January 10th, 2008
One of the most popular questions that was put to me in the Ask Me a Question post was ‘what tools do you use each and ever day to run your business?’
I actually get asked this question a lot over at Standing Start Profits too, and so I thought it would be a nice idea to share with you the 28 top free marketing tools that I use daily to help me make money online.
Below you’ll find a list of internet marketing tools that can be used to take your business forward, and I personally use every tool weekly. In fact, my $20,000 month simply wouldn’t have been possible without the tools listed below.
And the best part of all is that each and every tool is 100% FREE too!
1. Google Reader
If you’re not currently using RSS to keep up to date with the best content on the web, then you really need to start today. Almost all blogs publish an RSS feed, and that means that if you use an RSS feed reader, you can have the content of that site delivered to you as soon as it happens.
You’ll never have to go looking for your favourite sites again, and once you start subscribing to your preferred RSS feeds, you’ll discover that you save a ton of time which you can now use to grow your business in other ways.
There are lots of different RSS readers out there, but my personal favourite by far is Google Reader which you can use by clicking here. It’s completely free, very easy to use, and it will save you loads of time.
Once you’ve signed up, get started by subscribing to my blog feed by clicking the subscribe in a reader link to the right of this post as shown below.
You’ll then be asked which reader you’d like to receive this content in, and here you should click Google reader. Once you’re subscribed you’ll have all my future blog posts delivered into your reader directly, meaning you’ll never miss a useful post again!
Do this now as I jave plenty of top notch free content coming over the next few weeks and I’d hate for you to miss even a drop of it!
2. Roboform
If you want to earn more, and work less, then you really need to download Roboform today. Out of all of the different marketing tools that I’ve used, this one saves me the most time by far.
If you’re anything like me then you’ll have dozens of usernames and passwords for loads of different sites. I have so many passwords that remembering them would be impossible, so I once tried saving them in a spreadsheet, but found that really didn’t save me much time at all.
Roboform makes the whole process much easier, as it saves all of your different login details inside a toolbar that sits at the top of your browser. To visit any site you just select it from the drop down menu and then Roboform takes you to the relevant page and logs you in.
This is a real timesaver, and if you have more than a couple of different logins then I’d urge you to download this today by clicking here.
3. Stumbleupon Toolbar
If you want more traffic (and don’t we all), then you need to download the Stumbleupon Toolbar today. As you surf the net you simply hit a little thumbs up icon on the toolbar, and this then gets added to your profile as a site that you like.
Each stumble brings a nice little burst of traffic to any site, but the real beauty happens when you build a network of friends and others start stumbling your sites on a regular basis.
Like all the social networking sites, the traffic isn’t of a brilliant quality, but if you’re going to use one social networking site to drive traffic then make it Stumbleupon.
I previously used a secret pen name when using Stumbleupon, but have recently discovered the power of using my real name to drive traffic by participating more.
You can join for free by clicking here, and then make sure you add me as a contact by clicking here. I like to send lots of stumbles to my contacts, provided you produce nice posts, so make sure you add me right after you’ve joined.
And if you’re looking for a page to stumble to get you started then I think this article would be as good a choice as any. 
4. Zamzar
Zamzar is a fantastic free online tool that allows you to convert files from one format to another, without the need to download bulky software.
It supports a huge variety of different formats, and its perfect for those times when you need to convert something to a PDF fast, or when you need to turn a gif into a jpeg.
They have upgrade options available but I’ve always been more than happy with their free service.
5. Good Keywords
Good Keywords is a cool little downloadable program that helps you with your keyword research. It has loads of features, and is pretty fast at what it does too.
The only problem is that it’s based on slightly out of date information, but it’s still a fantastic starting point for your online keyword research.
6. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is another fantastic timesaver that is completely free, and which really helps me save lots of time during the day. You simply tell Google what keyword you’d like to monitor, and then when that keyword appears in Google, you get a nice little email telling you all about it.
This saves you having to spend time looking for new content on different topics, and instead you can let Google notify you as soon as anything relevant hits the net.
Google Alerts is a potent marketing tool too, and let me give you an example of you might use it to drive more traffic to your sites. This blog post is on free marketing tools, and so I might set up an alert to notify me whenever anything about marketing tools is discussed online.
Let’s say there was a discussion in an online forum about which were the best marketing tools to use. I would get an email alerting me to this, and if I wanted I could join the conversation and tell them about this post!
I’d be careful not to spam of course, but I think you get the idea about how this powerful tool can be used to get your business message out there into cyberspace.
7. Onlywire Bookmarklet
Social bookmarking is huge right now, and it’s a brilliant way to drive a ton of traffic for free. If you’re not currently using social bookmarking as a way of driving traffic to your sites, then start today and enjoy the traffic that it sends you.
One of the problems with bookmarking is that the whole process of submitting your site across multiple different services is time consuming and tedious, but this is a problem that Onlywire fixes for you.
It’s a 100% free service which allows you to bookmark your sites aross loads of different services with one quick and easy click. Getting setup is a bit of a pain as you have to first register with lots of different services, but once you’re up and running you can bookmark each site you like on lots of different services with just one click of the nice shiny button on your toolbar.
If you want backlinks and traffic then you need to start using this free tool today!
Go and give it a shot now, and you’ll be surprised by how simple the service is to use. And if you want to practice bookmarking some different pages then don’t be afraid of showing this blog some traffic love too.
And that’s pretty much it!
Above you can see 7 of the best free tools that I use to help me run my business, and hopefully they can help you save time and grow your business too.
Part II will be coming tomorrow so make sure that you tune in for the next 7 free marketing tools that have helped me quit my job and become a full time marketer in less than six months.
I promise it will be worth it!
Did you enjoy the post? Have anything to add? Any free tools you’d like to suggest?
Either way, I’d love to hear from you so post your thought in the comments below…
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As regular readers will know, I don’t usually play the SEO game with many of my blogs, and I instead prefer to get the bulk of my traffic from viral ebooks and direct links from other sites.
When it comes to getting your files uploaded to the net then you’re going to need some FTP software.
If you’re ever worried about people stealing your content online (and you should be!), the you’re going to want too heck out Copyscape. The debate is still raging about whether penalties for duplicate content exists or not, but I’d still advise you to have a quick peep if anyone has stolen your content every now and then.
The internet is getting faster around the world, and 2008 really is going to be the year of video. I use video a lot, and I’ve seen first hand just how powerful a tool it can be to help you communicate your message to your target market.
This is a fantastic tracking and stats tool that probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves because it’s free.
Do you want to know what people are searching for online? Want to know what people are buying? Then head to the eBay pulse!
