The Great Content Marketing Handbook — 101+ Resources, Tips, Guides & Tools

Content marketing is everywhere and it’s actually the new SEO (sort of). And that exactly is the reason why internet startups are spending a lot of money on content marketing to acquire new customers in an organic way.

Now, what’s interesting is that the content marketing tactics are changing rapidly and there is always a new idea to attract even more customers.

I collect marketing resources as I browse the web and I choose to archive it online as a handbooks. They all can act as a starting point in their respective niches and The Content Marketing Handbook is my 7th such handbook.

• The Blogger’s Handbook
• The Freelance Writer’s Handbook
• The Internet Marketing Handbook
• The Email Marketing Handbook
• The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Handbook
• The Link Building Handbook

Note: I have focused only on content marketing and not “Writing” or “Blogging” topics. But you can always look at The Blogger’s Handbook or The Writer’s Handbook for awesome freelance writing and blogging resources.

101+ Content Marketing Resources, Tips, Strategies & Tools

So, here is a curated list of content marketing resources that I have personally collected in my Evernote over the past many months.

It’s going to be your definitive guide to content marketing, and to make it easier to consume, I have organized the resources into the following categories:

Quick View — Click To Scroll

• Content Marketing Guides
• Content Strategy
• Content Audit
• Content Promotion
• Content Marketing Tips
• Random Content Marketing Articles
• Content Marketing Case Studies
• Content Marketing Blogs
• Essential Content Marketing Tools
• Essential Browser Extensions

First things first. What is content marketing?

If you are absolutely clueless about content marketing then here is a perfect definition:

Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. — Copyblogger

Content Marketing Guides

If you are looking for a one-stop guide to content marketing, then look no further. They cover almost all aspects of content marketing in a systematic and easy to consume way.

1. What Is Content Marketing? | Copyblogger
2. The Psychology Behind Content And Why It Works | Crew
3. Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Content Marketing | Optin Monster
4. A Not-So-Brief Guide To Better Content Marketing | Gregory Ciott
5. Content Marketing: The Definitive Guide | Backlinko
6. Content Marketing: The Free Beginner’s Guide | Moz
7. The All-in-One Content Marketing Playbook For Startups | Copyhackers

Content Strategy

You need a content strategy before creating content. Now, what is it?

Content strategy refers to the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.

In other words, content strategy is about efficiently and effectively managing the website content to achieve business goals.

8. What Is Content Strategy? | Brain Labs Digital 
9. Why Is a Content Strategy Important? | Backlinko
10. The Foundation Of A Smart Content Marketing Strategy | Copyblogger
11. The Anatomy Of A Great Content Strategy | Search Engine Journal
12. How To Include Influencers In Your Content Strategy | Moz
13. A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On | Moz
14. How To Build A Content Marketing Strategy | Moz
15. The Ultimate Guide To Content Marketing Strategy In 2021 | SEMrush
16. The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide To Content Strategy | Portent
17. 13 Simple Questions To Help You Draft A Winning Content Strategy | Copyblogger
18. 8 Types Of Interactive Content & Engaging Examples | SEMrush

Content Audit

Content audit is the analysis of a website’s content to make it more search and user friendly. It involves keyword analysis, content analysis (to identify performing, non-performing, and missing content), and defining a new content strategy.

19. SEO Content Audit: A Step By Step Guide | Bubblegum Search
20. Content Audit: The Step-by-Step Guide For The Ultimate Strategy | SEMrush
21. A Beginner’s Guide To Content Audits [Infographic] | AWeber
22. How To Perform A Content Audit In 15 Minutes With A Template | CoSchedule
23. How To Do A Content Audit [Step-by-Step] | Moz
24. A Complete Content Audit And Spreadsheet Template | Buffer
25. How To Plug The Holes In Your Content Funnel That Are Costing You Money | Copyblogger
26. How To Do A Content Audit: The Ultimate Checklist | Search Engine Journal

Content Promotion

I really do not want to believe this but it’s true. Today, content marketing is 90% promotion and 10% creation. That’s why your best content goes unnoticed.

27. 20 Content Promotion Strategies To Make Your Content More Visible | SEMrush
28. 16 Explosive Content Promotion Strategies | Robbie Richards
29. How I Increased Traffic 272% In 30 Days (Without Spending A Penny) | Robbie Richards
30. 31 Ways To Promote Blog Posts & Get Blog Traffic |Niche Hacks
31. 13 Steps To Take Your Content Promotion To The Next Level |Vero
32. How To Create A Winning Content Promotion Plan | Buzz Stream
33. 16 Of The Most Brilliant Tactics In Blogging History | Blog Tyrant
34. A Guide To Successfully Promoting Content To Publishers | Builtvisible
35. How To Create 64 Pieces Of Content In A Day | Gary Vee
36. 6 Digital PR Lessons From Promoting 1000+ Infographics | NeoMam Studios

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Content Marketing Tips

Reading how-to content will improve your technical skills but that’s not enough. If you want to become a better marketer then you should learn from the experts. Because they are already doing it and they know exactly what works and what doesn’t.

37. Why Is Content Marketing Important? 5 Reasons
38. What is Evergreen Content: A Guide to Content That Lasts
39. 6 Ways To Build Brand Authority With Content Marketing
40. The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content
41. 7 Lessons Learned While Content Marketing For An Early-Stage Startup
42. 17 Actionable Content Marketing Tips For More Traffic
43. 13 Best Content Marketing Tips
44. 8 Priceless Content Marketing Tips and Strategies
45. 17 Untapped Ways To Find New Content Ideas
46. 25 Content Marketing Tips Every Marketer Needs To Know
47. 33 Critical Elements To Crafting A Killer Content Marketing Strategy
48. 9 Content Marketing Growth Hacks To Drive Traffic And Conversions
49. 10 Content Marketing Growth Hacks [With Infographic]
50. Republishing Content: How To Update Old Blog Posts For SEO
51. 35 Content Marketing Tips From Top Industry Experts: 2021
52. How Long Should Blog Posts Be? [The Real Answer]
53. How To Do The Skyscraper Technique (To Get High-quality Links)
54. 16 Marketing Tactics That Work In 2021

Random Content Marketing Articles

Here is a list of some random articles (but related to blog marketing) that should make you a better writer (and a content marketer too).

55. The Definitive Guide To Writing A Perfectly Optimized Blog Post | Minterest
56. 15 Blogging Tips To Supercharge Your Next Blog Post | Minterest
57. 12 Ways To Extend The Life Of Every Article You Write | Buffer
58. How We Research: A Look Inside The Buffer Blog Process | Buffer
59. How To Get 300% More People To Read Your Content | Buffer

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Content Marketing Case Studies

We all love case studies, don’t we? Here are few case studies by few bloggers and startups. It tells you what they did to grow their website or business by leveraging content marketing.

60. How To Grow A New Website To Over 100,000 Organic Visits Per Month
61. How To Increase Traffic By Osmosis: Absorbing Visitors To Reach Over 200,000
62. How We Earned 300+ Links And 2,500+ Shares On A Single Post In 30 Days
63. How To Get Over 50,000 Visits To Your Blog In The First Month
64. How To Get 300% More People To Read Your Content | Buffer
65. How Mint Grew to 1.5 Million Users And Sold for $170 Million In Just 2 Years
66. How Buffer Grew To 70,000+ Users With A Solid Product & Content Marketing
67. Inside The Marketing Strategies Of Facebook, Mint, & AppSumo | Buffer
68. 11 Content Marketing Lessons Learned from 20 Of The Top 100 Blogs
69. How We Grew Our Blog Traffic From 200 To 27,000 In 8 Months | Mark Growth
70. How We Grew Our Blog from 20K to 200K+ Page Views In 1 Year | Content Marketing Institute
71. Zero To One Million: An SEO Campaign Blueprint | Matthew Barby
72. How We Increased The Readership of Buffer’s Blog To Over 1.5 Million Visits | Buffer
73. Content Marketing Case Study: 0 to 100,000 Organic Sessions/Mo | Optimist

Content Marketing Blogs

Internet marketing strategies are changing rapidly. So, if you are a marketer then it’s very important to follow some industry related blogs to stay-up-date. I have randomly picked few internet marketing blogs that publishes great content marketing resources.

74. Copyblogger
75. Moz
76. Buffer
77. Niche Pursuits
78. Backlinko
79. OkDork
80. Ahrefs Blog
81. SEMrush Blog
82. Smart Blogger
83. Jim’s Marketing Blog

Essential Content Marketing Tools

Here I’m cherry-picking some of the best content marketing tools (they’re free/freemium!) to streamline your marketing efforts. But if you are looking for a comprehensive list of content marketing tools then check out Content Marketing Tools 101.

84. Google Analytics — is the most popular web analytics tool — and it’s free — that gives insights about your website’s traffic. And it’s also good for measuring your advertising ROI.
85. Google Search Console — shows the visibility of your website on Google. Also try, Bing Webmaster Tools.
86. SEMrush (Freemium) — is one of the best competitor analysis tool to get benefit from your competitors and create a perfect content marketing strategy. Pricing starts at $79.95/month for the premium version.
87. BuzzSumo (Freemium) —  analyzes a keyword or even a domain name and shows you the most popular content. Pricing starts at $99/month for the premium version. Also try, Social Crawlytics (Free).
88. ContentGems (Freemium) — monitors the web and filters the results based on the keywords that you have set. The free plan supports two topics with up to 50 keywords per topic. Pricing starts at $9/month for the premium version.
89. Google Alerts — lets you monitor the web and set alerts when Google finds a new web page that matches your search filter.
90. IFTTT —  lets you automate several actions by connecting all your web apps.
91. Google Ads Planner —- is the most popular keyword research tool that helps you find new keyword ideas and also estimating how they may perform.
92. Portent Content Idea Generator — is a nifty tool to get topics ideas by only entering a keyword or two. Also try, Link Bait Title Generator, HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator.
93. GrowthHackers — is an online community for marketers where you can discover (or share) interesting marketing content and join discussions.

Don’t Miss: Over 101 Content Marketing Tools (Free & Premium) You’ll Ever Need

Additional Resources:

• 37 Content Discovery Tools
• 21 Content Curation Tools
• 101 WordPress Plugins
• 101 Social Media Tools
• 101 Productivity Tools
• 101 Internet Marketing Tools
• 101 Search Engine Optimization Tools

Essential Browser Extensions

Web browser extensions are priceless to me as it makes everyday tasks simpler. Don’t believe me? Stop using all of them and you will see how much time they were saving.

94. Evernote Web Clipper — to collect resources as you browse the web and access it from all your devices. Also try, Diggo Web Collector.
95. Pocket — to save content and read later.
96. Feedly — is the best RSS reader.
97. Awesome Screenshot — to capture, annotate, and share screenshots. Also try, Evernote Skitch (available on Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android).
98. Google Dictionary — to view definitions of a word as you browse the web.
99. Alexa Traffic Rank — is the official Alexa extension that provides Alexa Traffic Rank & Site Information as you browse web pages.
100. Open SEO Stats — is an SEO extension that shows a ton of information related to SEO, traffic, domain name, web page, links, etc.
101. MozBar — shows all the SEO metrics you want to know about a web page as you browse the web.
102. WooRank — provides an in-depth SEO report of any website with one-click.
103. MozBar – gives you instant SEO metrics while viewing any page or SERP.
104. Keywords Everywhere – a freemium chrome extension that shows you monthly search volume, CPC & competition data on 15+ websites.
105. Essential SEO Toolkit – a collection of useful SEO tools, which when clicked opens the tool using the current URL.
106. SEO Minion – helps you in your daily SEO tasks such as On-Page SEO analysis, Broken Link Checking, SERP Preview and more.
107. SEOquake – provides you with key SEO metrics, along with other useful tools such as SEO Audit and several others.
108. Boomerang for Gmail — lets you schedule messages in Gmail.
109. Buffer —  is the easiest way to share web pages to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ Pages, and LinkedIn.
110. Rich URL – to copy hyperlinks in various formats from a single tab or multiple tabs of your browser window. It’s much more smarter than Create Link, Copy All URLs, and Copy URL To Clipboard (my previous favorites).
111. Counting Characters — lets you count the number of words and characters in the selected text with just one-click.
112. Page Analytics (by Google) — lets you track how users are interacting with your web pages.

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Conclusion

Just in case if I have missed a great content marketing resource then let me know and I will be glad to feature it here.

Happy Marketing! 🙂

First Published: January 2015; Last Updated: Sunday, February 14, 2021.