Not all of us are able to create contagious content, and some are only interested in reaching out to a market niche. Yet, who’s to say you shouldn’t boost your general outreach, especially if you think it will eventually secure attention from those very specific readers you’re interested in?
If you’re reading this, you undoubtedly grasp the importance of writing a blog that readers can consistently relate to.
Because reach and reader engagement are two very important factors in gaining awareness, we thought we’d reveal 10 of the content creation tools often used by viral blog writers.
1. Site Explorers
Whenever you’re curious to know what your competitors are up to, give the Moz Open Site Explorer tool a try. Subscribe to browse through back links to check their content for similarities to yours. Use Top Pages to see if any authoritative sites you were hoping to draw to your website have been linking back to them. Learn from their successes and mistakes.
2. Search Engine Aggregators
Use Soolve, Ubbersuggest or other free tools to research trending words across various platforms, and to display the ideal keyword suggestions for your particular requirements. Some can save your searches for future comparison, they can be geo-specific, and they may allow you to check if a certain keyword phrase reached the Internet keyword top list that day.
3. Schedulers
Various content management systems enable blog post scheduling. Buzzsumo claims the optimum time to publish is Tuesday, Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella claims it’s Friday, and the Zimmerman Agency suggests 9 a.m. and lunch time are best. But what it all boils down to is research and getting to know your own readers, regardless of others’ opinions.
4. Visuals
There’s no shortage of royalty-free stock photos out there, and some virtual photo vaults even offer freebies. Enjoy templates, icons and full-size, high-resolution images, some of which are free, courtesy of Canva and PicMonkey. The latter even offers an editing tool on the spot and a free trial.
5. Quizzes and Surveys
Interactive features are nothing to snigger at, especially as some are free. QuizzRevolution, Quizworks and PollDaddy are some fine examples of content creation tools on a budget, with some limited features offered free of charge.
6. Social Media Monitors
Know what to expect in terms of competition and how readers will receive your blog post when you use the Keyhole tool to check a specific URL, a hashtag or a keyword for its Twitter, Instagram and Facebook trending patterns. This is a paid service, and while it may be a bit pricey, there are others out there to explore.
7. Toolbar Plugins
The SEOQuake toolbar plugin and extension turns everything into SEO content for you. Control query results, find specific content and turn your desktop into an SEO dashboard with this simple extension for Chrome, Opera and Safari browsers.
