Web marketing isn’t easy and without tools to help, it’s even more daunting!
Our clients often contact us and ask about emails and phone calls they receive from vendors selling everything for social media bots to SEO miracle cures. Remember the old TV westerns where a peddler comes into town, in a wagon, selling cures and potions?
These days “snake oil” is still selling and profitable but it just has different names
More often than not, these offers are intent on generating an income for the seller, rather than helping you with your Internet marketing.
We’ve found some of the very best deals on web marketing tools and have decided to compile a list here with links. Note that some of the links are “affiliate links” and we get a small fee for recommending them. That is why we are only recommending the ones that we have purchased ourselves and found useful. These are all well respected vendors with money back guarantees, so buy and try. If you’re not happy, get a refund. Simple as that!
First up is our favorite:
These folks work to get the best deals on web marketing and other tools at a fraction of the price you’d pay if you were to buy them directly from the vendors. Best of all, these are lifetime purchases and never expire!
Reviews are posted by other about what they like or dislike about the products, and you can even post questions yourself before you buy. Some of the software and offerings are free deals and that is pretty sweet! If you’re on a budget, this should be your first stop for web marketing tools.
The only downside is that the special deals are only available for a limited time. If you snooze, you lose! If you see something interested, grab the deal. Try it out for up to 60 days and if you don’t like it, get a refund (which is fast and easy).
2018 Fall Deals
These are the current deals that AppSumo is offering.
Managing Blog Articles – We highly recommend StoryChief
It allows you to create a blog post in one place and auto-submit it to social media and other platforms automatically. It also automatically adds the blog article into your website. It keeps track of how many impressions you get, how many people view and read the article, etc., all in one place. The price is $1188 but you can get a lifetime deal for just $49. This one run out in just a few days so grab it now as you won’t get it at this price again.
This saves a TON of time if you were writing a blog article on your website and manually distributing it.
Here’s a screen shot of a campaign that I personally created and ran just the other day:
Other current software deals are the following as of 9/26/18:
- Engageform – Use viral content to engage users, capture leads, and get feedback with Engageform. Create engagement-driving and viral content like quizzes, surveys, and polls.
- Albacross – See exactly which businesses are visiting your website. Obtain valuable contact info and on-site behavior to tailor sales pitches. Best for: B2B sales
- Publitio is a video and image management platform. It handles uploading, storage, processing and delivery of images & videos for web and mobile apps.
- Design Wizard is an online graphic design software that helps you create high-quality images in minutes.
- RankWatch Create strategies based on traffic source, backlinks, keyword suggestions, and competitors. Use a best-in-class website analyzer to see what you’re doing right and wrong.
Domain Names
My first stop for domain names is NameCheap.com. They are an excellent company to work with. I prefer them over GoDaddy, which I no longer use because of issues with their sub-standard web hosting offerings.
Managing Social Media Accounts
Hootsuite is a must if you want to manage and schedule posts to multiple social media accounts. The free plan allows for 3 social media accounts which might be sufficient for a small business. If you have more than 3 social media accounts, you may want to consider one of the Hootsuite paid plans. The Professional plan for $29.95 per month allows for up to 10 social media accounts and should be fine for most small businesses. If you’re a larger business with a staff that needs access, there are plans available for multiple users and more social media accounts.
E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is one of the oldest and still most effective way of web marketing for your business. If you have a small business, free services such as MailChimp might be sufficient. If you’re ready to get into more advanced e-mail marketing and flexibility, GetResponse is a great tool to use. In addition to creating e-mail campaigns, you can create high converting “landing pages” to attract visitors to sign up to your e-mail list.
E-mail Lists and Autoresponders:
- I have also used Aweber for my e-mail marketing, which is pretty much the industry standard.
- ConvertKit is a relative newcomer but is getting glowing reviews
E-Commerce
If you need an inexpensive e-commerce solution that integrates into your website AND Facebook page, check out Ecwid. Several of my clients use Ecwid and I have also used it myself. It’s great for selling online on a small scale and comes with a full administration back end. However, if you do a lot of online business and need a more robust e-commerce system, contact us for other solutions that might be a better fit.
Password Manager
One of my favorite tools is the RoboForm password manager. This is one tool I simply cannot go without! RoboForm allows you to store all of your passwords and logins for websites you login to, social media and more. It also has a handy auto-form fill function. No more typing your address, credit card info, etc. into forms. RoboForm can do it for you. Best of all, you can install RoboForm on all of your computers, tablets and phones so that you can easily access and use your web logins and passwords anywhere, at any time. Give it a try. Once you’ve used it for awhile, you won’t want to be without it.
SEO Tools
If you’re considering taking on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) yourself or in-house, SEMrush is one of the best tools to use. See where your own company website stands in terms of backlinks, keywords, etc. Get insights into your competitors’ strategies in display advertising, organic and paid search, and link building.
Social Media Tools:
- For managing multiple social media campaigns, I find that HootSuite is a must!
- Anything I can automate and make things easier is a big plus. FPTraffic is a must for automating Facebook posts and increasing Likes.
- Snip.ly is a great tool for social media sharing. When you share an article or page, etc. it automatically places a small banner at the bottom of the page to attract visitors to your website.
Website Backups
BackupBuddy is my preferred WordPress website backup utility. It’s easy to use and allows you to pre-schedule backups. There are multiple options for backing up to the “cloud” or downloading your backups. The restore option allows you to quickly and easily restore your website to an earlier version. My web hosting clients enjoy this as a free service with monthly backups to Amazon S3 cloud storage.
The above are just a few offerings of professional web marketing tools that you can trust and afford. This page will be an ongoing work in progress, so we will be updating and adding more very soon.
Inexpensive Video Production
- For generating small presentation web videos, I use VideoMakerFX. It works quick and easy and comes with the option for a subscription to additional ProThemes, and additional themes.
Online Courses
Speech to Text Conversion
Blogging and content creation are essential components for successful search engine optimization and ranking. If you’re struggling to write an article, why not save time and dictate it? We have prepared a special online course, “How to Convert Speech to Text“, for just $0.99 to view, plus you get 3 months of unlimited access to many other great online courses as well.
This is a great tip particularly to those new to the blogosphere.
Simple but very accurate info… Appreciate your sharing this
one. A must read article!