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<\/a><\/p>\nNo content marketing tool can replace “>a good strategy<\/a> and talented people, no matter what AI headlines want you to believe. But having the right technology can help you do your job faster and more efficiently. But what are the right tools for you?<\/p>\n After nearly 15 years in the industry, I\u2019ve used my fair share of content marketing tools, and even I get overwhelmed with all the new options. In this guide, I\u2019ll help you avoid that stress by explaining what to look for in a great content marketing tool, how to choose the right combination for your needs, and sharing 19 of the top options on the market today.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n With so many content marketing and content strategy tools available, you need clear criteria to narrow down your choices and make shopping easier.<\/p>\n Tool selection depends on team size, budget, and workflow needs, and your team\u2019s needs may be different from those of your competitors and other similar businesses. Regardless of this, however, there are five criteria that I would recommend:<\/p>\n You\u2019ll also want to factor in how each tool addresses your pain points. With that in mind, I\u2019ve grouped my suggestions by use case:<\/p>\n Only 36% of marketing leaders<\/a> can accurately measure content marketing ROI, underscoring the importance of analytics and attribution features.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also crucial to look for tools that have kept pace with AI-driven search, since 98% of marketers plan to increase AI SEO spend in 2026<\/a>. According to Content Marketing Institute’s annual B2B report, 89% of marketers<\/a> now use generative AI tools, so AI capability is no longer a “nice to have.\u201d<\/p>\n Curious how you\u2019re performing in terms of AI search? Try our free AI Search Grader<\/a>.<\/p>\n Selection guidance by team size:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n I know I included this as a content planning and SEO tool, but truthfully, HubSpot Content Hub integrates content creation, analytics, automation, publishing, and a host of other things into a single interface. <\/p>\n Because of this, the integration headaches that plague most content stacks are avoided. In my years of agency work, I’ve also found it especially powerful for teams running blogs alongside email and social, since everything connects back to the same CRM data.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Planning, creation, publishing, analytics, and AI in one platform.<\/p>\n What we like: <\/strong>HubSpot\u2019s Breeze AI content assistant and tools can draft, repurpose, and optimize content without leaving the platform. The built-in SEO recommendations surface opportunities at the page level.<\/p>\n Pro tip: <\/strong>Use the Content Remix feature to turn a single long-form post into social clips, email copy, and ad headlines automatically.<\/p>\n Pricing: <\/strong>Free tools available; paid plans start at $20\/month.<\/p>\n Ahrefs<\/a> is an SEO tool we\u2019re big fans of here at HubSpot.<\/p>\n Before every article, I always check the Keyword Explorer and Content Gap report to see exactly what keywords competitors rank for that we don’t. This is one of the most effective ways to find high-ROI content opportunities.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Keyword research, competitive analysis, and tracking organic performance.<\/p>\n What we like:<\/strong> In addition to the tools I already mentioned, the Site Audit tool now flags AI Overview optimization gaps, helping content marketers identify GEO opportunities. AI<\/a> Overviews appear primarily for informational searches<\/a>, the exact queries that content marketers target most.<\/p>\n Pricing: <\/strong>Starts at $129\/month.<\/p>\n In past roles, Semrush<\/a> was my favorite SEO tool. Semrush’s Topic Research and SEO Writing Assistant make it easy to build data-backed content briefs that writers can actually use, while its competitor analysis and position tracking give invaluable insight to help evaluate the best ranking opportunities.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Full-funnel content strategy from keyword research to content briefs.<\/p>\n What we like: <\/strong>The AI-powered content brief generator produces structured outlines based on top-ranking pages in minutes. The platform also recently released an AI visibility plan that includes mention tracking, AI competitor analysis, prompt research, and more.<\/p>\n Pricing: <\/strong>Free limited plan; paid starts at $139.95\/month.<\/p>\n Buzzsumo<\/a> is a very useful multi-purpose content marketing research tool. It can help you analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor. You can see metrics like social shares, backlinks, and which influencers are sharing a given piece of content.<\/p>\n For content strategy needs, Buzzsumo can also be used to identify trending topics across platforms and the kinds of headlines that are driving the most engagement.<\/p>\n They also have great influencer reports, so you can see who the thought leaders are for a given topic area.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Data-backed content\/topic research, trend discovery, and influencer identification.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: BuzzSumo shows you what content is earning the most shares and backlinks for any topic or competitor. This is huge when validating ideas before you invest in production or working with a particular creator.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Starts at $199\/month.<\/p>\n Google Docs<\/a> has about 1 billion monthly active users<\/a>, and I\u2019d put my money on many of those being content marketers. It’s free, easy to use, and built for real-time collaboration with comments, \u201cassignments,\u201d suggested edits, and version history.<\/p>\n I\u2018ve never worked with a content team that didn\u2019t use it as their primary drafting environment.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for<\/strong>: Writing, editing, and collaborating internally or externally.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: It\u2019s free, widely used, and simple to get started. In addition, you can usually find a way to upload Google Docs directly to your CMS. In HubSpot, for instance, you can do that by default<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free.<\/p>\n Even the best writers have their share of slip-ups and typos \u2014 especially when you\u2019re writing thousands of words a week. Grammarly<\/a> helps catch spelling errors, grammar issues, and even makes suggestions to improve your writing readability by being less redundant and more concise.<\/p>\n It can also check for plagiarism and AI text, which is extremely helpful as we supplement our work with AI tools.<\/p>\n The Business plan adds tone detection and style guide enforcement, which is in beta.<\/p>\n Best for<\/strong>: Catching grammar errors, improving clarity, and maintaining brand tone.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: The browser extension works with Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, and offers a basic grammar and punctuation plan for free across practically every website and platform (i.e. social media, Google Docs, email clients, Slack, even HubSpot).<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free basic plan; Business plan starts at $15\/user\/month.<\/p>\n If your website or blog is on WordPress, Yoast<\/a> is a non-negotiable.<\/p>\n It\u2019s essentially an \u201call-in-one\u201d SEO plugin that includes keyword optimization, meta-descriptions and URL slugs editing, technical SEO tasks, and internal link suggestions. The simple red, yellow, and green indicators make it easy to see whether you\u2019ve optimized your page correctly or what still needs work.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> On-page SEO optimization for WordPress sites.<\/p>\n What we like:<\/strong> The internal linking suggestions save editors significant time and consistently improve site architecture.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free; Premium at $99\/year.<\/p>\n WordPress.org<\/a> is the most widely used CMS in the world. In fact, Search Engine Journal<\/a> reports that it powers about 39.5% of all sites on the web, including The New Yorker<\/a> and The Next Web<\/a>. Its plugin ecosystem lets you scale without switching platforms as you grow, but it can require some coding knowledge to get the most out of it.<\/p>\n At its core, WordPress,org<\/a> is an open-source CMS with vast possibilities. You can self-host or host your site via WordPress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Blogging, editorial publishing, and CMS flexibility.<\/p>\n What we like<\/strong>: WordPress contains plugin architecture<\/a> and a template system so you can customize any website to fit your business, blog, portfolio, or online store. Plus, it integrates with multiple plug-ins to take your work to the next level.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free (self-hosted); WordPress.com plans start at $4\/month.<\/p>\n Planable<\/a>\u2019s Universal Content is a bundle of features that help marketing teams create top-notch content of any form without having the continuous back and forth between your teams or even clients.<\/p>\n You can collaborate on visual content calendars and plan content in real time. Each member can be assigned custom roles and permissions that allow checks and balances, and each project can have tailored approval workflows.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Content planning, approval workflows, and client collaboration.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Planable helps streamline planning, creating, reviewing, and collaborating on content across multiple channels: social media, blogs, newsletters, etc, for both internal teams and agency client work.<\/p>\n What we like:<\/strong> The real-time preview shows exactly how content will look across different channels before it goes live.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free up to 50 posts; paid plans from $39\/month.<\/p>\n Explore more content marketing planning tools here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even trained graphic designers have to admit Canva<\/a> is a wonderful tool. It can be used for all kinds of visual content marketing including social media images, blog cover photos, graphs and charts, infographics, website banners, slide decks, paid ads, and even videos, ebooks, and reports.<\/p>\n Start with one of their templates or create a new design from scratch. If you can drag and drop, you can create materials using Canva. The platform has also introduced AI functionality that can help edit photos or create visuals from text prompts.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for<\/strong>: Designing your own marketing materials with or without design knowledge.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Canva\u2019s intuitive UI allows design novices to easily create graphics for all your marketing needs and collaborate with your team. Paid plans also allow you to upload brand guidelines, custom fonts, create templates, and upload editable Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop files.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free plan; paid plans from $120\/month, free paid plans for non-profits and education available with verification.<\/p>\n Vidyard<\/a> is a video marketing platform well-known for its sales enablement, but it is also amazingly useful for content marketers.<\/p>\n As an editor, I\u2019d use Vidyard to send feedback on articles when I couldn\u2019t meet in person with teammates or guest contributors, but you can also use it to host, share, and promote video content on your website.<\/p>\n Vidyard also has impressive in-video personalization capabilities.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Recording, hosting, and sharing video content for marketing and sales.<\/p>\n Why we like it: <\/strong>Vidyard\u2019s analytics and personalization features not only help businesses understand how their content is performing, but also demonstrate how to leverage it to boost engagement.<\/p>\n Vidyard\u2019s features are robust. You can run A\/B tests<\/a> and even gate videos at a certain time length to help capture leads<\/a>. Additionally, they\u2019ll easily optimize your videos for SEO and integrate with various CRM, email, and social platforms.<\/p>\n The AI script generator is also a huge time-saver for teams producing high video volume.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free basic plan; paid from $19\/month.<\/p>\n Loom<\/a> allows you to create, edit, record your screen, and share videos, but it sits in a different category than Vidyard. It’s a simple tool built for speed, not polish.<\/p>\n For content teams, it’s invaluable for creating and embedding technical walkthrough tutorials, recording content briefs, and communicating with your team or collaborators quickly.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for<\/strong>: Creating video presentations and tutorials.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Loom is versatile and user-friendly. Utilize it to easily answer questions or explain complex topics that require a visual aid.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free up to 25 videos; paid from $15\/month.<\/p>\n Adobe Express<\/a> (formerly Adobe Spark) bridges the gap between Canva\u2018s simplicity and Photoshop\u2019s power.<\/p>\n The AI-powered background removal and generative fill features are particularly useful for product-focused content teams, but it also offers templates and an easy-to-navigate interface that\u2019s accessible for non-designers.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Professional-grade graphics, PDFs, and short-form video.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free; Premium at $9.99\/month.<\/p>\n Airtable<\/a> is an extremely adaptable content calendar tool. You can configure it as a Kanban board, timeline, gallery, or spreadsheet \u2014 and the automations mean you can trigger status updates, Slack notifications, and more without manual work.<\/p>\n I\u2019d recommend using it for:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also used Airtable for several other things in the past, including growth experiments and general team operating documents.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Building flexible content calendars and editorial workflows.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Airtable is great for storing lots of data (hello, spreadsheets) in one place and using customized filters to sort it. The content calendar templates get you set up in under an hour, and the interface is approachable enough that even non-technical stakeholders adopt it quickly.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free up to 5 editors; paid from $20\/seat\/month.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re producing content, you\u2019ll need a way to manage the process. This is particularly true if you\u2019re working with many staff writers or guest writers.<\/p>\n Trello<\/a> is a simple kanban and project management tool that can be used for many purposes, but I especially like it for content planning and your writing workflow. (I used it to manage 60+ team members in a past role).<\/p>\n If you don\u2018t need complex automations, Trello\u2019s free plan covers most content marketing needs.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Teams that need a simple, visual content pipeline.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Trello puts all of your team\u2019s projects in one place and is customizable enough to grow with your changing needs.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free; paid from $5\/user\/month.<\/p>\n As your content strategy expands and involves multiple teams, Asana<\/a> is equipped to handle those complexities. Its timeline and dependency features keep everyone aligned.<\/p>\n At HubSpot, we use it to manage content across all of our blogs, communicate about tasks, and more. The visibility it gives across workstreams is genuinely hard to replicate in a simpler tool.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Cross-functional content projects with complex dependencies.<\/p>\n What we like:<\/strong> The Goals feature lets you tie individual content tasks directly to broader marketing objectives, which makes quarterly planning reviews much easier.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Use Asana’s workflow builder to automate content approval routing \u2014 when a draft is marked \u201cready for review,\u201d it can automatically reassign to your editor and notify stakeholders without anyone touching it manually.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free basic; paid from $13.49\/user\/month.<\/p>\n When discussing content marketing tools, it would be reckless not to consider analytics tools<\/a>.<\/p>\n Google Analytics<\/a> is one of the most widely used analytics platforms online \u2014 and with good reason. It\u2019s easy to use (at least the basic configurations), and it starts free. Two big benefits.<\/p>\n When it comes to content marketing, you can track page visits, traffic sources, session durations, and bounce rate. However, its power is even stronger if you\u2019re technical and know how to set up a proper configuration.<\/p>\n Not only can you track goals, like form submissions or product purchases, but you can also set up behavioral events<\/a>, like scroll depth, adding a product to a shopping cart, or downloading a file.<\/p>\n Best of all, you don\u2019t have to do much to get access to all of this data.<\/p>\n Simply set up your Google Analytics account, copy the code provided to your website, and you\u2019re good to go. Google Analytics will automatically start tracking the data from your website.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for<\/strong>: Understanding your audience and tracking site metrics.<\/p>\n Why we like it<\/strong>: Google Analytics is ubiquitous, free, and easy to use. Use it to see how people found your site and observe visitor behavior.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free.<\/p>\n Search Console<\/a> is required reading for any content team that cares about organic traffic. I check it weekly to catch indexing issues, spot keyword cannibalization, and identify pages that rank on page two and are ripe for a quick update.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Best for:<\/strong> Tracking keyword rankings, impressions, and indexing health.<\/p>\n Pricing:<\/strong> Free.<\/p>\n When I first started working in digital marketing<\/a>, Hotjar<\/a> was one of the coolest tools to me. Best known for its heat maps, Hotjar focuses on conversion rate optimization.<\/p>\n It provides deeper insight into user behavior and experience around your content by recording cursor movements and clicks around your website. It also offers on-site polling, surveys, and session replays.<\/p>\n Where Google Analytics can help you uncover the \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201cwhere\u201d of user behavior, Hotjar\u2019s tools can help you start to tiptoe into the \u201cwhy\u201d and even \u201chow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
How to Evaluate Content Marketing Tools<\/h2>\n
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The Best Content Marketing Tools<\/h2>\n
Content Planning & SEO Tools<\/h3>\n
1. Content Hub (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n2. Ahrefs (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n3. Semrush (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n4. Buzzsumo (Capterra Rating: 4.5\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nContent Creation & Publishing Tools<\/h3>\n
5. Google Docs (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-5-20260225-5547009.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n6. Grammarly (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n7. Yoast (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-7-20260225-7861614.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n8. WordPress.org (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-8-20260225-4666338.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n9. Planable (Capterra Rating: 4.5\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-9-20260225-6541326.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nVisual Content & Video Marketing Tools<\/h3>\n
10. Canva (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-10-20260225-8515744.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n11. Vidyard (Capterra Rating: 4.5\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-11-20260225-7556483.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n12. Loom (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-12-20260225-865458.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n13. Adobe Express (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-13-20260225-9618859.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nProject Management & Collaboration Tools<\/h3>\n
14. Airtable (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
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![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-14-20260225-9772067.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n15. Trello (Capterra Rating: 4.5\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-15-20260225-8741431.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n16. Asana (Capterra Rating: 4.5\/5)<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nAnalytics & Performance Tools<\/h3>\n
17. Google Analytics 360 (Capterra Rating: 4.7\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-17-20260225-7415054.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n18. Google Search Console (Capterra Rating: 4.8\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-18-20260225-2177861.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n19. Hotjar (Capterra Rating: 4.6\/5)<\/h4>\n
![\"content](\"http:\/\/www.fliegewiese.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/content-marketing-tools-19-20260225-4118744.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n