Due to continuous distractions (from both online and off line mediums), it becomes difficult to focus on work processes. In order to create and deliver innovative products and services, businesses need to ensure they have an aligned and distraction-free work flow. And to achieve these businesses need to use next-generation tools. Here are a few tools to increase focus as well as productivity: Freedom This is an intuitive and proven distraction blocker for your computer as well as mobile devices. This tool helps you to block specific websites and application from the dashboard. Tips:

• Use it on your Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, etc.
• It is easy-to-install and use.
• Use it to manage distractions.
• Use it to create endless lists of websites and apps that distract you.

Self-Control (For Mac users only) This fast tool lets you create a specific set of blacklisted websites. Use it to create a set of white-listed sites. "Self-Control is a profound, completely free and open-source". Tips:

• Use it to selectively avoid distracting sites.
• Use it to improve productivity, work processes and urgent operations.

Focus Booster This time-tracking tool helps you to record all your sessions and productivity. It empowers employees to maintain and enhance focus. "Focus Booster is designed to promote mindfulness and high achievement". Tips:

• Use it to stay focused and fresh to do more in less time.
• Use it to visualise your progress.
• Use it to finish your work quickly and accurately.
• Use it to maintain healthy work/life balance.

LeechBlock (Firefox) Most Firefox users use it to block sites for a specific time period. This productivity (tool) extension is useful to set timers on blocked websites. This extension can be easily configured. "LeechBlock ensures distraction-free work". Tips:

• Use it to block sites within fixed time periods.
• Use it to track the total amount of time you have spent on a particular website.

RescueTime This is an all-in-one distraction killing (time-management) tool. It blocks distracting websites and applications as well as notifications. It runs in the background of both your computer and mobile devices. This tool also provides comprehensive reports so that you know exactly how you’ve spent your time during a day. Tips:

• Use it to get weekly email summaries.
• Use it to set and achieve goals.
• Use it to analyse all your activities and get a productivity score.
• Use it to understand your daily habits and improve your focus.
• Use it to manage your time and activities.

So, if you want to fight with uncertain conditions and improve your business’s overall productivity, rely on these tools to ensure growth.

• Is internet marketing the core to your business strategy?
• Do you want to have fruitful connections with your audience?
• Do you want to use effective internet marketing tools?

According to Salesforce and Accenture, internet marketing is the essence of any online business.  In this article, we have explained how it can improve the bottom-line of a business. Ontraport This is the most popular all-in-one business and marketing automation platform. It is designed to lessen the burden of technology for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Use this easy-to-use and flexible tool to automate your email campaigns and send automated SMS messages to your users. It helps you to

• Customise your shopping cart.
•  Create better customer experiences, increase sales and automate internet marketing.

Zapier This powerful and succinct tool helps you to automate your marketing tasks. It connects different online services and lets you automate your tasks. "Zapier helps businesses to reach their strategic goals". Tips:

• Use it to connect social networks and other online services.
• Use it to automate tasks between web apps.
• Use it to improve sales instead of wasting time on data entry.

Visual Website Optimizer If you are not using it, use it now. This is an incredible tool for performing complete A/B and multivariate testing. It is quite easy-to-use and requires no in-depth technical knowledge. "Visual Website Optimizer can increase online sales". Tips:

• Use it to create unlimited tests.
• Use it to track revenue, sign-ups, clicks, engagement, and much more.
• Use it to discover the best performing version of website.
• Use it to optimise and personalise your website.

Hotjar This is an all-in-one analytics tool to study visitors. This tool shows insights and meaningful information through clickmaps, clickmaps, scroolmaps, etc. Use it to explore business opportunities and users’ behaviour. "Hotjar helps to obtain timely and accurate information necessary to orchestrate the marketing mix". Tips:

• Use it to manage multiple client sites from one account.
• Use it to collect actionable data from all pages on your website.
• Use it improve your user experience and performance.

Brand24 This is a great, flexible, practical, useful, reliable and cost-effective social media monitoring tool that allows you to track your brand across social media channels, blogs, forums, etc. All you need to do is to set up keywords you want to monitor. "According to a study, around 80% of consumers research or ask online before making a buying decision". Tips:

• Use it to improve customer satisfaction and sales.
• Use it to take follow-up on positive comments.

So, whether you have a small or large business, use these actionable internet marketing tools to improve ROI.

If you want to sell products online, you need a powerful e-commerce platform, having features like product management, shopping cart, order processing, inventory control, etc. Here are a few exclusive and intuitive e-commerce platforms to choose from: Gumroad This is the most popular e-commerce platform. Its drag-and-drop feature is one of the best. "Gumroad allows all types of creators to sell their work (music, art, books, films, etc) to their audiences". It is easy to set up an online store with the help of Gumroad. In fact, this platform gives you everything you need to start an e-commerce website. Selz Selz offers a great range of  themes and optional apps/applications for your online store. You can easily customise its themes/templates and add physical or digital products in a few simple clicks. (Selz has many game changing features.) It has many advanced add-ons features.  (Selz offers responsive websites). Storenvy Storenvy is the best friend of online entrepreneurs. It offers customised themes and domains along with Facebook Store integration to sell products. It is easier to organise products on Storenvy than any other e-commerce platform. Most of the features and services are free. (Storenvy increases transparency and can significantly impact a company’s growth). Wix (a leading cloud-based development platform) Use this intuitive platform to create a free website. You can customise it with its free website builder, in fact, no coding skill is needed to configure it. All you need to do is to choose an ideal design and begin customising as per your requirements. "Over 90 million people in 180 countries rely on Wix". This platform offers drag-and-drop features, designer-made templates, beautiful galleries, huge image collection, secure hosting, complete support and much more. Beyond that, it also helps you to automate your email marketing to grow your business. (Wix allows you to send invoices and accept payments online in a hassle-free way). "Wix offers an invaluable set of marketing and promotional tools". You should use its Automatic Live Chat application to assist your customers in real-time and provide them with the best. Shopify "Shopify currently powers over 325,000 businesses in approximately 150 countries". Shopify is the most advanced e-commerce platform that has everything you need to sell online. It offers incredible themes, easy to customise features, safety, inventory control features, web hosting facility, 24/7 support, easy-to-use analytics, traffic reports, free tools and much more. "Shopify is one of the best cloud-based, multi-channel commerce platform that is designed for small and medium-sized businesses". Thanks to these platforms, creating an e-commerce site is now easier than ever before. So, embrace one of these e-commerce platforms to write your own success story.

• Are you an e-commerce website owner?
• Do you want to take the advantage of advanced tools to generate leads?
• Want to know about free e-commerce tools to align your marketing activities?

There are many effective and productive tools that can boost the overall visibility of an e-commerce website. Following are a few advanced SEO tools: Yoast Yoast is an SEO-friendly tool/plugin having incredible features and functions. It is especially designed to assist e-commerce websites. "Yoast helps to achieve great results in less time". This plugin allows you to add SEO title, meta description, and meta keywords. It is easy-to-use and free. Ubersuggest Ubersuggest is one of the most acclaimed keyword research tools for e-commerce. This tool adds a letter or a digit to the base term/key phrase  and extracts suggestions for it. Use it to get a great number of keyword ideas. It is easy-to-use, relevant and fast. Spyfu Use it to find the most profitable keywords for PPC and SEO.  No doubt, it is the best competitive intelligence tool. SEOmator This is a useful SEO audit tool designed for SEO professionals to review websites' performance. Use it to analyse web pages for content duplicity, missing image attributes, broken links, header tags, anchor text, etc. "SEOmator brings comprehensive and accurate SEO analysis". This tool also checks internal and external links, language codes, structure data, canonicalisation issues and much more.  Use it to make your e-commerce website error free. SEO PowerSuite SEO PowerSuite is one the most comprehensive SEO software solutions with unique analytical features. It is designed to provide insights and helps you to pick the most effective SEO keywords. "SEO PowerSuite helps to make smarter decisions". You must use it to keep a track of rankings, link analysis, broken links, coding errors, duplicate content, geo-specific rankings, competition, traffic and much more at a single location. Searchmetrics This is a complete SEO platform that covers everything right from rank tracking, keyword research, to backlink analysis. "Searchmetrics can boost business efficiencies and profit margins". You can also see everything in graphical form. It offers premium features for e-commerce businesses of all sizes. Use it to uncover market opportunities and realise current trends to improve your marketing activities. Ahrefs This is one of the most credible tools in the market for backlink research, organic traffic analysis and research, keyword research, content marketing and much more. Use it to know how e-commerce pages perform on search engines. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; so, start using the above mentioned tools to take your e-commerce site to the next level.

Most successful businesses sell their products and services through online stores because today, customers want relevant, smart, flexible, secure and functional online stores to buy products without any hassle. There are many smart and powerful platforms available for e-commerce. All you need to do is to understand them and choose according to your objectives. "Functional e-commerce platforms improve sales". Here are a few robust and versatile e-commerce platforms: PrestaShop (More than 250,000 e-commerce sites run on PrestaShop)  PrestaShop is the most popular and efficient shopping cart software because it is fast, flexible, secure, lightweight and user friendly. "PrestaShop is free to use with no monthly or transaction fees". You must use it because it is SEO-freindly and offers a great variety of templates to use. It is fully schema.org compliant. Optimisers can easily optimise their landing pages as well as choose the most suitable payment solution. Features:

• PrestaShop provides more than 2,000 professional e-commerce website templates.
• It is easy to configure the themes of PrestaShop.

BigCommerce According to a research, BigCommerce merchants grow by 28% year every year, nearly 2x the industry average. BigCommerce, the most trusted e-commerce platform, has many features and capabilities. It is ideal for small businesses. "BigCommerce helps to optimise business’s ROI". This platform offers high-end marketing and conversion tools that enable businesses to improve their ROI. Features:

• You can easily customise your website according to your needs.
• This platform offers more than 100 responsive templates.
• Automates inventory control.
• BigCommerce has a global network of more than 2,000 designers and developers to help business owners and developers.

Shopify (Shopify is  a leading cloud-based, multi-channel e-commerce platform)  Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform that has everything you need to sell online. This platform helps to manage inventory, improve and track sales, monitor growth trends, secure payment, and much more. The platform is also renowned for its extended capabilities. Features:

• Automatically generates sitemap.xml.
• It supports SEO practices, like customisable H1, title, and meta tags.
• Its actionable dashboard of your sales, orders, and traffic helps you make  right decisions.
• Helps to add and remove products to streamline store.
• Shopify integrates with over 70 payment gateways.

So, choose the most suitable platform according to your business’s objectives and budget.

Social media is an ideal medium to promote an event. Today, business leaders, executives, social media influencers and marketers use social media sites to promote their events. Facts:

• 92% of consumers go by word of mouth recommendations.
• Marketing induced word of mouth generates twice the sales of paid advertising.

Simply put, the best way to get the attention of users is to use social media techniques. Advantages of using social media to promote events:

• Easy to manage communication and collaboration.
• Reduces complexity.
• Overcomes limitations of email marketing and other online marketing.
• Provides complete compliance and flexibility of use.

Here are a few techniques they follow:  Share pictures  "A picture is worth a thousand words". Social media messages should always include quality pictures; they should never be limited to text-only posts. If you are promoting an event, post banners, tickets, and other relevant images. Always post at the right time  There is no room for your convenience. Instead, time your post to maximise its reach. For that, use a social media automation tool. Create captivating event hashtags  Create catchy hashtags and for maximum impact, keep them short.  Study your competitors’ to get the best ideas. Follow the trend and understand the rules of creating event hashtags.  Use Multiple Social Networks  To maximise the reach of your event, use more than 3 social networking sites.  Use Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine and Snapchat as well. This will not only diversify your efforts, but also improve your brand awareness. Tips:

• Use the most popular and least competitive network.
• Be an initiator.
• Never ignore the potential of YouTube.

  Organise a Contest  If you want to win the race,  organise contests for your users. Social media contests are effective and attract users. Contests not only create instant awareness, but also help your cause in a dramatic manner. Tips:

•  Organise contests according to the social networking site.
• Organise contests according to the interest of people.
• Pay attention to traffic sources.

Identify your brand advocates To make an event popular, you need to identify  passionate advocates and ask them to help you. Encourage your fans to create user-generated content on your behalf. Share your story  Always share your brand’s story to convey your company’s objectives. You need to create attractive posts and provide link of your “about us” page. If possible, share success stories as well as case studies. Tips:

• Be sure you use your event’s hashtags.
• Share your company’s mission and objectives.

Social media can turn a local event into a national event. So, use it wisely to promote your event.

Social media marketing is quite difficult because it requires time, efforts and skills. Most marketing managers do not have enough time to devise and execute social media marketing strategies. Hence, they should use Social media automation tools to improve their marketing efforts. Here are a few smart Social media automation tools: Crowdfire  Crowdfire works with both Twitter and Instagram;  you can add new users, connect with them and delete inactive users. Tips:

• Use it to schedule posts and use viral hashtags.
• Engage more and more users.
• Remain up-to-date all the time.
• Use it to keep a track of your Twitter and Instagram accounts.

SocialPilot  SocialPilot is the most effective social media scheduling and marketing automation tool.  Use it to save time and increase efficiency. "SocialPilot helps to engage with customers and followers on regular basis". Tips:

• Use its Bulk Scheduling tool to schedule your post quickly.
• Use SocialPilot to upload and preview your post with ease.
• Use it to increase your brand’s visibility.

Hootsuite  Hootsuite improves your social media management and other social activities. This tool helps you to manage multiple networks and profiles at the same time. Hootsuite helps you to keep a close track of multiple social media channels. In fact, it is an ideal tool for those who have less time to devote. "Hootsuite helps to  increase your audiences". Tips:

• Use Hootsuite to find and schedule social content automatically.
• Use it to measure your social ROI.
• Use it to analyse data and improve social media marketing decisions.
• Use Hootsuite to protect your brand and improve its reach.
• Use Hootsuite to grow fans and followers and engage them.

SociAlert  This is a twitter hashtag tracking and analytics tool. This tool helps to analyse hashtags, brand mentions, as well as keywords. Its intuitive dashboard provides comprehensive analysis as well as reports. "SociAlert helps to track hashtags”. Tips:

• Use it to amplify your brand’s reach.
• Use SociAlert to stay ahead of your competitors.
• Use it to measure hashtag impressions.
• Embrace it to know about active users and influencers.

Buffer  Buffer helps you to schedule your social media posts. You can share your content to different social media channels. This is the most effective automation tools that saves time and efforts. Now, there is no need of sharing your post manually. "Buffer helps to remain consistent and focused in social media efforts." Tips:

• Use it to create impressive images.
• Use it to post interesting stuff.
• Use it to reply, make new friends and connections.
• Use its analytics to track clicks, impressions, engagement, reach and much more.
• Use its mobile application to increase fan engagement.

These powerful and effective social media automation tools will ensure your brand  never goes unnoticed.

It is no secret that Instagram can contribute to your business’s growth. Companies with an established fan base get great results, but what about startup companies?  If you are a small business owner and want great results, use Instagram. "With over 500 million monthly active users, Instagram is the 4th most downloaded application in the US." Here are a few techniques to use Instagram for instant growth: Connect social accounts Instagram allows you to connect with other profiles (Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) so that your posts (new posts) can get easily published. All you need to do is to add your website’s address and an effective company profile. Use Instagram Stories  This is similar to Snapchat stories and helps you to create stories using multiple images and videos. This is one of the best features of Instagram. Use Instagram’s analytics tool Use Instagram’s analytics tool to understand user’s behaviour, likes and dislikes, popular hashtags, popular stories, trending videos, etc. This will help you to improve your posts as well as engagement rate. Monitor comments Give due importance to users’ comments and feedbacks. You must respond immediately to comments as well as keep a track of old comments. This will help you to know about your audiences. If you face difficulty in monitoring all the comments, use social media management tools, such as Sprout Social. Use Influencer Marketing  Influencer marketing has huge following. So, use it if you want to get exposed to a wider audience base. Influencer marketing – It is a form of online marketing that focuses on key industry leaders or someone with many active followers to communicate the message of a brand. Benefits of using Influencer marketing:

•  Enhances credibility
• Access to a larger audience

Use Hashtags (Instagram uses hashtags to categorise content) The beauty of hashtags  is that they make your content visible. It not only increases your chances of engagement, but also builds your brand in the market. Create more videos Videos are in vogue; they attract more eyeballs than any other multimedia. If you are on Instagram, you must create more videos and publish regularly to drive better engagement.  Instagram videos are easy to create and publish. Start Regramming (It is a popular process of sharing another Instagram user’s post to your own page.) This is an easy way to start getting  momentum on Instagram. In fact, this is a quick way to share other’s content on the web.  Use Instagram Ads  Instagram Ads are effective as well as affordable. Whether you are a small or big business owner, you can easily establish your brand’s presence with the help of Instagram Ads. Tips:

• Host an Instagram contest to attract users.
• Create custom hashtags for your contest.
• Focus on individuals rather than businesses.
• Start following companies who can support your brand.

Follow these Instagram techniques to improve your business’s growth.

According to studies:

• 55% of B2B marketers and 59% of B2C marketers plan on increasing their content marketing spending.
• 74.2% of companies say that content marketing has boosted their lead quality and quantity.
• 93% of B2B marketers  use content marketing.
• More than 70% of B2B marketers use the “big four” social media sites (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) to distribute content.
• 94% put sales in their top five content marketing goals.

Statistics never lie! Content marketing has become ubiquitous, as more and more marketers recognise it as their most important marketing strategy. However, there are still marketers that do not know how to produce, distribute and share content to establish and improve their brand image. Here are a few excellent content marketing tools that can transform a business: Acrolinx  This software helps the world’s greatest brands to create impressive content. Use this powerful platform to convert browsers into customers. This is advanced software that checks content for grammatical errors, tone and style to help you to  develop a consistent and reliable content marketing campaign. This software also provides in-depth insights on how to boost the impact of your content. No doubt, this platform has the ability to boost conversion rates as well as brand’s credibility. MailChimp If you have less time and resources to streamline your email marketing campaigns, use MailChimp.  Use this tool to create segmented email campaigns and send emails to a segmented group of people. It is easy and flexible enough to support your cause. Tips:

• Use its advanced analytics to track success rate and grow your business.
• Use its suite of mobile apps to check reports and take immediate actions.
• You can integrate it with popular apps and services like Salesforce, Eventbrite, etc.

Feedly If you want to stay ahead of the curve, in terms of content marketing, use Feedly. This tool helps you to organise, read and share content at one place. This effective tool also allows users to curate their own content (news feed) and follow their favourite news publications. This tool has incredible features that help marketers to read a lot of articles and publications. "Feedly is a time saving and productive tool". Tips:

• Use its add-on to save articles and feeds.
• Use it to share useful content to all social media outlets.
• Use it to monitor news alerts about specific brands and products.

Buffer  It is difficult to create content for every platform and post them separately. Buffer simplifies this process and allows marketers to link all social media accounts to one dashboard. This platform helps to schedule, publish and analyse all posts. Tips:

• Use it to get connected with fans and followers.
• Use it to create content/images with the perfect size and format for different platforms.

So, don’t ignore the power of these content automation tools; use them to reach new customers and generate statistically significant results.  

Businesses include Facebook in their online marketing strategies. However, creating a strategy is difficult due to its various features. Hence, you should understand its features before devising your marketing strategies to achieve your objectives. Here are a few Facebook marketing strategies: Use tags to extend your reach  An incredible way to put your post forward is to tag others in your Facebook Post. This is ideal for cross promotion. This strategy will not only increase your reach, but also put you in the middle of marketing. Take advantage of ongoing Trends  Trending topics are a great way to connect with people. In fact, this is the best way to engage people and start conversations. This tip is helpful, if you have an event to promote.  Include Branded Hashtags  Hashtags play a vital role in driving traffic. If used carefully,  these can help you to measure the reach and overall success of your marketing campaign. However, use these according to your objectives. Remember, too much branded hashtags may lower the rate of engagement. Focus on Stories and Promotions  Facebook is a powerful marketing tool, but don’t use it only for marketing. It is a known fact that users like inspirational stories/ideas rather than promotional posts. A good content strategy strikes a balance between promotional and non-promotional post (content). Tips:

• Create motivational stories.
• Never promote your products or services directly.
• Create educational and entertaining posts.
• Attract customers and start conversation.
• Write high quality content.
• Develop content that fulfils your objectives.
• Monitor your posts and their performance.

 Use less words According to studies, Facebook posts between 0-50 characters receive the most engagement. Hence, post crisp and precise content.   You should also include images, videos and infographics. (Images account for 87% of the content shared on Facebook.) Tips:

• Never include unnecessary details.
• Ignore long-form content.
• Write valuable posts.
• Provide links if you have more content to display.
• Display user-generated content.

Use Clear Calls-to-Action Make sure your call-to-action aligns with your content. Also make sure that your call-to-actions stand out and compel users to take actions. Tips:

• Use call-to-actions on articles, blog posts and images.
• Include the word "share" to maximise the reach of your post.

Use original photos Use high quality and original photos because they  convey messages clearly. Facebook posts that have original photos look more organic and personalised.  Tips:

• Use exclusive photos.
• Create compelling stories and embed photos in them.
• Create posts according to the interest of targeted audiences.
• Use Facebook Audience Insights to know about your users.

Bonus tips:

• Use Facebook management tools.
• Monitor and track yours and others’ social activity.
• Create a strategic content calendar.

All these techniques will improve your Facebook engagement and establish your brand.