What’s In Your Internet Marketing Tool Belt?

Image by L. Marie via Flickr

by Frank Reed
You probably have seen those Capital One commercials where the question asked is “What’s in your wallet!?” While there is some kind of dire circumstance involving massive sea creature and cowardly super heroes taking place, a credit card is being built to the detriment of all around them. (Anyone see the irony there but me?) I watch way too much sports on TV, so I am pretty familiar with this campaign. It does beg the question, though, that we should all be asking ourselves as Internet marketers, “What’s in our tool belt?” So, Biznology readers, what is in there?

I suppose some might by reluctant to publicly this question, fearing that they’ll give away some competitive advantage. I have spent most of my adult life thinking that way, until recently. I have now realized that it is actually childish not to share. We tell our kids to share. We get upset when someone doesn’t share with us. We complain about people and companies not being transparent enough.
When it comes to our business, though, we get very tight-lipped and hold everything close to the vest. Why? I suspect it is fear. Fear that you might be “found out” or fear of being ridiculed or maybe just fear of giving something away. All of those fears may be real but I would say that in the vast majority of situations, they are unfounded.
As search marketers, we must use tools. There is intuition and experience, yes, but the raw data is so vast and cumbersome that it is impossible to fully comprehend by manual efforts. OK, at least it is or me. I use several tools like SEO for Firefox, SEMCheck (editorial note: I own this one), and I am a Pro member at SEOmoz. There are more, but that’s the core. There are a lot more I would like to use and hope to get to in the future. I know I am missing opportunities, and there are more and more that are being released and asking Mike Moran for reviews (which I am backed up on doing, sorry).
Many times, we learn more from comments of readers than post writers like myself. That’s what I am hoping for here. So, in the spirit of sharing and understanding, the concept that ideas are just ideas unless acted on and applied (which immediately eliminates about 95% of those hearing any idea), what tools do you use? How do you get more out of your skills via the aids you incorporate into your Internet marketing practice or in-house efforts? I am looking forward to hearing from you and I promise I won’t “steal” anything.

This entry was posted on February 19, 2009 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, Search Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.