15 Content Marketing Bookmarklets

By Andy Crestodina

Life is about to get a little better. You just found a list of 15 ways to make some of the most useful and common marketing actions available to you in one click. This is really just a round up of tools but we’ve made each easy to use by turning them into “bookmarklets.”

A bookmarklet is a tiny piece of Javascript that looks and acts just like a bookmark. You save them to your bookmarks folder or toolbar and use them with one click. Unlike a bookmark, it doesn’t take you to a page. A bookmarklet takes action on the page you’re on, either to:

  • Share the page

  • Provide more information about the page

These little one-click wonders are more ‘lightweight’ than a browser plug-in, so they won’t slow down your computer. Just add these bookmarklets to your browser, and you’re set to turbo charge these simple marketing tasks.

bookmarklet-drag

image credit: Moz

Social Sharing Bookmarklets

If you’re still copying and pasting links into social networks, stop. These four bookmarklets will help you share the page in one click.

1. Twitter (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Quickly share the page on Twitter.

2. Facebook (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Quickly share the page on Facebook.

3. LinkedIn (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Quickly share the page on LinkedIn.

4. Google+ (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Quickly share the page on Google+.

Content Marketing Research

Now let’s look at some fast ways to learn more about pages and websites. These are useful tools to do competitive analysis on other sites or check on your own pages.

5. Alexa: Traffic Data – Who is the audience? What are they doing? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

See an overview of traffic information (bounce rate, time on site) and a snapshot of visitors’ demographic data (age, gender, education).

6. CopyScape: Originality – Has this page been copied? Is it a copy of another page? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Before you link to a useful resource, find out if it’s the original source of that information. This is also a fast way to see if you’ve been a victim of website plagiarism by checking your own pages.

7. Wayback Machine: History – What did this site used to look like? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

See stored versions of the site or page from months or years ago.

8. Read-AbleReading Grade Level – Are the pages on my site easy to read? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Content without jargon and complicated grammar are more accessible to visitors. Use this bookmarklet to go through your site, making sure that pages are written for an 8th grade reading level. Even if you have a high-literacy audience, your content will be more successful if it’s written simply. (source: NN Group)

9. SitePoint: Mobile Friendliness – What will this page look like on a mobile device? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

You’ve seen it in your stats: each month, more visitors are viewing your site on their phones. The numbers are highest for brands that are active within social media and email marketing. This is a fast way to check the mobile-friendliness of any landing page without reaching for a phone or tablet.

10. Topsy: Popularity on Twitter – Who has tweeted this page? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

This is a quick way to see all the tweets for a given page. See who is saying what about a page. Now you can connect with those people (say thanks!) and share new content with them. Here’s a quick how-to guide to using Topsy.

11. StumbleUpon: Popularity on StumbleUpon: Who has Stumbled this page? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Similar to Twitter, you can see who has shared the page on StumbleUpon. If you’re checking one of your pages and you don’t see any results, Stumble it yourself.

SEO Bookmarklets

Search marketing takes research, which takes time. These SEO bookmarklets will reduce that time by making basic tasks more efficient.

12. Rankings: What phrases does this website rank for? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Since rankings are public, tools like iSpionage report on the rankings for any website. Give this little gem a click and you’ll instantly see the keyphrases and rankings for any site you’re looking at.

13. On-Page SEO Attributes – What are the SEO characteristics of this page? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Use this bookmarklet to see everything SEO-related for the page. Use it to see what phrases competitors’ pages are targeting. Even better, check what on-page SEO elements your pages are missing. Remember, SEO is all about indicating relevance in many small ways. Now you can see them all in one place.

14. Open Site ExplorerLink Popularity – Do I have a chance of out-ranking this site? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

Link popularity (A.K.A. domain authority) shows the likelihood that a page will rank. Before you decide to target a phrase, see if the high ranking sites have a higher domain authority than yours.

If the high ranking sites have a higher domain authority than yours, consider targeting a less competitive phrase. Checking the authority of the competition is an important part of keyword research. Note: without a paid account, you can only use this tool a few times each day.

15. SEO Preview: Rich Snippets Testing Tool – What will it look like if it ranks? (click and drag to your bookmarks bar) ⤴

This little gem saves you the time of copying and pasting pages into the rich snippets testing tool. With one click, you can see what the page will look like in Google search results. Is it tagged properly for Google Authorship? Will Google identify it as a review, a product, or an event?

Bookmarklets: One-Click Wonders

We hope that at least a few of these will save you time. Bookmarklets are a fun (and geeky) way to make marketing tasks more efficient. And they’re not very difficult to create. Interested? Here are some instructions on how to create your own bookmarklets.

Special thanks to Joe who helped me with the Javascript on this post!

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