200+ Content Creation Tools: How to Research, Write, and Share Amazing Blogs

Rachel Andrea Go / May 27, 2024

If you write content and need a directory to help you navigate all the amazing tools and services on the web, look no further.

After writing 538 professional blog posts* (and that’s the last time I’m going to hunt down all the articles I wrote for various clients), I decided to share the many tools I’ve found helpful to research, write, edit, and share amazing blogs.

*counted December 7, 2015. I didn’t recount for the update, but you can check out my portfolio to see what I’ve done!

This article is broken into six major sections with subsections linked below for easy navigation:

1) Inspiration and collecting ideas

• Industry trends
• Audience research
• Customer research
• Team brainstorms
• Competitor analysis
• Keyword and topic research
• Compiling your ideas

2) Writing and editing

• Title formulation
• Outline crafting
• Content creation
• Content platforms
• Website design
• Editing and proofing
• Plagiarism checkers

3) Graphics

• Image creators
• Royalty-free images
• Screen capturing
• Video hosting and creation
• Webinar recording repurposing

4) SEO and sharing

• Search engine optimization
• Amplification and sharing

5) Monitoring, analysis, and development

• Web analytics
• Single source of truth for all your data
• Monitoring coverage
• Heatmaps
• Session replays
• Conversion optimization

6) Miscellaneous

1) Inspiration and collecting ideas

When collecting content ideas, start by looking at what’s happening in your industry, what your customers are saying, and what your team members have observed.

Industry trends

Industries change more often than you may realize. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the eCommerce industry (opens in a new tab) by at least five years. Meanwhile, the Google search algorithm changes (opens in a new tab) 500 to 600 times every year. Stay on top of fast-paced industry trends with the following tools to keep your blog relevant and credible.

1. Google Alerts (opens in a new tab): Monitor what people are saying all over the web

Beyond speaking directly with customers, Google Alerts serves as your eyes and ears on the web.

You choose which keywords you want to watch, and the tool will deliver news about those terms to your email inbox at the frequency you select. For instance, if you’re interested in online marketing, set up alerts for “inbound marketing” to receive emails when someone mentions that phrase online.

Pricing: Free, but you need a Google account

2. Talkwalker Alerts (opens in a new tab): “Better than Google Alerts”

Talkwalker Alerts is a free tool by Talkwalker that touts itself as being superior to Google Alerts.

To use the the tool, you need to choose something to create an alert about, such as your brand name, a competitor, or even a keyword. After, you provide your email address, which sites you want to monitor (e.g. Twitter, Google News), how often you want to receive updates, and how many results you want per alert.

Pricing: Free, but you need to give your email address

3. Pocket (opens in a new tab): Put interesting content into your virtual “pocket”

Pocket is a content aggregator that gives you useful content online.

Even better, if you find something interesting on the web, you can add it to your Pocket account to revisit later.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($44.99/year or $4.99/month)

4. Flipboard (opens in a new tab): Transform interesting content into a personal magazine

Similar to Pocket, Flipboard is a service that aggregates articles you like into your own online magazine.

You can browse articles that other users store in Pocket or Flipboard based on topics that interest you. You can also follow hashtags to see what’s new in your space and add your own content to the database.

Pricing: Free

5. Exploding Topics (opens in a new tab): Discover trends before they happen

Exploding Topics monitors industries through Google and its own database to figure out what people are looking for. Its graphs clearly display when a topic “explodes” or is about to.

In the free version, you can filter by pre-set categories and see which topics are currently “exploding” based on search volume and history. This is a great way to learn what your audience is searching for, what’s relevant to your business, and how to capture some of that traffic with your content.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($39-$249/month)

6. Muck Rack (opens in a new tab): Stay on top of industry news

Muck Rack also helps you discover upcoming trends and keywords based on search performance.

Although similar to Exploding Topics, Much Rack categorizes data by industry instead of random topics. On the home page, for example, you’ll see all late-night TV show hosts are categorized (and compared to each other) under the industry “Late-night TV hosts.”

Pricing: Free for searches. You’ll need to request pricing (opens in a new tab) for the full solution.

7. Google Trends (opens in a new tab): Discover what’s trending around the world right now

Use Google Trends to learn what people are searching for at this second so you can create real-time content that jumps on current trends.

Google Trends is the place to go for real-time search data. Use the information provided to dive deeper into the engine’s search terms and see what’s trending across Google search, news, and YouTube all over the world. You can even view historical data to see how popularity changes over time so you can craft relevant content based on trend fluctuations.

Pricing: Free

Audience research

Even more important than industry trends are audience insights — what your target market’s pain points are and how you can position yourself as the solution. Here are a few market research tools and services to get to know your audience better.

1. Audiense (opens in a new tab): Visualize your audience segments

The free version of Audiense looks at your social media followers — their location, biography, gender, etc. — and reveals more about them through a visually appealing interactive web.

Its web-style mapping and color-coding make it easy to visualize your customer base. Additionally, it tells you how your audience identifies themselves.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (£1199/month to custom)

2. SparkToro (opens in a new tab): Resonate with your audience by learning how they see themselves

SparkToro is an audience analysis tool that provides insight into what your target audience is talking about, the blogs and podcasts they follow, and how they use their social profiles.

Input key terms your audience discusses, hashtags they use, social media accounts they follow, or websites they visit to compile a profile of their other likely interests and channels.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($38-$225/month)

3. Attest (opens in a new tab): Tap into 110 million people for consumer research

Attest has one solution for audience research: consumer profiling (opens in a new tab).

It’s built a pool of 110 million people in 49 different markets that you can reach within minutes. Set your questions, establish audience parameters, and Attest will deliver the results from its consumer database. The tool can even help craft personas from that data.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (demo required)

4. Pollfish (opens in a new tab): Gather audience data from over 160 countries

Pollfish is a market research service that gathers clean, quality data from your target market using its audience network of real consumers across more than 160 countries.

Create your own survey on this self-service platform. Then, link to third-party surveys and use Pollfish’s API access point to power your research. It has a variety of predefined questions organized by type to get you started as well as the ability to embed media and add screening questions prior to taking the survey.

Pricing: Priced based on completed surveys (opens in a new tab) ($95 to custom)

5. Dynata (opens in a new tab): Reach over 62 million business professionals and consumers

Dynata allows you to create your own surveys, either by yourself or with guidance from its team.

This platform can handle the entire process on your behalf and build the survey for you. It then gathers insights from its pool of consumers and delivers them to you.

Pricing: Request a demo (opens in a new tab) for pricing

6. SurveyMonkey Audience (opens in a new tab): No-fuss customer research solution

SurveyMonkey Audience lets you select your audience, construct your survey, and have results delivered straight to you with zero hassle.

It boasts respondents from more than 100 countries, up to 5,000 responses with a less-than-3% margin of error, and bot and fraud protection.

Pricing: Get an estimate (opens in a new tab)

7. Aytm (opens in a new tab) (Ask Your Target Market): Demographic targeting for over 100 million respondents

Aytm gives you access to its proprietary panel of more than 100 million respondents around the world in over 40 countries.

You build the survey and the platform does the rest. They have demographic and location targeting features that help you reach only relevant members of the Aytm panel. The solution can also perform research for you and deliver the compiled findings.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($150/month to custom)

8. Respondent (opens in a new tab): Reach and reward business professionals

Respondent maintains a database of business professionals that you can talk to one-on-one.

After you post a project, you’ll receive a list of professionals who match your criteria. You can then message them, invite them to a call, and reward them for their time — all within the Respondent platform.

This market research tool lets you create research projects, set up budgets for respondents, and invite professionals with verified work information to participate. Respondent goes beyond a simple survey platform, as you can conduct video calls, phone calls, or in-person discussions as well.

Pricing: Per-interview rate (opens in a new tab) ($24/month to custom)

9. Conjoint.ly (opens in a new tab): Data within days, not weeks

Conjoint.ly boasts a user-friendly interface and curated respondent pool.

They possess a wealth of tools and support for product and pricing research. This isn’t necessarily market research simply for the sake of content creation (e.g., what topics your market cares about most), but it can be useful for figuring out your target segment based on what people would pay for your product. You can also learn what features are most important to them and craft content around those findings.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (pricing differs by product)

10. Wynter (opens in a new tab): Gauge customer reactions to your content

Wynter differentiates itself from the other audience research tools on this list by being a more content-focused tool (opens in a new tab). They run message testing for your website by showing your content to their verified B2B respondent pool and asking them for feedback.

They also conduct audience testing for ads, email copy, blog posts, and surveys.

Pricing: One free report, then you have to subscribe to a paid account (opens in a new tab) ($6,990-$29,000/year)

11. Facebook IQ Audience Insights (opens in a new tab): Get to know your audience

While privacy rules have affected the accuracy of Facebook’s Audience Insights, it’s still worth checking out. They’ve collected a lot of data on what people are searching and looking at.

You don’t need to run ads to access insights, but if you find an audience that’s a perfect fit for your business, you can run targeted ads to reach them.

Pricing: Free with a Meta business account

12. Market Finder by Think with Google (opens in a new tab): Know where your best audience is

If you’re unsure where to find your target market, Google can help you in a matter of seconds.

After you enter your company’s webpage URL, Market Finder looks at what services you offer. It then tells you what states in the U.S. or global countries have the most engaged consumers for what you offer.

Pricing: Free

13. BoardReader (opens in a new tab): A forum search engine that connects you to communities

BoardReader is like Google for forums. By aggregating forum and discussion board results, it’s the ideal tool for uncovering audience insights or conducting topic research for your content’s search terms or keywords.

BoardReader is useful for learning what your customers are saying online and exploring their wants, needs, and queries. Enter your search query, and the tool will display search results containing relevant information, opinions, and conversations. 

Pricing: Free

14. Make My Persona: (opens in a new tab) Construct a simple buyer or user persona

Once you’ve uncovered who your customers are and what makes them tick, you can use HubSpot’s Make My Persona to build a buyer persona template based on those findings to share with your team.

Leveraging information about the type of consumer you’d like to target, Make My Persona will return an ideal customer template for you. Define your persona using demographic, career, and job role characteristics, along with relevant behavioral and psychographic data to produce an accurate reflection of your intended buyer. Then, share it with your marketing, sales, and product teams to bring everyone in alignment.

Pricing: Free

Customer research

When you need to hear directly from your market, surveys are an easy way to test the waters and gather quick feedback for your most burning questions. But how do you know what questions to ask and how to ask them so you uncover the answers you need?

Below are some tools for building surveys and holding customer interviews that enrich your content.

Building your own surveys

1. Bellini Slushie (opens in a new tab): Survey question database

Bellini Slushie is a free platform that gives you survey questions based on your demographics.

This platform eliminates the need to crawl the internet searching for sample questions, types of inquiries, response options, and phrasing, as well as quizzing colleagues to build a survey.

Pricing: Free

2. Typeform (opens in a new tab): Survey beautifully

Typeform rose to fame because of their user-friendly and visually appealing interface.

It lets you create interactive forms and surveys that your audience will love to complete. To to keep respondents engaged, Typeform displays only one question at a time and boasts a library of photos and videos to embed. They also have conditional logic features that let you customize questions based on respondents’ answers.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($25/month to custom)

3. Google Forms (opens in a new tab): Survey + Data

Google Forms has been the go-to survey tool for companies, students, teachers, and individuals alike because it’s the total package.

Although less customizable than Typeform, this option still allows you to add branding, images, and videos to your questionnaire. It’s easy to set up and use, and you can view responses in real time or export them to a spreadsheet.

Pricing: Free for personal use

4. Airtable (opens in a new tab): Survey to workflow in seconds

Airtable isn’t specifically a platform to create surveys, but their forms are pretty impressive.

The forms integrate with your database so your respondents (and their answers) are automatically incorporated into your workflow. You can then use add-ons to transform data entries into charts to observe trends and takeaways.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($24/month to custom)

5. Hotjar (opens in a new tab): Survey ALL your website visitors

Like Airtable, Hotjar isn’t solely a form-building tool, but their forms differentiate themselves by integrating directly with your website so they appear on the homepage, meaning you can create and launch surveys all in one place.

Their surveying tool provides an in-app and on-website pop-up questionnaire that customers and visitors can answer without any hassle. Plus, their heat mapping features reveal where respondents drop off most frequently so you can adjust your survey for maximum response.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($32-$171/month)

6. PMFsurvey (opens in a new tab): Free and powerful

PMFsurvey is a free tool designed to help run the Sean Ellis test and measure your company’s product-market fit.

The solution specifically measures the percentage of users who would be disappointed if they could no longer use your product.

🔥 Tip: According to PMFsurvey, you have product-market fit if more than 40% of your consumers can’t live without your product.

Pricing: Free

📚 Find out how to collect the best data and what questions to ask 📚
👉 Is your customer exit survey giving you the insights you need? 👈

7. Zoho Survey (opens in a new tab): Create surveys and see visual results in real time

Zoho Survey gives you the tools to construct free online surveys that gather customer insights on any device.

With over 25 question types, skip logic, and piping features, the power is in your hands to make the perfect survey and learn the answers to your most pressing questions — perfect for crowdsourcing audience insights for your content. You can even brand it and customize your theme so it’s fully tailored to your business. Additionally, Zoho offers SSL protection to secure your participants’ data, giving you and them peace of mind. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($7.42-$75/month)

8. Qualaroo (opens in a new tab): “Gently Nudge™ users for real-time feedback”

Qualaroo makes it easy for you to collect user feedback by surveying them on your website or app right then and there.

Unlike analytic tools, which only tell you what people do, Qualaroo gives you direct access to your website users so they can tell you why. It’s great for gathering user feedback while it’s fresh in their minds. This unearths any pain points regarding your website or app so you can improve the user experience and tailor your content to their needs. 

Pricing: Free plan with up to 50 responses, or upgrade to the Business plan (opens in a new tab) ($39.99 per 100 responses a month) for more

Customer interviews

Set aside half an hour every week to talk to one new customer (the good, the bad, and the ugly – don’t play favorites). Take off your marketer hat and dig into how they found you, what their buying triggers were, what annoys them about your product or service, and what content channels they favor.

Instead of taking notes while you chat with your customers, which diverts your attention, leave the record-keeping to bots.

1. Tactiq (opens in a new tab): Google Cloud’s official technology partner

Tactiq is a speech-to-text app that seamlessly integrates with Google Cloud and Google Meet to produce a complete transcript of all your meetings and interviews.

Features include speaker identification, time stamps, and transcription in real time. It also integrates with Google Docs, Quip, Slack, Notion, Google Meet, Zoom, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($12/month to custom)

2. Fireflies (opens in a new tab): Let Fred take care of the note-taking

Fred is the Fireflies AI assistant you can add to your meetings to take notes. Fred records and transcribes your meeting for you so you have a searchable record of all your spoken conversations.

Fireflies integrates with major programs like Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Teams, Google Calendar, Outlook, Salesforce, Dropbox, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($18-$39/month)

Referral code for 10% off all plans (my account gets $5) (opens in a new tab)

3. Rev (opens in a new tab): Accurate AI and human transcripts at your fingertips

Rev has both a speech-to-text AI and an army of human transcribers to give you the most accurate video, audio file, and video transcripts you could ever want.

Upload your documents to Rev’s database and they’ll give you a per-file quote based on which service you want to use — AI transcription, human captions, foreign subtitles, etc. Pricing is per minute for human transcription, machine transcription, adding captions or foreign subtitles, or live captioning for Zoom meetings.

Pricing: Per-transcript pricing (opens in a new tab)

4. Otter (opens in a new tab): Beautiful notes from a reliable “assistant”

Otter is an AI assistant that generates notes for meetings, interviews, and lectures. The software syncs audio, text, and images so you have a quick and easily searchable database to refer to for all your meetings.

It also records conversations and transcribes audio in real time.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($16.99/month to custom)

Referral code (opens in a new tab)

5. Descript (opens in a new tab): Edit videos — but through text!

Descript doesn’t just transcribe your videos — it lets you edit your video right from the transcript.

It’s an all-in-one audio and video editing tool to assist with podcasts, videos, screen recording, and transcripts. With a few clicks and the backspace button, you can remove fillers from your videos and change inaccurate information.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($12/month to custom)

6. Avoma (opens in a new tab): Your AI assistant before, during, and after meetings

Avoma summarizes a transcript’s key takeaways and automatically pulls together a bulleted list of action items.

This makes it incredibly easy to highlight important quotes and follow-ups for yourself after an interview.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($24-$129/month)

7. Epiphany (opens in a new tab): Organize your qualitative data into a searchable database

Epiphany organizes your audience research data so you can compile all your interview transcripts, survey responses, and even support tickets into one place.

You can tag different insights for quick browsing, arrange key findings, and store your customer-inspired content ideas on a single platform.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) ($9-$19/month per user)

8. Grain (opens in a new tab): Record meetings and add notes beneath

Grain has an AI assistant you can add to all your meetings to record a transcript of your meeting.

It converts your recorded video into a shareable landing page with a video and scrolling transcript right underneath.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19/month to custom)

Team brainstorms

Call recorders are an excellent option for capturing key information shared during a team content brainstorm; they capture not only what’s said but also shown. So, if your data analyst pulls up trending blogs and shows their screen, you’ll have that context as well. Here are a few tools you can use to record your calls.

1. Gong (opens in a new tab): AI that analyzes your calls

Gong integrates with your CRM software and works with web conferencing platforms to record calls, as well as transcribes sales call recordings.

Their AI then analyzes them and identifies what your top performers are doing on calls so the rest of your team can follow their example.

Pricing: Get a quote (opens in a new tab)

2. Vidyard (opens in a new tab): Record your sales pitch and hit send

Vidyard makes it easy to record and send videos with just a few clicks.

Their free tool allows you to record your screen or webcam, send videos via email or LinkedIn, and track who watches your videos. They also have enhanced features through paid subscriptions.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19/month to custom)

3. Dialpad (opens in a new tab) (formerly Uberconference): Easy interface for all conversations

Dialpad is a video conferencing tool that uses AI to take notes and action items automatically from meetings.

You can lean on this to capture the important details from your brainstorming sessions.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) ($15/month per user to custom)

4. Zoom (opens in a new tab): Breakout rooms, screen recordings, and more!

Zoom is known for their meeting functionality. But they have other enticing features like breakout rooms that allow your team to come up with solutions in smaller groups, then reconvene after.

Zoom also has multiple impressive integrations (opens in a new tab), including ones for Slack and Gong.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($13.32/month to custom)

Competitor analysis

After you look at your customers, your next area of opportunity is your competitors. Look at the keywords they rank for, what communities they’re in, etc. If they’re doing well, their keywords probably have high business value and purchase intent. For example, “blue Nike tennis shoes” has a higher purchase intent than “common shoe materials” since the former implies someone wants to purchase specific shoes, while the latter is a general search.

1. Semrush (opens in a new tab): Market research made easy

Similarly, Semrush is a one-stop platform for a variety of tools, including SEO checking, keyword research, content optimization and marketing, competitor research, website monetization, social media marketing and management, and more.

The market research function exposes your competitors’ marketing tactics, revealing traffic sources and categorizing your competitors, their target audiences, and promotional strategies.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($139.95-$499.95/month)

2. S (opens in a new tab)imilarweb (opens in a new tab): Analyze companies similar to yours

Similarweb is another platform that combines research, market analysis, SEO and PPC, and data on your customer’s journey. You can track trends and forecasting in real time, as well as accredit your website to boost trust with your audience.

They also have their own browser extension that provides website traffic analyses as you browse the internet in real time so you can keep tabs on your competitors. A free version is available, and you can copy the URL of any website into their site directly and see global, country-based, and categorical rankings, traffic overview, total number of visits, and traffic sources.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($125/month to custom)
🔥 Tip: Their browser extension is also free (opens in a new tab)

3. Ahrefs (opens in a new tab): All things SEO

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO toolkit that includes website optimization, competitor analysis, research on current customer search trends, industry content exploration, and rank tracking.

Look up competitor URLs and see where their backlinks come from and what keywords they rank for.

Pay attention to those keywords and gauge the value of that traffic. I identified some keywords my website ranks for organically and copied the results below. For instance, “blog exchanges” doesn’t indicate high purchase intent, but it does show high educational intent, which is valuable because I teach others how to run blog exchanges (among other skills).

Pricing: Paid account required (opens in a new tab) (Lite – $129/month; Stard – $249/month; Advanced – $449/month; Enterprise – $14,990/year)

🔥 Tip: You can also use Ahrefs to analyze your own website and discover opportunities for keywords you may have missed.

4. BONUS TOOL: Google site search

Find how many articles a competitor published within a given date range to gauge their publishing cadence. If they see a positive response, test their publishing schedule on your own website.

Use this formula on Google: “site:[URL] before:[YYYY-MM-DD] after:[YYYY-MM-DD]”

For example, if I wanted to see how many articles my competitor publishes every month, I could use this search to see everything they posted during the month of August 2021: “site:competitor.com before:2021-09-01 after:2021-08-01”.

Keyword and topic research

To discover the best keywords for SEO and dig deeper into different topics, the following tools are a big help. They show how popular a keyword or phrase is via average searches per month and display how fierce the competition is for that ranking.

1. Keyword.io (opens in a new tab): Free keywords for more than just Google

Keyword.io lets you search across numerous websites (e.g., Google, Amazon, YouTube, eBay).

While Google is the largest search engine worldwide, that also means it has the most competition. Use Keyword.io to optimize your content for other, less crowded search engines.

Pricing: Free

2. Keyword Tool (opens in a new tab): Google autocomplete in a tool

Google’s autosuggest function is a bit difficult to use. Luckily, Keyword Tool exists to make it more intuitive for content creators who want ideas.

Keyword Tool employs Google’s autocomplete to recommend keywords based on an algorithm that considers objective factors such as how often past users have searched for a term. You can use these to find keywords that are sometimes hidden in Google Keyword Planner.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($69-$159/month)

3. Keysearch (opens in a new tab): Low-competition keywords up front

Keysearch seeks out relevant, low-competition keywords for your website and includes SEO competition analysis and suggestions.

It differentiates itself by returning keywords you could actually rank for.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($17-$34/month)

4. Keywords Everywhere (opens in a new tab): The name says it all

Keywords Everywhere gives access to metrics on the go via a browser add-on. Install on Chrome or Firefox to enjoy active research.

It lives right on your search engine results page and yields keyword data on your search query. It also suggests long-tail keywords that might be easier to rank for.

Pricing: Pay as you go (opens in a new tab) ($18-$1,500, depending on the number of credits)

5. Ubersuggest (opens in a new tab): SEO + Training + Keywords

Ubersuggest simplifies SEO by reverse engineering a competitor’s website and strategy to uncover what works for them and how you can adopt and improve upon their successes.

In addition, you can use this tool to receive different suggestions based on an initial keyword and see rankings in terms of search volume, difficulty, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($29-$99/month)

6. Help a B2B Writer (opens in a new tab): Connect with other B2B writers

Tap into original data and insights to fuel your content with Help a B2B Writer.

Once you have your keyword and topic, use this outreach tool to collect expert quotes, information, and advice on content creation.

Pricing: Free

7. Connectively (opens in a new tab) (formerly HARO): More quotes and authoritative voices

Similar to Help a B2B Writer, Connectively is another place you can connect with thought leaders and gather invaluable insights.

Send in your query, and other writers, business owners, and marketers will help you out with research and information.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19-$149/month)

8. Vancery (opens in a new tab): A network of business professionals

Vancery connects you with professionals around the world. Use this platform to post paid consulting projects and acquire knowledge and ideas in return.

Vancery boasts experts in various fields, making it easy for you to tap into a wide range of industry know-how.

Pricing: Paid account required (opens in a new tab) (Customer Research – $25/month per user; Market Research & Repository – $115/month per user; Enterprise – $250/month per user)

9. Twinword Ideas (opens in a new tab): “Just the best keywords”

Twinword Ideas is your one-stop shop for finding the keywords you need. With it, you’re able to craft relevant, keyword-rich content for your target audience.

This tool identifies the best strings for your content by crawling long keyword lists to pinpoint the most relevant ones. It’ll also identify search volume data, automatically group keywords together, and share potential titles for your target keywords. With 46 languages and more than 230 geo-targets supported, you can trust Twinword Ideas to handle your keyword research grunt work.

Pricing: Two free searches per day, with paid account options available (opens in a new tab) ($12-$59/month)

10. AlsoAsked: (opens in a new tab) “Find the questions people also ask”

Whatever content you want to produce, AlsoAsked can provide you with the recipe for any topic, whether it’s TikTok, content briefs, SEO strategy, copywriting, or anything in between. It synthesizes the “People Also Ask” data from Google into quick content insights so you can improve your search rankings and wow your audience.

The tool uses that information to discover unique long-tail keywords to inform your content strategy. Presented as a content topic cluster, you’ll understand what people want to know about your chosen subject matter. With AlsoAsked, you can even find zero search volume terms and transform common audience queries into helpful and intriguing content. 

Pricing: Three free searches per day (no account needed); unlock more searches with a paid account (opens in a new tab) ($12-$47/month)

11. Keyword Insights: (opens in a new tab) Generate thousands of keyword ideas, create clusters, and optimize content

If your keyword strategy is letting you down, Keyword Insights can whip it into shape. 

It puts your content strategy on autopilot in four easy steps: research, plan, outline, and write. The tool leverages AI to generate a long list of keywords around a particular topic, group them, and then outline a piece of content that’ll rank higher to help you to understand what your audience might be searching and what content you should create or optimize to satisfy their needs.

Pricing: Four-day trial for $1, paid plans after it ends (opens in a new tab) (Basic – $58/month; Professional – $145/month; Premium $299/month)

12. Keyworddit: (opens in a new tab) Extract keywords from subreddits

Keyworddit is a powerful Reddit keyword research tool. 

Use it to mine insights from the popular forum site by simply typing the name of a subreddit, then picking one from an auto-generated list. Then, it’ll extract relevant keywords and return low-competition strings you can target directly. 

Similar to Google’s Keyword Planner, Keyworddit lists the average number of monthly searches for a particular term on Reddit to give you ideas about which keywords to target. Additionally, you can feed the resulting list into other keyword research tools to obtain an even bigger list! 

Pricing: Free

13. GetKeywords: (opens in a new tab) Tap into audience insights to understand your local SEO market

In the digital world, it’s crucial to be familiar with your local SEO market, and GetKeywords aims to fulfill that need without hassle. 

Covering over 100,000 locations and 45 languages around the world, GetKeywords boasts rich data for a variety of markets. It lets you understand your audience on a more granular level by seeing what they search for locally. That knowledge then allows you to build an SEO strategy with localization at its core. GetKeywords not only empowers you to determine local trends much more easily but also fetches data in real time so your results are always accurate.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($24-$39/month)

14. KeywordsPeopleUse: (opens in a new tab) Find what people are searching for and what questions they ask online

Taking a simpler approach, KeywordsPeopleUse picks out the keywords contained in the questions people ask. 

It collates data from Google to extract what users are searching for so you can tailor content to those queries and, ultimately, rank higher in search results. By gaining instantaneous insights into what consumers are seeking, you can create targeted content that answers your audience’s needs, in turn building trust, authority, and awareness.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($15-$299/month)

15. QuestionDB (opens in a new tab): Discover the questions your audience is asking

Uncover your target market’s questions by searching a broad keyword and then working backwards through QuestionDB. Dive deep into their searches to produce the content they don’t even realize they need. 

QuestionDB is all about leveraging long-tail keywords for quick content wins. It helps you craft more useful content by understanding exactly what your audience seeks. With features like Ask AI, topic filtering, and source links, this tool is the perfect companion for freelancers, in-house content teams, and small content marketing agencies.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Solo – $15/month; Agency – $50/month)

16. StoryBase (opens in a new tab): Build your authority in search

By giving you access to everyday, unfiltered Google searches, StoryBase identifies your target segment’s questions, concerns, and thoughts. You’ll receive the best insights to produce compelling and sought-after content that distinguishes you from your competitors.

Trusted by thousands of marketers, this tool helps you learn and respond to your audience’s most asked questions. It removes the guesswork of honing in on their pain points and wields the power of data to help you build your authority in search by developing content that speaks directly to your market’s desires.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Professional – $49/month for one user with one to three websites; Agency – $299/month; Premium – contact sales)

17. MerchantWords (opens in a new tab): “Your data on demand”

Using the latest technology in data science, MerchantWords aims to accelerate your Amazon marketplace growth.

An Amazon-specific keyword research tool, it helps sellers on the platform discover the top shopper searches and competitor ranking terms. MerchantWords collects hundreds of millions of keywords across 11 Amazon marketplaces to collect a batch of data. With these keyword data, tools and services, you’re able to build a winning strategy for your product listings that grows your Amazon sales.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Silver – $35/month for 500 searches; Gold – $79/month for 1,000 searches; Platinum – $149/month for unlimited searches)

Data and research source discovery

1. PrimoStats (opens in a new tab): Find original sources for statistics

Stop wasting hours trying to find the primary resource for quotes and statistics and have PrimoStats do the hard work for you instead.

PrimoStats can save you time on content research thanks to its searchable database that covers over 60 industry topics to return relevant statistics with their original sources. Confidently add verified facts and data to back up your claims and boost your authority in your industry. 

Pricing: Access 1,600 stats for free or upgrade to a paid account (opens in a new tab) for additional statistics and features ($25-$149/month)

2. Consensus (opens in a new tab): Discover academic insights for research-backed content

Amp up your content credibility by gathering academic insights without sifting through hundreds of research papers.

If you want to write content that puts expertise and authority first, choose Consensus, which combs through more than 200 million scientific papers to collect reliable information. With results you can trust and instant analysis in seconds, Consensus is sure to be an asset to your business. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($8.99/month to custom)

3. U.S. Census Bureau (opens in a new tab): Take the pulse of America’s people, places, and economy

Whether you need information from this year, last year, or 10 years ago, delve into the U.S. Census Bureau for an archive of data. 

If you want accurate, America-specific information, this is an excellent avenue to find what you need to produce reliable, data-rich content. Explore the thousands of tables they have on human trends, specific locations, and the country’s financial state to add credibility to your pieces. Further, you can build maps and access micro-data based on the Census Bureau’s data to make your content more engaging, trustworthy, and visually appealing.

Pricing: Free

4. Waldo (opens in a new tab): An AI assistant to speed up your research process

Whether you’re working on a major content piece or laying the foundation for a pitch, Waldo will give you fast, reliable data to amplify your words’ credibility.

Waldo finds relevant facts on a chosen topic so your content makes a significant impact. Describe your project to Waldo, and the platform will develop a research plan, pulling in all the insights you need to strengthen your content.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Freelancer – $149/month; Teams – $179/month per person; Teams Pro – $199/month per person; Enterprise – Contact the sales team)

5. Statista (opens in a new tab): A trove of authoritative statistics

Statista is a complete database of business statistics, reports, and outlooks sourced from reliable data sources like government agencies and industry leaders.

Simply type in what you want to learn and you’ll be presented a list of relevant statistics. To find exactly what you need, filter by country, time, or the kind of report you’re looking for.

Pricing: Free, with paid options (opens in a new tab) for reports ($199-$959/month)

Compiling your ideas

Several great tools exist to compile your data, collect ideas, and collaborate with other blog writers on your team.

1. Evernote (opens in a new tab): The only note-taking app you’ll ever need

Evernote supports everything from short lists to lengthy research.

It’s like a work and life journal, to-do list, notebook, and calendar all in one.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($10.83-$20.83/month)

2. Trello (opens in a new tab): The kanban board where ideas are born

Trello employs a customizable kanban board system. Organize ideas by column and add more specific notes to each column.

Use Trello for article ideation, tracking important quotes, and storing data.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5-$17.50/month)

3. Google Keep (opens in a new tab): Your virtual post-it note collection

Google Keep lets you save ideas from anywhere. It’s like a notebook — if your notebook was online and filled pictures, checklists, and single sentences on post-it notes.

Pricing: Free as long as you have a Google account

4. Notion (opens in a new tab): Your office, online

Notion connects all projects and deadlines in one location.

It offers different document templates for different purposes. You can also create a kanban board for vague ideas and a spreadsheet for tracking your specific project ideas.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($10/month to custom)

5. [Bonus tool] Obsidian (opens in a new tab): Your virtual second brain

Obsidian is a knowledge base you can build on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. Depending on how you work, consider using this to map connections between your data and research.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($50/year per user; $4-$8 for add-ons)

2) Writing and editing

Formulating your title

Your title draws potential customers from the search results to your article, so you need to make it compelling and click-worthy.

Tools to find titles that perform well

Your title should be relevant to your target audience’s interests.

1. BuzzSumo (opens in a new tab): See what everyone else is doing.

BuzzSumo takes a keyword and suggests a title based on existing content that performs well.

Choose a keyword, add it to the search bar, then click “Find Content.” It’ll return suggestions on what title you could use.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Content Creation – $199/month; PR & Comms – $299/month; Suite – $499/month; Enterprise – $999/month)

2. Ahrefs Content Explorer (opens in a new tab): Find titles that perform well

Ahrefs Content Explorer shows frequently shared articles so you can draw inspiration from their titles.

This tool has tons of data on blogs all over the internet. It pulls information on your niche and tells you which articles are performing well so you can get inspiration from those.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Standard – $249/month; Advanced – $449/month; $14,990/year; the Content Explorer is not available in the Starter or Lite plans)

Tip: Ahrefs also offers free SEO tools (opens in a new tab) for website owners. They provide access to their Site Explorer and Site Audit tools with a free keyword generator, backlink checker, and even Amazon and Bing keyword checkers.

Tools to test title ideas

Once you know your focus, there are plenty of title generator tools online that can help you develop an eye-catching headline.

1. SEOPressor’s Blog Title Generator (opens in a new tab): SEO titles that (could) rank

SEOPressor’s Title Generator randomly generates titles based on existing articles on the first page of Google.

It’ll give you an idea of what title formats are performing well for the topic you want to write for. We suggest making your keyword as specific as possible to receive better title suggestions.

Pricing: Free

2. Portent’s Content Idea Generator (opens in a new tab): Fun titles for inspiration

Portent’s Content Idea Generator creates random titles based on an input keyword.

Although their titles are fun and interesting, I suggest using it only as a source of inspiration for your own creation.

Pricing: Free

3. Capitalize My Title (opens in a new tab): Look smart with the right capitalization

Capitalization is hard! Make sure your titles are capitalized correctly by throwing your final title into Capitalize My Title.

Pricing: Free

Tools to find questions to inspire your titles

Craft a strong title based on what people are asking. Your headlines can even be answers to questions.

1. Quora (opens in a new tab): Answer real questions directly

Quora sees over 300 million users every month — users who ask questions that could be related to what you’re writing about.

Look for questions within this forum and produce titles that answers them.

🔥 Tip: After you’ve written your article, you can answer the question on Quora that inspired your title with a link to said article for a great distribution tactic.

Pricing: Free

2. AnswerThePublic (opens in a new tab): Get questions based on keywords

AnswerThePublic pulls questions that people are asking based on keywords. Below is one of their search results for “remote work.”

Pricing: Free for three daily searches, paid account options (opens in a new tab) for more ($11-$199/month)

3. AlsoAsked (opens in a new tab): See the questions searchers are asking according to brand, question, or query

AlsoAsked collates and organizes frequently asked questions in search. According to their FAQs (opens in a new tab) page, this tool “aggregates, organises and displays ‘People Also Ask’ data that appear in Google search results. You can interact with this data on the site to explore it, export it to image graphs for quick presentation to clients or into CSV format to process it with other tools, saving a huge amount of time.”

Learn what questions are commonly asked alongside your brand, key phrase, or even competitors to compile titles, outlines, and editorial calendars that check all your boxes. You’ll be able to see the connections between various questions and topics to help plan your pillar page strategies as well.

Pricing: Limited free searches per month, paid account options (opens in a new tab) for more ($12-$47/month)

Tools to make your title engaging

1. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer (opens in a new tab): Grade your title

When you have a title in mind, run it through CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to receive a grade for it.

This program will let you know if your title is too wordy and recommend alternative verbiage you can add to make it more engaging. Aim for a score of 70 or higher.

Pricing: Free

2. Sharethrough (opens in a new tab): SWOT analysis for your title

Sharethrough checks how engaging your headline is and scores your titles based on their neuroscience and advertising research.

Put your title into their search bar and they’ll tell you what your title does well and how you can make it even better.

Pricing: Free

Tools to measure your title’s emotional value

1. Advanced Marketing Institute’s Headline Analyzer (opens in a new tab): Emotional marketing value

Use the Headline Analyzer to measure your title’s emotional marketing value. This will show you how compelling your title is and the emotion it most strongly evokes.

Pricing: Free

Crafting an outline

Look at the common questions people ask about your topic to determine what you should include in your article. Then, analyze search results and employ tools that investigate questions and intent.

1. Google’s autofill (opens in a new tab): Know what people are searching for

Google’s autofill suggestions are a great starting point for your outline.

Take what people are searching for and use those questions to guide which answers you need to have in your article.

Pricing: Free

2. Google’s People Also Ask section (opens in a new tab): Uncover specific questions directly from Google

Similar to Google’s autofill function, their People Also Ask section tells you what answers browsers are searching for on the web.

This is an excellent place to find key points for your outline. Answer all the common questions shown in the search results and consider adding them to your outline structure.

Pricing: Free

🔥 Tip: Adopt similar search intent discovery tools like Quora and AnswerThePublic to discover more relevant inquiries and incorporate their answers into your outline.

3. Google’s Featured Snippet (opens in a new tab): Look for definition and itemized list opportunities

Look at Google’s Featured Snippet for relevant keywords so you know if you need to define a certain term or explain specific steps in a certain process.

Pricing: Free

4. Perplexity (opens in a new tab): An AI-powered knowledge hub

Dread sifting through search results to find the information you need? With Perplexity, you gain access to an AI-backed trove of information that removes the tedium of manual search.

If you like to build solid outlines for your content, this solution can be helpful for information gathering. Perplexity will scour relevant search results for a search term you input to provide the best summary of information. Their a powerful information discovery tool to have in your content creation kit. 

Pricing: Free or upgrade to the Professional plan (opens in a new tab) ($20/month) for more in-depth results

Content creation

1. Surfer (opens in a new tab): Audit your content

Surfer has a search audit feature to help you refresh outdated content, identify SEO errors, and more, automating much of the work you’d otherwise need to do manually.

Surfer will suggest keywords to boost SEO, analyze content length, and give you the option to compare yourself to the competitors of your choice, ensuring the tips and data you receive from Surfer are applicable to you.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Essential – $89/month; Scale – $129/month; Scale AI – $219/month; Enterprise – Contact sales)

🔥 Tip: Use their free Chrome extension, Keyword Surfer (opens in a new tab), to see search volumes directly in Google.

2. MarketMuse (opens in a new tab): AI research and SEO writing

MarketMuse accelerates the process of content research, creation, and optimization.

Their automated content inventory quickly analyzes what you need to focus on, whether you’re at the research or writing stage, and the text editor gives live feedback with easy-to-follow colored flags.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($149/month to custom)

3. Copysmith (opens in a new tab): AI brainstorming and content generation

Copysmith is an AI writing tool that helps you brainstorm topic ideas, generate content, and collaborate with your team.

They offer everything from outline generators to full articles.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $19/month; Professional – $59/month; Enterprise – Contact sales)

4. Frase (opens in a new tab): AI briefs for better SEO performance

Frase is another AI tool that assists in the entire content writing process, including research, developing a brief, writing, optimization, and analysis.

They promise to generate full-length content briefs in just six seconds, with a “Write for Me” feature that can autocomplete your sentences. Additionally, their dashboard reveals content opportunities to highlight easy improvements that’ll boost your rankings.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Solo – $15/month; Basic – $45/month; Team – $115/month)

5. Content Harmony (opens in a new tab): Concise, on-brand, and optimized briefs

Content Harmony is a subscription-based tool that aids in building fully fleshed-out content briefs.

This solution helps identify and streamline keywords, study competitors, craft an outline that’ll cover readers’ key questions, cite and link sources, and detect any graphical and visual content needed.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab), dependent upon how much content you publish monthly ($50/month to custom)

6. Rytr (opens in a new tab): Speed up your content creation

Rytr is an AI assistant that helps you write blogs, emails, and other pieces of content faster by auto-generating content for you based on the keywords you input.

It also gives you outlines, emails, and other content types and even gives you options — you can opt to generate two blog sections for a single topic and choose which section is better.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($9-$29/month)

7. Quip (opens in a new tab): Like Google Docs but for content creators

Quip is a Google docs alternative built for content creators. Notably, this option has a live comment section and accessibility features that Google lacks.

The tool has a cleaner interface that makes it easier to write, as well as a “focus mode” that encourages distraction-free writing.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($10-$100/month per user)

8. Revive by Animalz (opens in a new tab): Pinpoint articles you need to update

Revive by Animalz goes through your entire article database and tells you which ones have lost significant traffic due to content decay.

All you need to do is enter your email address and provide access to your Google Analytics account. From there, the AI tool will comb through your existing articles and tell you which ones could gain more traffic with a simple refresh.

Pricing: Free, but you have to supply your email address

9. Marketing Examples (opens in a new tab): Sift through a trove of brilliant ads

If you need help with writing inspiration, Marketing Examples is a great place to start. They take all kinds of ads — not just online ones — and tell you why they work well.

It’s like a swipe file for marketing content.

Pricing: Free

10. Copywriting Examples (opens in a new tab): See what makes for top-notch ad copy

Similar to its sibling, Marketing Examples, Copywriting Examples is your swipe file for well-written content. The tool gives you examples of great writing, then itemizes the principles behind it that make it strong.

Use this as inspiration for your writing.

Pricing: Free

🔥 Tip: If you choose to outsource your content creation, you can record video briefs for your writers using video tools like Vidyard and Loom. You can also find my project brief template in my content templates.

11. Page Edit: (opens in a new tab) Turn any website into an editable page

Page Edit is a Chrome extension that converts websites into editable pages so you can see how changes might look before you publish them live.

Test headlines, preview content variations, and more to validate content ideas before you implement them. 

Simply install the extension and navigate to the live web page you want to edit. Then, enter Design Mode and make your desired changes with the text editing buttons. Once complete, click the toggle button and turn off the add-on to revert back to the original — it’s as easy as that! 

Pricing: Free

12. Writer (opens in a new tab): An AI writing tool that cranks out pieces in your voice

Writer learns how to craft high-yielding content that sounds just like you.

This AI model directly integrates into your team’s style guide so you can rest assured that Writer-generated content won’t deviate off track. All you have to do is tell Writer your content idea and target audience, and it’ll generate blog posts using your tone of voice. Additionally, Writer possesses a library full of content creation tools like its FAQ, product description, or outbound email generators.

Boasting a full suite of generative AI content creation tools, Writer can take your content to the next level without you having to lift a finger. 

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Team – $18/month; Enterprise – Contact sales)

13. Qwoted (opens in a new tab): Find expert quotes and sources for your content

With solutions for media professionals, PRs and marketers, and personal brands, anyone can join Qwoted to amplify their narrative, crowdsource input from industry leaders, and stay connected.

Qwoted gives you access to their database of experts in a range of fields so you can create meaningful content that speaks to your audience and has the backing of relevant authorities.

Pricing: Free

14. ContentShake AI (opens in a new tab): “Combine AI with Semrush’s SEO data to create high-ranking content 12x faster”

ContentShake AI is a smart writing tool that combines AI with real-life competitor insights and SEO data.

It’s designed to help optimize every stage of your content strategy, from ideation to execution. Use ContentShake AI to find topics, write pieces, refresh existing content, and publish it on your blog automatically.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Pro – $139.95/month; Guru – $249.95/month; $499.95/month)

Content platforms

Next up is a platform to make your content accessible to your audience.

1. WordPress (opens in a new tab): My favorite open-source content management system

My favorite content management system (CMS) is WordPress. It’s customizable, beautifully designed, and has an intuitive user interface. It also has a variety of plugins (I love Yoast (opens in a new tab) for SEO) and eye-catching themes.

This blog, for example, is run on WordPress because it’s incredibly low maintenance, has striking themes, and is free. The platform has a “distraction-free writing mode” that makes the visual/HTML editor full screen so you aren’t tempted to switch to a different tab or window.

Pricing: Free

2. Ghost (opens in a new tab): Platform for start-ups, built for content

Ghost is great for start-up companies and entrepreneurs in need of a website, as they provide a comprehensive platform that covers content, newsletters, members, and payments through simple, subscription-based billing.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $9/month; Creator – $25/month; Team – $50/month; Business – $199/month; contact sales for audiences over 400,000)

3. Squarespace (opens in a new tab): Beautiful and easy to use

Squarespace excels at creating simple, easily navigable websites that integrate payments and other related features. You pay one fee, and they take care of your domain and eCommerce compatibility.

Numerous extensions are available if you need to add more features to your website.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Personal – $16/month; Business – $23/month; Commerce Basic – $28/month; Commerce Advanced – $52/month)

4. Medium (opens in a new tab): An attractive blog outside your website

Medium is a blogging platform I’ve personally used and find easy to get your point across with.

They also have amazing blogs you can explore based on your chosen topics of interest (I signed up for their email digests and enjoy the articles they send). However, they’ve since started to add paywalls on some of their blogs, which limits reach.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5-$15/month)

5. Start Page by Buffer (opens in a new tab): Create landing pages with one click

If you want a single landing page to host all your content, check out Buffer’s new Start Page.

You simply set up an account, and they’ll generate a landing page that works on both desktop and mobile. They have customizable templates so you can build your page without the need to code.

Pricing: Free

Website design

After you choose a hosting platform, you need to design your website.

1. MarkUp (opens in a new tab): Collaborative design

MarkUp is a web design platform that lets you share your work with other people and receive feedback.

It also works for PDFs, images, and other content types.

Pricing: Free, with paid options (opens in a new tab) ($25/month to custom)

2. Mockplus (opens in a new tab): Prototyping made easy

If you have yet to find a blog design you like, you can create a prototype with Mockplus.

You can design how you want your blogs to look, how the navigation should work, any footers or CTAs you want, and incorporate interactions to make the functionality crystal clear.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($4.95/month per user to custom)

3. BugHerd (opens in a new tab): Direct feedback on your website or blog

Once your website is live, you can use BugHerd to leave internal feedback directly on your live website or blog for tweaks and adjustment – perfect for calling out developer mistakes and fine-tuning.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Standard – $39/month; Studio – $69/month; Premium – $129/month; Deluxe – $229/month; Enterprise – Contact sales)

4. Figma (opens in a new tab): The collaborative UX tool for web design

Figma speeds up the design process by connecting everyone in the team so they can diagram, add sticky notes, and workshop together using their online whiteboard, FigJam.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($15-$75/month)

5. Zeplin (opens in a new tab): Share your designs in a controlled environment

Zeplin allows you to pass designs to developers in a controlled manner.

You can finalize using your favorite software – whether that’s Adobe XD, Photoshop, Figma, or Sketch – and hand them to developers to build on while keeping the design locked. It also has an accessible workspace for collaboration across the whole team, including non-designers.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($13.75-$63.25/month for small teams; $8/month per seat to custom for larger organizations)

6. InVision Cloud (opens in a new tab): Whiteboard app for designers

InVision is useful for digital product design, workflow management, and team collaboration. Their Freehand whiteboard app is free to use and makes the online collaboration process more inventive, hands-on, and visual to help teams work together.

Their Cloud (opens in a new tab) platform assists with putting together interactive prototypes without the need for code, which is fantastic for when you know what you want but are having a hard time communicating it to your developers.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($4.95-$7.95/month per user)

7. Marvel (opens in a new tab): Prototypes and mock-ups you can share

Marvel helps you create prototypes out of your existing design mock-ups.

Quick URL sharing and embedded codes mean you can easily share your prototypes with developers, stakeholders, and your audience to collect feedback or move along the design to the final product. Marvel also provides heatmaps, user testing for opinion gathering via voice and video, and firm goals for your test users to complete.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($12/month to custom)

8. Balsamiq (opens in a new tab): Blueprints but for websites

Balsamiq helps build wireframes of your website that are easy for visitors to use and navigate.

Think of it as a blueprint of what your site navigation should look like. They also have online resources and courses if you want to learn more about wireframing and UI design.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (two projects – $9/month; 20 projects – $49/month; 200 projects – $199/month)

9. Relume (opens in a new tab): Effortlessly generate sitemaps and wireframes in minutes

Relume enables you to deploy content quickly and collaborate with your design team seamlessly.

Generate landing pages and websites by describing your company in a couple of sentences. Relume will then advise on an ideal sitemap and on-page elements to use, as well as construct UX wireframes. You can edit the content and export it to Figma or Webflow. This tool is perfect for content marketing teams that want to build landing pages for campaigns but lack the support of a dedicated design team.

Pricing: Free for a simple site, or paid plans (opens in a new tab) for more advanced sites and features ($32-$40/month per user)

Bonus: Code-free website-building apps

While we’re on the topic of website platforms and design, let’s take a quick peek at apps as well. After all, your content can live in multiple mediums.

1. Wix (opens in a new tab): Build your business without code

Wix is much more than a website builder: It has all the tools you need to build and run your business with numerous features such as a logo designer, blog tools, online scheduling software that allows your customers to book services and pay directly, online stores for eCommerce, and SEO tools. No coding required.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($17-$159/month)

2. AppSheet (opens in a new tab): No-code solution for apps

AppSheet cleverly helps you move projects from spreadsheet to app, automating processes and saving you and your team time and energy.

Some examples of their capabilities include signatures, delivery notifications, location data, barcode scanning, reports, capturing images, dashboards, emails, and applying your own steps and logic rules. This solution also syncs with numerous existing programs, such as Dropbox, Salesforce, Excel, Google Drive, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5-$20/month per user)

3. Mighty Networks (opens in a new tab): Community builder for businesses

If you’re interested in a channel that supports online courses and communities, Mighty Networks provides a customizable website platform that integrates these directly into the website for a seamless user experience.

You can create memberships, subscriptions, and more, all with analytics at your fingertips to help you increase retention. They integrate with Zoom, Events, and more.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Courses – $99/month; Business – $179/month; Path to Pro – $360/month; Mighty Pro – Contact sales)

4. Thinkific (opens in a new tab): Online course creator

Similarly, Thinkific is an educational app that enables you to sell your own online courses and memberships, as well as build a customizable website.

The integration of memberships and communities, quizzes and assessments, and live lessons are all at your fingertips to enhance learning for your users.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Basic – $49/month; Start – $99/month; Grow – $199/month)

5. Stencyl (opens in a new tab): Create games — without coding 🤯

For interactive game creation, Stencyl (opens in a new tab) does require coding experience, but you can add your own if you wish.

This solution makes building game sequences and logic a breeze with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop dashboard. You can reach just about any user or player since Stencyl integrates with all major platforms. Once you’ve built your game, the app can then help launch it on the App Store or Google Play, embed ads, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($99-$199/year)

6. CloudMatch (opens in a new tab): Generate a tinder-style app

For any type of relationship or matchmaking, CloudMatch allows you to create an app for it. They hail themselves as “Tinder-style” with profiles, geographical matching, swiping through profiles, and chat rooms.

Pricing: Free for 30 days, then you need a paid plan (opens in a new tab) ($49/month)

7. Teachable (opens in a new tab): Share what you know

Teachable gives you a domain to host your courses. They provide eCommerce features for members and an interactive experience for learners.

They also give you your own domain.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($39/month to custom)

8. Typedream (opens in a new tab): A no-code website builder that lets you “build & launch your website in minutes”

This no-code website builder handles all the heavy lifting of site creation. In a matter of minutes, Typdream will construct a ready-to-publish website, including the content, structure, and style.

You can build a blog, product site, or form that’s tailored to your brand and attracts and converts your target customers. Simply submit a few short answers, and Typedream will return a complete website in three simple steps. If you’re unhappy with the first draft, you can edit the content or use the chat to refine it.

Pricing: Free to publish one page on a Typedream subdomain, or upgrade to a paid plan (opens in a new tab) for more features ($15-$42/month)

Editing and proofing

Once you have your keyword, title, and written article, it’s time to edit the content. Read over everything you wrote and lean on tools to clean it up.

You can use one of the following to verify readability and discover frequent spelling and grammar mistakes in your writing:

1. Grammarly (opens in a new tab): Real-time writing assistant

Grammarly works as you type, checking your writing in real time.

They can detect contextual spelling errors and will alert you if you use the wrong word, even if it’s spelled correctly. Extensions are available for Firefox and Chrome.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($12/month to custom)

2. Hemingway App (opens in a new tab): Tighten up those sentences

Similarly, Hemingway App analyzes your writing and offers suggestions, but only in the browser, so you either have to write directly or copy and paste your existing work in progress.

Pricing: Free

3. QuillBot (opens in a new tab): Remove clunky sentences

QuillBot can help you rewrite clumsy sentences by suggesting word and sentence structure changes.

They have options for word substitution recommendations, such as how formal or elevated you want the language to be. However, they only allow 700 characters at a time for analysis.

Pricing: Free or $8.33/month (opens in a new tab)

4. Readable (opens in a new tab): Simplify your writing

Your article should be as accessible as possible, since the goal is to make it simple for your audience to absorb and comprehend the information.

Readable gives you a score on how easy it is for people to understand your writing. You either copy and paste your work or write directly in the browser.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (ContentPro – $8/month; CommercePro – $48/month; AgencyPro – $138/month)

5. Readability Test (opens in a new tab): Check how readable your content is

You can also use this free Readability Test tool by WebFX to evaluate your content from a URL or direct input.

Pricing: Free

Plagiarism checkers

If you outsource writing to external contractors, part of your editing process should include running their work through a plagiarism checker. This ensures you only upload original pieces to your website and avoid penalties for publishing duplicate content.

Whether you’ve outsourced or written content yourself and want to check, here are a few tools you can use:

1. Quetext (opens in a new tab): Near to “fuzzy” matches

Quetext checks your documents using a color code system for feedback so you can see how close your writing matches others’, from nearly exact to “fuzzy” matches.

If they finds plagiarized content in your work, they suggest how you can either change that section or add a citation.

This tool is my personal favorite for detecting plagiarism, and it even shows you a side-by-side comparison of those fuzzy matches so you can judge for yourself.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($6.39-$8.80/month per user)

2. Plagiarism Checker by Grammarly (opens in a new tab): Compare your content to 16 billion webpages

Grammarly’s free plagiarism checker allows you either to enter text directly or upload a file. However, you’ll have to sign up to receive your results.

Pricing: Free

3. Duplichecker (opens in a new tab): Verify your words and photos

Duplichecker is another free plagiarism tool. Ensure your work’s credibility via direct input, file upload, or a webpage URL.

This resource tells you how much of your content is plagiarized and gives a list of links that contain similar content. You can even check your images for plagiarism.

The free version has a limit of 1,000 words at a time. However, their website is filled with ads, so be careful not to click on a misleading one.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5/month to custom)

4. Plagium (opens in a new tab): Integrates with Google Docs

For occasional use, consider this free option with a Google Docs add-on available or copy-pasted text.

If you desire more frequent usage, Plagium has three levels of analysis (quick, deep, and file level to compare text documents) with transparent pricing per page.

Their free, web-based option only comes with 1,000 characters, so it’s best for short copy.

Recently, they’ve also added an AI checker to help you determine the likelihood your copy was written by a human.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($0.005-$0.08/page, or $9.99-$199.99/month)

5. Plagramme (opens in a new tab): A fast and credible plagiarism score

Plagramme quickly scans even large documents via copy and paste in the browser.

Your goal is to have as little duplicate content as possible. This tool is excellent for longer articles.

Pricing: Free for educators and students, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) available (pay as you for for €1.50, or €29.99-€79.99/month)

6. Plagiarism Detector: (opens in a new tab) A free and accurate way to detect content falsehoods

As its name implies, Plagiarism Detector combs through pieces to determine if the content is original or duplicate. All you need to do is copy and paste your text and let the tool do the rest. 

 You can also check your grammar using the free add-ons, making it even easier to produce professional, original content for your audience. 

With a 4.8 out of 5 customer satisfaction rating, this tool has proven itself effective. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) for longer form content ($20-$90/month)

3) Graphics

A strong post needs graphics. Engaging images and videos will boost your blog posts, but it’s important to make sure you have the necessary permissions for whatever you use.

Tools to create your own images

Why not go completely custom? I love how easy the below tools are to use. You can select the perfect image sizes (opens in a new tab), and they provide stock images right on their platforms to make the user experience even easier.

1. Canva (opens in a new tab): Become a graphic designer in five minutes

My favorite is Canva. They have a library of templates, free stock photos and graphics, over 3,000 fonts, and more than 100 design types to help you create original graphics for your blogs.

Their Pro version has even more templates and stock photos, audio, videos, and graphics, as well as higher-tier editing tools such as removing backgrounds and saving design templates.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($100/year per person to custom)

2. Piktochart (opens in a new tab): Create the perfect infographic

Piktochart is great for creating clean infographics, reports, and posters that clearly communicate content.

Their templates are easy to browse based on the intended outcome (e.g., “Ways to Increase Online Sales”).

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($14/month per user to custom)

3. VistaCreate (opens in a new tab): Customize your graphics based on platform

VistaCreate has a number of templates specifically labelled for each medium – Instagram post or story, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube Thumbnail, Intro, Banner, and more.

Pricing: Free or $10/month (opens in a new tab)

 4. Pablo by Buffer (opens in a new tab): No-nonsense image creator

Pablo by Buffer doesn’t waste any time: Their website jumps straight into crafting your own image with a range of stock photos and templates.

Pricing: Free

5. Remix by Buffer (opens in a new tab): Instagram graphics for mobile

Remix by Buffer is a mobile app that lets you construct beautiful Instagram images right from your phone.

Download the app to repurpose links, tweets, and any other form of content into an Instagram post.

Pricing: Free

6. Easelly (opens in a new tab): Convey data beautifully

Easelly is another great option to build infographics, and their template categories make it easy to get started with timelines, reports, comparisons, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5-$6/month, $4/month for students)

7. Photopea (opens in a new tab): Photoshop, but online

If you possess some graphic design experience and just want a free Photoshop-like tool in your browser, look no further than Photopea.

This solution has a similar interface and features as Photoshop, with a UX most designers would recognize.

Pricing: Free, with premium options (click the “account” button on the right panel or the toolbar on top of the page) ($5/month-$999/year)

8. PineTools’ Invert Colors (opens in a new tab): Edit existing photos

PineTool’s online color inverter can help you edit photos as well, with special effects like sharpening an image, adjusting color and lighting, inverting colors so you can find complementary palettes, and more.

Pricing: Free

9. Paletton (opens in a new tab): Bring your brand’s color scheme to life

Paletton’s color scheme creator lets you produce a color scheme and see coordinating hues with the click of a button.

Pricing: Free

10. FuseBase (opens in a new tab): Take screenshots and scrolling screenshots

Formerly Nimbus Capture, FuseBase is a Chrome extension that lets you take screenshots of whole websites.

It also has screen recording features that are useful for presentations.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($15-$40/month per user)

11. HTML Color Codes (opens in a new tab): Identify colors codes from anywhere

If you have a picture of a shirt and want to find out what color code it is, look no further than HTML Color Codes.

This niche tool can identify colors from images and URLs. You can then use the codes you receive to design your own images.

Pricing: Free

12. remove.bg (opens in a new tab): Remove image backgrounds in seconds

Every content marketer knows the pain of wanting to use an image, but the background is too busy. remove.bg eliminates that problem by instantly removing the background from any image you upload.

Plus, you can export the altered picture straight to Canva — perfect for crafting branded images for your content.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (pay as you go for $0.90 an image, or $0.11/image to custom)

13. designstripe (opens in a new tab): “One-click social media designs”

Need social media assets to enhance your organic and paid social media marketing? Or, perhaps you want to use them to distribute your blog content? designstripe helps you do just that.

The solution’s easy-to-use interface gives you the tools and functionality to produce stunning social graphics and on-brand content. Prompt designstripe using a link or description to receive instant social media design ideas. With templates, brand-kit, prompts, and customizable options, you can fine-tune each graphic to suit your brand perfectly. 

Pricing: Free or $39 a month (opens in a new tab)

Get royalty-free images

You can search through a number of websites to find high-resolution, royalty-free photos to use without worrying about copyright infringement.

1. Gratisography (opens in a new tab): Quirky photos that work with your brand

Gratisography claims to have “the world’s quirkiest collection” of free stock images, so if you’re looking for something creative and different, this is a great place to start.

Pricing: Free

2. Unsplash (opens in a new tab): Free professional images (trust me, they’re astounding)

Unsplash separates their photos into useful categories such as “Business & Work,” “Nature,” “Architecture,” and “Textures & Patterns.” Their pictures are sourced from professional and hobby photographers.

Pricing: Free

3. Pexels (opens in a new tab): Beautiful stock photos and videos

Pexels has an intuitive search tool that makes suggestions as you go to help you find the image you need. For example, inputting “Professional” returns a number of related suggestions.

Pricing: Free

4. Pixabay (opens in a new tab): Illustrations by professionals

Pixabay has a unique feature that allows you to search across free illustrations if you’re not looking for a photograph. They also have free stock photos, videos, and more.

Pricing: Free

5. Burst (opens in a new tab): The image source for Shopify store owners

Powered by Shopify, Burst allows users to download both high- and low-resolution photos.

Their Business Ideas are collections of free photos and case studies directly aimed at assisting eCommerce brands, ranging from Bluetooth speakers to tea and makeup products.

Pricing: Free

6. Noun Project (opens in a new tab): Turn words into icons

Noun Project offers photos as well, but it’s their library of icons that makes them stand out from the crowd.

Their free add-on version provides unlimited use of 100 icons that you can drag and drop into almost any Mac, Google, Adobe, or Microsoft project.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($2.99-$9.99/month)

7. Dreamstime (opens in a new tab): Your source of free and paid images

Dreamstime provides stock photos and also has a free photo section that’s open to use.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($23/month-$1,724/year)

8. imgbox (opens in a new tab): Host your images for free

An extra tip for images: Use imgbox to upload photo galleries you’d like to keep available on the web, then edit or delete them with a link.

You can leave comments in communities and forums if you don’t want to be seen as too spammy or endorsing your brand.

Pricing: Free

Video

A video is a great way to summarize an article for visitors who aren’t in the mood to read, or who want to listen to the article in the background while they do something else.

If you don’t have a dedicated team, record a video of yourself explaining a topic or host a few webinars (which are also great for lead generation). You can take clips of your webinar recordings and embed them into your articles where relevant.

Screen capturing tools

1. ScreenPal (opens in a new tab) (formerly Screencast-O-Matic): Record and edit your video presentations

This screen capture tool can integrate screen recordings, video editing, stock images, screenshots, music, and more to support easy video creation for training, marketing, and demos.

ScreenPal also allows for quick publishing across a variety of platforms.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($3-$10/month)

2. Screencastify (opens in a new tab): Easy-to-use video creation platform

Screencastify promises to be so easy to use, you’ll have the hang of it in the time it takes you to read a sentence.

It captures live in your browser without having to download any software, allowing you to record, edit, and send or share as needed.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($7-$10/month per user)

3. Loom (opens in a new tab): Say it with video

Create quick videos of your screen or webcam with Loom to assist virtual and hybrid workplaces.

You appear as a little bubble in one of the corners of your screen as you present valuable insights to your team.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($12.50/month per user to custom)

4. Wistia (opens in a new tab): Share your screen, then send your video with a CTA

Wistia is like Loom but has a few more features that bring it to the next level.

After recording your presentation, you can edit it to show yourself, your screen and yourself side-by-side, or just your screen. After, you can send relevant parties a link to your video.

But its best feature by far is the customizable call-to-action button it displays at the end of your video. So, if you want your viewers to book a call with you after they watch, you can easily create a button for a one-click sign-up.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19-$319/month)

Tip: Wistia also has a video hosting service that comes with a customizable platform that can group videos and podcasts together. It integrates with your CRM, advertising, and marketing tools to track engagement and A/B testing as well. Its free version grants access to all the standard features on three videos or podcasts, with paid subscription plans available for extra capabilities.­

5. GoFullPage (opens in a new tab): Capture full-page screenshots for comparing and optimizing content

This free Chrome extension lets you take a screenshot of an entire web page. Whether you need it for a presentation, to showcase your content, or back up a claim, GoFullPage can help you do it with ease. 

With over eight million users, this tool captures full web pages with clear resolution that you can instantly save as PDFs or images. Save your team the time and effort of taking manual screenshots of pages.

Pricing: Free to use, or you can unlock advanced editing features (opens in a new tab) for only $1 a month

Video hosting and creation

1. PlayPlay (opens in a new tab): Tell stories with video

PlayPlay is an online video maker that has all the tools you need to create interviews, ads, and visual storytelling.

Use the professional templates to get started and easily customize with your branding. PlayPlay’s library has millions of free stock photos and videos to integrate with your content, and their formatting options let you produce one video and adjust for different platforms (for example, landscape for website, square for social).

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (must contact sales)

2. BombBomb (opens in a new tab): Video messaging that integrates with email

BombBomb is a video messaging service that allows you to record via your webcam, screen, or a combination of both.

This integrates with your email service to send videos easily, the same way you’d send text, to give your recipient a simple gif preview that encourages them to click and watch.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Essentials – $39/month; Plus – $69/month; Teams – Custom)

3. VEED: (opens in a new tab) Make great videos with minimal effort

Video excels at grabbing people’s attention, and VEED empowers anyone to leverage this medium to draw in leads.

If you want to upgrade your content with engaging, quality videos, this tool has you covered. VEED lets you add subtitles, text overlays, and music, as well as turn long-form videos into bite-sized snippets. Produce top-tier videos to add to your blog posts, landing pages, or social media channels and move prospects closer to conversion.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Basic – $18/month per user;Pro – $30/month per user; Business $59/month per user; Enterprise – Custom)

4. CapCut: (opens in a new tab) Edit videos and add captions on desktop or mobile

CapCut is your secret weapon for creating show-stopping videos without hiring a videography team.

Gain access to thousands of video templates to apply across your channels. You can use CapCut to edit video content and perfect it for each marketing channel. Alternatively, leverage their “magic tools” to produce striking video content. With everything from batch editing to one-click video repurposing, AI characters, and scripts, they’re a powerful asset.

Pricing: Free, or upgrade to CapCut Pro (opens in a new tab) for $8 a month (sign-up required)

Webinar recording repurposing

1. BigMarker (opens in a new tab): A webinar tool to wield before, during, and after your event

BigMarker is an excellent webinar tool that supports events of all sizes.

They have a breadth of useful features you may or may not have thought of, like redirecting webinar attendees to a certain URL once the event ends or creating a presenter test room environment.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (must contact sales)

2. Demio (opens in a new tab): The webinar tool for small to medium-sized businesses

Demio is a no-download webinar service that makes registration and viewing a breeze for your customers.

Event analysis at the end shows your audience’s attendance and focus rates. Demio integrates with a range of existing marketing software as well, making them a strong contender for small to medium-sized events.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $59/month; Growth – $109/month per host; Premium – $184/year per host)

3. Livestorm (opens in a new tab): “The webinar platform you can trust”

This is another webinar service that’s straightforward and easy to use.

I recommend this one for small to mid-sized standalone events. They also support live polls and Q&A within the webinar and have a no-download meeting product for virtual brainstorms.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($79-$499/month)

4. YouTube (opens in a new tab): You know what YouTube is

Pretty much everyone uses this video hosting platform in some fashion.

While it’s congested due to so many creators on the platform, it’s likely also where your target audience hangs out. You can repurpose your webinars as recorded, unlisted videos for premium access. Or, simply upload them as public content and drive more traffic to your website.

Pricing: Free

5. Vimeo (opens in a new tab): The YouTube for business

Another major video hosting websites, Vimeo differentiates itself from YouTube by focusing more on professional ventures.

Again, you can upload your recorded webinars and let other people access it for free or put a paywall so that members can only watch it after signing up. Vimeo also gives you an embed code or URL that you can add to your website.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($20-$108/month)

Read: 45 Webinar software options: The tools you need to execute webinars and drive leads

4) SEO and sharing

Search engine optimization

I love SEO because it adds a technical aspect to a creative pursuit. It’s like a game: Our content competes with countless others to reach the top spot on search engine results and land on readers’ screens.

1. Yoast (opens in a new tab): WordPress’s SEO partner

The Yoast plugin previously mentioned helps you create optimized articles based on a set of best practices.

Here’s a quick rundown on SEO best practices.

Pricing: Paid plan required ($19/month for Shopify (opens in a new tab), $99/year for WordPress (opens in a new tab))

2. Keyword Density Analyzer (opens in a new tab): Don’t keyword stuff

Use this tool to ensure your article mentions your keyword with enough (but not too much) frequency.

Pricing: Free (their paid option (opens in a new tab) is currently closed to new members)

3. Clearscope (opens in a new tab): Know what your competitors are talking about

Clearscope is a web-based tool that offers tips and suggestions as you write.

It takes the top-ranking articles for the keyword you want to target and reveals any other strings those articles rank for. It then displays those keywords in an easy-to-use dashboard and grades your article based on word count, readability, and number of key terms used.

All plans include training, onboarding, support, unlimited exporting and sharing, flexibility to change plans, and a highly intuitive interface that makes it easy to jump in. It integrates with Google Docs and WordPress as well.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Essentials – $189/month; Business – $399/month; Enterprise – Custom)

4. Semrush (opens in a new tab): Powerful tools to optimize your content

Semrush (mentioned previously) is a sophisticated content and ranking tool that comes with multiple useful features to optimize your content strategy.

It has a full suite of SEO tools that give you a good overview of your website’s performance according to your target keywords, your backlink profile, and gaps in content. The company’s free plan allows you to monitor one project (website), and track 10 keywords.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($139.95-$499.95/month)

5. Lighthouse (opens in a new tab): Google dev tool to check your core web vitals

Lighthouse is an open-source Google developer tool for improving your web page’s performance, quality, and accuracy by putting them through a barrage of lab tests and generating a report on the results. 

With over a million users, this free Chrome extension allows you to uncover any issues you may have on your website so you can improve the performance, accessibility, and SEO of your pages. Leverage the results report to make improvements and, in turn, increase your conversion rate. 

Pricing: Free

6. WAVE (opens in a new tab): Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Speaking of accessibility, it’s important to ensure your website is accessible so people of all different abilities can consume your content.

WAVE is a tool that allows you to input a URL to see how accessible the page and content on it is. You can see contrast issues, missing alt text, and more. All of these elements are not only great for SEO but also help ensure your content is easy to access.

Pricing: Free

7. PageSpeed Insights (opens in a new tab): Find out how to improve content performance

PageSpeed Insights is a much-loved SEO tool that provides suggestions for making your web pages faster on all devices. 

Simply enter your URL and click the “Analyze” button. From there, PageSpeed Insights will analyze what your users experience when they land on your web page to diagnose any performance issues. You can then review your PageSpeed Insights report and make the recommended changes to boost your performance score.

Pricing: Free

Read: Technical SEO checklist for developers: How to rank higher in Google

Amplification and sharing

Next up is amplification. This is how you disperse your content everywhere so your audience can see it.

Here’s a quick checklist of amplification channels you can invest in:

• Email newsletter
• Social media
• Online communities
• External pitches
• Paid ads

Email marketing

You can follow email marketing best practices and feature your content in your newsletter. Be sure to check your communications’ spam scores with an email spam test (opens in a new tab). You can also share them with marketing partners to see if they’ll add it to their own newsletters.

Some email marketing tools you may want to use are listed below.

1. HubSpot (opens in a new tab): Drag-and-drop email builder

HubSpot does so much more than just email, but thus far, its drag-and-drop builder has been my favorite to work with.

Its UI is intuitive, and if you also use it as a CRM, you gain easy access to an updated list of tagged and segmented contacts to email.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($800-$3,600/month)

2. Constant Contact (opens in a new tab): Email templates that convert

Constant Contact has an email template builder that includes mobile-optimized templates to suit a range of needs, along with real-time reports and analytics to show you how effective your campaign is.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Lite – $12/month; Standard – $35/month; Premium – $80/month)

3. Emma (opens in a new tab): Monitor your emails so you know what works best with your target audience

Emma is a comprehensive email service that offers automation, segmentation, A/B testing, landing pages, analytics, and more. Share logos and templates across your team to save time and ensure consistent branding.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Emma Lite – $99/month; Emma Essentials – $159/month; Emma for Teams – $249/month; Emma Corporate – custom)

4. Goodbits (opens in a new tab): Engaging, no-code email newsletters

Goodbits helps you create email newsletters with no prior coding or design experience necessary.

You can drag and drop saved content to add links and stored material to newsletters in minutes.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($24-$79/month)

5. Mailchimp (opens in a new tab): The best choice for new email marketers

Mailchimp employs an AI creative assistant to help with design, audience management, automation, marketing across multiple platforms, and brand tools for a comprehensive email marketing experience.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (get started for $1, then $20-$800/month)

6. GetResponse (opens in a new tab): Email automation for companies of all sizes

The GetResponse email creator tool allows you to drag and drop for easy customization.

Templates, free stock photos and GIFs, and full customization of sections with desktop and mobile previews ensure you deliver high-quality emails to your audience.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Email Marketing – $15.60/month; Marketing Automation – $48.40/month; Ecommerce Marketing – $97.60/month; GetReponse MAX – $1,099/month)

7. SendGrid (opens in a new tab): Streamline sales emails

SendGrid by Twilio is an email service that can streamline email newsletters, promotional communications, shipping notifications, password resets, and more.

The company offers custom plans so your email campaigns have exactly what they need to succeed.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19.95/month to custom)

8. HEY (opens in a new tab): Organize your inbox

HEY claims to have “fixed emails.” This comprehensive email service organizes your inbox with a range of features.

You can screen emails just like calls, bundle emails from the same sender into a single row, fix bad subject lines without starting a new communication thread, send large files that are prohibited on other email services, add “reply later” and private notes to emails, and more.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (HEY for You – $99/year; HEY for Domains – $12/month per user)

Email marketing tips for increasing your open and click-through rates

Social media

1. Buffer (opens in a new tab): The top social media scheduler for small businesses

I personally use Buffer to schedule social media shares across Twitter and LinkedIn.

You can plan your social posts in advance and have them go live whenever you like. If you have a team working on your social media profiles, you can set up drafts for approval to ensure you share only on-brand content.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($6/month for one channel up to $120/month for 10 channels)

2. Hootsuite (opens in a new tab): Powerful analytics for medium to large companies

Hootsuite is another great social media scheduling tool with stand-out analytics.

I use this for many of my clients, since their reports are so customizable, in-depth, and easy to understand. As far as I know, it’s the only platform that allows pre-scheduled Instagram stories and also has content libraries and calendars on its dashboard to make posting easier.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Professional – $99/month; Team – $249/month; Enterprise – Custom)

3. Sprout Social (opens in a new tab): All your accounts in one place

Sprout Social saves you the hassle of manually logging in and out of your social media accounts on platforms to post content.

It automates much of the process through helpful integrations and displays a broad overview so you can see your content calendar across multiple platforms.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Standard – $249/month per seat; Professional – $399/month per seat; Advanced – $499/month per seat; Enterprise – Custom)

4. Share Link Generator (opens in a new tab): Get retweets and re-shares on your website

Encourage blog readers to share your post by generating automatic sharing links with Share Link Generator.

Make it as easy as possible for readers to share your content.

Pricing: Free

5. Social Warfare (opens in a new tab): Enjoy engaging buttons without sacrificing page speed

Social Warfare adds quick and customizable social share buttons to your website or blog without bogging down your loading times.

It has numerous other features and benefits, including Twitter-friendly quotes, image-rich shares, and keeping your social share counts even if you change your domain name or move to SSL.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($29-$349)

 6. Better Click To Tweet (opens in a new tab): A plugin for WordPress

Emphasize “Tweetable” quotes and add a button to them that says, “Click to Tweet.”

Better Click To Tweet integrates with your WordPress site (for free) and makes it as easy as possible for your readers to share your inspiring quotes.

Pricing: Free

7. CoSchedule’s Click To Tweet (opens in a new tab): Another WordPress click-to-tweet plugin

This plugin from CoSchedule generates click-to-tweet content directly in your blog article.

Pricing: Free

8. Planoly for Instagram (opens in a new tab): Visualize your social media account

Instagram is known for beautiful grids — and marketers make those grids with Planoly.

Planoly comes with an Instagram grid so you can visualize exactly what your content will look like once you publish it. It also has a scheduler for Pinterest.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $16/month; Growth – $28/month; Pro – $43/month)

9. Kontentino (opens in a new tab): Combine, schedule, and monitor every channel

This is one of the few social scheduling tools that supports video scheduling. Kontentino also makes it easy to manage contractors and freelancers with post approvals and support for multiple clients.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $83/month; Starter+ – $119/month; Standard – $180/month; Pro – $320/month; Enterprise – Custom)

10. Tailwind (opens in a new tab): Community for Instagram and Pinterest

Tailwind is a scheduler like the others on this list, but the differentiating factor here is it has a built-in community that’ll re-share and like your posts.

When you schedule posts to Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook, you can also upload your posts to Tailwind’s community where other Tailwind users can discover your content.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab)($24.99-$99.99/month)

Social media marketing: How to promote your brand and support your customers using 7 channels

Online communities

To expand your content reach, join online communities that your target audience participates in.

1. Reddit (opens in a new tab): The forum of the internet

Reddit is a digital forum with sections dedicated to specific topics and interests. It has everything from news to memes to subreddits (niche communities on Reddit) that focus on marketing topics.

Join a subreddit that could both benefit from your content as well as serve you. But make sure you engage genuinely on Reddit — marketers are often banned from subreddits for promoting themselves instead of helping.

Pricing: Free

2. Slack (opens in a new tab): More than just a messaging tool

Slack is a messaging tool that brings teams and communities together, making it useful for tapping into your niche market. To streamline your selection process, you can find a list of free Slack communities to join at Slofile (opens in a new tab).

For content creators, we recommend Online Geniuses, Superpath, and Freelanship.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($7.25/month per user to custom)

3. Digg (opens in a new tab): Make your own custom feed

Digg allows you to create custom feeds and browse topics containing content across the web, reducing clutter and delivering the content and stories you want to see.

Pricing: Free

4. GrowthHackers (opens in a new tab): Community of growth-minded individuals

GrowthHackers is a community dedicated to sustainable scaling by providing Q&A sessions with leaders, training, virtual events, and more.

Pricing: Free to join, with premium rooms (opens in a new tab) available (must contact sales)

5. Quora (opens in a new tab): Answer questions with your content

Quora (mentioned previously) is an excellent place to find people asking questions that you (and your content) can answer.

Posting on this platform also ensures your answer will reach further than the asker. Quora has an excellent SEO strategy and often ranks for questions that people are searching on Google, which gives you the potential to get in front of many more readers.

Pricing: Free to sign up

How and why to make Quora a cornerstone of your B2B eCommerce content strategy

6. Hacker News (opens in a new tab): Powered by Ycombinator

Hacker News is a community and news website with a focus on computer science and entrepreneurship.

Pricing: Free

Other Places To Share Your Content

Don’t stop at communities — share your content with the world!

1. Mix (opens in a new tab): “Mix” up your life with curated content

Mix is a platform that lets you curate, share, and discover the best pages on the internet. It learns what you like to browse and makes suggestions.

Note: StumbleUpon has migrated to Mix, as they were developed by the same makers.

Pricing: Free

2. Quuu (opens in a new tab): Enjoy relevant content from an AI assistant

Quuu uses clever AI to help you source relevant content across the web to share on social media.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) ($19.79/month per social media profile)

3. Scoop.it (opens in a new tab): Create a private content hub

With Scoop.it, you can build topic pages and private hubs where you can collect and share content to publish on your website, blog, or social media channels.

If you use WordPress, it allows you to collate across multiple WordPress blogs.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($14.99/month to custom)

4. Beacon (opens in a new tab): A community for next-generation fintech and infrastructure

Beacon is a company working on next-generation financial technology and infrastructure. They have a community dedicated to supporting inclusion, sharing information, and charitable endeavors.

Pricing: Request a demo (opens in a new tab)

5. Zest (opens in a new tab): Learn from other marketers and grow your personal brand

Zest is a community for marketing professionals where people can share ideas and help each other stay on top of the latest trends in marketing.

It even includes a handy Chrome extension that makes each of your new tabs into a place where you can discover the best marketing materials and content coming out of Zest each day.

Pricing: Request a quote (opens in a new tab) (acquired by WalkMe)

6. Facebook Groups (opens in a new tab): Find people like you

Facebook Groups are communities of people who all share a common passion or identity.

Capitalize on this Facebook feature to find like-minded individuals to discuss your industry or interact with your audience so you can better understand them.

Pricing: Free

7. The Juice (opens in a new tab): “No-lift content distribution”

You’ve written an outstanding piece of content; now, you need to push it to the right people at the right time. That’s where The Juice comes in. 

The Juice is an intuitive platform that distributes your content to an engaged marketing and sales audience that ordinarily you might not have the chance to target. This content distribution also reports back on sourced revenue, making it even easier to track your sales. 

With smarter distribution, sending, and insights, let The Juice push your content in front of the right people, at the right time, giving you more time to create the content that matters. 

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) upon scheduling a demo (Content Distribution – $15,000/year; Content Intelligence – $25,000/year; Content Category Ownership – $35,000/year)

8. Automata (opens in a new tab): Easily distribute and repurpose content

Once you have your great video content, you’ll want to distribute it to many places for maximum viewership. Introducing Automata, your answer to repurposing content with ease.

Automata helps consistently publish more content across multiple channels. Plug your YouTube channel or blog feed into Automata and it will automatically generate repurposed content the moment you publish new content. Use Automata to reuse, recycle, and repurpose content to reach a wider audience and grow your business. 

Pricing: Pay as you go (opens in a new tab) for $3/credit, or $49/month

Pitching your content

1. Fast Company (opens in a new tab): Learn from other tech professionals

Fast Company accepts guest contributions for their Work Life section from professionals across the globe to share knowledge, tools, best practices, and strategies.

If you have articles relevant to Fast Company, pitch your ideas to the news site and they might just publish it.

Pricing: Free

Tip: Many news leaders similarly accept article pitches. Search the websites of Inc, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and more to find instructions.

2. Tech in Asia (opens in a new tab): News about technology in Asia

This news website covers topics relevant to entrepreneurs, start-ups, and innovators in Asia.

Similar to Fast Company, you can pitch your content to Tech in Asia and become a contributor.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($19-$59/quarter)

3. JustReachOut (opens in a new tab): Get help connecting with journalists and influencers

Beyond social media interactions, you can use JustReachOut to pitch to journalists and influencers in your sphere so you enhance your exposure and publicity and build quality backlinks easily.

Along with an easily searchable database of people you might want to pitch, the site also provides the tools you need to craft and serve a strong pitch, including verified emails, templates, and opportunity notifications.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter Outreach – $147/month; Advanced Outreach – $247/month; Ultimate Outreach – $497/month)

4. Connectively (formerly HARO) (opens in a new tab): Become a source for journalists

As previously mentioned, Connectively is dedicated to connecting content creators, journalists, PR specialists, and industry authorities. Its simple pitching process targets expert sources in the field, sector, or experience needed for any project.

To get started, register yourself as a source, check your inbox for source requests regularly, and then respond with well-thought-out pitches when a journalist reaches out so you can begin gaining exposure and valuable backlinks.

Pricing: Free

5. Help a B2B Writer (opens in a new tab): Get your content talked about by other companies

Help a B2B Writer (mentioned previously) connects you with B2B writers so you can acquire backlinks and exposure through long-form content. Or, if you’re the one creating content, you can find authoritative sources that make your content more valuable to your readers.

Once you register, you can send requests or receive them to craft better content and be featured as an industry expert.

Pricing: Free

5) Monitoring, analysis, and development

If you don’t monitor data, it’s like uploading content into the void. You won’t know what converts, what your audience likes, and what you can improve.

Here are some tools to measure your results.

Web analytics

1. Google Analytics (opens in a new tab): Insights into website and blog performance

Google Analytics lets you see how many visits a certain blog post earns and how many views you earn each day, week, month, or year.

Check out where your visitors come from, how long they spend on your site, and where they go after they leave.

You can also set up goals within Google Analytics to track conversion rates for each blog and measure them based on first-touch, assisted, and last-touch attribution:

• First-touch: The blog was the entry point of an eventual conversion
• Assisted: The blog was visited sometime along the conversion path
• Last-touch: The blog was the last page viewed before conversion

Pricing: Free

2. Google Search Console (opens in a new tab): Find out if people are searching for your brand name

Check out Google Search Console to see if people search for you by name, which can gauge consideration and assist you in optimizing your content to achieve better results.

Pricing: Free

3. Moz’s Link Explorer (opens in a new tab): Backlink checker

Analyze your site or blog post with Moz’s Link Explorer to discover how many backlinks you received and where you’re mentioned on the web.

Simply create a free Moz account, enter your webpage’s URL, and receive a report analyzing the page. This can show how you compare to competitors, fix broken links, and reduce spam.

Pricing: Free

Single source of truth for all your data

Finally, you can pull all your dashboards together into one place with any of the following tools.

1. Databox (opens in a new tab): One place for all your data and more

Databox pools information from multiple tools and allows you to track them on any device. With over 70 native integrations and more than 300 dashboard and template examples available, you can visualize data across numerous sources with ease.

Beyond consolidating your information into one place, Databox also lets you set goals, create notifications, and calculate metrics so you can do more with that data.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($47-$1,279/month)

2. Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) (opens in a new tab): An easily customizable data platform

Looker Studio pools data from over 100 data sources, including Google’s own suite like Google Analytics. The interface is more readily customizable than other solutions like Databox but has fewer templates to choose from.

The best part is, this tool is free. There’s also plenty of documentation on the web to help you get started, so even newer users can find success with some effort.

Pricing: Free

3. Metabase (opens in a new tab): An open-source data aggregator

Metabase pulls multiple databases together, allowing you to create custom dashboards to edit, analyze, and share with your team. User-friendly to non-SQL users, it’s also SQL-friendly for those who know how to employ it and want to ask deeper questions.

This tool is easy to use but lacks some of the features of other data aggregators that make some power users turn away.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $85/month + $5/month per user; Pro – $500/month + $10/month per user; Enterprise – Custom)

4. Dreamdata (opens in a new tab): Know where your traffic comes from

Dreamdata gives insight into every customer’s journey, from a first-time anonymous visitor to an existing subscriber. It shows actionable insights to boost revenue by streamlining multiple data points.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($999/month to custom)

5. Heap (opens in a new tab): Measure every action

Heap has a visual event definer that allows you to go into a preview of your website and click exactly what action you want to measure. This is a great option for those who want a visual way to define goals and conversions.

Heap can take all of those definitions and measure conversion rate across your funnel, track different actions, and monitor audience data such as visits and sources.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (must contact sales)

6. Baremetrics (opens in a new tab): Slash churn rates

Baremetrics can help you reduce churn by providing insight into subscription data, with detailed analyses of month-to-month revenue, forecasting cash flow, and more.

Acquire data in an understandable format so you can find and patch the leaks in your customer funnel.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (price depends on your MRR, ranging from $129/month to custom)

7. Woopra (opens in a new tab): A single source of truth for all departments

Woopra is a related analytics and customer journey tool that connects multiple data points (sales, support, marketing, and more) in one dashboard to uncover actionable insights and analyses.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($999/month to custom)

8. Klipfolio (opens in a new tab): Data charts in a visual, easy-to-understand format

Klipfolio converts data into dynamic visuals that are easy to skim to help you and your team analyze leads, monthly recurring revenue, new conversions, and more.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($300/month to custom)

9. Trust Insights (opens in a new tab): Learn to track or seek help

If you don’t want to handle the analysis and attribution tracking yourself, Trust Insights is a service that provides training and education for marketers and solves issues with data collection and measurement.

They can also assist with data mining, analytics best practices, metrics selection, predictive analytics, and more.

Pricing: Book a call for analytics services (opens in a new tab) or enroll in their data course for marketers (opens in a new tab) ($299)

10. Firstparty (opens in a new tab): Bypass ad blockers

Gather first-party data even when your visitors block ads.

Firstparty gathers information about your website visitors using its own proprietary cookies. It then gives you the data in a “warehouse” so you can search through it and apply it however you want.

Pricing: Pay as you go (opens in a new tab) (must contact sales for more than 10 million monthly events)

Read: A guide to customer-first data: How to collect zero-party and first-party data in a privacy-first world

Monitoring coverage

A number of services exist to help you monitor your brand’s reputation and mentions across the web. Below are just a few examples.

1. Mention (opens in a new tab): Grow your brand awareness

Mention allows you to check the pulse of online media (including reviews, social media, news, and blogs) to see who’s talking about you and what they’re saying so you can better plan how you engage with your audiences.

Use this information to stay on top of the public’s perception of you and your competitors’ brands. Then, build and nurture your brand and craft your social media strategy according to what you learn.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Solo – $49/month; Pro – $99/month; ProPlus – $179/month; Company Plan – Custom)

2. Talkwalker (opens in a new tab): Know how your brand stacks up against the rest

Talkwalker helps you keep an eye on what’s said about you on the web and then analyzes that data to give you an idea of how your brand outreach is working compared to your competitors.

With this tool, you can get ahead of negative conversations early, compare your brand against competitor benchmarks, and construct content clusters to help you better visualize all the topics your audience is talking about.

Pricing: Book a demo (opens in a new tab)

3. Brand24 (opens in a new tab): Know who’s saying what about your brand online

Another brand monitoring tool, Brand24 makes it easy to stay on top of your digital reputation.

It leverages AI to segment mentions of your brand into three categories: positive, negative, and neutral. You can then receive notifications about these mentions so you can join conversations and shift perceptions in real time.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Individual – $99/month; Team – $179/month; Pro – $249/month; Enterprise – $499/month)

Heatmaps

Heatmaps show how your readers and viewers interact with your page, visualizing data through a color-code system that represents different values. These can reveal, for example, how far your reader scrolled down a page or what they clicked on.

1. VisualEyes (opens in a new tab): Know where your users’ eyes will be

VisualEyes employs AI to return near-instant feedback on your website design so you can gauge how users will interact with your site and where their attention is likely to linger. Simply upload your design, and it provides you with three key reports: Attention Map, Clarity Score, and Areas of Interest.

Using this product, you can test designs before release to speed up product cycles and spend less time wavering on the particulars.

Pricing: Book a demo (opens in a new tab)

2. Hotjar (opens in a new tab) (mentioned previously): Gain access to in-depth user behavior data

Hotjar speeds up arduous data analysis by generating intuitive heatmaps to show viewer behavior on your page. You can also gauge user activity by viewing behavior recordings and adding feedback forms and surveys to your site.

Hotjar also integrates with dozens of existing tools so it can easily slot into your tech stack without compromising data privacy compliance.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($39-$213/month)

3. Heatmap (opens in a new tab): Receive heatmap data with no extra fuss

This tool integrates directly with your website to show user heatmaps within seconds so you can make data-backed changes and influence user behavior with better UX and UI.

Heatmap is easy to install with a small footprint (i.e., it won’t slow down your pages). Further, the tool guarantees privacy for your readers, and you can order extra consulting services if you need more advanced data.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Starter – $89/month; Grow – $129/month; Scale – $249/month)

Session replays

1. Fullstory (opens in a new tab): Understand how your users actually interact with your site

Instead of just giving you quantitative analytics like clicks or scrolls on heatmaps, Fullstory takes it a step further by giving you qualitative data from user session replays so you can craft an even better user experience.

This tool shows where the user is clicking, where they may become confused or frustrated, and how easy it is for them to find what they want. Fullstory provides a detailed picture rich in behavioral analyses for you to act on, all while maintaining user privacy.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (must book a demo)

Conversion optimization

1. VWO (opens in a new tab): Optimize your site or product with A/B testing

This A/B testing tool that lets you set up assessments of two versions of a webpage, app, or product so you can implement the results to improve your UX, UI, and messaging.

VWO makes optimization easy by laying out test results with performance statistics like conversion rates and total revenue so you can grasp how to continue improving your product for even higher returns.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($392-$1,581/month)

2. Mutiny (opens in a new tab): Personalize your website for stronger lead generation

Mutiny is designed to optimize your content for conversions and lead generation by cleverly identifying and targeting visitors with personalized copy and content.

It helps you create personalized webpages aimed at specific segments it identifies in your web traffic. By tailoring your messaging to each segment’s needs, you boost their chances of taking that next step with your business to convert.

Pricing: Request a demo (opens in a new tab)

3. Appcues (opens in a new tab): Increase product adoption through smarter user flows

Create, track, and optimize onboarding flows with Appcues, complete with in-app messaging and personalization options through its no-code builder.

This tool is great for boosting product or feature adoption. The more you experiment and improve your user flows, the better your retention numbers.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Essentials – $249/month; Growth – $879/month; Enterprise – Custom)

4. Userlytics: (opens in a new tab) Run moderated and unmoderated user experience studies

By giving you access to more than two million global participants, Userlytics lets you see firsthand how people interact with your products.

If you want to produce user-first content that scales your business, UX insights should be a core component of your strategy. Userlytics is a well-known company in the world of UX research and user testing, so it’s a name you can trust. Through moderated and unmoderated testing, you gain feedback and insights from real people who match your ideal audience so you can make informed changes based on those findings.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Custom – $99/session; Enterprise – $34/session; Limitless – Custom; DIY – $499-$999/month)

5. Optimizely: (opens in a new tab) A/B test content to find a clear winner

Optimizely allows you to create the content your customers want to see, from planning through to delivery, all in one place. 

Whether it’s planning campaigns, creating content, or collaborating across teams, Optimizely employs A/B testing to make sure your marketing life cycle delivers the highest quality experience for your customers. The content marketing platform makes it easy for non-technical marketing teams to build and optimize content your target audience will love.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) priced upon application (must contact sales)

6. Triple Whale: (opens in a new tab) Analytics that aim to offer better data for better decision-making

It’s likely you’ve needed to make a decision at some point but wished you had solid data to steer your direction. When that problem arises, Triple Whale is the solution for you.

Triple Whale gives you all the metrics you need to take action that supports eCommerce growth. Connect your favorite eCommerce platforms and marketing channels, then dive into the user-friendly dashboard to analyze cross-channel performance and metrics. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) (must book a demo)

7. WebPageTest: (opens in a new tab) Evaluate the performance of your content

Making your website user-friendly is likely high up on your list of priorities. With WebPageTest, you can check your site’s performance and alter its elements to drive greater conversions.

WebPageTest lets you evaluate real user visits on your site and correlate their visual experience to the site’s technical performance. The tool aims to take the guesswork out of pinpointing where your website may be falling short so you know what to focus on to bring it up to speed (literally).

Pricing: Free for 300 monthly test runs across 30 locations, then you need the Pro plan (opens in a new tab) to unlock all features ($15/month)

8. Unbounce (opens in a new tab): Build and A/B test your landing pages

Build and A/B test your landing pages all in one tool with Unbounce. Utilize AI optimization, pop-ups, and sticky bars to learn what converts best among your offers.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Build – $99/month; Experiment – $149/month; Optimize – $249/month; Concierge – $649/month)

Miscellaneous

Here, I’ve listed a few other useful tools that don’t quite fit into any of the above categories.

1. Brain.fm (opens in a new tab): Scientifically designed mood music

We all need help concentrating from time to time. Brain.fm utilizes science to create the perfect background soundtrack to reduce distractions.

The company is open about their research behind the music, with white papers and sleep studies available if you want to learn more. Try five sessions for free.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) ($9.99/month or $69.99/year)

2. GrowSurf (opens in a new tab): Expand your user base through a smart referral program

Growsurf is a simple, yet powerful automated referral program that can track who promotes your most popular content on your team or among your users.

Features include copy-and-paste code to embed in your app or website, quick setup, automated reward fulfillment, and integration with your brand for a seamless, custom experience for your customers.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Startup – $450/month; Business – $650/month; Elite – $1,050/month; Enterprise – Custom)

3. Flow Club (opens in a new tab): Find focus with friends

Flow Club is an excellent place to find virtual coworking spaces that help you stay accountable and on task for blocks of time.

Each flow club session is guided by a leader and set for a pre-determined amount of time. Users state what they hope to accomplish in that time and then report back with how they did at the end of the session.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) ($40/month or $400/year)

4. Toggl (opens in a new tab): Keep track of your time efficiently

Toggl allows users to track how long they spend on specific tasks and projects through a mobile app, web app, or browser extension.

To track your hours, all you need to do is name your task and press “Start” and “Stop” as you work and take breaks. If you ever forget to start or stop your timer, you can always go back in and make changes manually.

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($10/month per user to custom)

5. Web Page Highlighter by 7labs (opens in a new tab): Targeted URL creator

Web Page Highlighter helps users easily construct links that open to specific highlighted text so users no longer have to hunt through a page for a specific stat, image, or section you’re referencing.

Once this extension is installed, simply highlight the text you want to link to, right-click, select “Copy URL with Highlighted text,” and drop your custom URL wherever you need it.

Pricing: Free

6. Awareness (opens in a new tab): Unique time awareness solution

Awareness takes a zen approach to introducing breaks into your workday.

This tool plays the sound of a Tibetan singing bowl after every hour you spend continuously working on your computer. That gentle nudge reminds you of time passing so you can take the small breaks your body needs.

Pricing: Free

7. KingSumo (opens in a new tab): Host giveaways seamlessly

KingSumo is a giveaway platform that helps you host contests on social media.

It tracks comments, mentions, and tags so you know who your contest participants are within a single, unified dashboard. The platform also sends rewards to your winners based on the parameters you set.

Pricing: Free, or pay once for their lifetime option (opens in a new tab) ($49)

8. TextExpander (opens in a new tab): The shortcut to writing

TextExpander helps you write faster with programmable shortcuts and snippets.

For example, when I type “fpao,” it automatically changes that to “Free, but with paid account options” so I don’t need to type the whole thing. You can use TextExpander for words and links you regularly use, like the site search feature we mentioned earlier.

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Individual – $4.16/month per user; Business – $10.41/month per user; Growth – $13.54/month per user; Enterprise – Custom)

9. TinyWow (opens in a new tab): A one-stop shop for free online tools

TinyWow offers a wealth of tools designed to make your life and business easier. From PDFs and images to video and files, it has everything you need to simplify your day-to-day operations — all in one convenient space. 

Free to use, this tool hub is a no-brainer addition to your business. Support your content creation with options like a content improver, paragraph completer, PDF converter, and AI image generator. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($5.99-$89/month) 

10. ChatGPT (opens in a new tab): A popular AI chatbot assistant for content ideation and improvement

If you want someone to ideate with or run content ideas by, ChatGPT could be the tool for you.

Most everyone has heard of ChatGPT by now. This program can feel like having a real conversation with a human, making it ideal for planning content ideas, expanding them into content outlines, seeking help with your tone of voice, or making sense of what you’ve already written.

Pricing: Free, or upgrade to the latest version (opens in a new tab) (must contact sales)

11. Service Provider Pro (SPP): (opens in a new tab) Create your own client portals

SPP is a platform that streamlines all your invoices, projects, and accounts into one place. This helps you not only stay organized but also scale your agency and satisfy your clients with ease.

The service creates a dashboard for your business to keep operations organized, whether you’re emailing from your organization’s domain, tracking subscriptions and requests, or giving updates on a project. This helps drastically reduce your account management costs (and stress levels).

Pricing: Paid plan required (opens in a new tab) (Basic – $129/month; Pro – $299/month; Plus – $1,500/month)

12. Tango (opens in a new tab): Automatically turn processes into interactive walkthroughs

Easily outsource content to new writers and editors thanks to Tango’s interactive process walkthroughs. 

Traditional training guides are no longer sufficient to cover many of today’s complex procedures, and the time it takes to document those processes can drag down the cost-benefit ratio. To ease that burden, Tango crafts simplified walkthroughs so your employees and subcontractors can see exactly what they need to do in bite-sized chunks that eliminate the back-and-forth explanation. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($20/month per user to custom)  

13. Apollo (opens in a new tab): Uncover deep lead insights to close more deals

Take your sales organization to the next level with Apollo and see the rewards on a daily basis. With access to 275 million contacts, 73 million companies, and world-class B2B data, this option is a no-brainer.

Input your revenue goal and Apollo will act as your market copilot to find the best fit clients, close deals, and construct winning sales workflows. Build your pipeline, improve overall performance, streamline your operations, and watch the sales roll in. 

Pricing: Free, with paid account options (opens in a new tab) ($59-$149/month per user)

14. Wayback Machine (opens in a new tab): Time travel to archived web pages for content inspiration

Search more than 866 billion web pages from the past and let them guide your next content piece.

Take advantage of this free library to travel back in time and visit old web pages, view specific campaigns from a certain brand, or find examples to add credibility to your content and inspire your work. This tool is great for seeing past versions of content or previously released campaigns, landing pages, or blog articles that no longer exist.

Pricing: Free, but donations are welcome 

15. OpenAI (opens in a new tab): Integrate OpenAI’s powerful AI capabilities into your content flow

AI is shaping the way we show up online, and OpenAI is a great platform for using this rapidly growing technology to strengthen your content creation efforts. 

This AI research and deployment company offers many tools to transform the way you work, including Sora (creating video from text), API, and ChatGPT (previously listed). They also let people use their model to develop AI tools of their own. With their handy AI solutions and custom model programs, you’ll never be short of content to expand and grow your presence online. 

Pricing: Free, with pay-as-you-go (opens in a new tab) based on tokens and models

16. VLC (opens in a new tab): Play almost any audio or video file

VLC can be used to play almost any type of audio or video files. It also has great functions, like choosing your subtitles (when the files are available). My favorite video player ever.

Pricing: Free

17. AVG (opens in a new tab): Antivirus with a good track record

Some great antivirus software that has a good track record. They offer both a free and paid version (the free version has worked well for me).

Pricing: Free, with paid account options

18. Open Office (opens in a new tab): A free alternative to Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is great, but it’s expensive! Open Office does many of the same things for free. It’s open development software, which means it was developed by users for users.

Pricing: Free

19. Audacity (opens in a new tab): Record and play back audio

This is useful if you need to record sounds and play them back. I mostly used it in my language classes, but it stuck with me since it’s so useful and easy to use.

Pricing: Free

20. WinRAR (opens in a new tab): Open compressed folders

For accessing all the compressed folders, such as zip or rar files.

Wrapping up — Use the right content tools and strategies to elevate your efforts

With more than 200 content tools (and growing), there are plenty of options out there to help you take your content creation to the next level. I hope you found something useful in this directory.

P.S. I keep a running list of neat new tools that come out so I can update this article every now and then. Did I miss your favorite tool? Please let me know!

Originally published December 7, 2015
Updated December 7, 2020
Updated February 7, 2022
Updated April 28, 2022
Updated May 27, 2024

Filed Under: Content