Good inbound marketing equals creating great content. But … that’s not always easy. Luckily, we have more than the typewriters of old to help us out: computers and an endless array of online writing tools.
Consider these tools to up your content creation game.
Choose the right words
You have eight seconds to get a reader’s attention – use stronger words! Here are 189 converting words and phrases and 595 power words to instantly improve your writing.
Avoid redundancy with Word It Out and WordCounter, and use thesaurus.com or power thesaurus to find alternatives.
Flee the jargon
Try Unsuck It to identify jargon in your prose and find alternatives. Cliche Finder highlights clichés to help you avoid overused expressions, and ProWritingAid keeps your sentences short and to the point.
Make it readable
These tools improve your writing by offering a “readability score,” which tells you what level of education someone needs to read your content easily. (Aim for an eighth-grade reading level to reach the broadest audience.)
- Read-O-Meter(also estimates how long it will take someone to read your content)
- Readability Test Tool
- Readability Calculator
- Readability Score
- Hemingway App
Because no one will complain something's too easy.
Brainstorm, collaborate, and organize
Portent and HubSpot’s blog topic generator will get your creative juices flowing. Google Docs allows you to invite others to make suggestions, comment on, and edit your work. Evernote helps organize ideas, notes, research, etc. so you can easily access them later.
Write headlines
CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer reviews your title for tone, grammar, structure, and more. It also scores how effective your headline will be on social media. Will your headline resonate with readers? Use the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer to find out. Then, use the Capitalize My Title tool to capitalize your title correctly based on Chicago style, APA style, MLA style, and AP style.
Edit for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.
These tools find spelling errors, incorrectly used words, passive voice, overly complex sentences, faulty parallelism, and other frequent writing errors. Some even check for plagiarism.
For more information about these tools, check out this blog.
Focus
Freedom allows you to block apps, social media, email, and whatever websites you choose on Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. Cold Turkey goes even further and lets you block everything except the document you’re working on – including your computer! Ommwriter offers white noises, customizable keyboard noises, and peaceful backgrounds to help you focus.
Scrivener offers a workflow to keep your writing on track. Pacemaker Planner calculates long it will take to meet your writing goal – and sets a schedule so you do it on time. For more encouragement, Draft tracks how many words you write per day and emails you reminders about your word count goals.
Finalize
Letting an editor – someone trained as an editor, not a colleague or friend – should be the final step before hitting “publish.” (Or “send.”) Why? Because while these tools can improve your writing, their algorithms can’t replace humans. (Check out this blog about editing to see an example.)
Are you sometimes at a loss for what to write, how to write it, and when? We can help!
