Our Blog Create Better Content with These 4 Tools Posted on 02.24.2021 Marketing How do you rate yourself in creating content for your website, social media and blog? Maybe some smart and fabulous tools can kick your content creation into high gear! These digital marketing tools offer lots of options for improving the quality and quantity of your content. From design to collaboration and writing to search engine marketing, these tools can transform you into a top-notch digital marketer! Jump to Section Canva Canva Google Drive Grammarly SEMRush Canva If you have a designer on your marketing team, lucky you! This makes it easy to stay on-brand with a consistent look. If you don’t have a designer—or perhaps if you have a lot of last-minute social media needs—consider Canva. This online design tool provides templates with snazzy designs that you can use to create social media posts, website graphics, and the occasional flyer or brochure. You can choose what size and type of image you need to create, add text in a creative font, and choose from the stock images available. Another option is to create your brand template and save it for duplication and customization over and over again. Paid or free, Canva allows some collaboration with others, so you can view, edit and approve designs online with your team members. Canva is free for nonprofits and offers several affordable plans for other types of organizations. The Pro version opens up more options, such as the Brand Kit and access to stock images. Try it, and you’ll be hooked on this handy, fun, and easy-to-use design tool! Google Drive Cloud-based storage takes content collaboration to the next level. Use your Gmail address to log into drive.google.com and create a project folder where you can upload documents, photos and other files. You can even take notes in a Google Doc online and share it instantly with your team. While you’re logged in, use Google Meet to have a quick online meeting and share your screen. With Google Drive, everyone can work on copy for an upcoming promotion when it’s convenient for them. You can see their additions and changes—in real-time if you happen to be in the document at the same time. The fantastic thing is that everything is saved in the cloud, so you only need to log into your account to access it. An app is also available, allowing you to access the documents on Google Drive from mobile devices. Grammarly Let’s say writing isn’t your strong suit — you’re not alone! Many people struggle with the details of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and tone. That’s where Grammarly comes in. This handy online tool or plugin can check your writing as you go. Grammarly teaches you what you can do to improve your writing. Blog posts, social content, and even email communications can always be better, and Grammarly shows you how. For example, if your use of commas or adverbs is out of control, Grammarly helps clean up your text. It can also identify repeated words and misspelled words. It also catches errors in verb tense and helps identify long and run-on sentences. Modify the settings to suit your preferences, and watch as your writing flows and reads better, which improves your credibility. Add the free Grammarly plugin to your browser for basic writing suggestions in your Google Docs, Gmail, and any writing you do within online tools. Get a premium plan to expand the writing assistant’s capabilities to include style, tone and other advanced suggestions. SEMRush If you’re into analytics or want to get into that space to develop better website content, SEMRush can be a big help. It’s a one-stop shop for keyword and competitor research, but it also can help you identify and maintain site health and look at content analytics. It features over 40 tools to analyze traffic, rankings, and more. Among the content-related features, SEMRush can help with content strategy, content creation, distribution and optimization and content marketing analytics. It provides 14 separate tools to help you refine and distribute your message. For example, when you identify high-ranking keywords, you can then develop content and blog posts around those keywords. You can boost content that fits the keyword and rank well, bringing more traffic your way. Here at Metro Studios, our content strategy team uses SEMRush to perform site audits and develop SEO strategies for clients. We can find broken links and bad backlinks to improve your site’s credibility. If you have the time, you can learn more about how your website compares to others and work on developing more quality content—which is what the internet craves! Implement one or more of these tools as part of your content development and see how effective they can be in improving and enhancing the content for your brand.