Best SEO tools 2020 when Creating Quality Content

It doesn't matter how skilled someone is at fixing furniture -- if they don't have the right tools for the job, they won't get far. The same applies to the realm of digital marketing.

Even though stories about individual brilliance and natural flair for marketing are commonplace, SEO success is almost always built upon a solid set of tools. But if you're seeking to create irresistible content, what should be in your SEO toolbox?

When you task copywriters with crafting compelling texts, there are some tools that can make the job much, much easier. And by using these content optimisation tools properly, you can turn well-written but low-ranking content into SEO gold. Here are some tools that we find indispensable.

1. SEMRush

When creating optimised content, keyword research can be one of two things. You can either hack away using Google's tools, patiently building up databases of relevant keywords for every single page, or you can use tools like SEMRush. Pro-tip: Use SEMRush.

SEMRush offers an "all-in-one marketing toolkit", and that's great, but the tools we turn to most involve keyword research. Under the banner of "competitive intelligence", these tools let you paste in websites from competitors, and extract the keywords they rank for -- a great shortcut to planning your own keyword strategy.

Additionally, SEMRush lets you track keywords over time, so if you're trying to analyse SEO trends in 2019, it will be a vital piece of SEO software and well worth paying for.

2. AnswerthePublic

While SEMRush offers a diverse suite of marketing tools, AnswerthePublic is much more focused. The name gives it away a bit: this is a website that takes keywords and relates them to the kind of searches real people make.

By scraping Google's auto-suggest and question databases, the creators of this tool have come up with a uniquely valuable fusion. If you want to know what customers are searching for around the keyword "baseball caps", just plug it into the search field, and AnswerthePublic will deliver a wagon wheel of possibilities -- all in question format.

Answering questions is important if you are aiming to rank highly on Google snippets, and this tool makes it easy to see which queries are relevant. It even offers a connections feature linking baseball caps with related terms like baldness, sunburn, or ponytails. Even better, it's totally free, so we make it a regular stop in our content preparation.

3. KeywordTool.io

The third tool we find ourselves coming back to is KeywordTool.io. Again, this scrapes data from Google's autocomplete function, doesn't cost a penny to use, and results in a bundle of potential long-tail keywords to insert into content.

The best idea is to combine AnswerthePublic and KeywordTool, as both use different databases and come up with slightly different visualisations. KeywordTool is great for constructing blogs and articles around trending terms, while AnswerthePublic is all about answering customer queries.

Even better, KeywordTool also offers the chance to extract keywords for Amazon, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. So it's not just a Google-based tool, and it can be very useful when trying to crack social media marketing.

Mix essential tools with marketing awareness to create unbeatable content

These tools are go-to apps and websites for modern marketers, but don't just use them blindly. We like to keep track of the web's best SEO blogs to find inspiration (and information about new tools that can supplement our marketing efforts). So, bookmark sites like NeilPatel, Moz, and the Search Engine Journal, and give them a few minutes every morning. You won't regret it.

Alternatively, you could outsource content creation to SEO professionals. At greatcontent, we know how to use the best SEO tools around, and our pool of writers can turn keywords into conversions for any subject you choose. Just get in touch, and we'll help you construct an optimal content creation solution.

Text: Sam Urquhart
Image: shutterstock.com