Content creation is no joke. It’s not only an exhaustive amount of research that you need to conduct, but you also have to spend hours – even days – writing and polishing the content itself so that it’s optimized to its fullest potential. At the end of the day, you want your content to tick all the boxes when it comes to getting noticed by search engines and users.

If you really want to produce content that stands out from the crowd, you will need to have the right tools in your arsenal.

In this blog, we’ll uncover the top tools you need for creating better content. With this intel, you will be able to up your content game, wow your audience, and drive conversions.

These tools span a variety of different areas of content development, from research, editing, to analytics. All that to say, let’s dive on in.

The Top 15 Tools You Need for Creating Better Content

Content Research

Oftentimes in content writing, the challenge starts way before you even write the first word. Generating content ideas can be one of the biggest time consuming tasks. But fear not, as there are several great tools that are here to help you. 

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo will make your search much easier by simply pulling in popular posts based on keywords. The cool thing is that these results can be sorted out according to their reach in social networks. This will allow you to easily scrape the web for content ideas that will particularly pique your target audience’s interest.

In addition to this, you can also use custom filters to refine your search even further. As an example, you can look specifically for “how-to” posts, or narrow your search down to a specific country, and much more. 

Quora

Sometimes, in order to get the attention that you deserve, you have to actively seek it out in the online community itself. 

Q&A websites like Quora, for example, are a great way to stay in touch with what your target audience is actually talking about. With this platform, you can simply use the built-in search feature and a handful of suggestions will pop up. You can also comb the Quora results for blog post ideas and more. 

The best part of Quora is that you can leverage it to promote your content by offering an answer. This will help you reach the right people, attract potential backlinks, and even possibly generate leads for your business.

Reddit

Reddit is another awesome online forum that’s filled to the brim with great content ideas. It’s been around since 2005 and is supplied by its massive user database. It serves as a discussion site that has specific subcommunities or “subreddits”, and covers everything from content marketing to plumbing. You name it, it’s on Reddit. 

In addition to all of this, you may find partnership opportunities with other content marketers. At the end of the day, this may attract backlinks to your website.

Answer the Public

Have you ever wondered what your community is talking about? Answer the Public is a free content idea generation tool that works by providing you with a “web” of terms or topics users often search for on the web.

All that you need to do is enter a primary topic, and Answer the Public will provide a visualization of topics you can turn into blog articles or web pages.

Collaboration 

Stop, collaborate and listen. These are actually words to live by. Collaboration is critical to the success of any content creation project. It’s necessary for getting everyone’s input and ideas on the table through brainstorming sessions. Collaboration plays a huge role in our ability to not only preserve ideas, but constantly improve our work processes. Here are just some tools that will help you and your team with this process. 

Asana

Asana is a project management tool that easily allows teams to collaborate on projects, share details, track deadlines, and more. 

Within Asana alone, you can assign tasks to users, add comments, share documents with other team members, and check on the project status.

This makes it easy to stay on deadline and ensure quality control for your content.

Slack

Is email bogging you down? If you struggle with an over-crowded inbox, it’s time to move things to Slack. 

In this modern era, Slack is perhaps the most popular collaboration tool for businesses and teams of all kinds. 

You could credit this to its user-friendly interface and fun atmosphere that allows users to share images, videos, memes, documents, and more. It also adds value to the company’s management, as you can easily monitor what time your employees login and log out.

Slack makes it easy to collaborate across departments and ensure that each piece of content passes through the right hands. Ultimately this will save you time and expedite the content creation process.

Dropbox Paper

If you’re already using a different communication app like Asana or Slack and simply need something that helps with the file collaboration component to your team, then you should check out Dropbox Paper.

This is a minimalistic, cloud-based app that will allow you to: 

• Write content
• Include images
• Add files
• Create to-do lists

And it does pretty much everything else you’d expect from a word processor.

Speaking of collaboration, you can also invite users to edit, comment, and share your document.

It’s essentially a cleaner and straightforward version of Google Docs – although Google Docs is a great alternative option as well. 

Search Engine Optimization

An effective content marketer will not only know how to produce engaging content, but they will also know how to optimize said content for searching.

When it comes to SEO, the quality of writing is an important factor. There are other details on top of this, which include proper use of subheadings, keyword optimization, and beyond. 

We know that this can all sound a tad bit overwhelming, so here are some of the tools that can help you dial in on your content optimization. 

SEMrush

SEMrush is a favorite amongst SEO professionals. It offers a wealth of data and insights- not only when it comes to SEO, but also content creation, competitor research, and link building.

Although there is a free version SEMrush is a premium SEO tool which will allow users to research target keywords, identify backlink opps, and spy on their competitor’s content strategy. 

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO also works to analyze the top-ranking search results for your target keyword. It then provides you with an array of suggestions to help you create the content that will be competitive in search. These suggestions can include your target word count. 

Surfer SEO will also provide documents that allow you to write, optimize, and analyze your content all in one place. 

Readability

The ultimate goal is that you’re creating content that users will actually want to read.

With the following content tools, you will be able to improve the readability of your content. This will not only drive traffic but encourage users to read your content from the beginning to end.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a must-have tool that analyzes your content for grammar issues and readability. You can even get a free Google Chrome plugin. This extension can be used in Google Docs, on social media, and across a variety of other content platforms.

You will be able to edit your content in real-time, and rest easy knowing that it’s error-free and optimized for your audience.

Take the stress out of checking your content for spelling errors and any other readability issues.

Hemingway App

Just as with Grammarly, the Hemingway App serves as a free online writing assistant. The difference is that you paste your content directly into the content editor instead of using an extension. 

The tool will then analyze your content for readability, and any spelling and grammar issues that your content may have.

Tools like Grammarly and the Hemingway App will help you to pare down your content and write in a way that makes the most sense to your target audience.

Side note: As a general rule, you should always aim for a readability “grade” of 5 to 8 for most audiences.

Website Analytics

The truth is, we all have room for improvement – even the best of the best. 

Performance metrics will allow you to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and how to turn those insights into more data-driven decisions.

Here are a couple of our favorite content analytics tools that can help you accomplish these goals.

Inspectlet

Have you ever wondered what the visitors on your website read and look at – and how you possibly concert them from prospects into leads? Well, there’s an answer for this. 

Inspectlet will actually record a video of user behavior so that you can know how long they were on your website, which elements grabbed their attention, and how they engaged with your content. This is a big advantage. 

With this tool, you will also be able to determine where your website is lagging if someone leaves. By going off of these analytics, you can create your content and make it more appealing to your readers.

Google Analytics

If we’re talking about analytic tools, Google Analytics just may be the king. 

This is a free platform that can help you improve your content, examine your traffic, and optimize your website.

With this tool, you will be able to easily measure important engagement metrics such as session duration, page views, and bounce rate. These analytics will also allow you to identify specific types of content that already appeal to your existing audience.

In Conclusion

Solid content is the key to any digital marketing strategy. It is the secret sauce that will help you establish your brand online. Stay steps ahead of your competition by using these great tools. 

As always, we would love to work with you for any of your marketing and content needs.  Visit www.dalexsocials.com or www.dalexdesigngroup.com today to learn more.