The 5 of the most underused free business marketing tools. They allow them to reach new customers in their area, rank higher on Google, and more!
- Local MOZ
- Google My Business
- SEMRUSH
- Similar Web
- Google Keyword Planner
1. Local MOZ
Local MOZ is powerful for knowing exactly what you need to do. It reveals potential problems that a business might have on different online directories – plus it shows ways to advertise your business for free!
Should you care about differences in listings?
When Google decides where to rank a business/website, it looks at a few different factors. One of which is the consistency of business information across different business directories.
When we prepare an audit, we use MOZ to reveal inconsistencies, errors, and more. By correcting these, your ranking will usually skyrocket on Google.
Local MOZ’s primary benefit to you is ranking your Google Local Listing higher.
For those interested, Click Here to Request a Free Audit. You’ll learn what you can do to improve your Google ranking. It also includes helpful suggestions for your website and social media content.
2. Google My Business
Google is the #1 Search Engine on the internet, and shows no signs of weakening. If you want to reach new customers online, Google is the best way to do it!
If someone asks their phone for “____________ near me” and your business doesn’t show up, you are missing out.
The amount of Google MyBusiness listings that remain unclaimed on Google makes me sick! It is free and user-intuitive, so don’t procrastinate on claiming it.
When a business owner fails to claim their listings, they lose ranking potential. Not to mention risk of having a competitor remove their listing completely. Malicious marketing companies will sometimes even edit other’s listings for their own purpose.
What is a local search listing?
Local Listings are more prominent and optimized for phones than their standard counterparts.
Here’s an example of a Local Listing
Here’s an example of a Standard Listing
As you can see from the images above, local listings are far more important to optimize for. Because after reaching the top 3 results, you will reach new potential customers. Customers that currently are being directed to your sneaky Internet-savvy competitors could be yours!
Interested in having someone optimize your Google MyBusiness listing for you? Click here to get in touch with us!
3. SEMrush
Ever been curious what your competitors doing for their online marketing? Me too! SEMrush is the answer to this question.
Although it has a paid version, the free version shows you a lot of useful information. It can show you what sites your competition has linked together, what keywords they are using to rank, and also some of their ads!
It is an amazing tool that I use constantly.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can copy and improve upon what is already working for others? Speaking of competitive research, the next secret marketing tool is a real piece of work. (Good work, that is!)
4. SimilarWeb
A simple tool that most small business owners don’t even know exists is SimilarWeb! It is a well-guarded secret in the marketing consultancy world, and for good reason.
SimilarWeb shows you what advertising your competitors are doing. You can see everything they are currently using for their internet marketing strategy.
You can use this information to make important marketing decisions for your business.
- What social media are they using the most?
- Are they using email marketing?
- What keywords are they paying to advertise on?
- What pages do they direct the most content too?
- Lots more!
Okay, that’s enough spying on our competitors and what they are doing to find new customers online. Let’s look at potential customers and what they are looking for!
5. Google Keyword Planner
Google has a hidden tool. SEO consultants have been using it for years to figure out exactly what content to optimize for. It is… the Google Keyword Planner.
What does it do?
The GKP (Google Keyword Planner) helps you see exactly what search phrases are being searched for on Google. It doesn’t show exactly how many searches there are. But it does show monthly averages and how much competition there is for that phrase.
You can use this to plan out your content and to see if there is anyone actually looking for it. Not every topic you could write about is one people would read. Armed with GKP, you can have confidence that there is a group of people searching for your content.
A word of warning here: just because a keyword shows up as consistently typed a specific way doesn’t mean you should optimize for that keyword. Always write according to the intent of the searcher. Google places the best content at the top of it’s search engine, so make sure yours the best!
In Conclusion: The Top 5 Free Business Marketing Tools
We hope you have found this list to be helpful, and we hope you can use them to see real success in your business. Please comment below if you have any questions and we will respond as soon as possible!
There are hundreds of tools you can use to find useful information on the internet. However, it all comes down to 4 simple concepts:
- Competitive research.
- Having the best product/service (for the price).
- Claiming every listing imaginable you can find.
- Having a good funnel.
If you do your competitive research, it can save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars. It reveals things to help you make better informed decisions. But it isn’t always perfect. Just because a competitor is doing it doesn’t mean its smart.
Remember that your product/service must provide the best value to your potential customers. Otherwise you won’t keep the new customers you get, and the reputation you will gain won’t be positive. This is more of a general ‘If you want to run a successful business, do this’ thing, but it’s important to remember.
If you need help with marketing, please reach out to me at nathan@beknownmarketingsolutions.com. I love helping small businesses experience success with Internet marketing.
TL;DR
Top 5 Free Business Marketing Tools List:
- Local MOZ
- Google My Business
- SEMrush
- SimilarWeb
- Google Keyword Planner