Digital Marketing tools for beginners

Tools are the lifeline of any digital marketer. It makes their work a lot easier. There are hundreds of tools available to serve your purpose and it is really important for you to know the basic tools and how to make use of them to serve your purpose.

If you are a beginner in the field of digital marketing then you would be engaged in doing one or many of the following activities, 

1. Blogging
2. Social Media Management 
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4. Email marketing 

To do these activities, you will be needing some of the basic digital marketing tools which will help you to optimize your work. 

If you are able to master these digital marketing tools, you are good to go to the next step in the journey of Digital Marketing.

Let us have a look at some of these basic digital marketing tools one by one.

WordPress

WordPress is a Content Management System (SMS) based on PHP. It is the easiest and most powerful blogging and website management system in existence today. It gives you everything you want, to create a secure and powerful website. From blogging to e-Commerce to business and portfolio websites, WordPress is versatile for all. 

It supports many powerful features like customizable design and theme, SEO friendly, responsive mobile site, high security, easy and accessible. 

On WordPress there are two versions, one is wordpress.com and another is wordpress.org. Both are two different platforms on which you can work. When we say WordPress, it generally refers to wordpress.org.

The main difference between the two is that wordpress.com runs on the limited version of the WordPress platform which let people start blogging for free on the WordPress servers. It can be considered a lighter version of WordPress.

To understand the difference between the two, let us look at both platforms individually.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a free blogging service by Automattic created by the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg. Because of the same founder, people often get confused between wordpress.com and the popular wordpress.org.

Benefits of wordpress.com

1. It is free up to 3GB of space. After that, you will have to switch to the paid plan for more space. Paid plans are available at the following rates.

Plan Name	Storage	Price
Personal	up to 6 GB	Rs 200/month, billed yearly
Premium	up to 13 GB	Rs 3500/month, billed yearly
Business	up to 200 GB	Rs 800/month, billed yearly
eCommerce	up to 200 GB	Rs 1,440/month, billed yearly

2. There is no worry about updates and back-ups.

Cons of wordpress.com

1. All free websites contain ads placed by WordPress, and you don’t even make money from it. If you don’t want to show ads to your user, you will have to upgrade your plan.
2. You are not allowed to show ads on your website, which means you cannot monetize your site. If you have a high traffic website, then you can apply for their advertisement program called WordAds where you share revenue with them. 
3. You cannot add plugins and custom themes to your site.
4. You cannot integrate Google Analytics to view analytical and historical data. You have to rely on their stats.
5. Free WordPress website comes with a wordpress.com domain name (e.g. https://yourwebsitename.wordpress.com). To get a custom domain name you need to upgrade your plan.
6. If they feel you are violating their terms of Service, they can delete your website at any time.
7. Footer section of the website will display a ‘powered by wordpress.com’ link. It can be removed only by upgrading to a business plan.
8. It doesn’t offer any eCommerce feature unless you switch to an eCommerce plan.
9. You cannot build a membership website with wordpress.com.

Ultimately, we conclude, that the free version of wordpress.com has got lots of limitations. To design the website as we desire we have to always upgrade our plan for better viewing and user experience.

WordPress.org

It is a popular website platform that you have heard great things about. It is open-source and 100% free for anyone to use. All you need is a domain name and hosting. It is also referred to as self-hosted WordPress.

Below are the pros and cons of using a self-hosted WordPress website.

Benefits of wordpress.org

1. It is free and easy to use. You only need a domain name and hosting.
2. You have full control as you own your website and all its data.
3. You can add all types of plugins to your website, whether it be free, paid or custom, WordPress supports all.
4. You can customize your website as you need. Add free or paid themes to customize your website.
5. You can make money through AdSense and affiliate programs.
6. You can add tools like Google Analytics, and Google Search Console, to optimize your website.
7. You can make your website as per your need, whether it be an online store to sell your products or services or create a membership site to sell your content.

Cons of wordpress.org

1. You will need a website hosting where you will have to store your files on the internet. This will cost you around Rs 100 – 500 per month depending on your requirement. When your website grows and gets more traffic you will have to upgrade your hosting plan to have sufficient bandwidth to cater to your increasing traffic.
2. You are responsible for the updates. However, you can easily update your WordPress website with just a click.
3. You are responsible for back-ups. There are hundreds of backup plugins and software which will help you serve your needs.

The actual cost of building a website on wordpress.org depends on the type of website you are trying to make. These websites may be blogging websites, simple websites, e-commerce stores, membership sites, etc. If you are adding a premium template or plugin, it will again add up to your cost. This is the platform that almost every professional blogger, small business owner and even big brands like TechCrunch, Walt Disney Company, Time Inc, Mercedes Benz, etc. uses. 

Comparison between wordpress.com and wordpress.org

Looking at the benefits and cons of both the platforms, if we have to conclude which platform is better for you, then it all depends on your requirement.

If you are a personal blogger and making money from your website is not your concern, you can go to wordpress.com.

If you are a business or a blogger and want to make money from your website, then I would suggest going for a self-hosted platform i.e. wordpress.org. It gives you the freedom and flexibility to make your website the way you want.

2. Canva

Canva is a graphic design tool founded in 2012 by Melanie Perkins in Sydney, Australia. It uses a drag-and-drop feature to design stunning graphics. It has everything that one needs for creating an amazing design: millions of images, photo filters, icons & shapes, and hundreds of fonts. It is used and loved by millions of people around the globe, whether they are non-designers or professional designers, it suits everyone’s requirements. It has readily available formats for social media posts and covers, ad copies, thumbnails, photo collages, brochures, business cards, presentations, graphs, many many and many others. Canva application is also available for Android and iPhone mobile & tablets.

Canva is available free of cost, you just need to sign up using your email or with your Google or Facebook account. However, if you are an agency having employees who need to work on canva to create customized designs, you can upgrade your account to Canva Pro.

Website – https://www.canva.com/

Price of Canva Pro – Canva Pro monthly plan is Rs. 499/- per month, and the annual plan is Rs 3,999/- for 12 months.

3. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool that provides overall details of a keyword, suggests keyword ideas and gives SERP analysis of the particular keyword.  

Keywords are important because they allow you to reach a specific target or people with a specific need. 

Ubersuggest allows you to enter one keyword or phrase, and it will give you a bunch of words that you can use in your blog posts. This free tool can also help you learn more about SEO and how it relates to your marketing plan. It’s certainly worth spending your time doing keyword research on Ubersuggest if you’re new to digital marketing. It will help you in finding out the most relevant keyword for your business. 

Website – https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

Price – Ubersuggest is available free of cost

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free analytical tool from Google under the brand Google Marketing Platform that tracks and reports website and application activities. It tracks details like no of users visiting a website or application, their sessions, session duration, page views, bounce rate, etc. It also tracks behaviour, traffic source, geographical, and technological details of the user visiting the site. It is considered the backbone of any marketing campaign.

Google launched this tool in November 2005, after acquiring Urchin.

To start using Google Analytics, you just need to have a Google account, using which you can sign in to the website. Once you have signed in to the website you need to add analytics code to your website. It will give you the ability to track every behaviour and activity of every user and help you make better decisions to achieve your goal.

Website – https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/

Price – Google Analytics is available free of cost

6. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. Search Console helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site. It allows the webmaster to check the indexing status and optimize the visibility of the website. It has become a valuable resource for marketing professionals, SEOs, designers, business owners, and app developers. 

To start using Google Search Console you need to add and verify your site before you can do anything else.

Once your site is verified with Search Console, there are the following benefits which will help you ensure that your website is optimized as per the requirement of your target visitors.

Benefits of Google Search Console

• Check and set the crawl rate and ensure that Google can find your website.
• Fix indexing problems and request re-indexing of new or updated content.
• View search traffic data of your website: how often your website appears on Google search, what keyword searches on Google show your website, and how often searchers click through for those queries
• Receive alerts when Google bots face difficulty in crawling, indexing or any other issues on the website.
• Set highlights to Google Search elements of structured data to enrich search hits.
• Check security issues if there are any with the website.
• Troubleshoot issues for AMP, mobile usability and other search features.

So just sign into Google Search Console using your Gmail account and optimize the visibility of your website on Google.

Website – https://www.google.com/webmasters/#?modal_active=none

Price – Google Search Console is available free of cost

7. Google MyBusiness

It is a business listing service by Google where businesses can create free profiles and can easily connect with customers across Google Search and maps. It helps businesses to improve visibility.

The first important step in any local SEO is to claim and verify your business on Google MyBusiness (GMB) listing. Once your listing is verified you can do the following to be visible to your target audience and engage with them to build up the brand image of your business.

• Manage your information.
• Understand and expand your presence.
• Post photos and offers to your profile to show what makes your business unique, and give reason to the customer to choose you every time.
• Give customers multiple options (call, message, reviews) to interact with you.
• Build customer trust by responding to reviews.
• Keep customers up-to-date by updating them about your new product, working hours, etc.
• View insights on how customers connect to your business

So, if you are a business and have not claimed and verified your business on Google yet, just visit Google MyBusiness and claim your business now without further delay.

Website – https://www.google.com/intl/en_in/business/

Price – Google MyBusiness is available free of cost

8. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a tool within Google Ads that provide data around search queries that people have searched on Google. It provides data from Google and their search partners. You can use a keyword planner to search for keywords and see how a list of keywords may perform while creating an Ad. 

Benefits of Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner can primarily help to serve two specific purposes.

• Discover new keywords – Get keywords ideas that can help you reach people who are interested in your product or service.
• Get search volume and forecast – See search volume and other historical metrics for your keywords, as well as forecasts for how they might perform in future.

Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, there are some secondary benefits of a Keyword planner as well.

• Use it to spy on competitors’ keywords.
• Find local keywords
• Create campaigns easily

To use Google Keyword Planner, you have to sign in to your Google Ads account. On the upper right corner click on TOOLS & SETTINGS  , under “PLANNING”, click ‘Keyword Planner’. Get started with your research and make use of the above-mentioned benefits of Keyword Planner. Review your keywords in the keyword idea page and create your ad campaign for your business to get the desired result.

Website – Google Ads account

Price – Google MyBusiness is available free of cost.

8. Bing Webmaster

Bing webmaster tool is a free service by Microsoft which allows webmasters to add their website to the Bing index crawler, and see the site performance like clicks, impressions, etc.

It provides many features that can be accessed by webmasters after they verify the ownership of their website.

It serves the same purpose as Google Search Console.

To improve the visibility and increase the traffic to your website, submitting your website to the Bing webmaster is equally important in order to expand your reach. Webmaster tools and features will equally help to optimize your website.

Benefits of Bing Webmaster

1. Submit the URL of the website for faster indexing.
2. Solve the crawling issues of the website like 404 errors, blocked URLs, unsupported content type, etc..
3. Explore new keywords using the keyword research tool.
4. Robot.txt and mark-up validator help to verify if your site is meeting the standard of Bing.
5. It has a sitemap to check if Bing is viewing the website correctly.

You can sign in to Bing Webmaster using your Microsoft id and start working on it. 

Website – https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

Price – Bing webmaster is available free of cost

9. Facebook Business Manager

It is an important tool by Facebook that keeps your Facebook business assets centralized, safe and organized. It is a one-stop shop to securely manage all your Facebook marketing and advertising activities. From here you can control and manage access to your pages, partners, and ad accounts. 

Benefits of Facebook Business Manager

1. It keeps your business activities separate from your personal profile. 
2. It is a centralized place to manage your ads and provides detailed reports on its performance.
3. It allows you to give access to vendors, partners, and agencies to your ads and page, without handing over the ownership of the asset.
4. You can assign pages to your co-workers to work on them, and they don’t see your personal profile.

Considering these benefits, Facebook Business Manager is quite essential if you handle more than one business page or client.

Website – https://business.facebook.com/

Price – Facebook Business Manager is available free of cost

Fig: Facebook Business Manager Log In

10. Zoho Campaign

Zoho Campaign is a web-based email marketing service to reach, engage & grow your audience. It helps you to design emails and send them to your contacts. This mail can be of two types. 

1. Promotional emails & 
2. Transactional emails.

If you have email marketing as one of the strategies on your list, Zoho Campaign is one of the best options for you as a beginner. Using this you can even automate your campaign to create and establish a connection with your audience.

Benefits of Zoho Campaign 

• It provides all your email marketing needs in one place.
• 100s of pre-defined templates for all your needs.
• Drag-and-drop editor to customise your emails.
• Autoresponder & email workflow for easy marketing automation.
• Major integrations are available that will suffice your marketing needs.
• Real-time analytics to measure your success.
• Integrate your E-Commerce website and keep your customers updated about your promotions and transactions.
• A/B test your campaign to find which one is most effective
• Run social media campaigns directly from its dashboard to increase your reach.
• Android & iOS applications are available for quick & easy access to reports

Zoho Campaign offers different plans based on your requirements. Its free plan is good enough for small businesses. You can add up to 2000 contacts and send up to 12,000 emails per month under its free plan. If your requirement goes over these limitations, you will have to upgrade your plans to Standard or Professional. These upgrades are available starting from Rs 86.25 per month.

Website – Zoho Campaign

Price – Free up to 2,000 contacts and up to 12,000 emails every month

Conclusion

These are the set of tools which will be helpful to you as a beginner. It will help you achieve your goals and teach you how you can achieve better results. However, there is a long list of tools which many professional digital marketers use to optimize their strategy to achieve the desired goal. Having a handful of experience with these tools will lead you a step ahead in the field of digital marketing.  

Do you have any clarification about the topic? Let me know in the comments below.

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