“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
The above quote applies to marketing as well, especially when it is about online marketing. If you use better tools you can streamline your marketing efforts and can more efficiently reach your business goals.
I keep testing several tools to add wings to my marketing efforts for my clients’ projects. Some of them work more than the expected and some of them fail miserably. Here I have compiled a list tools which I personally recommend. Using them will save your time as I have already tested them personally.
Premium Recommendations (Paid)
Visual Composer (WordPress) : If you use WordPress as the content management system for your website, Visual Composer will help you create custom landing pages faster and very easily. It comes with both front end and back end editor and you create almost any kind of landing pages without getting to code even a single line.
Optinmonster: The most robust website popup tool that is intelligent enough to sense the right time to show on your website. I highly recommend this tool if you intend to grow your email list and wand wish increase user-retention rate on your website.
Wishpond: It lets you create and publish landing pages within minutes. You can also do A/B test for different versions of landing pages. Wishpond offers several other tools, but I have personally used their landing pages and website pop ups and forms. One of my clients was using its AdWords tools, so yes, I have tested this tool as well.
Among other landing page tools, I have tested Unbounce, Visual Website Composer, Leadpages, and Instapage as well. Other than Wishpond, I loved Unbounce a lot.
SEMrush: A complete tool to analyze your competitors paid and organic advertising. You can get to know what kind of ad texts, keywords, and landing pages are your competitors using. Besides, it offer host of features to help one manage their SEO campaigns as well.
WPEngine: Fully managed WordPress Premium Hosting. If you run WordPress powered website, this is definitely my recommendation. I am using it two of my other domains, and am really very happy.
Bluehost: Perfect for hosting any kind of website. I recommend it anyone because it’s robust friendly for both developer and website owners.
Free tools:
Google Keyword Planner: Get deeper insights into keywords. Learn what people are looking for online and plan your advertising campaigns accordingly.
Google Trends: Get to know the trends for any particular keywords. Learn if there has been a historical increase or decrease in the trends for the terms of your interest. It is very helpful when you are researching keywords.
Ad Preview & Diagnostic Tool: You would be aware that you should not search your ads on Google. Doing this affect your campaigns badly and you get impression that do not result in click, hence it negatively affects your CTR. Using this tool you can check your ads online without affecting your campaigns badly.
Recommended Books
Advanced Google AdWords
by Brad Geddes – A must read book for beginners to intermediate professionals looking to learn the ins and outs of AdWords.
Google Adwords Gotchas
by Jason Mcdonald – Yet another comprehensive guide on Google AdWords you must read if you need to know AdWords better.
Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords: by Perry Marshall – One of my favorites that I recommend to new entrepreneurs, students, and to any one wanting to exploit the full potential of AdWords.
Awaken the Giant within: by Tony Robbins
– A must read book for anyone looking to read a literally amazing motivational book. Reading this book will definitely change the way you see yourself and the things around you.
