Surviving the first year in business can be one of the biggest challenges a small business will face. About 20% of small businesses will fail within their first year.
As a business owner yourself, it's only natural that this statistic might strike fear into your heart. But what if we told you that it didn't need to be this way? What if we told you that not only were there measures totally within your control that could stop you from joining the ranks of these failing businesses, but that these measures would ensure that you soared above and beyond the competition?
Well, it's true! All you need are free marketing tools that will help you reach out to your target audience and gain online traffic. Read on to learn some advertising strategies that will ensure that your business rises to new heights and succeeds where others fail.
Marketing ROI Calculator
Getting a high return on your marketing investment (ROI) is important for any business, but sometimes it can be really difficult to know how much you're actually getting back. Calculating your marketing ROI can require a lot of expert tools and knowledge if you don't have the right program.
Fortunately, though, you can use this free ROI calculator from Axer Strategies to easily see how much money you're getting back from your marketing investments. Though the ROI information that you receive will be estimates rather than dollar-for-dollar calculations, it will still give you a clearer picture of how beneficial each marketing investment that you're making is to your business growth.
Specifically, our ROI calculator will tell you:
Which marketing investments are doubling or giving you back 200% ROI (these are things that you should focus the majority of your efforts on)
Which marketing investments have the highest return
Which marketing investments are making you money despite not being as high as other ones
Which marketing investments are losing money
This information will be given to you on a user-friendly color-coded scale, so even if you aren’t mathematically inclined, you can still easily understand the information!
With this knowledge, you'll be able to appropriately decide what marketing investments to continue paying for and which ones you should cut back on. Without a way to measure your ROI on your marketing efforts, you'll be trying to make these choices blindly and could wind up cutting back on investment that's been generating a lot of leads. You also could wind up shelling out a lot of cash into an investment that you think should be working but is actually losing you money.
When you know what investments are successful and which aren't, you also will be able to market to your audience more effectively. An ROI calculator gives you definitive information as to what consumers are responding to. This means that you can put more effort into the marketing strategies that are actually effective rather than the ones that are missing the mark.
Search Engine Optimization SEO Website Auditing
At this point, you likely already know how SEO works. However, did you know that you can see how well your current SEO practices are really working?
As you already know, search engine crawlers look on all websites - including yours - to see which ones have the most content related to specific keywords. These same crawlers look to see whether sites are linked to other credible sources and which pages get high traffic and customer engagement.
In order for your site to look good to search engine crawlers and therefore be good for SEO, you need to know if there are any surface-level issues with your website. Although you could have someone painstakingly comb through each of your blog posts to identify broken links, missing meta tags, and low-quality content, that would be both expensive and time-consuming. . Instead, you can opt for a free website audit that will analyze how your page looks in terms of SEO content!
Some ranking factors that this search engine optimization (seo) audit tool will find out for you are:
Whether there is any duplicate content on your website, including similar words, phrases, passages, or even full blog posts
The possible existence of broken links that need to be replaced with updated backlinks
Technical problems that your pages may have, including indexability and implementation
Keywords that you're trying to rank for but are failing at ranking for
High-volume keywords to focus your efforts on in the future
Solving any housekeeping problems that your website has not only ensures that search engine crawlers don't overlook it because of broken links and bad keywords, but also ensures that your audience will have a better overall experience with your website. By eliminating these issues, you'll increase the speed of your website and prevent people from needing to wait for your page to buffer.
People tend to leave a website 15 seconds after clicking on it if they aren't engaged within that time frame. Make sure that you don't waste a single valuable second by forcing consumers to stare at a 'site loading' page!
Improve Your SEO Content
There is a lot that you can do with the information garnered in your SEO audit. While the free audit is an awesome marketing tool in and of itself, you can use it in conjunction with some paid services to get the most bang for your buck.
If you want more information beyond your free audit, you can get a full SEO report from our professionals. This Full SEO Report has over 120 checks for SEO issues, ranging from surface-level issues like duplicate content and broken links to technical problems like HTTPS implementation and the hreflang attribute on an international website. The report can be used for any brand from an SMB site to enterprise businesses and agencies. You also can purchase this SEO content guide to learn more about how you can optimize your website and reach your target consumers as effectively as possible.
Online Business Listing Auditing
SEO auditing isn't the only type of free audit you'll want to run on your website. You'll also want to look into getting a business listing audit of your website.
If you don't know what this is, it's pretty much a simple cross-check of Google directories in which your business is listed. The aim of this check is to validate the information that you're putting online and make sure everything is correct. Having incorrect information online makes your target audience unable to contact you if they have any questions about your services.
Incorrect information in business listings is obviously problematic, but inconsistent information is even more so. If consumers are looking at various directories and seeing that information isn't the same as it is in other locations, it doesn't just make it difficult to get in touch with you. It also makes you appear sloppy and unprofessional. This is a surefire way to drive people into the arms of your competitors.
A business listing audit will check your business data in multiple internet locations. This includes search engines, of course, but also information on various applications, social network pages, Google maps, directories, and review websites. The audit might be free, but it's also incredibly comprehensive!
Competitive Analysis
Once you ensure that your business data is consistent across every possible online platform, you may also be interested in learning more about your main competitors.
A competitor analysis/spend report can really help you reap the benefits of a business listing audit by helping you understand what you're up against. When you invest in this service, you'll be able to see an overview of your competitor's general online presence, an analysis of the top keywords your competitors are using, an analysis of Google searches made in relation to your competitors, and more about their website’s strengths and weaknesses!
Informative Blog Posts
Another tool that you can access for free on our website is our expert blog!
Browsing our posts is a great way to get tips and tricks on the latest and most effective advertising and marketing strategies. By doing this, you'll learn new ways that you can improve your existing investments. You'll also get some ideas for new tools and technologies that you should use to rise above the competition.
Our blog offers information on many different topics, including SEO strategies, social media marketing, competitor analysis, digital design trends, SEM and PPC, and more. If you want diverse content that's frequently updated, this is the right place to get it!
Get Free Marketing Tools Today
While there are a multitude of ways that you can grow your business, digital marketing strategies are by far the most cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Using these strategies ensures that you won't join the ranks of the many failing businesses in America, but rather grow and move up in your industry.
Now that you know some of the best free marketing tools on the web, it's time to put them to use. Contact us for assistance in finding the best tools to grow your specific business. Our experts are more than happy to discuss our many essential marketing improvements. We will also help you download any of the tools that will help you boost your business and gain more traffic.
Good luck!
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