Some content creators think writing to satisfy your audience and impress search engines put them between a rock and a hard place.

But successful content marketers recognize writing for your audience isn’t different from writing for search engines. It’s all about creating valuable, consumable content and helping your audience discover it.

To help you achieve both, I’ve compiled a list of 13 tools divided into SEO and writing sections, but all designed to help you create valuable content that will get discovered and consumed by your target audience.

SEO tools to help audiences discover your content

These search engine optimization tools provide helpful analyses on keywords, competitors, search engine result pages, and more.

1. SpyFu

SpyFu does what its name implies – it allows you to spy on your content competitors. By typing your competitor’s website in the search box, you gain insight into relevant data such as traffic volume, inbound links, and profitable keywords in their organic content and paid search campaigns.

SpyFu shows you what’s working in your industry, including:

• Keywords
• Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
• Backlinks
• Competitors’ keywords, ranking, and ad test history

 Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans start at $33/month

2. Semrush

Semrush is an all-in-one SEO content writing tool for every marketer. With Semrush, you can perform detailed keyword research, SEO, competitive analysis, performance tests, campaign tracking, and content analysis.

Semrush also has an extensive suite of features, including:

• Keyword research for the most profitable search terms
• On-page and local SEO
• Competitive analysis
• Daily rank tracking for target keyword changes
• Social media management and analytics

Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans start at $119.95/month

Use @Semrush to perform detailed keyword research, #SEO, competitive analysis, performance tests, campaign tracking, and content analysis, says Sally Ofuonyebi via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

3. Clearscope

Clearscope empowers you to create rankable, traffic-worthy, and relevant posts. It compiles an in-depth list of relevant semantic keywords to include in your content for a target keyword.

Clearscope suggests content ranking requirements, such as word count and readability score, and gives an SEO grade in relation to the competition. It also helps you discover keyword gaps.

Pricing: Plans start at $170/month.

4. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that displays search and keyword metrics on search engine result pages.

This SEO tool analyzes your search term on multiple websites and shows you relevant trending, semantic and long-tail keywords. It also displays the ad cost of your keyword, its trend pattern, and competition data through powerful features like:

• Search interest chart (from Google and YouTube data)
• Keyword widgets for long-tail keywords recommendation and search volumes
• Google’s “people also search for” and “related searches” keyword widget
• Competitor gap analysis
• Cost-per-click (CPC) and volume data
• Website analytics, including Moz domain authority score, monthly organic traffic volume, ranking keywords, spam rating, and referring domains and links.

Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans start at $10/year.

5. Frase

Frase helps you create valuable, keyword-rich, and search-intent-optimized articles. It speeds up your content creation workflow by generating detailed content briefs in minutes.

Frase gives a core summary of the web’s best information in one place, providing:

• Well-researched content briefs
• Custom brief templates to streamline your content workflow
• Content optimization and comparison to top search results
• Content gap discovery
• SEO content analysis

Pricing: Plans start at $44.99/month.

@fraseHQ speeds up your #ContentCreation workflow by generating detailed content briefs in minutes, says Sally Ofuonyebi via @CMIContent. #SEOCLICK TO TWEET

6. LongTailPro

LongTailPro is another tool where the name says what it does. It discovers profitable long-tail key phrases of your target keyword.

You can find low competition and high-paying CPC keywords through its:

• Keyword profitability ranking
• Daily keyword tracking
• Domain name finder
• Competitive research

 Pricing: Plans start at $37/month

Writing tools to help your content

You can research your keywords, target phrases, etc., so your content will get noticed in search results. But you also need to take special care of the words, phrases, and sentences that come together to create your content. Here are some tools to help:

7. Grammarly Business

Grammarly Business analyzes your content for readability, clarity, plagiarism, spelling, and grammar. This tool helps you effectively communicate your message by delivering error-free, readable, and clear content to your readers through:

• Sentence rewrite suggestions
• Tone detection and adjustments
• Plagiarism detection
• Advanced suggestions
• Word choice

 Pricing: Starting at $12.50/month

8. Hemingway Editor

Another writing tool to help make your content readable and clear is Hemingway Editor. With this editing app, you can track and correct grammar errors on a single page.

Through color-coded highlights, it identifies what works and what can be improved. It also includes:

• Readability grading
• Word suggestions
• Formatting features
• Write and edit modes

 Pricing: Free via an online search; app is $19.99.

9. Cliche Finder

To help your content readability (and originality), avoid overused words and phrases that are a bore to hear or read. Cliche Finder can help you identify those and suggest replacements for those stale words. Just copy and paste your content into the available box and click “Find Cliches.”

 Pricing: Free

#ClicheFinder can help you identify and replace overused words and phrases, and it’s free, says Sally Ofuonyebi via @CMIContent. #ContentCreation #ToolsCLICK TO TWEET

10. Jargon Grader

Similar to cliches, jargon should have a limited (or no) presence in your content. Jargon Grader is a simple tool to help you create clear and easy-to-understand content.

It identifies and offers fixes for jargon in your content. It also highlights complex words or terminology that are often confusing and incomprehensible so you can remove them.

 Pricing: Free

11. RhymeZone

RhymeZone is a library of rhymes to create more captivating and memorable content. It delivers:

• Comprehensive list of rhymes by syllables or letters
• Rhyme ratings and analysis
• Re-rank and filter boxes
• Rhyme suggestions according to lyrics, poems, and novels

 Pricing: Free

12. Readable

You want your audience to consume your content, but they won’t if it’s too difficult. Readable can help. This analysis tool tests and scores your content’s readability, checks for grammar errors, and gives necessary suggestions for content improvement.

Among Readable’s features are:

• Colored highlights to denote grammar issues
• Readability testing for texts, files, emails, and website URLs
• Export and download file functions
• Text statistics
• Flesch-Kincaid grade level equivalent score
• Readability score
• Reach analysis

 Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans start at $4/month.

13. Plagiarism Checker

Plagiarism Checker by Small SEO Tools detects potential plagiarism in your content. It searches billions of documents online to ensure your content is original.

Its features include:

• URL integration
• Document uploading from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive
• Detailed plagiarism report
• Sharable and downloadable options

Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans start at $9.80/month

#PlagiarismChecker by @smallseotools1 detects potential plagiarism in your #content, says Sally Ofuonyebi via @CMIContent. #ContentCreation #ToolsCLICK TO TWEET

Create content that works for search and your audience

With these tools, you better position your content to rank well, so it attracts more readers. And when they get to your content, they’ll find it free of errors, jargon, and cliches and ready to be easily consumed.

All tools mentioned in the article are identified by the author. If you have a tool to suggest, please feel free to add it in the comments.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute