4 Free Small Business Marketing Tools

There's only one thing better than finding a cool new marketing tool, and that's finding a free,cool new marketing tool. Here's a list of four marketing tools that add real value -- but don't cost a thing!

1. Portent's Content Idea Generator

Ever get stuck trying to come up with ideas for your next article, blog post or free guide? If so, this is a great tool for you. With Portent's Content Idea Generator, you simply enter a subject of your choice and the tool provides you with a series of unique angles on that content in the form of a headline.

For example, "Small Business Marketing" becomes "The 18 Best Small Business Marketing YouTube Videos." While all the suggestions won't be on the mark, it's certain to help with your creative process!

2. Hemingway App

Hemingway helps you simplify. It makes your sales copy more impactful and understandable for your online and offline prospects. It does this by analyzing your content and returning color-coded alerts signaling overly long or complex sentences, unnecessary adverbs and passive voice.

Why is this important? Great marketers know that simple and clean messages cut through the noise. Simplicity gives you the absolute best chance to resonate with your prospects.

3. Pablo by Buffer

Do your social media efforts slow to a halt when it comes to producing compelling images to accompany your content? Worry no more. Buffer makes creating social media images super-fast and super-easy!

With access to over 600,000 free images, basic photo effects, the ability to add text and tools to easily size for a variety of social networks, it provides a practical, "light" alternative to more complex software tools like Photoshop.

4. Open Site Explorer

Links are a big deal when it comes to search engine optimization. Open Site Explorer allows you to enter the URL for any website and it immediately returns all the inbound links (other web pages that link to you). For each inbound link, it also reports the page and rank authority. This is important because Google and other search engines will reward your site if other "high authority" sites are linking to it.