Brilliant digital tools for marketers

There are lots of tools out there to help make our jobs easier on a day to day basis. But with so many to chose from, how do you know which is best? After attending the Turing Festival back in August, I’ve selected a range of tools that I wasn’t familiar with before. They'll help improve search engine optimisation (SEO), increase traffic to your website and make your content better. I'l be using them as we continue developing Good HQ and I hope you’ll find them useful too.

Google Tag Manager

This free tool lets you tag URLs to make it easier to track directly where traffic is coming from. You might notice a lot of traffic in your Google Analytics is classified as direct. However some of this traffic comes from other sources, so using tags can help build a clearer picture. Google Tag Manager is an easy way to track conversions without having to alter any website code. It will help you see what content is most successful and what are your more engaged with channels. Find out more about tagging in the ‘definitive link tagging guide’.

Usability Hub

A really useful tool if you’re redesigning or updating your website. You can do a range of tests with users to get their feedback; for example, a preference test is where you can show users two iterations of your website and ask them which they prefer. A five second test lets your users see your website for just a quick flash of time. They're then presented with a range of questions to see how well they understood it. It's a great way to see if you’re getting your message across successfully.

Schema

This is one for your web developers. It is a mark-up that tells a search engine what a piece of content is and is more detailed than a simple HTML tag. For more information about schema go to: http://schema.org/

Answer the public

You know when you type something into Google and it starts to suggest what you might be looking for? Well, Answer the public will help you to suss out all the different things people might be searching for when thinking about a topic. This is a great way for you to consider what content appears on your site, improve your SEO and drive traffic.

Readability Score

Think you’re a great writer? Use Readability Score or Hemmingway App to find out how good your writing is. You can simply copy and paste your content and see how it scores. Making small changes can increase the readability. So next time you're writing content for your website or social media, give it a go! (Just in case you’re wondering this post scored 6 out of 25 – 0 being the best!). Hopefully you’ll find these tools useful, let us know if you use any of them and how you get on!