Online Marketing And Free Google Resource Tools
By: Garrett MehrguthMay 4th, 2016

10 Free Online Marketing Tools Every Small Business Owner Needs

Tools | Basic SEO | Advanced SEO
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

[Estimated read time: 5 minutes]

Every small business owner needs tools to get their marketing campaigns off the ground. Frankly, too many of these tools are only for enterprise-level businesses or require a budget that doesn't always justify the ROI.

A personal hobby of mine is testing out tools and finding the best ones for myself and the team to use on our campaigns.

After much testing, here are some of my favorites that every small business should have in their tool box. [Editor's Note: Each of the tools listed here has a free version.]

1. Answer The Public

Answer The Public's tool is completely free and has become an integral part of our content strategy. We use it to determine the topics and questions surrounding the primary keywords that we want to rank for. We then try to answer as many of these questions as we can with our content. This way, when Google is looking at which websites have the best information regarding the topic, we're not only more likely to rank, but we also are more likely to convert visitors because we answer the most important questions they have.

2. Open Site Explorer

Understanding your link profile and that of your competitors is crucial to building your Domain Authority. One of the quickest wins in every SEO campaign is to copy and paste your competitor's URL into OSE and find all the sites that are linking to them but not linking to you.

3. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is the go-to crawl tool for most everyone in the industry. While they do have a paid version of the tool, you can crawl up to 500 pages for free, leaving most small businesses in the clear. As mentioned above, this tool is terrific for finding broken links, auditing your redirects, finding pages that are missing meta data, and finding duplicate content at a URL level.

4. Siteliner

Siteliner is a dream come true for quick and dirty duplicate content analysis. Once again, they limit the amount of pages you can crawl, but 99% of small businesses are totally fine with the free version. Simply place your url into their search bar and press go. You'll be rewarded with tons of actionable data, like:

  • Duplicate content
  • Common content
  • Unique content
  • Average page size
  • Average page load time
  • Number of words per page
  • Internal links
  • External links
  • Text-to-HTML ratio

5. Portent's Title Generator

Say goodbye to writer's block with this handy tool. Our content team loves to use this tool to come up with highly shareable content ideas. With the simple press of a button, this free tool gives you title ideas that range from serious to downright hilarious. Nobody's ever said: "WOW, that sounds like a boring article; I'll read it!" Have some fun with it, and even if you can't find the perfect title, you're bound to get the creative juices flowing.

6. Google Keyword Planner

Google's keyword tool is a great resource for any small business looking to launch a pay-per-click campaign. Countless opportunities exist to use this tool when setting up an Adwords campaign. One of our favorite features is the search volume calculator. Here, you can enter a keyword and see how many people searched for it each month for the past year. From there, you can layer it with location targeting to get an estimate of how many monthly impressions you'll get for that keyword in your area. On top of search volume metrics, you can check out competition level and suggested bid for any keywords that you select.

7. Moz Local: Check Listing

The key issue for every small business that does business locally and wants to show up in search engines is the consistency of their name, address, and phone number (NAP) across citation sources like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Yellowpages, and more. Moz Local's tool gives you a free way to audit your NAP and easily fix on your own. Or, you can pay to have them do it for you. Either way, it's a great free tool for quick analysis and improvement.

8. Keyword.io

Keyword research is a necessary aspect for every small business' SEO campaign. With this handy tool, you can get keyword ideas from Google to Fiverr to help you understand which keywords to target and/or topics to create content around. Unfortunately, at the free level you're not able to get important metrics like keyword competitiveness or search volume.

If you do have a couple extra bucks to shell out, Moz Pro has done great work with their keyword tool, and recently launched an improved version with some free access. There's also the old-school favorite, Long Tail Pro, which will integrate with Moz and Adwords to give you killer data at scale.

9. Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is a terrific free tool for doing market and content research. By toggling through the options, you can view specific demographic information about your audience and even learn a few new things.

One great way to use this tool? Allow it to help you create content your audience will love. For example, if you're a local business you can type in your service area/location, toggle the advanced option (bottom of the left column), select "home," and start learning exactly what the homeowners in your area are interested in.

10. Pablo by Buffer

With Buffer's free social media tool, you have access to over 600,000 images (or you can upload your own image) and all the tools necessary to be a social image pro. You start by selecting an image, and from there you are able to overlay with text, choose sizes, select filters, add logos, and download/share. In moments, Pablo makes it easy to go from Photoshop noob to social media design pro.

Bonus: Followerwonk

Followerwonk is amazing for quickly and easily analyzing your Twitter followers for information that can be used for your brand. It allows you to search Twitter bios, compare accounts for overlap, drill down by location, see who others are following, and identify influencers. It's a tool with many uses, capable of taking some of the pain out of finding the people who could most help your brand.

Whether you run a small business or market to them, these free tools can help add expertise and insight into your marketing campaigns. Have fun trying them out and feel free to add your favorites in the comments below!

About gmehrguth —

I get to run Directive Consulting. We specialize in B2B marketing with a focus on enterprise SEO services and PPC management. I love to create content for the search industry. You can find me on Twitter to keep up with latest content and insights.

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  • I also wanted to add Xenu's Link Sleuth (TM). I have used this many times and I have also tried another tool for broken links like you mentioned in your lists that is Screaming tool. That tool also gives statistics for broken links but Xenu tells you linked page and you can download this in word doc very easily.

  • O-M-G! I feel like Christmas morning!! This is great thank you so much.

  • I'd always assumed the Portent Title Generator was satirical!

  • Great post Garrett Mehrguth :

    These types of posts increase the awareness of new tools in the market among marketer's, taking example of myself, I had never heard or used 3 tools among the listed ones and they are :

    • Answer The Public
    • Screaming Frog
    • Portent's Title Generator

    I would like to add Moz's recently launched New Keyword Research Tool to the list above.

    Thanks and regards

    Pulkit Thakur

    PulkitThakur edited 2 years ago

  • Hey Garrett, thanks for putting together this nifty list of useful tools! I While I use all of these tools, there are still two more tools that SEO's can benefit from:

    Similar Web: Useful if you want to spy on your competitor's estimated search traffic and other useful metrics.

    PicMonkey: What an awesome tool for creating images for blogging and social media campaigns. An mind-boggling range of features and guess what - it's totally free!

  • Thanks for sharing this valuable marketing tool, I also do use some of the tools in my daily professional life, such as Open Site Explorer, Siteliner, Moz Local: Check Listing etc.

  • Solid Post! Seriously, this is one of those short, sweet, simple, copy it and put it into an adobe INDD document for clients always asking about how to SEO but can never pull the trigger and actually pay... kind of post!

    Little bit of a run-on there but you get the point. Thank you, this is awesome.

    The portant title generator defiantly brings back some titles that would get some RT's, lol.

  • Interesting post Garrett,

    I have used most of them, surprisingly "Answer The Public" is new for me. Followerwonk is my favorite, It works amazingly for your brand if Twitter is your foremost social media platform.

  • Hi Garrett,

    Thanks for sharing! We recently discovered Answer the Public, which is super helpful in understanding how people are searching or at the very least it serves a preliminary stepping stone to understanding behavior. I'll make sure to share this, thanks again!

  • Normally not a fan of "best tools" listicles because they all reference the same few ones. Siteliner is new to me though, and just gave me a TON to work on. Looks like ~75% of the internal links on the site I'm working on are nofollow - and 130+ pages are only referenced internally by nofollow links. I've done the on-site SEO reports through Moz Pro and a variety of other tools, but I don't think I've ever used a tool that identifies that kind of error.

  • Great list of tools, will definitely be checking these out. Thank-you

  • Very interesting!

    I add to the list Semrush to audit our seo and compare another webs.

  • I did not know some of these tools, thank you very much for sharing, are also free! :)

  • Pablo is great, and Buffer have recently updated it too. Just took a look at Answer The Public and I really like it.... never heard of it before, but I think I'll be using it! Thanks for sharing

  • Garett Mehrguth really a good post for beginners like me to know about such tools. the way you explained OSE , siteliner and portent is awesome because the whole article is concise to read and easily understood for me.i would gladly say thank you for writing this article because I have seen portent and i haven't used it. but not after reading your definition.

  • This is so helpful ! thank you :)

  • Good morning Garrett,

    This post has been amazing for me, there are plenty of toolthat I didn't know about, and their pages are already open on my computer! I'm gonna give them an eye on and see what magic can they do :D

  • Thanks for your kind list! Today i find a new amazing content title generator tool from your list of tools. Portent is a surprise gift for me!

    UsmanKhanSEO edited 2 years ago

  • Great post I like 1 & 6 SEO tools for my site i.e Moz & Google keyword planner.

  • Thanks for sharing the post but I am not happy with the keyword research tools that you shared here. Tools are not giving accurate results or giving limited results for keywords. There are many accurate keyword research tools other than this like ubersuggest.io.

    Also, I am unable to open tool for "Facebook Audience Insights". Can you please look into this and share right URL.

    Dharti edited 2 years ago

  • I love this guide !!!

    And the truth is I did not know Paul by Bufer and it seems an ideal tool where you can access a lot of information

    Thank you very much for the post!!

  • Nice post! I'd suggest also Freepik to find good pieces of art to create content :)

  • Thanks, I did not know a couple of them and will for sure try them out. Very good specially for being so concrete (5 minutes reading time is really good)

  • Great post! Didn't know about 1 & 5. Can see myself using both of these tools soon.

  • Very helpful,thanks.

  • Anderson nancy

    Hi Mehrguth, you have shared great post which is used for each and every website seo work. i have used keyword research planner tool regularly and its giving search volume with specific location also. it was amazing tools. thanks for sharing Andersonnancy

  • Bana yardım edebilirmisiniz... help me www.varanvinc.com.tr

  • Screaming Frog has to be one of the most useful tools for SEO and web designers. It's not pretty but it works so well.

  • There are several tools named that is I will begin using immediately!

    Thanks for a readable, informative article:)

  • Good list, mate, I will be using "Answer the Public" from now on for my Quora strategy and other Q&A sites ^^.

  • I dont know the plugin sitelines, i will try it. thank you for the information

  • Another suggestion for a useful tool - Marie Haynes, a Google Penalty expert and algorithm analyst, has created a blacklist of spammy directories and offers a tool which can compare any directory you enter to her list and determine if it is safe for submission.

  • We are offering a helpdesk software azuredesk for 5$ per user so that you can support your customers using our software instead of replying each and every email thru ur support mailbox

    We are also sharing our jounery of our small business at azuredesk blog

    AzureDesk edited 2 years ago

  • Great post. These are my favorite sort of tools (i.e., free). Answer the public is awesome. How is it I never ran into it?

    Edit: Siteliner is pretty cool too. Great at finding duplicate or near duplicate content. I've got some serious re-writing to do.

    Number-1 edited 2 years ago

  • These all are excellent resource page. I'm marking it as a favorite for future reference. Thanks so much!

  • Hi Garrett Mehrguth

    These types of posts increase the awareness of new tools in the market among marketer's, taking example of myself, I had never heard or used 3 tools among the listed ones and they are :

    • Answer The Public
    • Screaming Frog
    • Portent's Title Generator

    The presentation of Google Adwords keyword planner is very attractive and it will be very helpful for the beginner.

    [Link removed by editor.]

    FeliciaCrawford edited 2 years ago

  • Hi Garret,

    Thank you for sharing this great post with useful tools! I have never heard of the Answer the public tool, but it sounds like an effective way to determine the topics and questions for our primary keywords. In addition to your list, I´d like to share this reporting tool we´ve been using for some time now. The tool is called Douply and It´s easy, not time consuming and best of all, clients have a great insight in their data. Why not decrease the effort in making reports, just to focus on other time consuming activities?

    Keep up the good work and thanks again for these great marketing essentials.Greetings,Nina

  • Good information you shared about online tools. Online tools have decreased the burden of work nowadays. Overall a good post.

  • Hi,

    I am using the open site explorer now.Thanks for your article.

  • I also use Screaming Frog, it is simple and informative. Thanks for other tips!

  • Marketing online is very simple , every small or large owner would need urgent and prepared company.

  • Hey Garrett!

    Thank you for this awesome post and tools!

    I will use next week for my business!

  • Very good summary . I really liked the application Pablo by Buffer. Easy to use . Accurate . Congratulations.

  • This is a very nice blog site , i like this type of topic

    Thanks for lot

  • This post is very interesting and very useful. I usually use the Open Site Explorer. Good job Garret! Thanks for your kind list!

  • these free tools can help add expertise and insight into your marketing campaigns.

    FeliciaCrawford edited 2 years ago

  • Awesome post Garrett ! All tools are really amazing and helpful for expand small business.I think you suggest top 10 tools but we can add more like ahref.com, because when you think about expand your small business to a big brand then your top competitors watch/research is first thing to start.

    Anyways, I want to say thank for sharing such kind of information.Because some tools in this list are new for mine.

  • Very good choice to discover broken links. If you use Wordpress you can also use the plugins: WP Broken Link Status Checker. It is free and only serves to see the broken places of your website.

    eruizprieto edited 2 years ago

  • it was a good update and i am already in the long run to find best tools for marketing and i found something newest .

    MeganSingley edited 2 years ago

  • Nice Post! These are all great tools and helps a lot in online marketing but I have never heard about answer the public tool. We can add HootSuite for social media updates, Klout for finding influencers.

  • Is a good idea, nice blog site

  • Excellent article, Garrett. Great list, these tools will surely help you save time and maximize your marketing efforts. Thanks, Niraj (Founder at hiverhq.com)

  • This list is amazing, I just shared it with the guys at my team. I just want to add Wordpress, Wistia, Google Analytics and Canvas, but I'm sure to give some of the other tools a try eventually. thanks so much !

  • The post is really useful.

    I tried the tools and they were useful, except for the following:

    • Answer The Public is a nice tool. However, I live in Bangalore and it does not list India as one of the regions to find related keywords.
    • Moz Local: This is the first time I used it. However, it displayed that I have exceeded my limit. I
    • Facebook Audience Insights is currently down.

  • Hi Garrett.

    Great tools, thanks for sharing.

    Regards.

    Veena

  • Great list. Thank you. I advise you add to this list https://kwfinder.com It is also has a free version.