Content Creation Tools

Most affiliate operators treat content creation like a solo sport. One person writes, one person publishes, and everyone hopes the post ranks. That model breaks down fast when you are running multiple sites, testing monetization across hundreds of pages, and trying to keep production quality consistent month after month.

The market shifted when publishing got cheap but competition got expensive. Anyone can launch a WordPress site in an afternoon. Ranking, converting, and scaling that site into real revenue takes a stack of tools wired together with intent. Research tools tell you what to write. Writing tools sharpen the draft. Visual and video tools make the content shareable. Distribution tools get it in front of people who care.

We have been building and monetizing affiliate sites for over a decade. This list covers the content creation tools we actually use across Lasso and our portfolio sites. Some are free. Some are paid. All of them solve a specific problem in the production pipeline. If you are struggling with preparation or execution, start here.

Updated 2026.

1Marketing Tools for Affiliate and Digital Product Promotion

Once you create content, you need to present affiliate recommendations in a way that earns clicks without feeling spammy. That is the conversion layer. It sits between your writing and your revenue.

We built Lasso for exactly this reason. Plain text links get ignored. Structured product displays give readers context, comparison, and a clear next step.

1. Lasso

Lasso lets you earn more from your content using high-converting product displays. We A/B tested these layouts against millions of impressions before shipping them. The data told us what worked. We baked those patterns into the product.

Here is one example of a display you can build with Lasso:

Beyond displays, Lasso alerts you to broken links, surfaces monetization opportunities in existing posts, and organizes every URL in a single dashboard. It also finds new affiliate programs you can join based on links you already publish.

We have been running affiliate sites for over nine years. Product displays changed how we think about monetization. They are not decoration. They are infrastructure. When you pair a strong display with a secondary call to action, conversion rates move. We wrote about that pattern in our guide on using a secondary CTA button to improve conversion rate.

Run an Opportunities Scan on your site after you publish. Most operators find product mentions sitting unmonetized in posts that already rank. That is low-hanging revenue hiding in content you already wrote.

2Content Creation Tools for Research, Ideation, and Planning

Before you write a single word, you need to know what to create. The best operators spend disproportionate time on research. They study what already ranks, what audiences ask for, and where gaps exist in the conversation.

Here are the tools we reach for when planning editorial calendars across our sites.

2. YouTube

YouTube is one of the largest search engines on the internet. People type questions into that search bar every day. Those queries map directly to blog post opportunities.

Here is a simple framework for finding content ideas on YouTube.

Enter your keyword phrase into the search bar. In the top left, click the “Filters” tab. That lets you sort by upload date, type, duration, and more.

Under the “Type” column, filter by “Channel.” For example, here is what you see if you type “Paleo” into the search field and filter by channel.

Next, choose two or three channels with a high number of subscribers. Check out their video content sorted by popularity and date added.

This lets you determine two things.

Date added: If a video was uploaded recently and already has a high view count, that signals a trending topic resonating with your audience. If it was added a while ago and still gets views, that signals evergreen content worth matching.

Most popular: This is the fastest way to find topics with proven demand. Higher view counts mean more interest.

Once you find a few videos meeting your criteria, examine the topics they cover. Then look for ways to add your perspective to the conversation. Scrape the comments section. People often tell you exactly what is missing. That is your outline.

3. Ahrefs Content Explorer

Paid SEO tools like SEMrush or Moz work for topic research. We use Ahrefs. Here is how we find popular content ideas for our readers.

Head to Content Explorer and enter the topic you are researching. Let us use “guest blogging” as an example.

Set the filters to:

• Published in the last 12 months
• A minimum domain rating of 50

This finds recently published content that attracts high-quality backlinks.

Next, look for commonalities between those posts. People may be more inclined to link to particular formats. In the example above, the results show many ultimate guides and tips posts. Match that style when you write your own piece.

Another helpful metric is the Top Pages report. Enter a domain into Site Explorer and click “Top Pages.”

Ahrefs displays that domain’s most popular pages. Look for content you could create for your niche based on what you find.

Resource: I highly recommend the Ahrefs Blogging for Business course if you are a content marketing and SEO practitioner. It is free, and the content is easy to consume.

You can also try a blog ideas generator like HubSpot’s if you want a quick starting point.

4. Subreddit Visualizer

Forums are excellent places to find content ideas. People are candid. They ask real questions without a marketing filter. Reddit is one of the biggest forums on the web. Subreddit Visualizer makes it easy to map related communities in your niche.

Let us say your niche is “Outdoors.”

Type “Outdoors” into the search field. You will see a graph displaying related subreddits linked to each other.

To niche down, click any one of those. When I click “Survival,” it fetches the comment threads in the sidebar.

Its creator makes open-source libraries and software, all of which you can check out on the project site.

5. AlsoAsked.com

Also Asked aggregates Google’s People Also Ask data in one place. Your broad keyword is the base. Related terms branch off from your seed keyword like a tree.

In the screenshot above, I used “weight loss” and Also Asked populated several related questions.

Click any one of those for a deeper dive into your topic. You will find more questions you can answer. This process works well for building your outline before you write.

6. SparkToro

SparkToro finds where your target audience hangs out online. If you are trying to gain more insights about your customers, this curation tool will help.

You can filter by:

• What your audience talks about
• Words in their profile
• Social accounts they follow

And more.

For example, if I am trying to learn more about our audience, I might enter “website monetization” into the search field using the filter “My audience frequently talks about.”

SparkToro generates the following report:

It fetches top hashtags, words in bios, and common phrases. When I scroll down, it lists more details, including:

• Social accounts they follow
• Websites they visit
• What they watch, listen to, and read

It even surfaces communities and publications you might not have found on your own. SparkToro offers a tutorial showing how to apply this data to your campaigns.

You can use SparkToro to uncover industry pain points experienced by your audience. Read threads from SparkToro’s team for other ways to use it for content ideation.

The free tool gives you up to five monthly queries. Paid plans start at $38 per month.

7. Asana

We use Asana for all of our projects, from our editorial calendar to biz dev to customer success. It is simple to use, which matters when you are coordinating writers, editors, and publishers across multiple properties.

We follow every project from inception to publishing. You can assemble by team or workflow, so it is easy to track progress. It keeps focus on what to do, why it matters, and when to complete it.

It is easy to message co-workers within the app on work-specific tasks.

Above is a snapshot of our editorial calendar workflow. You can also switch to list, calendar, and dashboard views.

For operators building at scale, the editorial calendar is not optional. It is how you turn sporadic publishing into a system. If you need more angles when the calendar runs dry, our list of blog post ideas for killing writer’s block covers formats we return to again and again.

3Writing and Editing Tools for Content Creation

Your writing needs to be clear, concise, and error-free. That holds whether you are writing a detailed how-to guide, a product review, or a list post. You also need to optimize for search engines. The tools below handle both.

8. Clearscope

We have been using Clearscope for a while now with strong results. It helps you capture more related keywords in your content, which is a major SEO benefit. This type of optimization gives your articles more chances for Google to match you with search queries.

It works like this.

When you are writing, a sidebar displays on the right side of your screen. It tells you which phrases to target based on your primary search term. Clearscope also comes with a Google Doc add-on and a WordPress plugin that helps you find the best terms in real time.

Its interface is user-friendly. To operate it:

• Type your keyword into the search bar
• Run a report
• See all relevant keywords, top competitor content, and their rankings

We use this tool with every post we write. It gives us an edge on comprehensiveness.

You can also see how your content measures up against ranking posts for your target terms versus competitors.

Here is a screenshot of how it looks inside your WordPress post editor.

Two other tools work similarly. We have not used them extensively, but they are worth a look:

• MarketMuse
• Frase.io

9. Grammarly

Grammarly uses artificial intelligence to find grammatical and spelling mistakes. It also provides stylistic suggestions.

When you write, a sidebar appears on the right split into four categories:

• Correctness
• Clarity
• Engagement
• Delivery

Grammarly has both a free version and a paid version. Our team uses the Premium plan, which offers more stylistic suggestions. It is worth the extra cost if you publish at volume.

The free Chrome extension checks your grammar, punctuation, and spelling across platforms from LinkedIn to Slack to Twitter. If you are on a budget, that is the best way forward. Read our Grammarly review for a full breakdown of what the paid tier adds.

10. CoSchedule

CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer helps you craft headlines that earn clicks. Type yours into the empty field and you get a score of how well the tool thinks it will perform.

When I type one of our headlines into the interface, it grades based on the kinds of words your title uses, including:

• Common
• Uncommon
• Emotional
• Power

If you strike the right balance between these four groups, your score goes up. Each word category has its own word bank. When you click “open word bank” beneath each type, you get a list of synonyms.

The Headline Studio browser Chrome extension is free. Upgrade if you want more detailed analytics.

For headline inspiration beyond the analyzer, see our guide on 21 trigger words to stir your readers into action.

4Tools for Visual Content

Visual content is not optional for affiliate publishers. Screenshots, charts, and custom graphics increase time on page and make complex topics easier to follow. Here are the tools we use or recommend for visual production.

11. Canva

No graphic design experience? No problem. We have used Canva multiple times for creating illustrations for our content. You can build something from scratch or choose from their extensive template catalog.

Its drag and drop features make it user-friendly. You can create:

• Designs
• Charts
• Graphs
• Videos

It even lets you perform photo editing.

There is a series of step-by-step tutorials on their website showing how to make anything. You also get access to popular designs for inspiration.

Canva is ideal for marketers making logos, blog banners, email newsletter templates, and more. It has been our visual content go-to for years.

12. Flourish

Flourish lets you tell stories with data in unique ways. It is part of the Canva family of design tools.

You can do a lot with it, like this dynamic bar chart race.

If you like the idea of turning your data into charts, maps, infographics, or interactive stories, Flourish is worth exploring.

It produces a substantial number of visualization types with little work required. You can embed your graphics seamlessly into your content and get custom themes to match your brand.

It is especially appealing to the data-savvy but not code-savvy crowd. There is a free version for solo creators.

13. Skitch

Skitch is a product from Evernote, the note-taking and project-planning tool. We are fans because of how easy it makes taking branded annotated screenshots on our blog. Every screenshot in this post was taken with Skitch.

The left sidebar is where you will find several essential editing tools, including:

• RGB sliders for customizing colors
• Blur function
• Highlighter

You also have access to all shapes, letters, and arrows. Perfect for creating simple markups that are easily shareable.

14. Screenflow

Screenflow is video editing and screen recording software for Mac users. We have used it countless times to create recordings of the Lasso interface for our customers, like this one below about how our link cloaking feature works.

It is easy to use. You can drag and drop various assets, including audio, video, and image files, in a multi-layered format beneath the viewport.

Below is a screen recording capture of a select portion of a web page we then exported as an animated GIF to display in our newsletter.

You can also do animations and graphics with its software and PNG export. It comes with a suite of video filters and multi-app recording functionality.

It starts at $149 annually and has a free trial.

15. Pexels

Pexels is a stock photo library similar to Unsplash, with thousands of free stock images to choose from. What I have found most helpful is its “Explore” tab.

Click it, then examine the Discover Photos and Popular Searches tabs in the drop-down menu. When I click on “Bar” in Popular Searches, it presents filters so you can sort by category and phototype.

• Restaurant
• Pub
• Party
• Cocktail

You can also arrange by orientation (vertical or horizontal), size, and color. If you need high-quality photos for your next project, Pexels is a smart choice.

16. GIPHY

GIFs show up everywhere now, from blog posts to email marketing to social media.

GIPHY is perhaps the most popular source, with extensive GIFs available from reactions to entertainment to sports. Copy the HTML to your clipboard and embed it in your content.

There is an option to make your GIF responsive, so it renders correctly regardless of your visitor’s device. You can also upload your images or create from scratch.

17. Animaker

Animaker’s platform has helped millions of beginners and non-designers create animation and live-action videos with simple drag and drop functions.

You can choose from over 100 million stock images and photos. The character builder lets you create thousands of personas. Its 1000+ template library enables you to create something in under five minutes.

You can use it for:

• Video making
• GIF and shorts
• Live video editing

5Webinar and Other Video Creation Tools

If webinars and videos are central to your content strategy, these tools cover recording, editing, and stock footage. Video content compounds differently than written posts. It builds trust faster and gives you assets you can repurpose across YouTube, social, and email.

18. Loom

I am a fan of Loom because I can create video replies and post questions to my team while sharing my screen. It is difficult to explain a highly technical concept without showing it. Loom lets me do that with ease.

You get screen cam and bubble recording, instant video editing, and viewer restrictions in the free version. It also comes with a personal library and a video length cap at five minutes with a 25 video limit.

If you upgrade to the Business plan for $8 per month, you get unlimited videos and recording minutes along with the drawing tool, filler word removal, and call-to-actions. That is worth it for teams publishing tutorials at scale.

Loom has both a Chrome extension and a desktop app.

19. Storyblocks

Storyblocks gives you unlimited downloads for creating studio-quality videos, flexible licensing, and a user-friendly editor. Its subscription model is a helpful alternative to paying per asset like many stock image sites.

It is especially helpful for adding quality b-roll content to your videos.

Storyblocks’ robust search functionality makes finding anything simple with easy-to-use search criteria and keywords.

You can choose from footage, backgrounds, and after-effects. You can also find virtually any audio file, from sound effects to background noise.

Choose from millions of stock video, audio, and image assets to create a custom production to match your branding.

An all-access plan (video and audio) starts at $30 monthly.

Before you invest heavily in video, audit the content you already have. Our guide on the content audit you need to run for your affiliate marketing site walks through how to find posts worth upgrading with video assets.

20. Biteable

Biteable lets you create high-quality videos as well as animations. It is an all-in-one platform containing everything to help with video creation. You will find a library of professional stock footage from more than 800,000 clips you can drag and drop.

Its premade templates offer a suite of categories like:

• Digital marketing
• Promos
• Onboarding
• Education and training

You can also create from scratch and build from their inventory of scenes, characters, and animations.

The free version includes the Biteable watermark. Upgrade if you want it removed from your videos. Plans start at $49 monthly.

Biteable is one of the more popular solutions available, with over 7 million users.

21. Zoom

Zoom is a video chatting service for computers and smartphones. It replaced Skype as the go-to conferencing solution for most teams, and usage surged during the shift to remote work.

It is user-friendly and offers a free tier as well as paid plans.

With Zoom, you can:

• Conduct HD video meetings with audio collaboration
• Create digital rooms and workspaces
• Host full-featured webinars

Its platform makes sharing links and files seamless while letting you operate efficiently in a remote work environment.

Features like screen sharing, annotation, and security controls make it a practical choice for live content. There is a free version with unlimited participants that caps group meetings at 40 minutes. You can also have endless one-to-one meetings without a time limit.

6Podcasting Tools to Make You Look Like a Pro

Our personal finance site runs a podcast in addition to the blog. We know the importance of having the right gear and hosting setup. Bad audio kills credibility faster than a weak intro paragraph.

Here are two tools worth checking out.

22. Blubrry Podcast Hosting

Blubrry is a full-service podcast hosting company with tools, stats, and publishing solutions. Launch a single show or build and monetize a network. Their support and resources were instrumental in helping us grow our personal finance podcast.

It is especially helpful if you are just starting. You get access to a free managed WordPress site. That is already included in your plan if you decide you want it.

For site performance once your podcast drives traffic, read how our WordPress sites use Cloudflare for speed.

23. Descript

Descript is all-in-one audio and video editing software. It removes the need for serious engineering experience. You edit audio like you edit text.

It still has a heavy-hitting multitrack production engine.

It even lets you create an AI clone of your voice and add words to your audio with a keystroke. For operators repurposing podcast clips into blog content and social posts, that workflow saves hours.

7Great Content Creation Tools for Social Media

Most people have a social account. The challenge is not posting once. It is maintaining a consistent presence without living inside Twitter or LinkedIn all day. These tools help you automate scheduling and give you ideas for what to post.

24. Buffer

Buffer helps manage your social media scheduling and posting across channels. You set every post’s publishing date and time, and it tailors formatting to each network.

Many operators distinguish its user-friendly automation as a strong selling point. You can schedule publishing dates for days you are not working and maintain an active presence even when you are offline.

Its free plan lets you analyze three channels per month. These can be three from the same account or three different accounts.

The browser extension lets you open the composer on any web page and add posts to your queue. It integrates with many apps, including Zapier and Feedly.

You can upgrade for $5 per month per social channel if you want access to its analytics and reporting tools.

25. Hypefury

Hypefury started as a tool to help grow your Twitter audience. It has expanded integrations to include Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The tool comes with a suite of prompts, quotes, and templates to spur creativity and break through writer’s block.

I have been testing Hypefury’s free trial, and so far I am impressed. They also have a newsletter filled with tips to get more engagement, followers, and build and monetize your audience.

You can also:

• Schedule retweets of your original post later that same day (helps gain favor with the algorithm when you retweet the original)
• Create recurring tweets for particular days of the week, as well as define categories for different kinds of content
• Add follow-up tweets (known as auto-plugs) when your post hits a specific engagement level

There is robust analytics reporting inside the app so you can track your growth. If you sell digital products on Gumroad, you can link your account to Hypefury to help with product promotion.

8Building Your Content Stack

This list is not exhaustive. No single operator needs all 25 tools on day one. The implication for most publishers is simpler: identify the bottleneck in your pipeline and fix that first.

If you do not know what to write, start with YouTube, Ahrefs, or Also Asked. If your drafts are weak, add Clearscope and Grammarly. If your posts look flat, invest in Canva and Skitch. If your monetization underperforms, fix the conversion layer before you publish more pages.

We have seen this pattern across affiliate sites at every scale. Traffic is rarely the first problem. Conversion per click and production consistency are. Tools do not replace strategy. They remove friction so your strategy can compound.

Looking forward, the operators who win are the ones who treat content creation as a system: research, write, design, publish, monetize, distribute. Wire the right tools into each stage and the whole machine runs faster.

If you want to see where your site is leaving revenue on the table, run an Opportunities Scan. It takes a few minutes and shows you monetization gaps in content you already published.

Sean Brison

Lasso Team

Sean Brison is a dad, writer, business owner, and Content Lead at Lasso. He's spent the past several years in cahoots with Lasso's founder, Andrew, creating awesome things for people. He's also addicted to perfectly-balanced cocktails, the outdoors, and John…