Content marketers have a seemingly endless number of tools at their disposal to make their jobs easier. Whether it’s optimizing your social media accounts, researching the best keywords to use, or creating visuals to accompany your content, there’s something online for everyone (and often times free).
The hard part? Cutting through the noise and finding the best tools for the money.
Luckily, our #ContentChat community regularly discusses the must-have content marketing tools that they use in their professional life. Here’s a selection of the most mentioned and loved content marketing tools. Note that I’ve included affiliate links for a few of the tools I use every day and recommend the most. If you make a purchase from one of those links, I may receive a small commission.
If your favorite isn’t on this list, comment below:
Grammar & Plagiarism Tools
- Copyscape
- While most of its value comes from its paid offering, Copyscape has a free comparison tool to check websites or text for plagiarism. With the premium offering, you can check text for plagiarism with a search of the entire internet. This can come in handy if you’re managing a guest blogging program.
- Grammarly
- This free browser extension checks your content for critical grammar and spelling checks, and its premium offering has advanced checks for punctuation, context, and even plagiarism. Use my affiliate link to try it out for yourself—if you end up going pro, I’ll receive a small commission.
Influencer Research Tools
- BuzzSumo
- BuzzSumo can give you a more comprehensive look at your social footprint, helping to track what content is working well and identify the most influential users in your space.
- Klear
- This influencer search engine can help you find the most trusted voices across social networks and blogs, and paid offerings add relationship management and measurement capabilities.
Keyword Research Tools
- AnswerThePublic
- This highly visual tool distills the who, what, when, where, how, and why of any term to see what people are searching for. Be sure to linger on the homepage for a minute so you can see the video through to its completion.
- Moz
- This all-in-one SEO tracking and research toolset has a range of free offerings for SEO, link building, and local marketing. Paid options unlock the full suite of tools. I personally use it to create at-a-glance website performance dashboards for my clients.
- Neil Patel Uber Suggest
- Get data on keywords with just a quick. Whether it’s for SEO or PPC, this free tool gives you data on keywords, as well as suggestions for others.
- SpyFu
- Stay ahead of the competition by getting data on their most profitable keywords and ads for paid and organic search. The free functionality with SpyFu is limited, but paid options give you unlimited data and downloads.
- Yoast.com/suggest
- Enter your keyword and this will suggest new long tail keywords. Just what you need when you’ve got a blog deadline combined with writer’s block.
Reputation Management & Media Monitoring Tools
- Mention
- This platform provides real-time media monitoring for your brand and your competitors, as well as use cases for crisis management, influencer marketing, and competitive analysis.
- Meltwater
- Meltwater has solutions for marketing, PR, and communications, including insights on your share of voice, brand monitoring, and influencer research. Disclosure: I’m a long-time content marketing contributor for Meltwater.
Social Media Schedulers & Management Tools
- Buffer
- A close competitor of Hootsuite, Buffer is a widely used social media scheduling tool that’s worth a look. Buffer has the greatest appeal for smaller teams or if you’re only juggling a few social profiles, but both Buffer and Hootsuite support businesses of all sizes.
- Hootsuite
- If you have ever worked in social media, chances are pretty good that you already you know of Hootsuite. This social media marketing and management dashboard has everything you need to thrive on social, including good support for team workflows. That said, it’s worth it to try other offerings in the space to find the best fit for your team.
- MeetEdgar
- MeetEdgar is unique in its approach to combating social media overload by helping you to easily share and reshare your best content over time, automatically. If you want to give it a try with a 30-day 100 percent money-back guarantee, check out my referral link (it also has more details on the product). Or, you can follow them on Twitter @MeetEdgar for the latest social media tips and resources. They host #SoloBizChat on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. ET, and are also a regular participant in our #ContentChat!
- Sprout Social
- Sprout Social is a great option for everything from robust social analytics, social engagement, social publishing, and social listening. Plus, it’s built to scale. I’m a long-time Sprout Social user and highly recommend it. Use my affiliate link when you sign up for your free trial and help support #ContentChat.
Visual Tools
- Canva
- Tackle design needs with ease with Canva. The interface is easy to navigate and can help with everything from posters to infographics. I build all of my #ContentChat promo images and blog post headers with Canva.
- GIPHY
- Make your content more animated and personal with GIFs, and GIPHY makes it easy to find or create a GIF for any occasion. The site also allows for you to apply for a brand channel if you are a recurring GIF creator.
- Pablo by Buffer
- Even if you don’t choose Buffer for your scheduling, Pablo is incredibly easy to use when you want to overlay text over any image and share on your social. You can either choose from their 600k+ images, or you can upload your own.
- PicMonkey
- If you need photo editing and design capabilities, PicMonkey is well worth your while. The tool has an expansive library of fonts and templates, and can easily become your go-to for most design needs. Use my affiliate link to get a free one week trial to test it out yourself.
- Unsplash
- If you think that royalty-free images are only available with a big price tag, you are going to love Unsplash. This community of photographers provides gorgeous free visuals to complement your content.
The Holy Grail
- Google
- Oh Google, how we love you. If you have a content marketing need that the tools above can’t quite crack, give it a Google search or try Google’s marketing tools before you reinvent the wheel. You can even set up Google Alerts for tracking purposes so you’re always in the know on the key topics that affect your business.
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