If you have a limited content marketing budget, you may be thinking about taking advantage of free online content marketing tools so that you can make the most of your content without having to spend much money.
However, with content creation being one of the most important aspects of your overall SEO strategy, how do you ensure you choose the right tools that will help rather than hinder your business?
You could simply use a process of trial and error. It will not cost you anything, but it could have a detrimental impact on your business if the tools you choose offer inferior services.
Alternatively, you could read online reviews to see which content marketing tools are rated as the best, but this is risky again. How do you know that the review sites in question do not have an ulterior motive for content marketing tools?
Your best bet is to seek the advice of SEO experts who have years of experience in using a wide variety of content marketing tools, both paid and fee, and this is why we have created the below guide.
Whether you are new to the world of entrepreneurship, have an established small business, or run a larger corporation, the below content marketing tools are all free and highly effective.
1. Moz Link Explorer
Moz Link Explorer, which is the new and improved Moz Open Site Explorer, is an online link-building tool that measures your backlinks, most valuable pages, linking domains, and anchor text. Designed specifically to help you build high-quality links within your content, this is a must-have tool for new and existing businesses alike.
One of Link Explorer’s best features is its vast index (over 40 trillion links and 718 million domains), which will allow you to uncover valuable prosects, create a solid link-building strategy, and track your ongoing progress.
Other link building practices that you can carry out using Moz Link Explorer include:
- See the links to any site
- Research competitor backlinks
- Locate broken links
- Check the spam score of backlinks
- Research top-performing content
- Analyze anchor text
- See new links
To use this tool, simply visit www.moz.com/link-explorer, enter the website or page URL you want to get link data for, create a Moz account, wait for an email notification, and then you are good to go.
Google Keyword Planner
Carrying out keyword research is one of the most crucial elements of any SEO strategy, and you cannot hope to do this effectively without the help of Google Keyword Planner.
At its most basic level, Google Keyword Planner helps you to research keywords for your search campaigns. However, there is so much more to this highly popular and completely free online content marketing tool than just this.
As well as being able to discover new keywords related to your business or niche, you can also use this tool to create an in-depth search campaign centered around keyword research.
Below are some of the key features of Google Keyword Planner:
- Discover new keywords. Google Keyword Planner will actively suggest keywords that are related to your products, services, or website.
- Check out monthly searches. With this tool, you can see estimates on the number of searches that a keyword obtains each month.
- Determine cost. Find out the average cost for your ad to show on searches for a keyword.
- Organize keywords. See how specific keywords fit into different categories that relate to your brand.
- Create new campaigns. Once you have your keyword plan, you can then create new campaigns based on your keyword research.
To use Google Keyword Planner, you first need to have a Google Ads account. Do not worry if you do not have one, and this can be set up in just a few minutes. Once you are signed in, you can choose to either Discover New Keywords or Get Search Volume and Forecasts for Keywords.
You can also sort, filter, and analyze your results with ease.
Google Trends
When it comes to creating great content that will knock your competitors out of the water, you need to focus on two things: originality and relevancy.
Google Trends can help you with both of these. A free online tool, Google Trends is essentially a search feature that shows how often a search term is entered into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period.
Google search trends data is extremely useful for marketers and business owners alike, enabling you to ramp up your marketing efforts based on when a particular search term relayed to your business is trending.
Other ways that you can use Google Trends to improve your content marketing efforts include:
- To find a skyrocketing niche or new product
- To locate relevant product categories in related topics
- To carry out keyword research
- To promote your store based on seasonal trends
- To create fresh content for your blog
- To create content based on current industry trends
- To find niche topics by region
- To monitor your competitor’s position
As mentioned already, Google Trends is a free tool, but it is also worth knowing that it is very easy to use and navigate. You can explore Google Trends by seeing what searches are currently trending and then digging deeper into the topic for further information. You can also type in your own search term or topic.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management system or tool that allows you to keep track and manage your social media profiles. It also enables you to monitor what people are saying about your brand and helps you to provide an immediate response.
Saving you a lot of time and effort, you can view streams from multiple channels such as Facebook, Twitter. LinkedIn, Instagram, and WordPress blogs, as well as post updates and replies.
Out of all the social media management tools available, Hootsuite is the most popular, with over 20% of all businesses using it to manage their social media presence.
Further benefits to using Hootsuite to manage your business’ social media presence include:
- You can monitor multiple streams from one dashboard
- You can schedule social media posts in advance
- You can analyze your social media campaigns using their unique analytics feature
- The Hootlet plug-in allows you to share content easily
- You can track key phrases and terms across user’s posts
- You can manage your social media customer service more efficiently
- You can seamlessly assign tasks to your team
You can enjoy a free Hootsuite plan that offers the management of three social media channels and up to 30 scheduled posts. Paid plans start at $49 per month.
Other popular content marketing tools:
- BuzzSumo
- Evernote
- Trello
- Canva
- SEMRush
- MailChimp
- Ahrefs
- Grammarly
Conclusion
Free content marketing tools are a great option for new businesses with a limited budget or for dipping your toes into the world of content marketing, with popular tools such as the ones listed above used by SEO experts and professional content marketers.
However, if you are serious about content marketing and want to boost your SEO efforts significantly, you need to use the latest tools and resources and access professional support. Here at Click Intelligence, we are passionate about creating, sharing, and promoting great content that is guaranteed to get you noticed by both searchers and search engines alike.
Find out more about our content marketing services here.
