Powerful Content Creation Tools (Free + Paid)

Photo of author

By Raji Ridwan

The future of marketing is all content marketing. Unless you’re willing to create valuable content that caters to the needs of your followers, you’ll likely struggle with growing your business; regardless of what capital you have.

Talking about capital, big companies with a huge capital typically have enough money to buy the most powerful content creation tools to supercharge their content marketing efforts. For the average small or medium business owner, however, a huge content creation capital is out of the question.

In a bit to enjoy the benefits of content, even without a gigantic budget, small businesses can opt to create content using powerful free tools. While free and powerful aren’t terms that typically go together, I’m afraid that’s exactly what we’re trying to combine here.

In this article, I’ll show you some of the most powerful content creation tools that are available for free. This list will cater to every kind of content you may want to create to promote your business, including video, SEO, and social media content creation tools.

Video Content Creation Tools

With the massive growth in TikTok’s popularity, we can only make one assumption: video is the future of content. However, we can also all agree that creating content in the video form is difficult; you can ask the folks at the Techibytes YouTube channel about that.

In addition to the difficulties that are naturally associated with creating video content, visual content creation tools are also notoriously expensive. It’s even worse if you live in a country with a low standard of living like Nigeria since those regular monthly subscription fees will look gigantic.

Thankfully, there are lots of free alternatives that are almost as powerful as the paid ones.

video content creation tools you should know

1. Clipchamp

If you’ve checked out other articles before this, you may be surprised to find Clipchamp on the list. Surprise is somewhat of an understatement since most people don’t even know what Cipchamp means in the first place.

Clipchamp is a video editing program that Microsoft bundles with Windows 11 to compete with paid alternatives from Apple. While there’s a paid version of the app, everything you’ll ever need to create video content for your small business is available in the free version of Clipchamp.

While Clipchamp comes embedded with certain versions of the Windows 11, you don’t need the operating system to use the app. You can install the video editor from the Microsoft Store app on a Windows 10 computer, and it works just as well as the Windows 11 version.

One downside to using Clipchamp is that it’s almost entirely web-based. This quality may make editing videos on the app somewhat sluggish, especially when you lack a decent internet connection. Also, if you primarily shoot videos in 4k, you’ll need to pay or find an alternative video editing software.

2. OBS Studio

Almost all video content creators have OBS as a natural part of their plethora of tools. It’s probably the most powerful screen recording software out there, and the best part of everything is that it’s free and open source.

While OBS is undoubtedly powerful, it’s not for every video content creator out there. If you don’t need to record your screen for your audience, there’s hardly a reason why you should install OBS Studio. However, that doesn’t disqualify it from being one of the most powerful content creation tools.

3. Animaker

Another wowing tool for video content creators is Animaker, a software that lets you create animated videos to promote your business easily. By easily, I mean anyone, even without knowledge of animation and video creation can log onto Animaker and come up with a decent result.

There are hundreds of ready-to-use templates on the website. You can pick a template, edit it to your satisfaction, and come up with a video that’s ready to use for all your marketing needs. The best part is that Animaker is almost completely free unless you’re looking to use some very advanced tools.

SEO Content Creation Tools

While videos are the future of content, written content will no doubt continue to play a vital role in any successful content creation setup. If Techibytes hasn’t invested in written content, you won’t have this article to read in the first place.

If you’re paying attention to this section, it means you know a thing or two about SEO. SEO means search engine optimization, and it refers to the practice of writing content to rank on the result pages of search engines, typically Google.

Having SEO in mind before creating any written content is necessary to drive any attention to the said content. It doesn’t matter how well you write, if you can’t get search engines to recommend your content to users, it will eventually fade away in obscurity.

To prevent your content from having to suffer such a terrible fate, here are some free but powerful SEO content creation tools to add to your arsenal.

1. Rank Math

If you run a blog on the WordPress publishing platform, Rank Math should appeal to you. It’s an SEO plugin that reminds you to implement basic SEO practices when publishing posts on your website. While there’s a paid version of the plugin, all of the most essential features are completely free.

One downside to this tool is that you need to have a blog on WordPress to be able to take advantage of it. Also, there’s a premium version of the plugin, and if my experience with similar tools is anything to go by, active improvements to the free version have effectively hit a plateau.

2. Google Docs

We were used to buying Microsoft Office for scores of dollars before Google came up with its completely free alternatives. Today, you can use Google Sheets in the place of Microsoft Excel and Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word.

Not only is Google Docs almost as good as Microsoft Word, but it’s also even better in some respects. When talking about compatibility, for example, Google’s offering is compatible with any modern computer, regardless of what OS it runs. On the other hand, if you don’t have either a PC or a Mac, you can’t use the full version of Microsoft Word.

In addition to that, Google Docs lets you collaborate with others in real-time within a document. You can see their edits as soon as they make it and they’ll see yours too, as long as you’re both connected to the internet. The most amazing part of Google Docs is that it’s completely free for life.

3. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer

Any experienced SEO content creator will tell you that the headline is one of the most essential parts of your content. Without an excellent title, you can’t get anyone to read your amazing piece of content in the first place.

While you may keep guessing what headline will work best for your article, why not use a content creation tool that’s focused specifically on analyzing your headlines? By comparing your headlines to what has worked well for others in your industry, the headline analyzer can make suggestions that will improve the quality of your title.

powerful content creation tools

Free Content Creation Tools for Social Media

While it’s better to create and manage your website, the vast majority of small business owners are building their content marketing funnels on social media. While it may be somewhat effective, it also amounts to trusting a third-party website with your entire business.

Even with that, it’s still crucial to note that there’s no successful marketing strategy without social media. If you’re looking to create content for social media, some content creation tools will make the process as easy as pie.

With that said, here are some of the most powerful content creation tools to help dominate your favorite social media platform.

1. Canva

One of the prerequisites for being a social media manager should be Canva expertise; that’s how important it is for social media content creation. Canva is a tool that lets you create images and graphics for your website and social media handles using templates and simple design elements.

You may go: “but wait, doesn’t Photoshop and Illustrator do the same?” The answer is yes, they do, but Canva is not competing with Photoshop or Illustrator. You can create far better illustrations and images on Photoshop than Canva allows, but how many social media managers are willing to learn Photoshop and Illustrator to that extent?

Instead of offering a wide variety of features that you will rarely need, Canva only offers a few features that you’ll almost always need. If I were to choose between the latter and the former, I’ll go with the latter every single time.

2. Hashtagify.me

Hashtags may be an annoying part of social media life that you detest, but when you start trying to grow on Instagram, you’ll understand why those marketers are those desperate. Another thing you’ll realize once you start trying to grow is that Hashtagify.me is one of the best free social media content creation tools.

Hashtagify.me is a tool that lets you find trending hashtags on social media and some of the top-performing posts using the hashtag. If you adjudge yourself to be bad with hashtags, trying the free version of the tool is a good choice.

3. Animoto

Animoto isn’t one of the most popular content creation apps for social media, but this isn’t a popularity contest. As soon as you install the app, you’ll notice why it makes this list, and you’ll be angry for not acknowledging its potential all along.

Put simply, Animoto lets you create videos from selected pictures and videos on your smartphone. If you have pictures of your product, for example, you can select them all, turn them into a video, and add some music in the background for a slick promotional video for your business.

The best part? Animoto is free for the most part and is available on both iOS and Android. There are many templates you can use for creating your video, so you don’t need to worry about being an expert video content creator.

Conclusion

Creating content can be pretty demanding if you’re not utilizing the best free content creation tools to streamline the process. It doesn’t matter if you’re a video creator, an SEO content creator, or a social media manager, there are always free content creation tools for you.

In this piece, we take a look at some of the most powerful options that don’t cost a dime.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter  and Facebook

Cover Image: Reviewsxp

Leave a Comment