by Celeste Longbucco DID you know that 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each and every day? Furthermore, thos...
by Celeste Longbucco
DID you know that 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each and every day? Furthermore, those who adopt content marketing have 6x higher conversion rates than others who don’t!
There is no question that content marketing is effective and it’s growing in popularity, but it also demands time and effort.
There is a little secret, however, that the most successful content marketers don’t want everyone else to know…Content marketing tools can take a lot of the work out of the process of content creation while maximizing productivity.
In this post, we’ll show you 10 amazing content marketing tools that industry experts are using to simplify the content creation process.
Let’s dig in…
1. Trello – Project Organizing Tool
When creating content, staying organized is of the utmost importance. You need to know who is in charge of what, when things are due, and what all is going on. Trello is a tool (essentially built to be used by teams, but great for individuals too) that’ll help you keep your work organized. Groups of users can join together in this one place to collaborate and stay on the same page (literally and figuratively). No more searching through email threads to piece together your content campaigns.
You can create “boards”, each with their own “cards” as shown above, to organize projects. Also, add members to work on tasks as needed and move cards between boards to keep up to date with what’s been done and what items are still due. An added bonus about Trello is it’s free.
2. Feedly – RSS Feed Tool
If you’re looking for hot topics that’ll help you come up with ideas for a piece, the best place to look is at what’s being published on popular blogs in your niche. Visiting each blog one by one is an enormous time vacuum. Enter here Feedly.
Feedly is a super easy place to search for industry leaders in specific niches, add them to your feed, and then stay up to date on what they are posting. The interface organizes them all in one neat place for easy browsing. What you can do manually in an hour, Feedly can do in just a matter of seconds. Do you feel your day getting freed up already?
3. MozBar – Domain and Page Authority Stats Tool
MozBar is a toolbar you add as an extension in your browser that allows you to measure domain and page authority along with social sharing stats. Once installed, your Google search results will look like the screenshot below.
If you click on link analysis, a new tab opens which gives you a wealth of information about that search result. See below.
This allows you to research your competition very easily and in depth in terms of domain/page authority and backlink data. If you’re keen on exploring niche competitiveness in search results, there’s also a button available with the premium subscription that lets you get keyword difficulty.
4. Easel.ly – Image Creation Tool
It’s no secret that traffic and conversions get a boost when visual content is integrated with the text, but creating images, videos, and infographics can be time intensive, hard to make to a professional standard, and expensive to continuously hire out. This is why I love Easel.ly. With templates like this one below, you can simply input the text you have in the graphic and you are good to go.
Seriously, anyone can make awesome looking infographics in just a few minutes. If you want more templates and variables to choose from, you can upgrade from the free version to the premium option.
5. Grammarly – Proofreading Tool
The biggest turn off for someone reading your content is annoying grammar and spelling mistakes. However, it can be hard to catch every little one yourself. That is where professionals use a tool like Grammarly. You can download Grammarly and integrate it into Microsoft Word and your internet browser. It will automatically scan your documents, show your errors, and offer suggestions to fix them.
You can also upgrade to a paid version to get a more in-depth analysis of your writing. A bonus is that Grammarly analyzes the corrections it suggests to your documents each month and sends you a summary which can help you improve your writing skills.
6. TrendSpottr – Trend Spotting Tool
How do you gain attention and engagement? Create and share content on a trending topic before the competitors catch up with the hype. However, spotting a trend isn’t always easy (even for experts), but with TrendSpottr, it becomes virtually effortless.
You simply log in and search for the general term you are interested in using the search bar at the top of the page. Then, you will get results like these that show you top trending specific terms on the left, along with recent posts on that topic in the middle column. You can also look at the sentiment the term is receiving, the momentum it’s gaining or losing, and compare your search term to another term to gauge trending strength. This is very cool and allows you to write about what people care about most at the moment.
7. Buffer – Social Media Management Tool
In order to see real results on that great content you’re creating, you need to effectively promote and manage it on social media. But, you don’t want to do this manually because it’s truly like a full-time job in itself. This is where Buffer is the perfect tool because you can connect your social media accounts (like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn etc.) and automate posting to them.
The page you see above is where you schedule your posts on Buffer so you can create a consistent stream of content for your followers. This helps to keep them engaged and grows your follower base without missing a beat. The content tab on the left is where you add in the posts you would like to be scheduled and then, of course, you can monitor performance with the analytics tab. This is a huge key to saving time and taking a few steps closer to content marketing success.
8. Buzz Sumo – Industry Listening Tool
Buzz Sumo is a resource that listens to what is going on in various industries. It is another tool that is helpful for spotting trends. You simply type in the topic you are interested in and you can see which content is most shared and trending. You can also analyze the content, compare domains, and see top authors. Easily view how many shares each piece of content has received on various social media platforms, as well as the backlinks each piece of content has.
This can help when researching topics to write or share and also to locate influencers in your desired industry.
9. Check My Links – Link Auditing Tool
Broken links on your website hurt your SEO and the experience of your users. You don’t want to risk losing a visitor because your link is a dead end, so it is important to ensure that your cited resources deliver valuable and contextual additions to the content on your page. Check My List is a very simple extension to your browser toolbar which will check any page for broken links. Easily identify and fix them, without using up hardly any time.
10. SEMrush – Competitor Research Tool
Last but not least we have SEMrush. In order to ensure that you’re creating and marketing content that’s going to do well, you’ll need to know what the competition is putting out there (yes, you need to do a little spy work).
SEMrush is one of the best tools for this purpose. If you want to find out what keywords the readers and researchers use to find a specific website online, SEMrush will pinpoint that data. The tool tracks and analyzes rankings, competitors, links, keywords and PPC ad spending for any domain you need info on. Plus, the dashboard is really nice and easy to understand.
Industry Experts Agree
There you have 10 of the best content marketing tools to help boost efficiency and save your precious time. We all want to be successful, but also want to have time to enjoy off. Not only do these help you do that, but they can significantly increase how effective your content is at the same time. Don’t just take it from me, see what other content marketing experts are saying about these tools:
TopTenReviews named Grammarly the “The best overall online grammar checker; it offers thorough and accurate tools, features and explanations of grammar rules. You can’t go wrong with this online service.”
Gael Breton from Authority Hacker says “Who doesn’t want to know what their competitors rank for?” He says SEMRush is his #1 way of finding keywords.
Adam Connell of bloggingwizard.com says Buzz Sumo is one of his favorite tools. He says the following “Not your usual keyword research tool and well, it’s not. Keyword research has been a foundation of content planning for a good while and it’s about more than specific keywords, it’s about topical reliance and intent. I use BuzzSumo to validate my keyword research and get an idea of how much certain topics get shared.”
Are there any other tools that we missed? Help us out by sharing your favorites!
Or, perhaps you need a bit more help in the content management area? This 2-in-1 spy tool for Facebook Advertising helps expedite your content creation and eliminate the guesswork of creating relevant ads for your target audience. Check out Adsviser today!
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