The Ultimate List of Content Marketing Tools and Resources-II

Marketers swear by the fortune they earn; CONTENT MARKETING IS A HELL OF A PROCESS! (Spoiler alert: That partly explains what gets them interested in looking for the best Content Marketing resources all the time.) 

But what makes the process so great? 

Results, i.e., brand awareness, bonding with prospects, conversion & growth, and an infinite loop of money (in the form of increasing zeros to the right side of your current bank balance).

Want more?

Oh, we forgot about the sense of achievement, contentment, and pride. (And the list doesn’t even end here. But, for the love of the lord! Don’t you want us to proceed to the core topic?)

Powerful Content Production Strategy influencers follow [Content Sprout Method]

So, What made content marketing for small businesses (or the bigger ones) so rewarding, again?

Here’s the answer:

The combination of innovation, focus on value (the audience first approach), and creative Content Marketing tools & resources they use to carry out highly-targeted Content Marketing keep them going like royalty.

Agree or not, that’s the importance of content marketing and that of content marketing resources and tools.

Last week, we shared some resources to get started with your research and hiring freelancers for the process.

Today’s post focuses on tools and resources to:

• pool great ideas to create content and 
• organize the content creation and process well.

Are you interested in learning more about Content Marketing? We have a wide range of blogs covering its various aspects here.

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How does sharing Free Content work for marketers? [Content Marketing]

Building your Content Marketing Team: Important Considerations

And, here begins the dive. Let’s jump in, dude!

 

Powerful Content Marketing Tools & ResourcesTo Get The Best Results

1 – Top Content Marketing Resources to Find & Choose Content Ideas & Keywords

You’d often find Content Marketers doing what resembles Trichotillomania – the hair-pulling disorder.

But, hell no; (fortunately) they are not psychotics (or you wouldn’t have seen businesses flourishing so well with their efforts – that too so consistently). It’s just the stress of finding the next right content generation idea that makes them pull their hair.

The struggle is real.

And I bet you could relate to it if you are even remotely related to your business’s content creation department.

But, there’s another kind of marketers with beautiful hair, and they don’t need to pull them. Because they are never short of ideas, their secret is simple: using free content strategy tools that show them the direction.

Why take all this stress when we have got a good deal of tools to rescue us? Yes, many free and paid tools drive us in the direction of ideas that would stop more eyeballs on our content.

But, what are those tools? How do you leverage their power?

There are quite a number of them, and each one has a unique feature or two to make them to your list of must-use. 

Here comes the best part of the process:

You can use a combination of tools to ensure that the content you write about has a market and receives the reception it deserves.

Keyword Research: A Guide to Improve your Google Rank

i- Quora

It is a public platform where people post questions on any topic and get responses. At Quora, you’d find a thread – or many – on literally any topic that is bugging you or catching your interest.

So how does that help with ideas hunt, you might wonder?

Well, it is not only a platform to connect people and share knowledge. It is also a great platform to get an insight into what kind of information/content people are looking for. It can give you the precise questions people are looking for the answers to and their exact pain points in your niche.

Here’s a bonus for you:

Pick the ideas from here and post in the same threads that got you the idea. Help the same people get a better insight into the issue or help other people the same query brings to that thread. 

It’s a win-win!

ii- Reddit

Proclaimed to be the *first page of the internet*, Reddit is a network of about a million communities (called subreddits) on almost every topic you can think of. A subreddit is the site for interaction with like-minded people on the same interest matters.

The conversation allows businesses to see what people are talking about and the content they are interested in.

And, that a gold mine of ideas to weave your content around.

iii- Twitter

The top trending topics on Twitter based on geographical regions, give you a fantastic insight into your next content project’s hot topics. Or, pick a topic of current global interest – twitter has got you covered there too.

iv- Google Search

*Google search suggestions* when you type your query, *people also ask *, and *related search queries* reveal a lot about exact search terms on a topic.

 

 

Now, you can use this information in several ways. If your content needs to be short, pick individual questions, and keywords. If detailed guides are what you are interested in, you don’t even need to continue your research. Just combine all the ideas from the same screen to draft a comprehensive guide that answers everything on a given topic.

Bingo!

 

v- Google trends

With several available filters, Google trends can reveal a great deal about searcher’s interest in a topic. The trends show how fashionable is a search term in a particular geographical location or on a search engine. 

Here’s the best part of using Google trends:

You can also compare the popularity of search terms using this tool.

vi- Public forums

Public forums are excellent sites for people to interact with each other, find information, and share knowledge. This sharing gives away people’s pain points that you can target through your content by providing solutions.

vii- BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo has a plethora of information on trending topics in a niche. You can use this information to figure out what issues are performing well – i.e., currently getting more traction. 

If you have this information, imagine all the good things you can do with it. For instance, getting the idea that would get you all the quality readers in the world.

viii- Industry news aggregators

Imagine the ease of finding EVERYTHING literally in your niche in one place. You don’t have to rush like crazy searching for current happenings in your industry or the content to share with your readers.

Lucky for you, there are places like these to give you just the convenience.

Platforms like Alltop, Scoop.it, and Feedly can find you all the relevant information and News on a niche. You can take it from there and convert the News and other information into your next piece of content.

ix- SEMrush

It is a marketing tool with a variety of functions. The most important of the features in content creation is SEMRush’s competitor’s analysis and keyword research.

Interestingly, you can combine both the features to take the lead over your competitors. All you’d need to do is research what your competitors are ranking for and get the best keywords on those topics to rank higher than competitors.

What’s next?

Traffic, conversions, profits, and celebrations!

x- UberSuggest

The best thing about content marketing resources is that you’d always have double the available resources. You can never be out of options no matter what your business setting or situation is.

UberSuggest by Neil Patel is another one to be added to your list.

It is another addition to the list of SEO keyword suggestion tools you can rely on for your content creation efforts.

Also read:

Free SEO Tools For Small Businesses – The Ultimate List – I

Free SEO Tools For Small Businesses – The Ultimate List – II

xi- Soolve

The list of keywords research tools is not short of options, either. But each one has a competitive edge over the others – a unique value proposition that sets it apart and above the others. 

What could be one such feature of Soolve to attract you to use it instead of or in combination with the others?

It brings relevant results about your mentioned query from different search engines across the web. In other words, it gives you a complete picture of your keyword across various search engines. Based on this picture, you can better define your content marketing goals or design a better b2b or b2c content marketing strategy. Alternatively, pick a more valuable keyword with the help of this picture that gets you results from other search engines, along with Google.

Artificial Intelligence – A Content Marketer’s New Ally

Xii- WordTracker 

It is another keyword research tool with several compelling features. An important feature is to find the exact keywords used by your competitors.

xiii- Engaging headline generators

Some tools help make your headlines or titles more engaging. Here’s a small list to name just a few:

• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• Emotional Market Value Headline Analyzer
• ‘SEOPressor’s Blog Title Generator

xiv- Google Keyword Planner

Google keyword planner enjoys the search engine data to provide relevant keywords, especially the long-tail keywords. These keywords are helpful clues about popular terms people are looking for.

xv- Topic generator platforms

We are not out of options for the examples of platforms generating titles for you. They can be your go-to points if you are clear about the keyword/phrase you want to revolve around. Here are are a few you could always count on:

• ‘HubSpot’s blog topic generator
• ‘Portent’s Content Idea generator
• Content ‘Row’s ClickBait title generator

Here’s an exciting story for you.

We used HubSpot’s blog topic generator to generate blog ideas. Here’s what we found.

It asked us for up to 5 nouns; We added one and requested blog ideas.

So, here are the results we got. Enjoy!

Now, you can not rely on all of these ideas. Can you?

However, if you plan to do so, check some of these ideas with other tools as well to see their worth.

Bonus: Crazy egg

It is a unique tool to help analyze your site for the most clicking and attention-grabbing elements. Not touching the useful parts, you can temper with the rest to follow the pattern of the former.

2 – The Best Content Marketing Resources for Team Collaborations

*Great things in business are never done by one person*, Great saying, Steve Jobs! 

It is mostly true (except for when it’s NOT! Some businesses are purely ONE-MAN SHOWS, but that’s a topic for another discussion). 

So, when you are working on great ideas with your more-than-one-person-team, you need to collaborate. Right?

Right! 

Fret not. There are many Content marketing tools and resources at your disposal to make collaborations with the team a piece of cake. Here are a few options:

What Content Marketing Roles do Experts Hold on Their Teams?

i- Skype

Skype might always be amongst the first few options on your mind when collaborating with your team. So we decided to keep it first on the list too.

Here’s why:

It is an excellent way to collaborate with up to 250 team members in one meeting at a minimal cost of only $2. Similar unpaid services are available in the U.S (only) for connecting with up to 10 team members for the first 60 days (and three members after that).

Other tools, top that!

(Spoiler alert: well, some of them might! Keep reading to learn more.)

ii- GoToMeeting

Businesses required to collaborate with team members or clients can avail this online platform’s services, starting from $14 a month.

This package includes services ranging from Web audio, screen sharing, unlimited meetings, conference calling, business messaging, HD videos (allowing up to 11 cams), and dial out options.

You can add more by customizing the package or upgrading it.

Now, that’s brilliant, won’t you say? 

iii- Slack

Slack is another cloud-based collaboration software for business teams, starting its services for as low as $6.67-$8 a person per month.

The standard package provides access to message history and 10Gb storage per person. Users can share the channels of communication with client companies using their guest accounts. It also enables users to avail conference call services for up to 15 people and screen sharing options.

You can upgrade the features to Plus or Enterprise Grid as well for more dollars spent per person.  

iv- Asana

Asana is another planning and organization tool to manage workflow better with better collaborations and better tracking.

The packages start for personal usage at $6.25, giving unlimited features including the:

• timeline, 
• advance search reporting, 
• task dependencies, 
• milestones, 
• and training for teams over 30. 

v- Trello

It is an online application that makes personal or shareable lists breakdowns and prioritizes tasks and tracks performance.

It also allows resource sharing (images/google docs and other attachments) and communication with the team for only $9.99 a month. A free package is also available for individual usage).

vi- Google Hangouts

It is a communication-based service by Google that enables team collaboration via messages, video chats for up to 10 people, and VOIP.

Like Skype, some calls are free for users while you pay for the rest. Apart from text, users can share images using HangOuts.

vii- Dropbox

It is another collaboration and organization platform for individuals and teams.

The lowest package caters to 3 users for $12.50 a user per month. It offers:

• 3GB space, 
• three months file recovery, 
• web previews of files and commenting, 
• smart sync and easy file search, 
• team folders, 
• company-managed groups 

And much more…

Packages for individual usage are also available.

Wrap Up

The mentioned prices and packages for each of these top content marketing tools and resources, mainly for small businesses, were added on this blog’s original publishing date and are subject to change. 

Now that you know the best tool-possibilities for collaboration and gathering ideas, target content marketing with its tools and resources for your business. You’ll rock! 

But that’s not all.

For the coming weeks, stay tuned for our best picks on creative Content Marketing tools and resources for: 

• removing linguistic errors, 
• organizing, 
• designing & using the visual aid, 
• spreading the produced content, 
• and putting your content on auto-pilot for the best results.

For free content marketing, make the best out of these tools and resources, or go for freelance content marketing, where freelancers would take care of your needs at a reasonably low cost. Alternatively, for the best results, seek help from a content marketing company for full-range content services. 

If you are wondering where to find reliable help, reach out to our Content marketing consultants, that never fail to produce uniquely productive ideas for any business. You’ll find the best content marketing, tips, tricks, strategies, and ideas and what not to give your business the much-needed boost, especially in the given scenario of the global business slump – by our content marketing strategists.

For now, let us know what your best pick is among these tools? If you are a Content Marketer already, what tools have you found useful?

Let us know in the comments. 🙂

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