7 Helpful Internet Marketing Tools - And How to Use Them

© 2009, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.

There are literally thousands of websites online today that can help with your Internet marketing program in some way, shape or form. There are tools for online research, publishing, networking and more. In fact, there are so many Internet marketing tools online today, it came really make your head spin.

Therein lies the purpose of this blog entry. Today, I’m to share with you a list of websites that I recommend for some aspect of small business Internet marketing. More importantly, I’ll explain how to integrate these tools within your marketing program, the key benefits they offer, similar tools worth reviewing, and much more.

1. Yahoo Site Explorer — This website is helpful for search engine optimization. You can use it see which websites are linking to your own website or blog. And as you may know, these inbound links (or “inlinks”) are important for good search engine visibility. You can also use Site Explorer to analyze your competitors’ website, in order to identify more link opportunities. I use this site as an Internet marketing tool on a near daily basis.

2. PRWeb.com — This website allows you to distribute press releases to a large online audience, and they have added a lot of new tools and features over the years. If you’re going to use this website as an Internet marketing tool for your business, my advice is to make sure you have something newsworthy to say first. This the key to using online PR and social media websites. You start by lighting a strong fire, and then you use these websites to fan the flames.

3. Commission Junction — How would you like to have an army of Internet publishers driving traffic to your business website? Depending on the type of business you are in, you could do that by using Commission Junction. This service is sort of a middleman between Internet publishers and advertisers. Many small and large businesses alike are using “CJ” to make sales online. You pay for sales based on the commission structure of your choosing (either with a cost-per-lead or a cost-per-sale type of setup). It’s not right for every business model, but it’s certainly worth considering as an Internet marketing tool. Check out CJ University to learn how it works.

4. WordPress — This is one of the most popular blogging programs used by small business owners. It works as a standalone content-management system and blogging platform, which means you actually install the whole program onto your own website / hosting account. Business blogs are the one of the areas we specialize in, from a consulting standpoint. I feel that blogging effectively is one of the ways a small business can overtake its larger competitors, from an Internet marketing standpoint. But it all starts with having the right program, and WordPress is one of my top-two recommendations for blogging tools.

5. Google’s Keyword Tool — While this Internet marketing tools is primarily designed for search engine marketers who use AdWords, it’s really a useful tool for any website owner. A thorough round of keyword research can help you identify the topics and phrases your audience is searching for the most. I recommend this as a first step before creating new website content, or when looking for blogging ideas. For similar tools, check out WordTracker.com and KeywordDiscovery.com.

6. TubeMogul — Most business owners are familiar with YouTube, a tool for sharing video content online. But not many know about TubeMogul. If you create instructional videos as part of your online marketing program, then this particular Internet tool is worth checking out. It allows you to distribute your videos to a variety of sites at once (YouTube, Howcast, Revver, and other video sharing websites). It also let you track the number of views across all of the sites. If you’re familiar with using videos as a soft promotion and PR tool, then you’ll see the Internet marketing potential of a site like this.

7. Reddit — A play on the phrase “read it,” this is a website people use to share things they’ve read online. If you stumble across a new article online, a news story or blog post, you can show it to a wide audience by submitting the web link, along with an enticing headline. They have business, technology and other categories that might be relevant to your business. If you have published something truly interesting online, you can share it through this site (and others like it) to drive instant traffic to your website. But the same advice applies as always — make sure you have something noteworthy to share before using these sites.

It’s worth noting that, with the exception of PRWeb.com, these are free Internet marketing tools you can start using today. Even PRWeb is a low-cost service. My point is that Internet marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. That’s the beauty of all of these tools. They can help you compete with your larger competitors online, even though they might have ten times your marketing budget. This is why I often refer to the Internet as the “great equalizer” between small and large businesses — if you know how to use it, you can level the playing field like never before.

We Can Help With These Tools

We can help you incorporate the Internet tools listed above into your overall marketing strategy. If you’d like to set up a consultation / training call, please let us know. We use many of the websites on this list every day, for our own business and for our clients as well.