Content marketing is becoming more and more popular.
Not just with big companies that have professional marketers and an entire team of creatives or even marketing agencies at their disposal.
Recently, I have seen an increasing number of freelance translators opt for content marketing, too – through blogs, social media, podcasts, you name it.
If you’re thinking about getting into the content marketing game, here are four free tools to help you get started:
Canva for Professional-Looking Designs
Canva is an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop tool that lets you create designs with a professional look-and-feel and your own, unique flair. The free version has plenty of templates and customization options for beginners and semi-pros alike. Plus, you don’t have to research the recommended size and resolution for social media posts, cover images, or blog banners because the tool handles that for you when you pick the kind of design you want to create.
Hootsuite for Social Media Marketing and Management
Hootsuite is a social media marketing and management platform that’s packed with many powerful features to help you streamline your social media marketing. While the free plan is fairly limited in comparison to the paid plans, it still lets you connect and monitor three social media accounts and allows you to publish posts to them, either immediately or via scheduling.
I’m relatively new to Hootsuite, but I find the platform extremely intuitive and convenient to use and feel that housing several channels under one roof will save me a lot of time in managing my social media presence.
Ubersuggest for Search Engine Optimization and Content Ideas
Ubersuggest is a keyword tool you can use to optimize your content for search engines, but it also serves up content ideas, helping you discover topics you may want to write about. Both features are essential in content marketing because 1) you want to be sure to write about things that people are actually interested in and 2) you need to make sure what you wrote will be seen (i.e., show up in search engines).
The free plan Ubersuggest offers limits the number of searches you can perform and the amount of data that is shown, but I find it perfectly sufficient for my SEO and content marketing efforts. Plus, in case I ever feel the need to upgrade, the paid subscriptions are still quite budget-friendly.
Google Trends for Topic Inspiration and Content Planning
Google Trends lets you explore, as the name suggests, search trends. You can compare several search terms with each other, discover seasonal or regional topic trends, and find content inspiration. The tool essentially gives insight into what kind of information people are searching for and when a topic is most relevant, and you can use that data to create interesting and timely content for your audience.
Do you have any other content marketing tools that you are using or that you would add to this list? Share your suggestions in the comments below!
Denise Josey 