8 Tools for Better Online Content
Here's something you already know: Functioning content marketing needs good online content. And good content needs good topics. However, this wisdom alone does not lead to reading, viewing and hearing content. Good ideas and effective research do. So in this article, I've put together 8 tools that provide inspiration, information, or reach.
1. Content Marketing Inspiration with Answer The Public
If you are writing a blog post or producing a video, you should answer urgent questions from your target audience and help solve their problems. Previously, you would have had to conduct costly interviews to actually connect with people who are interested in your product or website.
Today, you can get to know your audience's questions without prior contact.
At Answer The Public you can enter a keyword, select the appropriate country and you'll get several user questions about your topic. On top of that, there's a list of long tail keywords sorted in alphabetical order for you.
The tool gets the data from the auto-suggest proposals from Bing and Google. You then answer the proposed user questions with your content.
A great tool. In combination with a keyword research a true theme El Dorado.
2. An Underrated Idea Supplier for Good Content: Pinterest
Pinterest is a still underrated tool when it comes to researching topics.
Why? Well, on the one hand, it offers the ability to search long tail keywords using the auto suggest feature, which you can then use for your content.
But what is even more important: the platform serves to exchange ideas. That's the core idea of Pinterest. So, if you're desperately looking for an idea, surf the platform a bit and type in relevant keywords in the search box.
Topics that are not always met with pure reflection can easily be researched with Pinterest.
For example, if you are writing a decorating blog and are looking for ideas on how to decorate your windowsill, all you have to do is enter the keyword and get great suggestions.
3. Infographics with Piktochart
Have you ever come across blog posts on the Internet where you thought, "Where do they take these crazy infographics?". And sometimes they were actually made by thr bloggers themselves without a professional designer or an agency.
One tool that also allows you to do that is Piktochart . The tool lets you create pretty infographics even without any design experience and thus supports you in the visualization of your content. Who would like to see pure running text in 2018?
Piktochart also offers good design fundamentals to less creative online marketers
Without a good idea, however, this great tool does not help you much. So think about what you want to tell to whom, before you begin to visualize it.
4. Content ideas with Google Correlate
Google Correlate is the little brother of Google Trends, so to speak. It evaluates the correlation of certain search terms over a given time course. The search terms are rated with a value between 0 and 1. At 1.0, there is complete agreement.
However, this match is not primarily qualitative. It just reflects again which terms are in demand over time with similar intensity.
So if you are looking for "Cookie recipe", you will see terms whose search volumes correlate. So "gingerbread spice", "Christmas ball" or "Santa Claus costume".
So far, so logical. But look for "dog food".
At this point, at the latest, it becomes clear that Google Correlate primarily provides clues for linking topics. Because it is clear that biscuit recipes and Santa costumes show correlated search volumes. Because they are connected by an event.
The correlation of "dog food" and, for example, "self-adhesive" is more difficult to explain. Maybe it is just coincidence.
5. Error-free content with the spelling checker by Grammarly
Writing texts is fun. Spell checkers are not. The spelling and grammar checker of Grammarly ensures that you do not embarrass yourself and your business with a text full of mistakes.
The spelling and grammar check of Grammarly ensures error-free texts.
6. Spread content with Mailchimp
Your content strategy is in full swing and you want to finally report it? Then use Mailchimp to distribute the content among your subscribers. In the free basic version, you can already create beautiful mails according to the WYSIWYG principle, embed videos and posts and link to your page.
Mailchimp offers you a good basis for designing beautiful e-mail newsletters.
For tracking your success, the tool provides statistics on link clicks and emails, among other things. Facebook and Instagram ads can also be created via Mailchimp.
7. Content inspiration with DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a semantic search engine, that is, it calculates the meaning of words. A great feature is the related search. The algorithm searches for synonyms and associations to the entered search term. This cannot only help in finding a topic, but also in overcoming a writer's block.
DuckDuckGo shows you which topics are semantically related.
8. Identify keyword competition with the MOZ Keyword Explorer
If good organic rankings are a goal of your content marketing strategy, you need to deal with keywords.
A good tool to find out the competition for a particular keyword is the keyword Explorer from Moz. It shows you the monthly search queries for the keyword, the difficulty that Moz calculates in the top search results, and the respective chances to create it.
You'll also see the top three pages and how many links point to them. The perfect keyword profile has a high search volume with low difficulty and high chance.
So look at the competition and write a post that answers the questions of users even better. If the competition is too big, look for a long tail variation or another keyword.
The free online version of MOZ Keyword Explorer lets you conduct up to 20 searches per month.