As our TikTok education channel @thebusinesskid grows, we're getting hundreds of comments asking what marketing tools and resources we recommend. If you saw this week's TikTok, then you'll see the “line in the middle” is all the skills & resources we need to gain in order to start and grow your business.
What I want to do is to create a list of marketing tools and resources (which most are free) that will get updated on a monthly basis. Let's break down the digital marketing tools into 7 different categories.
The Best Tools for:
Website Setup
Domain Name
When purchasing a domain name, we have two rules. If you have ten seconds to give a shoutout on the radio, can your audience remember it and easily spell it. If the domain name is “for sale”, then use a version of it with the words “the” or “my” in front of it. (example: TheFacebook.com)
Watch our TikTok on proving the concept before you spend dollar one.
Right now, you can get a free domain name for one year along with less than $5 blog hosting when you go through our sponsored link here.
Web Hosting
Because your business is unique and not one solution fits all, we recommend clicking here to find the best hosting that matches your business model.
If you're just starting out, we recommend Bluehost. And they give you a free domain name for the entire year and hosting under $5. Then, if you pay three year's in advance, they give you a bigger discount.
If you're trying to setup a blog, then, follow our 10-minute setup guide here.
- Reliable Hosting: Bluehost
- Fastest Hosting: WPX Hosting
- Fast with Best Support: Siteground
- Security with Speed: WP Engine
Online Sales Platform
When it comes to selling your products and services on an online sales platform, we recommend matching your business with the platform's function. Pro Tip: don't build anything from scratch and use the done for you platforms to scale your business.
- Wix – If your business requires appointment scheduling, use Wix.
- Etsy – If you have handmade items, use Etsy's built-in traffic.
- Squarespace – If you want to open an online clothing shop, then use Squarespace's done for you online stores.
- Thinkific – If you want to build an online course, use Thinkific.
- LearnWorlds – If you want to build a community for your niche.
- Shopify – Build your brand using Shopify.
During my research, I realized there are 100+ other platforms out there specializing in selling online. I'll post a link to best of coming soon. If you're looking for free traffic, please take advantage of TikTok & YouTube's massive reach.
QUESTION: Do You Need Checks for Your Business?
These are the hard to find laser printer checks here.
Brand & Logo Design
WordPress Themes
Finding the perfect theme can become an addiction. Are you looking to give your WordPress blog a fresh new look. We recommend using a free page builder called Elementor combined with a professional theme. This video walks you through how to build your first pages with Elementor. It's by far the easiest way to build a pro site.
Related: The Essential WordPress Plugins
Now that you have your free page builder, it's time to find a professional theme. For this, you can search Studio Press' Premium WordPress Theme Packages.
Free Graphic Creator
We use and recommend Canva for all of your graphics. Last year, Canva acquired Pexels and Pixabay, two stock image directories. I've noticed a massive increase in graphics.
Publishing Platform
Looking for the best digital publishing platforms. Here are the top ten for your business.
- Flipsnack – Digital flipbook maker for magazines.
- Issuu – Convert your PDF files into digital graphics, flyers, pamphlets.
- Uberflip – Publish content across many different channels.
- iPaper – Banner advertising for your products.
Marketing Planner Marketing Tools
To plan your marketing, we recommend ClickUp. We absolutely love using ClickUp to create brainstorms, checklists and team planning. Think of ClickUp as an all-in-one suite to manage people, projects, and everything in between.
What my team likes doing is brainstorming together within a Google Doc. Then, we can easily copy and paste that into ClickUp which then converts it within seconds to a brainstorm, a organization tree, a checklist and more.
And it's free. Click here to check it out.
Website Analytics
Google Analytics Marketing Tools
Looking for a Google Analytics plugin for WordPress? ExactMetrics is trusted by over 1,000,000 sites, including Microsoft, Delta and Coldwell Bankers.
ExactMetrics will give you page level insights for each post, each page and products so you can see the most popular areas and sections of your site. Also, it automatically tracks your affiliate links, external links and banner ads. Click here to see features.
Related: Everything You Need to Know About ExactMetrics
SEO and Promotion Marketing Tools
Search Engine Optimization Plugins
PageSpeed is a free tool that gives you the ability to see how fast (or slow) your web pages load. Google owns Page Speed, and you just insert your web address and click “analyze”. Page Speed shows you the problem and then, gives you the link to the problem.
Most of the time, you can optimize and compress images using these plugins.
Much like Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom tests your website for various factors that could cause it to slow down. You can monitor your website's performance, uptime as well as user interactions on the site.
Keyword Research Marketing Tools
Knowing what people are searching for is half the battle when writing content for your audience. The biggest surprise is that people aren't searching what you think, you MUST do keyword research to get the actual keywords and phrases.
I can't tell you how many times I have created the perfect blog series just to find out that people were searching for completely different terms.
Here are the top three marketing tools for keyword research:
- Google Keyword Planner
- MOZ Keyword Explorer
- Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension
Competition Analysis
SEMrush has a robust suite of SEO tools that will enable you to view the results of your SEO marketing efforts.
SEMRush shows you how to outrank your competitors by sharing data on their backlinks and perform keyword gaps on your own site. Plus, over six million users have used the product to manage their SEO, their advertising and content all in one. Click Here to Try it Free
Email Marketing Tools
For email marketing and emailing services, we recommend starting out on the free versions of ConvertKit or Aweber. Both are very similar services, but I want to point out the differences.
Aweber has a variety of templates for newsletters, while ConvertKit does not. ConvertKit allows you to try for free up to 1,000 subscribers while Aweber allows you to try for free up to 500 subscribers.
Both allow you to tag subscribers and add leads to different campaigns for segmenting. They both have high marks across the board among the marketing guru's.
Both are easy to use, but since Aweber has the templates, we have chosen Aweber as our emailing software.
Sales Funnels Marketing Tools
If you're looking to build funnels for your business, then we recommend checking out our best sales funnel software article first.
We use and recommend Clickfunnels for ready to go, complete funnels. We have been building funnels for the last 15 years (when we first taught how to build an affiliate funnel). If you're looking for a big discount on everything Clickfunnels offers, then click here.
Over 100,000 users have created over 6 million sales funnels using ClickFunnels – generating over 1 billion leads and $4 billion in total sales. Their clients include agencies, freelancers, coaches/consultants, local businesses, bloggers, affiliate marketers, e-commerce sellers, and many more. ClickFunnels also has a training program to teach you how to build sales funnels. You could take that training and improve your skills within a few days.
Free Clickfunnels Trial Offer: 14 Day Free Trial
Learn to Build Sales Funnels: One Funnel Away Challenge
Now, if you're looking for quick pages, then Leadpages is a perfect option for the small business owner looking for a simple-to-use landing page builder.
The Leadpages template library helps you look like you’ve hired a high-end web designer to build out your site and pages. Best of all, their templates are mobile-responsive – so your prospects will be able to do business with you regardless of how shop.
Free Trial Offer: 14 Day Free Trial
Commerce & Shopping Carts
Advertising and Promotion
When it comes to building your online shop, make sure you are taking full advantage of the platforms that are uniquely designed for commerce. If you're telling yourself to build a custom solution branded for your site, you'll be better off going with a self-hosted solution that integrates with your site.
Pay the extra to avoid the extra headaches later.
Most Popular Shopping Carts for 2020
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Wix
- Magento
- OpenCart
- XCart
- Ecwid
Print On-Demand
When I first heard about this passive income side hustle where you create the designs and the print on-demand companies fulfill your orders, then I knew I had to dive deeper and share this with you.
The Best Print On Demand Fulfillment Companies
- Printify.
- Teespring.
- Print aura.
- Spod for Shopify.
- CustomCat.
- Spreadshop.
- Teefury.
- Teelaunch.
- Printful.
Start a Business
LLC Setup
Looking to setup your LLC. We have partnered up with the team at incfile to help you with business formation, who will help you with your paperwork for $0. Yes, free. You just pay the state's filing fees to launch your business. Click here to check it out.
This is going to be a new series at I Love Making Money. Please bookmark this post by dragging it to a folder or to your toolbar to keep it in your list of favorites.
Laser Printable Business Checks
It took me a while to find the laser business checks with the envelopes and the stamp, but you can order your laser business checks here. Deluxe is the company to go with, because they have:
- High Security Laser Business Checks
- Standard Laser Business Checks
- Quickbooks and Quicken Compatible Checks
As well as the 3 on a page checks and a variety of envelope options. Click Here to Visit Deluxe.
AI for Business
Looking to shortcut every process in your business. AI has arrived. You can now tell AI to write your social media posts, write your blog posts, write your emails and ask it to expand on any idea or sentence that it wrote. I predict it will take over Google and AI will become an integral part of our daily lives. For example, I just asked AI to create a recipe out of the four items I had in the fridge. I asked AI to create a summary for a book I wanted to read. I asked AI to create examples of a concept I read in a book. It's starting to become second nature to ask AI to do something.
Top AI Sites
Please share and tag someone who needs this right now. Make sure you bookmark this page. As new services takeover, I'll add and subtract the latest recommendations.
Aw, this was an exceptionally good post. Taking
the time and actual effort to make a superb
article… but what can I say… I put things off a lot and
don’t manage to get nearly anything done.
Thanks for spamming your affiliate links on my page, Cara. This is the opposite of how to do affiliate marketing. Grow your audience using TikTok and YouTube & then, teach and train and do reviews to direct people through your affiliate link, but spamming comments or using spam comment software is against most brand’s terms.
Did you hire a designer to create your theme? Great work!
I am using a free page builder called Elementor. You can check out the steps to install your own here.