Google uses a complex algorithm with hundreds of weighted factors to index and rank web pages according to their relevance to any given keyword. With empirical testing, you can learn about Google’s algorithm and understand how to create content that ranks. Then, to rank high on Google search results, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential.
Without the best content writing tools for SEO, writing optimized content can be a lengthy and tedious task. To help you save a lot of time and labor, we’re publishing our list of the 10 best content writing tools for SEO. These tools fit in at different stages of the content creation process, but each one has the potential to positively impact your business by saving you time and effort and improving your engagement with readers.
Why You Need Content Writing Tools for SEO
Take a look at our on-page SEO checklist and you’ll see just how many different on-page factors can influence search engine optimization.
Digital marketers need to make data-driven decisions about which keywords to target, how long each blog post should be, and what should be included in the content. In addition to spelling and grammar, content needs to be accessible to its target audience, easy to trust and easy to find. That means optimizing things like URLs and meta-tags.
With the right content writing tools for SEO, digital marketers can automate many of these requirements. In other cases, SEO tools can significantly cut down on the amount of time it takes to perform optimization tasks.
Here’s our top 10 list of tools and how they can fit into your content creation process.
10 Best Content Writing Tools for SEO
Google Search Console
The Google Search Console is Google’s own tool that helps you improve your rankings in the search engine results pages. The console includes tools that measure the performance of your website, including page load times that impact SEO. You can monitor your website’s position on Google search results, including which of your pages are ranking for specific keywords. You can also see how many impressions and how many clicks your pages have gotten in the search engine results pages.
Google Search Console is a critical tool for all webmasters. It provides much-needed transparency into how your pages are performing and can help determine which content you should optimize or what keywords you should target next.
Pricing: Free for all website owners.
Google Keyword Planner
Most digital marketers use either the Google Keyword Planner or a paid version with better features for keyword research. Still, this is one of the best free tools for doing basic keyword targeting research. The keyword planner offers two main features:
- Discover new or related keywords – You can type in any keyword to see a list of related keywords along with their search volume and other related metrics. This makes it easy to find new keywords to target for SEO.
- Get search volume and forecasts – You can monitor trends to identify search terms or keywords that are becoming more popular.
Pricing: Free for anyone with a Google Ads account. If you need a quick guide, you can check out this resource: How to Create a Google Ads Account.
WordStream
WordStream offers a stripped-down version of Google’s keyword planner that’s free and easy to use. Just type in a keyword of your choice, pick an industry and type in your location. Then click the big orange button and you’ll get a list of keywords along with their search volumes on Google and Bing, and the average CPC for each keyword on each ad network.
Pricing: WordStream’s keyword research tool is free to use.
SEMrush
SEMrush is one of the most popular and useful tools for digital marketers of all stripes. Their monthly subscription package includes 40 different tools that help with SEO, PPC and social media management. Marketers can use SEMrush to analyze backlinks, conduct keyword research, analyze the performance and traffic of their own website or those of their competitors and discover new markets, niches and opportunities. There’s also a site auditing utility that can help with some of the more technical aspects of website SEO.
Pricing: Some features available for free, paid subscriptions start at $99.95 monthly.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is an analytical tool that helps marketers find out what kind of content people are sharing across many different platforms. You can enter a website to easily identify their most successful pieces of content. You can analyze trends over the past day, the past month, or the past year. You can filter by author or by platform and Buzz Sumo even supports negative keywords to help you pinpoint the data you’re looking for.
BuzzSumo helps you efficiently analyze and benchmark your content against the competition while staying on top of new trends.
Pricing: Starts at $79 per month for unlimited searches.
Answer the Public
Type any keyword into this free online tool and you’ll get an extensive visualization of questions people have asked on Google using your keyword. This tool connects with one of the biggest recent additions to the Google search pages: Snippets.
On some search results pages, Google now displays Snippets. A snippet is a tab near the top of the page that highlights a common question related to the target keyword. When a user clicks on the snippet, Google connects them to a web page that answers that question explicitly. Being featured in a Snippet is a great way to generate organic traffic because Snippets are always near the top of the page.
With Answer the Public, marketers can write highly targeted articles that directly address questions that they know are being typed into search. This makes it more likely that their articles will be featured in Google Snippets.
Pricing: Three searches per day for free, unlimited searches starting at $99 monthly.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a WordPress plug-in that gives you real-time feedback as you optimize your blog posts using WordPress. The plug-in acts like a built-in checklist tool that prompts you to complete on-page SEO tasks for each blog post that you create. Yoast SEO provides feedback on your page optimizations in real-time, makes suggestions for improvement and helps you manage all the details when doing on-page SEO with WordPress.
Pricing: The basic version of Yoast SEO is free. Yoast SEO premium starts at $89 monthly for a single-website license, but you can save money by purchasing multiple licenses for multiple sites at the same time.
Keyword Density Checker
Keyword density is an important factor that search engines like Google use to rank web pages. Digital marketers know that the Google Search algorithm looks at the density of keywords to understand the relevance of each piece of content. For each blog post, it is important to ensure that the target keyword is mentioned a sufficient number of times within the text. At the same time, excessive mentions of the keyword (a practice known as keyword stuffing) are discouraged.
This simple keyword density checker makes it easy to figure out how many times each keyword is mentioned in your article. You can paste in the text of your article and you’ll receive a list of the most frequently occurring one-word, two-word and three-word keywords in your article. For most content pieces, digital marketers aim for a keyword density of 2-5% for the target keyword.
Pricing: The keyword density checker is just one of over 75 free SEO tools offered by the team at PrePostSEO. Visitors to the website can perform a total of 500 queries per month across all tools. To unlock more searches, users can purchase a premium plan starting at $50/year for 50,000 annual searches.
Read-Able
Read-able is a useful tool for ensuring that your content is accessible for your target audience. When you paste your article into Read-able, it uses a proprietary algorithm to assign your content a grade level that corresponds to how easy it is to read and understand.
The average North American reads at an around an eighth-grade level, so if that’s your target audience, Read-Able will help you write clear and concise sentences that are easier for a wide range of readers to understand. If your target audience is college-educated, it’s okay to use longer words and complex sentences to convey meaning. Read-Able is all about matching the level of your writing with the reading level of your target audience to provide the best experience for readers.
Pricing: Read-able offers a free version of its tool that checks reading level, grammar and spelling. The PRO version is available starting at $4/month and includes features like edit suggestions, error highlighting, additional reports and the ability to score emails and additional file formats.
Grammarly Premium
Google checks your website for spelling and grammar. A website whose content contains many spelling errors is less likely to rank highly on search engines. Grammarly makes it easy to create content that is grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. You can add the tool to your browser and use it when composing emails, social media updates or a blog post.
Pricing: Grammarly Premium starts at just $11.66 per month when you purchase a one-year subscription. The premium version offers more corrections and an anti-plagiarism feature to help ensure your content is truly unique.
Summary
From keyword research to checking spelling and grammar, our 10 best content writing tools cover every step in the content creation process. Put some of these tools to work and start saving time and effort when you’re writing content for organic search.
At Directive, we use our Customer Generation methodology to create innovative marketing strategies that drive revenue growth. By leveraging our proven approach, tech companies can create content that truly speaks to their ideal customers and drives results. Invest in the right tools and strategies today to unlock the full potential of your content marketing efforts. Book your call today to see how our expert team of performance marketers can take your marketing to the next level.
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CEO Garrett Mehrguth
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