We help clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, to mid size ecommerce sites leverage the power of paid and natural search marketing. Strategies for these sites are different (sales, leads, downloads) but the goal is the same-grow the business.

Here are 5 free search marketing tools you can use this week to grow your business.

1
Google Base. faciliates uploading your products via an xml spreadsheet )or 1 at a time if you just have a few products) and this database gets shared in the search results.

Here’s a result on top of Google’s home page for a client (most amazing jam, bbq sauce, honeys, butters created from local farmers) Oregon Growers

Google Base is free and it doesn’t take a lot of time to upload your products, just remember to refresh every 30 days and add new products.

2 Local Listings. If you have a business that benefits from local search, claim your listings from all 3 engines (use getlisted.org to update all engines at once). Google has their Local Business Center and Yahoo and Bing each have their own local listings services. This is a under utilized free service that can help create awareness about your site and your brick and mortar store. Remember to keep your company information consistant between accounts and to supplement those with local citations (InfoUSA, CitySearch, Yellow Pages, DexKnows, etc)

3 Google Webmaster Tools. If you have a Google account, you can sign up for Webmaster Tools. This will analyze your pages (are they indexed, do they have unique title tags/meta descriptions), do you have a site map? It’s a great way to dot your i’s and cross your t’s on some of the foundational elements of natural search.

4 Keyword Research Tools. Keyword research is a first step in good SEO, use these free tools to help you understand what words/phrases your customers are using to find your products/services online, Google AdWords and MS AdCenter both have free tools.

5 Google Analytics. Did I mention free? Back in the day we paid $199 a monthy for Urchin and now Google offers these analytics for free. This reporting package tells you how many visitors you have, how much revenue you’re generating, how visitors are using your site, what keywords they’re using to find you and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Investing your time in these free tools will help you better understand your business and benefit from the power of natural search. Remember there’s no silver bullet to search marketing success, just many things done well at the same time.

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