Internet marketing can be a very lucrative decision to make as a career or as a way to improve the profits for your current business. With the invention of sites like YouTube to post videos, and social media to keep in constant contact with your customers there are endless options available. Some of them don’t even cost you anything to use. (It’s free to tweet with your clients for example.)
When you’re just starting out as an internet marketer it can be a lot to take in. There are things to learn about every step of the way. If you aren’t making the most effective blog posts or don’t understand how to get more Facebook views it will feel like your efforts are worthless. Learning about analytics and optimizing your blog posts for search engines feels like a lot to take on.
The great news here is that you’re not alone. There are so many resources out there to help you make great decisions as an internet marketer that you’re bound to find more than a few that work for you and your goals. Stick around and read about these five resources you need to know as an internet marketer.
1. Video Marketing
Consumers love being able to see how a product or service works in a visual manner. Making a video to advertise or demonstrate your product is a great idea as long as it’s done well. You’ll want to make sure you’re doing things in a very high-quality professional manner. Do not risk having a video turn out looking like it was recorded on a built-in webcam.
Make sure you have great lighting. Plan out what you’re going to say, and make sure the script makes sense. Even if you make an entire script and not just an outline you’ll want to make sure you should personable, not robotic. Poor quality and scripting will have the opposite results of what you’re hoping for with making a video.
Once you’ve made your video there are plenty of options you can use to edit it for a polished finish. iMovie or Adobe are two of the most popular but a web search will give you many options. Keep in mind most free services are going to add their watermark into your video and you won’t be able to remove it without paying for that services.
It’s best to go with an option that doesn’t leave a watermark while you’re working on something that looks professional. Anything your customers view as a lackluster effort can cause them to have less trust in your abilities.
You’ll also want to make sure you’re sharing your video on platforms that make sense for you. Of course, you can place your video on your website (or your client’s website) but gaining organic views from sites like Instagram or YouTube shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s very recommended actually, for those who desire a piece of the global audience. YouTube channels can get you instant traffic, but isn’t that what they were designed for?
It doesn’t cost anything to post videos on either site and people are likely to see your video as they scroll through their recommended post suggestions. This is “foot traffic” you don’t want to miss out on.
2. Open Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer by Moz combines two useful tools into one. You can analyze link building opportunities and where you’re being mentioned online. Both of these things will help you become a more effective internet marketer. The more you know about your best chances on link building opportunities the more you’ll be able to adjust and learn to keep improving your efficacy.
With Open Site Explorer you just need to type in a URL and click the search button. It’s a very simple tool to use but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s not a helpful one too. You can also use other parts of the tool like suggestions for anchor text.
You can even get a score on where search engine rank your site in terms of possibly being spam. All of this is helpful information you’ll want to keep a very close watch on as you’re building your internet marketing skills.
3. Quick Sprout
As an internet marketer, you definitely do not want to underestimate the power of social media. Quick Sprout can help you figure out how your pages and accounts are doing right now, and where you can improve.
If you’re wondering if you should be investing money into advertising on a specific platform Quick Sprout can help you see where you have the highest amount of engagement and interested potential customers.
It’s a good way to know where to invest advertising dollars. If your engagement and impressions are higher on Facebook than Twitter, it makes more sense to work (and spend) a little more on the audience there at least for the time being.
Quick Sprout also will be able to help you analyze how to grow your markets on the platforms that aren’t performing as well for you. Each social media platform has its own algorithm and set of analytics. It’s a lot to learn on your own so this resource shouldn’t be overlooked.
4. Ahrefs
When it comes to getting better SEO (search engine optimization) results and more traffic from Google searches, Ahrefs is going to be your best friend. Once you’ve registered you can search your links and see where they are appearing on the web. It also shows you what anchor text is being used to post those links.
This is all information you can use to keep improving your SEO. Google is one of the biggest sources of organic traffic out there so you definitely want to make sure you’re spending a decent amount of time learning how to optimize your use of it.
Ahrefs can be especially useful for beginners who may find other similar tools a little overwhelming because of how the information is presented. With Ahrefs it’s pretty user-friendly while still giving you valuable insight into what you need to do to gain more traffic and build better links.
5. Remove’em Ratios
Have you ever wondered what’s causing sudden drops in your traffic even if you think you’re using the best possible SEO practices? SEO can be a finicky thing and sometimes one small change in an anchor word can cause your results to plummet.
Remove’em Ratios helps predict which links are over-optimized (aka being counted as spam) and which anchor texts are liking causing the issues. Once you’ve taken the time to learn why your results are taking a plunge you can fix things to get back to where you were (or get back to an even better place than you were before.)
Keeping an eye on what’s causing drastic changes in your results is a huge part of being an internet marketer. Nothing online is static so you’ll always need to know where to make changes to get the best results.
Conclusion:
Internet marketing is an ever changing frontier of marketing options. There will always be something more to learn even if you’ve been doing this for years. New sites, new resources, and new advertising options will all make a difference in what steps you take to continue getting good results. Use the tools you’ve read about here and see which ones help you the most.
You can always do your own research if you feel like any of these tools aren’t quite an exact match for your needs. You’re likely to find at least one or two options here but your options definitely aren’t limited to only this list. Keep in mind what your goals are and choose resources based on those. Your marketing skills will improve directly because of the effort you’ve put in.