Content marketing has become incredibly complex. Between SEO and keywords, conversion funnels, and analytics, it has become virtually impossible to market your content without help.
Luckily, there are now tons of tools that can help maximize the impact of your content marketing and streamline your process so you can focus on other parts of the business.
Best Content Marketing Tools
Strategy
| Applications | What Does It Do? | Notable Users | Social Followers | Cost | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AHRefs | Website audit Keywords Competitors Domain authority Site ranking Tutorials Community | Facebook Shopify Netflix Expedia ebay Uber TripAdvisor Adobe HuffPost | Facebook: 93,130 Twitter: 69,392 LinkedIn: 47,753 | Lite: $99/month Standard: $179 Advanced: $399 Agency: $999 |  |
| Moz | SEO audit Backlink research Domain analysis Comparative rankings Daily rank tracking SERP/STAT Link Index Education/Training | Zillow Trivago Razorfish Alaska Aaron's 99 designs | Facebook: 277,390 Twitter: 560,600 Linkedin: 89,033 | Free trial Standard: $99/month Medium $149 Large $249 Premium $599 | |
| SEMRush | Research Traffic insights Backlink building Site Audit SEO Ad research Social media tracker Brand monitoring Lead generation tool | ebay TopRank online marketing SEOBook Elite Strategies | Facebook: 188,416 Twitter:137,873 LinkedIn: 120,539 | Free trial Pro $119.95/month Guru $229.95 Business $449.95 | |
| Keyword Planner | Keyword planning Monthly search volume Cost per click Adwords competition | Unknown | N/A | Free tool |  |
Distribution
| Applications | What Does It Do? | Notable Users | Social Followers | Cost | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Wesbsite optimization Sales funnels Lead generation Inbound marketing campaigns Landing pages | World Wildlife Fund Trello SurveyMonkey SoundCloud Subaru ClassPass VMWare | Facebook: 2,007,297 Twitter: 812,276 LinkedIn: 518,672 | Some features free Up to 90% discounts for startups Paid features start at $45/month Enterprise starts at $3,200/month | |
| HootSuite | Scheduling Social monitoring Social campaign tracking Team messaging | Marketo/Adobe World Wildlife Fund Sophos Breville | Facebook: 881,767 Twitter: 7,637,597 LinkedIn: 294,914 | Free trial Pro $29/month Team $129/month Enterprise upon request | |
| Buffer | Social scheduling Tailoring posts Browser extension Apps Third party integration | Shopify Stripe Microsoft Github Basecamp Business Insider | Facebook: 130,278 Twitter: 1,006,637 LinkedIn: 37,220 | Free trial Pro $15/month Premium $65/month Business $99/month | |
| GetResponse | Email marketing Landing pages Webinars Automation Conversion funnel Push notifications | Hilton Unesco Henkel AutoDoc | Facebook: 159,531 Twitter: 61,399 LinkedIn: 9,880 | Free trial Basic: $15/month Pro: $99/month Max: Custom pricing | |
Analytics
| Applications | What Does It Do? | Notable Users | Social Followers | Cost | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | Traffic Audience Conversions Custom reports | Uber Airbnb Sporify Udemy Slack GE NASA Epson Samsung | Facebook: 171,155 Twitter: 1,145,736 LinkedIn: 146,573 | Standard version: free 360 version: $150,000/year | |
| Matomo | Same as Google Analytics but protects privacy of data | United Nations NASA Red Bull Huawei | Facebook: 8,249 Twitter: 9,502 LinkedIn: 928 | Free if hosted on company's servers Cloud starts at $29/month for 50,000 page views Up to $11,900/month for 50 million page views | |
| GoSquared | Real-time analytics Live Chat Marketing automation Customer data hub | J.P. Morgan Whole Foods Canon Dell GE | Facebook: 1,595 Twitter: 6,304 LinkedIn: 1,280 | Free tier Analytics start at $29/month Enterprise $499/month | |
| Chartbeat | Analytics dashboards Reporting Optimization Mobile App Slack integration | The Atlantic The New York Times The Washington Post CNN Le Monde The Telegraph | Facebook: 4,671 Twitter: 27,325 LinkedIn: 11,113 | Free trial Starts at $7,000/year | |
Strategy
Ahrefs
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Ahrefs was founded in 2010 in Singapore and has grown into a company used by some of the biggest names in content to formulate effective strategies. Track competitors’ content and your own at the same time, as well as mobile ranking, update frequency, locations per website, and keywords. Learning tools are free for everyone. Tiered pricing is reasonable for smaller companies on limited budgets. Score: 5.0
Moz
Moz focuses on simplifying SEO for clients and believes in earning customers rather than buying them. The platform helps companies understand their content’s reach and footprint in order to develop a better content strategy. Try Moz for free before paying a monthly fee starting at $99/month. Score: 5.0
SEMRush
SEMRush is an all-inclusive suite of tools to manage your content marketing workflow. By understanding what their competitors are doing and what keywords are popular, users can make effective choices for their content and maximize their results. Pricing is comparable to other similar sites. Rating: 4.5
Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is a simplified version of some of the others in this category, but it is completely free for those who want to do basic keyword research and know-how to leverage it for optimal results. Simply inputting a search term results in up to 10,000 relevant keywords along with search volume, cost per click, and AdWords metrics. Rating: 2.5
Distribution
Hubspot
Hubspot is a multifunctional inbound marketing platform including software, education, and community to help businesses grow better every day. It was founded in 2006 to respond to the shift in how consumers shop and buy. Pricing options run from free to thousands a month and Hubspot is intentional about helping startups and small businesses with limited budgets grow. Rating: 5.0
Hootsuite
The appeal of Hootsuite is the ability to post one piece of content on all your platforms, especially your social media platforms. More than 18 million users from tiny blogs to huge multinational companies use HootSuite to manage their social messaging and simplify their content marketing and promotion. Rating: 5.0
Buffer
Buffer is a software application for the web and mobile, designed to manage accounts in social networks, by providing the means for a user to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, as well as analyze their results and engage with their community. Rating: 4.5
GetResponse
GetResponse offers a complete suite of simple-yet-powerful solutions, scaled and customized for small and large companies and designed for organizations that want to implement effective, high-impact campaigns that drive marketing ROI. The company offers a spam-free solution, achieving a consistent deliverability rate over 99%, the highest deliverability rate in the industry. Rating: 4.0
Analytics
Google Analytics
The standard for web analytics, Google Analytics is user-friendly and offers a standard version for free that can measure many different metrics involved in content marketing and sales. A premium 360 version is available for large businesses at a flat cost of $150,000 per year. Rating: 5.0
Matomo
Matomo bills itself as a more private version of Google Analytics, which doesn’t allow Google or anyone else to use companies’ or customers’ data for its own purposes. The service is free if hosted on company servers or tiered based on monthly page views if the cloud option is chosen. Rating: 4.5
GoSquared
GoSquared makes elegant software to help you grow your SaaS business, with an emphasis on startups and scaling them for growth. The free tier is more basic but can help startups on shoestring budgets get the help they need to get to the next level. Analytics are intuitive, user-friendly, and easy to install. Rating: 4.5
Chartbeat
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Chartbeat is a top-notch company but has a niche in the area of media companies and major newspapers. Pricing is meant for sites with over 5 million page views per month and may be a drawback for newer companies and startups. Rating: 4.0
Media Shower can help you figure out how much to spend on marketing. And what you’ll get in return.
