| Plugin | Key Features | Get Started |
|---|---|---|
| Frase | ✓ AI-generated content briefs ✓ AI writer ✓ Collaboration tools ✓ SERP research |
Get a 5-day trial for $1 Pro starts at $14.99/month |
| Semrush (SWA) | ✓ Writing assistant ✓ Keyword analysis ✓ Plagiarism checker ✓ Readability score analysis |
14-day free trial Pro starts at $129.95/month |
| SurferSEO | ✓ Surfer AI for optimized content ✓ Content editing & Outline generator ✓ Page speed comparison ✓ Write and optimize in any language |
Start with $69/month plan 7-day money-back guarantee |
| Clearscope | ✓ Content gap analysis ✓ Intuitive Interface ✓ Google Docs integration ✓ Ideal for niche bloggers & businesses |
Start with $170/month plan |
| Hemingway Editor | ✓ Proofreading and readability enhancement ✓ Grades writing for improved readability ✓ Suggestions to enhance content |
Use the free web tool ($19.99 desktop) |
| Grammarly | ✓ Grammar and spelling error detection ✓ Cross-platform compatibility ✓ Integration with Google Docs ✓ Plagiarism checker |
Start with the free version |
| Yoast SEO | ✓ Most popular WordPress SEO plugin ✓ On-site and on-page SEO ✓ Social media optimization |
Check out the free version |
| ShortPixel | ✓ Image optimization for faster loading ✓ No quality degradation ✓ Options for cloud-based or local optimization |
Download the plugin |
Content writing is an art, and content optimization is how you ensure your art is seen by the right admirer of the art.
I just tried to be a little poetic, but the point remains the same:
No matter what content you create, you need to apply the last layer of SEO polish to make it shine.
Harsh Agrawal
To help you in your quest for creating memorable content, there are many content optimization tools.
Here in this resource, you will discover many content optimization tools that should be part of your workflow. I have done my best to share more than one tool in a particular category, giving you the choice to select each one according to your preferences.
These content optimization platforms/software will help you:
- Identifying content problems: With machine learning, you can discover problems that prevent you from ranking higher in search engines.
- Specific recommendations: Rather than generic recommendations, many of the below-mentioned tools will scout the web, and personalize the recommendation for your pages.
- Get more traffic: With a bit of change, you will be able to increase your traffic significantly, and that too only quality traffic.
Nonetheless, the next article that you going to publish: Take the help of these tools, and your content would shine at the right place and at the right time.
Moving ahead…
Best Content Optimization & Analysis Tools For every writer and marketer:
1. Frase
I discovered Frase last year, and since then it has been my go-to tool for creating a content brief and writing content. This not so popular tool deserves to be known by every digital marketer.
Frase uses artificial intelligence to help you quickly create a content brief. Within seconds, you will have the content topic and sub-topics you need to cover to gain authority on the topic you covering.
It does not stop here, as the content optimizer part scans the top-ranking articles, and suggests what you should be adding in your writing to improve the ranking.
You can use this content optimization feature for an existing article or even for a new article.
What I really like about this tool is, it is beginner-friendly and pocket friendly too in comparison with its peer.
Here is a video guide for Frase:
Frase offers a trial that lets you create 5 content briefs for free. If you are upgrading to a paid plan, that starts from $14.99/month.
2. Semrush Writing Assistant (Includes AI Content Writer)
SEMrush does not need any introduction, as they have established themselves as the #1 SEO suite. There are many modules of SEMrush that helps in content optimization, and one among them is “Writing assistant” or “SEO Content template”.
This tool can be accessed via Semrush web app and is also available as a WordPress plugin.
This tool is perhaps one of the simplest solutions for agencies and teams to start crafting SEO friendly content. Like other SEO content optimization tool, this one scans all the top-ranking pages for your target keyword, and recommend changes like:
- Number of words
- Words to include
- Semantically related words
- Where to get backlinks from
- Average readability score
By implementing all the recommendations, you can easily optimize your content for search engines, and hence improve your overall on-page SEO score.
This is a paid tool, and if you have never heard of SEMrush before or tried this feature, you can take advantage of their 14 days free trial. These 14 days are good enough to help you see the benefits of SEMRush’s SEO Content template feature.
3. SurferSEO
Your on-page SEO process will become easier, faster, and more comprehensive than ever
SurferSEO
This is the tagline of SurferSEO, and it does the heavy lifting of analyzing your content and target keyword to recommend the on-page SEO changes.
What makes SurferSEO stand out is by focusing only on data-driven on-page SEO optimization, whereas all other tools, do a lot of other stuff.
This puts SurferSEO in a unique position, as it is constantly taking feedback from the community, and improving their machine-learning algorithm to give better optimization recommendations.
Another feature that makes SurferSEO stand out is the page speed comparison. It scans, and compares the page load time of all pages, and recommends the idle page load time. This is one feature that removes the guesswork, and lets you find the idle page loading time.
In my recent experiment, I took the recommendation of SurferSEO and used the Assets cleanup plugin to improve the load time of the page. This helped me to improve the ranking by 8 positions for a competitive keyword.
This tool is popular among agencies, and the price starts at $69/month.
4. Clearscope
Clearscope is a popular SEO content optimisation tool with a neat interface. This tool is super apt for teams of any size, and also offers a Google doc add-on that could be used to bring the power of Clearscope in Google docs.
In my testing, I have found the interface intuitive, and it clearly helps me to identify the content gap of my article vs. top ranking articles. The results were spectacular and praise worthy.
Clearscope costs about $350/month, and it lets you run report on 50 keywords. Effectively, it cost about $7/report, which makes it idle for niche affiliate bloggers and a business SEO content optimisation tool.
5. Hemingway Editor (Optimize for readability)
A list of content optimization software is incomplete without listing Hemingway editor. Think of Hemingway editor as your proofreader to find complex and hard to read sentences.
It also grades your writing to help you understand the readability, and suggests ways by which you could improve it. (See example below)
I usually copy-paste my writing in the Hemingway desktop editor to find complex sentences, and improve on it, to improve the overall grade.
I recommend targeting anywhere between 5-7 as your reading grade though there could be cases (technical writing) when grade could be higher. Remember, the lower the grade is, the better it is.
This is a free web tool, and then there is a desktop version which is available at a price of only $19.99.
6. Grammarly (Optimize for reading)
Grammarly is another popular tool that should be part of every content team. This tool scans your article for grammatical and spelling errors.
I have written extensively about Grammarly earlier, and you can read about it here.
Grammarly is available for all platforms including web (chrome extension), desktop app, Android, and iOS app. It works with almost all the writing platform including Google docs.
There is a free, and a paid version available.
7. Yoast SEO (Social media optimization)
If you are using WordPress as your publishing platform, chances are you might be using Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin is primarily focused on On-site and On-page SEO.
However, at the same time, Yoast SEO also lets you perform social media optimization. It means you can have a unique title, image, and description for social media sharing. This way, you can make your content more shareable on social media platforms.
To use this feature, simply go to Yoast SEO section in your post editor section, select “Social” and optimize the title, description, and add a social media friendly image. (See screenshot below)
If you have an editor who edits your content, you can add this as a part of your workflow.
8. ShortPixel or ImageOptim
A fast loading webpage is a common attribute of a well-optimized content. Heavy images are usually the bottleneck for a fast loading page, and you can fix this bottleneck by using an image optimizing solution.
There are plenty of solutions available, and ShortPixel tops the chart when it comes to WordPress.
This is available as a plugin, and it automatically reduces the image size without degrading the quality. You can use this plugin to optimize your existing and newly uploaded images.
Alternatively, you can use this Mac desktop tool called “ImageOptim“, which is what I use on a day to day basis. However, if you are working along with a team, using a cloud-based solution like ShortPixel is better.
If you are in the mood to learn more about speed optimization, here is a webinar of around 30 minutes to help you learn about speed optimization in WordPress:
More content optimization tools:
There is no end to the number of content optimization tools available in the market, and you should pick one which fits your content process.
At any point of time, you need the following tools:
- SEO content optimization
- Image Optimization
- Readability optimization
- Speed optimization
- Social media optimization
I’m very excited about many new tools which are utilizing machine learning to give better recommendations. Some of them which are on my radar, and I’m yet to explore are:
I will keep updating this resource as I discover new tools. For now, it’s your turn to let me know which content optimizer tool should be part of this list?
If you find this list useful, do share it with your friends in the content marketing and digital marketing space.
Here are a few hand-picked resources that are popular among users like you: