What are the best tools for content writers? Since no one tool does everything, it’s essential to know what tools are out there and what they do so you can choose which ones work best with your workflow, budget, and needs. This article will explore sixteen of the best content writing tools that will take your copy from good to great!
1) Grammarly
Grammarly is a spelling and grammar checker that ensures everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free. If you work with content daily, it’s essential for writers of all sorts. It will not only save you time and effort, but it can also boost your content’s visibility in search engines—making it one of the best free tools for content writing out there.
2) Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google’s tool for tracking web activity and understanding visitor behaviour. It doesn’t matter what size website you’re working with; if you want to create content that ranks on search engines, it’s a good idea to get familiar with what people are doing on your site. Check out our post on Google Analytics if you want more information about how it works and how to use it effectively.
3) Aweber
Aweber is a suite of email marketing and automation software. It provides numerous features, including auto-responders, webinars, and opt-in forms. If you are looking for easy ways to get your first mailing list up quickly, or if you want an efficient way to communicate with your customers or prospects over email regularly, Aweber is one of the best tools every content writer needs to know about. You can try out their free 14-day trial here.
4) Buffer
Buffer is a simple social media management tool that allows you to schedule and share posts from your website on all your social channels. The best part? It’s completely free. Connect your social accounts, queue up what you want to be shared, and Buffer takes care of posting it at optimal times for each channel. They also offer a pro plan with extra features like more detailed analytics, more networks, and additional stats. They also have a mobile app if scheduling ahead isn’t possible—queue up content while you’re on the go, and it will be posted as soon as you get back!
5) Canva
Canva is one of my favourite tools for content creation. It’s easy to use, highly customizable, and incredibly powerful. Best of all, it’s completely free. Canva isn’t just a simple photo editor; there are enough features to make it worthy of your attention if you want something more than what your browser can do. If you want to take your images from good to great, Canva is a great place to start!
6) CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a robust content marketing calendar and social media editor. It combines several content marketing tools, including social sharing and scheduling, into one program. Its free version allows users to share their schedule with three other people and manage two websites or blogs (if you want more connections or sites, there’s a paid version available). CoSchedule also has its analytics engine, so you can tell what kind of impact your social media strategy has on your audience. Best of all, CoSchedule works across all major platforms: Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. That way, you don’t have to log in and out of multiple different services to keep up with it.
7) Evernote
Evernote is free and an excellent tool for organizing all of your thoughts. Whether you’re just brainstorming or using it as a tool to write an entire document, Evernote can help you keep everything in one place. The app syncs with most of your devices and offers offline support, so you’ll never find yourself without access to any of your notes. It’s perfect for content writing—from planning an editorial calendar to drafting new pitches. Even better? You can save images and web pages within your Evernote account, which makes it easy to store inspiration and ideas without having them get lost in your bookmarks or elsewhere on your hard drive.
8) Hootsuite
You can schedule content for all your social media channels and monitor conversations in one place. Hootsuite is one of those apps that, at first glance, you don’t know why you need it. But once you start using it, you wonder how you ever lived without it. It makes managing several social media accounts a lot easier and allows you to track keywords across several different sources on social media all in one place. Even if you have just one or two accounts on multiple networks, Hootsuite could help save time and sanity.
9) YoastSEO
SEO is a complex topic, and it’s hard for content writers to understand its nuances. However, SEO can be made more accessible with some good tools. One of my favourites is YoastSEO, which gives you step-by-step instructions and explanations on how you can optimize your content for search engines. It also offers handy visual guides and tips that give an overall feel for what should be done before publishing any new piece of writing. There are plenty of other great free tools out there, but YoastSEO helps make sense of it all in a way anyone can use.
10) Copyscape
Copyscape is a free plagiarism checker for websites, documents, and text. You can also use it to find synonyms for your content. The best way to do that is by uploading your original piece of content, which Copyscape will search through its database. If you’re looking for new ways of approaching topics and finding different angles on old ideas, Copyscape can help you brainstorm with a list of synonyms in seconds. And if you need more help than that, try Googling, write good or content writing and see what comes up—the tips are virtually endless! Plus, it only takes seconds—so don’t hesitate!
11) Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway App is a free content writing tool for SEO and a tool that highlights sentences as you write. This little editor makes it easy to spot any sentence that is overly complicated or flowery (not recommended). According to its creator, The Hemingway App analyzes text and highlights simple words and complex phrases to let writers know how their use of language can be improved. In other words, writers can get an idea of how well they can engage their audience based on how simply they can put forth ideas. On top of that, it also helps you identify overused verbs (the horror!). It helps eliminate run-on sentences by using our grammatical structure appropriately.
12) TextExpander
If you’re using a Mac, you’ve likely heard of TextExpander. You probably also know it does way more than just typing out your frequently used text. If you don’t use TextExpander regularly, you should—it can save tons of time by auto-filling out text from snippets or inserting content from other documents on your computer. Best of all? It doesn’t cost a thing. Try it for yourself and see how much faster you can be!
13) Power Thesaurus
When it comes to content, quantity is not always quality. In fact, in my experience, a good quantity of wordy content is sometimes better than a handful of highly relevant and well-written posts. That’s why a powerful Thesaurus can be an invaluable tool for content writers. After all, if you write hundreds or thousands of words on a single topic, you’ll need all the help you can get! Luckily for content writers, some fantastic free tools make finding just those right words more accessible than ever before.
14) Squibler
This tool allows you to post updates on multiple social networks at once, thus saving you lots of time. The only drawback is that it works best if your clients are active on Facebook and Twitter. If they aren’t, Squibler can get a little annoying. Still, it makes things easier for you and allows you to focus more on writing than posting. Plus, Squibler also helps save time with some of its other features, like allowing others on your team or business to know what your key message should be so that everyone doesn’t come across as scattershot in their posts online.
15) Ideaflip
Ideaflip is a free service that turns PowerPoint presentations into HD videos. You can use Ideaflip to turn your slideshows into animated videos and share them with others—ideal for teachers or anyone looking to explain their ideas visually. YouTube is another good option if you want free videos on demand, but Ideaflip gives you more control over how you present your content. If you’re looking for something even more customizable, Wideo offers many options for customizing how your online slideshow will look. Like Wideo, Powtoon is an online video creator that lets you create animated videos without prior experience.
16) Read-o-Meter
While you’re writing, keeping an eye on your readability statistics is a great way to keep yourself in check. One of my favourite free tools for doing so is Read-o-Meter. With it, you can track readability scores over time, helping you ensure readers are getting what they need out of your content and helping them identify weak points to rewrite them with more clarity. No one wants their content read by robots—or else why have humans write it in the first place? With Read-o-Meter, I can ensure that I’m making my content easy enough for people (and robots) alike.
Conclusion:
You don’t need $1000 worth of writing tools as a content writer. The eight free tools I’ve listed here give you almost everything you need and help keep your costs down. While there are other great tools out there (including some that are paid), these 16 tools give you everything you need to succeed as a writer. Use them! And, if they help make your job easier, it’s an essential tool for anyone who writes online. Enjoy and good luck!