Digital marketing is a vast and ever-evolving field. While some aspects can be done without tools, many tasks become significantly more efficient and effective with the right software. In this article, we’ll provide a list of essential tools that every digital marketer, regardless of their specialty in SEO, graphic design, Facebook ads, or Google ads, will find valuable.
These tools will help you work faster and complete your tasks more fluently and effortlessly. So, let’s dive into the list of tools!
Digital Marketing Tools to Help You Grow
Before we dive into the list of tools, let us clarify that we’ll be categorizing them by their function in digital marketing. For example, there will be sections for graphic design tools, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, and tools specifically for PPC (pay-per-click) experts.
10 Tools for SEO Professionals
Here’s a list of 11 essential tools that every SEO professional will need to optimize their website and grow traffic organically. According to Google’s SEO documentation, these tools can be very helpful.
1. Google Search Console (Free):
The official SEO toolkit from Google, offering valuable insights into how your website appears in search results.
Features
Monitor website indexing, identify technical SEO issues, submit sitemaps, analyze search traffic, and receive alerts for potential problems.
Cost:
Free
2. Google Analytics (Free):
A free web analytics service by Google that provides comprehensive insights into website traffic, user behavior, and marketing campaigns. It goes beyond search traffic and offers a holistic view of your website’s performance.
Features:
Track website traffic sources, user demographics, content performance, conversions, and set custom goals for measurement. Integrate with Google Search Console for a deeper understanding of SEO performance.
Cost:
Free
3. Ahrefs (Paid):
Ahrefs is an industry-standard SEO toolset offering a powerful backlink checker, keyword research tool, rank tracking, and competitive analysis features.
Features:
Discover high-quality backlinks, conduct in-depth keyword research, track keyword rankings over time, analyze competitors’ SEO strategies, and audit your website for technical SEO issues.
Cost:
Plans start around $99/month.
4. SEMrush (Paid):
SEMrush is another comprehensive SEO platform offering keyword research, competitor analysis, on-page SEO auditing, content marketing tools, and social media analytics.
Features:
Similar to Ahrefs, SEMrush provides a wide range of tools for keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, on-page SEO, and competitor research.
Cost:
Plans start around $99/month.
5. Moz Pro (Paid):
Moz Pro is a well-established SEO toolset that offers domain authority scoring, keyword research, on-page optimization suggestions, and link building tools.
Features:
Analyze your website’s domain authority, conduct keyword research, identify on-page SEO issues, track keyword rankings, and explore link building opportunities.
Cost:
Plans start around $99/month.
6. Screaming Frog (Free & Paid):
Screaming Frog is a popular website crawler tool that helps identify technical SEO issues like broken links, missing meta descriptions, and crawl errors.
Features:
The free version allows crawling of up to 500 URLs and provides basic SEO audit reports. The paid version offers more features and higher crawling limits.
Cost:
Free version available, paid plans start around £149.00 per year (approx. $180 USD).
7. Yoast SEO (Freemium):
Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress plugin that helps website owners optimize their content for search engines. It offers on-page SEO suggestions, readability checks, and schema markup integration.
Features:
Optimize titles, meta descriptions, and content for target keywords. Improve content readability and add schema markup for richer search results.
Cost:
Freemium model with basic features available for free, paid plans offer advanced features.
8. Surfer SEO (Paid):
Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that uses AI to analyze top-ranking content for a target keyword and provide data-driven suggestions for optimizing your own content.
Features:
Analyze SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) to understand what Google prioritizes for specific keywords. Get content suggestions like word count, headings, internal linking, and more.
Cost:
Plans start around $49/month.
9. SEOAnswerThePublic (Freemium):
Description: SEOAnswerThePublic is a free keyword research tool that helps discover long-tail keywords and user search queries based on a seed keyword.
Features:
Generate long-tail keyword suggestions around a seed keyword, categorize them by question type (informational, comparison, etc.), and spark content ideas.
Cost:
Freemium model with limited features in the free version, paid plans offer more suggestions and exports.
10. BuzzSumo (Paid):
BuzzSumo is a content marketing and competitor research tool that helps identify high-performing content and influencers in your niche.
Features:
Discover trending content, analyze competitor content strategies, and identify relevant influencers to reach your target audience.
Cost:
Plans start around $99/month.
7 Tools for Content & Copy Writers
1. Grammarly (Freemium):
Grammarly is a grammar checker and writing assistant that helps identify and correct grammatical errors, improve sentence clarity, and enhance writing style.
Features:
Identify and correct grammar mistakes, spelling errors, punctuation issues, and awkward phrasing. Offers suggestions for clarity, conciseness, and vocabulary improvement.
Cost:
Freemium model with basic grammar and spell check features available for free. Paid plans offer advanced suggestions and plagiarism checking.
2. Hemingway Editor (Free):
Hemingway Editor is a free online tool that helps writers improve the readability of their content by highlighting complex sentences, passive voice usage, and adverbs.
Features:
Analyzes text readability and suggests improvements for clarity and conciseness. Highlights complex sentences, passive voice, and excessive adverbs.
Cost:
Free to use online.
3. Jasper (formerly Jarvis) (Paid):
Jasper (formerly Jarvis) is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps generate content ideas, write different content formats (blog posts, social media captions, etc.), and improve existing content.
Features:
Generate creative text formats like headlines, product descriptions, marketing copy, and even blog post outlines. Can rewrite existing content to improve clarity or tone.
Cost:
Plans start around $29/month.
4. Copyscape (Paid):
Copyscape is a plagiarism checker tool that helps identify potential plagiarism issues in your written content.
Features:
Check your content against billions of web pages to identify copied content. Useful for ensuring your content is original and avoiding copyright infringement.
Cost:
Plans start around $10/month for basic checks.
5. Evernote (Freemium):
Evernote is a note-taking and organization app that allows you to capture ideas, text, images, and web clippings in a single place.
Features:
Create text notes, organize with tags and notebooks, clip web pages, record audio notes, and collaborate with others.
Cost:
Freemium model with basic features available for free. Paid plans offer increased storage and collaboration features.
6. Trello (Freemium):
Trello is a project management tool that uses a visual board system to organize tasks, track progress, and collaborate with teams.
Features:
Create boards with lists and cards to represent tasks, deadlines, and workflows. Assign tasks to team members, collaborate on projects, and track progress visually.
Cost:
Freemium model with basic features available for free. Paid plans offer increased storage, power-ups for additional features, and enterprise-level security.
7. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer (Free & Paid):
Headline analyzers are tools that help assess the quality of your headlines based on factors like clarity, length, emotional impact, and SEO optimization. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is a popular example.
Features:
Analyze your headlines for clarity, length, keyword inclusion, and emotional impact. Provides scores and suggestions to improve click-through rates (CTRs).
Cost:
Many headline analyzers are free to use online, while some content marketing platforms offer them as part of their paid plans.
7 Tools for Facebook Marketers
1. Meta Ads Manager (formerly Facebook Ads Manager):
The central hub for creating, managing, and analyzing your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
Features:
Set campaign objectives, define target audiences, create ad creatives, set budgets and schedules, track campaign performance, and optimize ad delivery. A/B test different ad variations within the platform.
Cost:
Free to use, you only pay for the ads you run.
2. Facebook Business Manager:
A central platform for managing all your Facebook and Instagram business activities, including ads, pages, and insights.
Features:
Manage multiple ad accounts, pages, and Instagram profiles, collaborate with team members, track overall business performance, and schedule posts.
Cost:
Free to use.
3 Power Editor (part of Facebook Business Manager):
A more advanced ad creation tool within Facebook Business Manager offering bulk editing capabilities for managing large-scale campaigns.
Features:
Edit and manage multiple ad sets and campaigns simultaneously, schedule ad delivery in advance, and optimize campaigns based on performance data.
Cost:
Free to use within Facebook Business Manager.
4. Audience Insights (part of Facebook Business Manager):
A market research tool that provides demographics, interests, and online behavior insights about your target audience on Facebook and Instagram.
Features:
Learn about your target audience’s age, location, interests, online habits, and purchase behaviors. Gain valuable insights for creating more targeted ad campaigns.
Cost:
Free to use within Facebook Business Manager.
5. Facebook Pixel & Conversions API:
Tracking tools that measure the effectiveness of your Facebook ads by tracking conversions (actions) taken by users who see your ads (e.g., website visits, purchases, leads generated).
Features:
Track conversions across websites, apps, and offline channels. Optimize campaigns based on conversion data and improve return on ad spend (ROAS).
Cost:
Free to use.
6. A/B Testing Tools (AdEspresso, Hootsuite Ads): (Paid)
These third-party tools integrate with Facebook Ads Manager and allow you to create and test variations of your ad creatives, targeting, and landing pages to see which performs best.
Features:
Simplify A/B testing workflows, automate testing processes, and gain deeper insights into ad performance variations.
Cost:
Paid subscriptions with varying pricing plans.
7. SpyFu (or similar competitor research tools): (Paid)
Competitive research tools like SpyFu help you discover your competitors’ ad strategies on Facebook and other platforms.
Fetures
Analyze your competitors’ ad copy, targeting, landing pages, and budget allocation. Gain insights to inform your own ad strategy and identify potential gaps in your competitor’s approach.
Cost:
Paid subscriptions with varying pricing plans.
8. Facebook Ad Library:
A searchable archive of publicly viewable Facebook ads.
Features:
Browse through active and inactive Facebook ads across various industries. See examples of ad creatives, targeting parameters, and landing pages used by other advertisers. Gain inspiration for your own campaigns and stay updated on current advertising trends.
Cost:
Free to use.
