. Each of these tools provides substantial benefits to your business, and they are available without charge. You may want to include some premium products in areas where you need the absolute best tool. However, you can get incredible benefits from free options that are built with the user in mind.
