This is our Resource List for Content Creators, a list of the best tools and websites that we use or have used in the past. We are only listing the most trusted tools for content creators. The resources here are important to running Blackandise.com and our other websites.
We hope this list helps you with your projects.
Affiliate Marketplace Programs
These marketplace websites will allow you to find relevant affiliate programs for your content.
Amazon Associates: One of the most popular and trusted affiliate marketplaces available for content creators. Almost everything available on Amazon can earn you a commission. The commission depends on the product sold on Amazon.
eBay Affiliates: A great alternative to Amazon Associates. The eBay Affiliates’ commission depends on the product sold on eBay.
Commission Junction: This is one of the largest and most trusted affiliate marketplace programs. The commission depends on the programs you join on Commission Junction.
ClickBank: An affiliate marketplace with over 30,000 digital products to promote. The commission depends on the ClickBank product sold.
Blog Reading & Discovery Tools
These curation tools will help you stay current with the new trends in your niche.
Pocket: This is the perfect “read it later” productivity app that allows you to save articles for later.
Feedly: Feedly is currently one of the best RSS readers available to help readers stay updated on the latest blog content. The interface is simple and beautiful.
Google Trends: Google Trends has so much free data available, so why not use it. Use this tool to find trends within your niche.
Content Promotion Tools
These promotion tools will help you schedule and promote your content.
HootSuite: Manage all your social media accounts with this robust tool. Use HootSuite to schedule all of your social media posts, track mentions, follow hashtags, and even engage with your audience.
Buffer: Similar to HootSuite, Buffer allows you to manage and schedule your social media posts.
Planable: Manage, prepare, and approve all of your social media content with Planable, a simpler content management tool.
Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck is the ultimate Twitter hub for managing multiple Twitter accounts, scheduling tweets, and following specific mentions and hashtags.
Content Management Tools
These curation tools will help you with your content management.
Google Calendar: Manage your schedule for free. Use Google Calendar to schedule a few posts or go all out and schedule your research, draft, delivery, and publication. Reminders and invites can be sent out to your team to create a streamlined workflow.
DivvyHQ: This editorial calendar management tool will help you stay organized and allow for easy team collaboration.
Workflowy: Workflowy is a tool that can be used as an editorial calendar or as a to-do list for content creators looking for a barebones tool.
Trello: A Kanban-style view project management tool for organizing work. Trello is the perfect content management tool for content creators.
Redbooth: Another project management tool great for planning content. This popular tool has multiple views available for content creators.
Airtable: A simple spreadsheet database hybrid used to organize tasks and projects.
Desktop Content Creation Tools
These desktop creation tools will help you manage all of your media files.
Camtasia: A popular and reliable screen recording tool available for Windows and Mac.
Image Optim: A Mac image compressing tool for optimizing your images.
Loom: An easy-to-use screen recording tool for Windows, Mac, and Chromebooks.
Audacity: The legendary sound recorder is great for content creators looking for a multi-track editor and recorder.
TubeBuddy: Now you can save time with your YouTube process. TubeBuddy is a powerful management plugin for your browser that helps content creators save time.
Image Content Creation Tools
These quick image creation websites will allow you to create shareable graphics within a few minutes.
Canva: A popular graphic design tool with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Canva has over a million photographs, fonts, and graphics.
Stencil: Another popular graphic-design tool to quickly create simple shareable graphics.
QuotesCover: Quickly create beautifully designed quotes with pictures. And no login or signup is required.
Piktochart: This is one of the simple tools infographic makers are using to make those stunning infographics.
Pixlr: A cloud-based photo editor tool with simple and advanced photo editing features.
Photopea: A cloud-based Photoshop alternative with the functionality to open and edit PSD, XCF, Sketch, or any other image files.
Keyword Research Tools
These keyword research tools will help you find new relevant keywords.
Keywords Everywhere: This is simply one of the best free keyword-finding plugins available. This plugin will show important data for keywords such as the competition, monthly searches, and average CPC.
Soovie: The unattractive but useful keyword research website tool. Soovie is a great way to discover keywords. Use Soovie with the Keywords Everywhere plugin to see more keyword data.
Mangools KWFinder: KWFinder is great for content creators who simply need the right tools for finding low-competition long-tail keywords for SEO.
Ubersuggest: Ubersuggest is great for finding keywords for SEO and PPC. Additionally, this tool will show you the keyword trends, volume, and competition all for free.
AnswerThePublic: This is a visual keyword research tool that focuses on queries and questions. Use this tool to learn how real people are using the internet to search for content
Mailing List Tools
These GDPR-compliant mailing list tools will allow you to maintain control of that mailing list.
Mailchimp: One of the most popular email marketing management tools available, Mailchimp lets you organize contacts, send emails, and track results.
GetResponse: Use GetResponse to send out newsletters, campaigns, and surveys.
SendPulse: A great alternative to sending out newsletters and surveys to your mailing list.
Note-Taking & Editing Tools
These note-taking and editing tools will help you create error-free content that your audience will enjoy.
Grammarly: Use this online grammar-checking tool to proofread your content before publishing. Grammarly is great for spell-checking, grammar-checking, and detecting plagiarism.
Evernote: This writing tool is great for taking those quick notes on the go. Evernote has reliable cloud syncing and is available on every popular platform.
Google Keep: Use Google Keep to quickly take notes or save images. This tool is a great alternative to those ordinary note-taking tools.
Hemingway Editor: Find out if your writing is too simple or too complex with this tool. Writers have used this writing tool for years to help them enhance their writing.
Originality.AI: Web publishers can scan their content to detect if it was AI-generated and/or plagiarized. Originality.AI is currently the most accurate AI content checker for ChatGPT, Bard, Paraphrasing, and GPT-4, created specifically for SEO’s and content marketers.
Outsourcing & Virtual Assistants Websites
These outsourcing websites will help you grow your business faster with affordable virtual assistants.
UpWork: A contract-based freelancing platform used to connect with professionals in many industries. You can use UpWork for simple daily projects or complex month-long projects.
Fiverr: The popular $5 outsourcing website. Fiverr is great for finding freelancers to create your YouTube video intros or transcribe your audio recordings.
Real-Time Social Listening Tools
These social listening tools will help you keep up with what’s happening in your industry.
Google Alerts: Use Google Alerts to receive emails whenever Google finds new results from web pages, news articles, blogs, or research documents.
TweetDeck: Use the search and trending feature in TweetDeck to track real-time conversations and hashtags. Learn about Twitter’s boolean search feature to take full advantage of TweetDeck.
HootSuite: Use the monitoring feature in HootSuite to follow key conversations based on a keyword, keyword phrase, or location.
Stock Image Websites
These free stock image websites will help you keep your website updated with beautiful images.
Pixabay: Now with over 1.2 million images, this is a great place to find free images to use for your content.
Pexels: All of these images are tagged and neatly organized. You can find over 100,000 free curated images to use for your content.
Pikwizard: This is a great alternative to the other free stock image websites. This website has over 100,000 free images with over 20,000 exclusive free images available.
Stock Video Websites
These free stock video websites will help you with your video creation.
Pixabay: Over 10,000 completely free videos are available for content creators to use for their projects.
Pexels: Use Pexels to find thousands of completely free videos to use for your blog or website.
Stock Footage for Free: Choose from hundreds of professional-quality completely free stock video clips.
Web Hosting Websites
These web hosting companies listed are some of the best web hosts available for creators.
HostGator: Another great web hosting company for content creators that must have managed hosting. The perfect alternative to Bluehost if you’re still under one million page views a month.
Website Analytics Tools
These website analytics tools are great for giving you the data needed to learn more about your website traffic.
Google Tag Manager: If you plan to install any of the website analytics scripts, use Google Tag Manager instead of hard-coding it into the website.
Google Analytics: A script that all websites should consider installing. Google Analytics will collect and show important website visitor data.
Facebook Pixel: A useful script for anyone interested in using Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads. The Facebook Pixel will collect data about your website traffic. Measure your ads, track conversions, and remarket to your website visitors.
Hot Jar: A script used to help you improve your conversion funnels. See how your visitors interact with your website. Use Hotjar to get heat maps of your traffic clicks, get visitor recordings, and more.
ClickToTweet: Create single links that visitors can click on to quickly tweet your content.
Website Push Notification Tools
These push notification tools will help you to drive visitors back to your website.
OneSignal: OneSignal sends out over 2.5 billion daily notifications. This is one of the leading push notification services for web and mobile apps.
SendPulse: SendPulse has email marketing tools and web browser push notifications. Send push notifications to your website subscribers.
PushCrew: A great alternative to SendPulse. Use PushCrew to send unlimited push notifications to mobile and web users.
Workflow & Automation Tools
These automation tools are great for automating those boring processes in your day.
Sumo: One of the best tools to grow your email list and increase website conversions. Sumo offers many ways to grow your business with automation.
Zapier: This trusted automation tool has over 1000+ apps available for creating ways to automate your work.
IFTTT: Choose from hundreds of applets to make your job easier. IFTTT allows you to use pre-made applets or create new applets to automate certain online asks.
Fetch RSS: Use this fetching tool to quickly create RSS feeds out of most web pages.
Zoho Flow: Use the simple visual builder to connect your apps together and create the perfect automated workflow.
Drift: Create smart chatbots to engage with visitors to your website.
Other Useful Tools
Guerrilla Mail: Create temporary email addresses.
IUBENDA: Quickly generate Privacy Policies and Cookie Consents for your website.
Conclusion
This list will never be complete as we will continue adding and removing resources. You can help make this ultimate resource list more useful by emailing us any new suggestions.