While having the correct tech stack will undoubtedly help you complete the task better, simpler, and more effectively, no content marketing tool can completely substitute a sound plan and skilled personnel. Numerous content marketing tools are available, some of which are free or inexpensive and some of which are highly expensive. They also fulfil a huge variety of needs, including those related to content creation, promotion, and optimization. The world of content marketing tools is expanding yearly.
This is interesting because it implies that, in most cases, there is software available to assist in the resolution of problems. However, it’s also overpowering. How do you tell which of the several hundred tools is worthwhile using? We’ll list the best content marketing tools currently trending in the market:
1. WordPress
Users may create websites easily and rapidly because of the adaptable templates. Additionally, it interfaces with several plug-ins to advance your job. The most popular CMS in the world is WordPress. According to Search Engine Journal, WordPress is used to power around 39.5 per cent of all websites.
Social proof can occasionally mislead us, but it turns out that WordPress is a fairly potent tool, both at the beginning and as your content marketing campaign develops (and it’s employed by websites like The New Yorker and The Next Web).
WordPress is a basic open-source content management system (CMS) that lets you host and create websites. Your website can be self-hosted or hosted by WordPress.com. WordPress has a template system and a plugin architecture that allow you to personalise any website to meet your company, blog, portfolio, or online store. Bloggers frequently utilise this platform because of how flexible it is.
2. HubSpot
With HubSpot’s multitude of tools and platforms, you can scale your business without any difficulty. Many of the content marketing tools that HubSpot offers may be tried for free. These consist of:
- An effective form builder
- Popup devices
- Bots and live chat
- A WordPress plugin for marketing that is all-inclusive.
A world-class CMS, the most potent marketing automation platform in the business, and the ability to consolidate everything under a free CRM are all available through HubSpot if you truly want to construct a growth engine. This implies that HubSpot provides a solution that can assist you in developing your content marketing campaign at every stage of a company’s growth.
3. Airstory
With Airstory, you can end writer’s block. Your notes, ideas, and research are all conveniently organised and exported with this software. Airstory is a more effective writing tool if you do want to raise your writing and collaboration game. It may be time to look into Airstory if you often go between Evernote, Google Docs, and Google Drive and constantly seem to have a hundred tabs open for research. You may drag and drop saved quotations, photos, and multimedia into any writing application. As a result, it’s a fantastic tool for both authors and cooperation.
4. Google Docs
It is extensively utilised, cost-free, and easy to start using. Google Docs is a need if you can utilise word processing software. When it comes to content marketing tools, Google Docs is like a kitchen to a chef: it’s where all of the work is completed before the presentation.
There are practically any content marketers that don’t create their pieces on Google Docs. By far the greatest tool for collaboration, it’s also simple to use and offers a positive user experience. With a few clicks, you may quickly and effortlessly share documents with your colleagues. Additionally, by using the “suggestions” and “comments” capabilities, you may grant select individuals editing access and examine their remarks.
You can frequently discover a mechanism to directly upload Google Docs to your CMS as well. In the case of HubSpot, you are automatically able to accomplish that. You may use a programme like Wordable to assist you if you use WordPress. Google Docs is easy to use, completely free, and widely available. Few reasons exist not to utilise it.
5. Yoast
One of the greatest SEO WordPress plugins available, Yoast is simple to use. One of my favourite programmes for creating content with an SEO focus is Yoast. It’s a kind of “all-in-one” WordPress SEO plugin that assists with a wide range of duties, such as optimising content for a keyword, evaluating and updating meta descriptions and URL slugs, abstracting away technical SEO tasks, and proposing pertinent internal links. It’s straightforward to see whether you’ve optimised your website appropriately or where more work needs to be done thanks to the red, yellow, and green basic indications.
Yoast is used by every WordPress user I know, according to anecdotal evidence, and they have over 9,000,000 downloads and 4.9 out of 5 ratings in the WordPress marketplace. It’s just a fantastic plugin.
6. Grammarly
Grammarly functions in a variety of communication contexts, including social media, papers, and email. Grammarly has transformed the game as a content marketing tool. You wouldn’t be praising me right now for the countless language errors strewn across my writings if it weren’t for skilled editors. I’m not naturally what you would call “detail-oriented,” so if it weren’t for them.
However, Grammarly likely cuts the error rate by half to eighty per cent. Grammarly helps me avoid humiliation to a considerable extent, even though I occasionally still make mistakes (it’s not only for writing articles; it also works for comments on social media and forums). Their Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browser add-on deliver a fundamental grammar and punctuation plan without cost.
7. Ahrefs
Ahrefs may be utilised for fundamental SEO research as well as for more involved tasks like performance reporting. You may customise the cadence of these reports so that you always know what’s going on. It’s helpful for a variety of things, like monitoring the ranks of your keywords and researching the traffic and keywords of your rivals.
Every time I believe I’ve mastered all of Ahrefs’ features, I discover a fresh one that surprises and excites me. The fundamentals, like keyword research or a site analyzer, are great. However, I also adore reports like “top pages” (where you can examine a website’s most valuable pages) and “content gap” (where you can examine the rankings vis-a-vis yourself)
8. BuzzSumo
For those short on time, Buzzsumo removes the guesswork from content selection and influencer marketing. Buzzsumo is a fantastic all-around research tool in the realm of content marketing tools. It may assist you in determining what material performs best for any subject or rival, which is one of its key uses. Metrics like social shares, backlinks, and the influencers who are promoting a particular piece of content are all visible.
Buzzsumo may be used for content planning purposes to see which subjects are trending across numerous platforms and which headlines are generating the most interaction. Additionally, they provide excellent influencer reports that let you understand who the opinion leaders are in a certain field.
9. Loom
Loom is adaptable and simple to use. Use it to quickly respond to inquiries or clarify difficult subjects that call for visual help. We consider it a must-have tool. It’s a straightforward tool with several effective applications outside of content marketing. You can make, edit, record your screen, and share videos with it. This content marketing tool is just amazing since with it you can make and incorporate tutorials for technical walkthroughs.
In terms of organisation, it’s amazing too. It works well for sharing brief clarifications or queries with other team members (without requiring a full, synchronous meeting).
10. Vidyard
The analytics and personalization tools provided by Vidyard show organisations how to use their content to increase engagement as well as how well it is doing. A video marketing tool called Vidyard enables you to host, distribute, and advertise video material on your website.
They also provide a sales solution to assist you to close more deals, but I’m more accustomed to the marketing solution. Strong video analytics are offered by Vidyard. You may customise videos, do A/B testing, and even gate videos after a particular amount of time to aid in lead generation. They can also quickly link your films with other CRM, email, and social networks, as well as optimise them for SEO.
11. Airtable
Airtable is wonderful for centrally storing a lot of data (hello, spreadsheets) and sorting it using personalised filters. Another project management application is Airtable, however, it’s a little more difficult to use (though also customizable). It resembles a hybrid of spreadsheets and Trello. Again, Airtable has a wide range of use cases, but it’s a particularly great content marketing tool for the following two content marketing objectives:
- Editorial schedules
- Managing writers and influencers
- Monitoring of marketing campaigns
In the past, Airtable has also been utilised for growth experiments and standard team operating papers, among other things.
12. Trello
Trello organises all of your team’s projects in one location and is flexible enough to change as your requirements do. When you really begin creating material, you’ll need a method for organising the operation. This is especially true if you’re dealing with a large crew or number of contributors. Trello is a straightforward kanban and project management application, making it versatile. In fact, it can be used for a tonne of things, including growth experiments, sales pipelines, and roadmaps for product features.
13. Hotjar
Business owners may accurately assess how visitors interact with their website using Hotjar’s capabilities. It’s fantastic for academics, designers, and marketers. One of the top user experience metrics tools is Hotjar. It has several qualitative tools, like session replays, questionnaires, and on-site polls. Hotjar’s tools may help you begin to look into the “why” of user activity, whereas Google Analytics can help you discover the “what” and “where” of user behaviour. Additionally, they offer various analytical tools like heat maps. These enable you to see clearly where your visitors are clicking and scrolling on your website.
14. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is widely available, cost-free, and simple to use. Use it to track visitor activity and see how people find your website. The topic of measurement must be covered when discussing content marketing tools.
Of course, tools for SEO like Google Search Console and others already mentioned, like Ahrefs, might provide you with some useful data. To track company KPIs, you’ll also need a digital analytics platform. One of the most popular internet platforms is Google Analytics. It is free and simple to use (at least in the fundamental setups). Big two advantages.
If you’re technical and understand how to put up a suitable setup, it’s also incredibly powerful. Not only can you set up behavioural events like scroll-depth, but you can also track objectives like form submissions and product purchases.
The best part is that it doesn’t take much to get all of this information. You only need to set up your Google Analytics account and paste the given code onto your website to get started. The data from your website will instantly begin to be tracked by Google Analytics.
15. Mutiny
Ingenious, AI-driven technology is used by Mutiny to assist with direct content suggestions. Users may instantly alter their website and view outcomes in real-time thanks to its website customization tools. Personalization is another fascinating area to investigate in addition to A/B testing. Personalization enables you to offer several distinct experiences to segments of your audience, as opposed to A/B testing, which is a controlled trial with a short time frame.
For instance, you may employ various popup forms to target mobile consumers. Alternately, you may send an offer for a certain ebook to visitors who have read three blog entries. Additionally, you could use an in-text CTA to target readers who have scrolled through 75% of a certain blog piece.
The only restrictions are your time, finances, ingenuity, and priorities; otherwise, the alternatives are unlimited. Anyway, my preferred platform in this area is Mutiny. If you’re in e-commerce, you might want to consider another product like CMS Hub because it’s made for B2B. However, Mutiny is a solid and functionally rich newer player.
16. Google Optimize
Utilizing the strength of their analytics and statistical tools, Google Optimize enables businesses to identify the areas that require the most work and discover the content that site users interact with the most. For whatever test you want to run, statistical modelling tools imitate real-world performance.
At this time, we probably know a lot about our readers and our website because we have both a qualitative insights platform (Hotjar) and a quantitative digital analytics tool (Google Analytics). What happens, though, if we wish to update our blog or landing pages? We can put up A/B testing for site updates.
There are several tools available for this, but because Google Optimize is free, I wanted to include it. It’s a fantastic option to start with and get acclimated to. Here’s an excellent post comparing the available alternatives if you do decide to look into additional possibilities. But an excellent place to start is Google Optimize.
17. Canva
Design beginners may simply produce infographics and other materials suited for print materials, social media posts, and blogging platforms because of Canva’s user-friendly interface (UI). What happens if a stock photo isn’t good enough and you want to create your own imagery? Here, Canva is a fantastic choice.
You don’t actually need to have strong graphic design abilities to use Canva. Even though I’m a terrible designer, Canva allows me to produce passable visuals. It is mostly intended for laypeople. All forms of content marketing imagery, including social media pictures, blog cover photographs, Twitter cover photos, etc., work really well with this content marketing tool. It’s pretty multifunctional. Use one of their templates as a starting point or start entirely from scratch. You can construct materials if you know how to drag and drop.
18. TheStocks.IM
You may save time by combining several free photo sources into one with TheStocks.IM. A stock photo website makes perfect sense to include in this list of content marketing tools because most effective content marketing contains visuals. Unsplash, which is one of my favorite free stock picture websites, and Pixabay are two reasons why most users enjoy TheStocks.IM. Simply enter the subject or item you’re looking for in the search box, and it will get photographs from all the platforms it uses as a source.
19. Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop has a plethora of applications. Your products will seem more professional and you’ll have more creative freedom if you can master this design tool. What happens, though, if you wish to create your own artwork and are skilled in graphic design?
Photoshop is the industry standard here, therefore. It works well for editing photos and producing visuals like Facebook covers, blog headers, and even screenshot lessons. A little Photoshop expertise, in my opinion, goes a long way. Instead of being constrained by a specific template or layout, mastering Photoshop will enable businesses and marketing teams to generate unique designs and materials to meet their needs.
Final words
Although they won’t be able to make up for a poor content strategy, content marketing tools will undoubtedly make your job easier and more efficient. Despite the fact that there are many more content marketing tools available, this list includes the top ones for the majority of marketing requirements. Try them out and see how they improve the strategy and execution of your content development.
