Crafting the right content for your business takes a little effort and ingenuity, but quality content is indispensable when it comes to attracting attention in a digital environment. As a business owner, you know how difficult it is to get today’s consumers to engage with your message, but you also know that it’s crucial for turning traffic into purchases. Here, you’ll find a selection of useful tools that will make your content creation simpler and more effective.
Content Creation: CHOOSING A TOPIC
Productive content creation starts with a good idea. If you keep in mind that you’re writing for your audience, not yourself, you’re better able to suit content to what they’re looking for. Find out about your preferred customers’ interests and generate interesting topics using any of the following tools:
1. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator
First off, decide on three keywords relevant to what your company offers. Secondly, enter them into this tool and it will generate a list of related hot topics that will keep you busy for a week. You can also get a regular subscription and supply yourself with topics that will last you for an entire year.
For example, I entered the keywords: content marketing, SEO, and engagement into the tool and got this:
Not the greatest headlines possible, but they give you some good ideas for content creation. And, it’s FREE.
2. BuzzSumo
Entering your keywords in BuzzSumo will direct you to the content that is most popular online in terms of social media shares. You can get a look at the actual articles for hints on subject, style, and structure. This gives you some valuable insight in what current users are most engaged with.
3. Pearltrees
Consumers today tend to tune out aggressive sales tactics, so you need content that educates and provides value. Pearltrees is an education tool that allows you to organize your content in one place as a visual, easy-to-understand “tree” layout. The gathered content can be a great source of inspiration for crafting your own educational content, and it can also provide access to numerous resources and references. This is a great asset for marketers as well as educators.
Content Creation: CREATE AN INTERESTING HEADLINE
Furthermore, readers will tend to move on if your content headlines are boring or vague. Content is much more successful with an attention-grabbing headline, so use the following tools to create one:
- Portent’s Content Idea Generator
This tool provides tips on writing a good copy, and can suggest interesting titles for your content that you can tweak as needed. Something blunt and obvious like “Why Gold Coins are Valuable” could be more compelling in another form, like “Huge Profits in Gold Coin Trades”.5. ContentIdeator
This free tool lists the titles of existing articles related to the keywords you provide. You can instantly spot the most engaging titles and use them to inspire your own. In the paid version, you can click-through to examine the article behind each title.6. Emotional Marketing Headline Analyzer
This is a great scoring tool to gauge the effectiveness of your headline. Enter your title and subject, and this app will tell you whether it’s strong or weak by calculating an emotional-value score as a percentage. It can also rate individual words you’re using in the title to find more effective alternatives.
Content Creation: MAKING IT VISUAL
More and more viewers today prefer visual content, so it never hurts to include some captivating images, infographics, and videos. In fact, visual content, especially video, is the type of content that is most frequently shared online. The following tools make it easier to use and share visual content:
7. Canva
This application gives you access to a library of templates and imaging tools. You can create or select a stunning backdrop of any size and add your own video, headers, images, text, and more. This allows you to quickly create some interesting marketing material.
8. Behappy
Using image quotes is also a good way to grab attention. Behappy allows you to easily add quotes to images using a variety of text and backgrounds. It’s a great way to dress up your posts so more people will take notice.
9. Piktochart
Infographics – graphics that convey information – are very successful online in capturing attention and creating shares. Piktochart provides attractive infographics templates which you can customize with your own data, text, and images.
Content Creation: EDITING TEXT
One of the most exhausting and boring aspects of writing a text is proof-reading your own work. Editing tools come in handy, especially if they can check both grammar and spelling. Take a look at one of such tools:
10. Hemingway Editor
This is a sophisticated tool that can identify and highlight weak sentences. It can also classify errors in different categories, so you can address them one at a time. Hemingway Editor also gives your work a readability score and warns you of overly complex words or phrases, so that you can express yourself with greater clarity.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, by utilizing these simple and effective tools, content creation becomes much easier. You can now generate more valuable content that will attract and retain the interest of a larger segment of online consumers. And not to forget – you will save your own time and nerves in the process.
Today’s guest post was brought to you courtesy of repeat contributor Natalie Smith. You can connect with Natalie on Twitter.
BIO: Natalie Smith is a freelance writer and copywriter from Seattle. She loves to write about topics such as content marketing, social media, and business is general. You can reach her @Natalie Smith.
Need marketing help?
We welcome the opportunity to show you how we can make your marketing SIZZLE with our data-driven, results-oriented marketing strategies. Sign up for our FREE newsletter, get the 1st chapter of our book on digital marketing analytics – FREE, or contact us for more information on hiring us.
Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
Follow us for the best of the web!