6 Free Tools to Use to Improve Your Content

I realise that as a writer I should be promoting myself as a way to help improve your content (get in touch with me here) but sometimes budgets, timing or knowledge of a topic mean that you might have to DIY some written content – and that’s absolutely fine.

Tips To Write Better Content

When you’re starting to write content, it can feel completely overwhelming (especially if you have a million other things to do). If this is the case, it’s usually a good idea to delegate or contract it out. As a business owner, sometimes, it’s less stressful – and quicker – to pay someone else to deliver it for you than sitting in front of your laptop screen feeling frustrated. And thinking of all of the other things you have to to do today.

If you have got the time, brain space and energy to write something for your business, then here are some easy tips.

Write With Your Audience In Mind

Think about who your audience and customer is, how they speak and what they want to know. This will help you with your tone of voice, words you choose, subject choice and the way you write it.

Write in a natural way, using words that your audience would actually use and understand. Not sure if a sentence sounds clunky or if there’s a better way to phrase it? Reading it aloud (or using software that reads text aloud) can help you spot any spelling or voice mistakes that your eyes miss.

Spellcheck and Proofread

You would be amazed at the number of people who don’t spellcheck or proofread properly (if you spot a typo in this, I’m just testing you). Sometimes despite your best efforts, mistakes can creep in. Using proofreading tools can be really helpful – Google Docs, Grammarly or even Microsoft Word’s editor are all fine.

Bear in mind that these are all tools to enhance your writing and shouldn’t be taken as meaning that your writing is “good”. Sometimes giving it to someone to read can help you pick out any mistakes. Once you know where you make mistakes, it gets easier.

Stay Consistent

If you’re writing in the first person, then keep in the first person. Don’t chop and change between them as otherwise it gets confusing – your reader might be left wondering who’s actually talking and who they’re actually talking to.

Using too much passive voice can have the same effect. It can make your writing less direct and more rambly. Think about who or what is doing the action you’re talking about and make that person/thing the subject of your sentence.

Make It Easy To Read

Digital content is said to have changed the way we read and the way we comprehend information. We tend to skim read, rather than read every paragraph carefully, and look for the information that we feel is the most relevant and is what we’re looking for. You also need to think of an interesting headline to capture attention.

Rather than huge chunks of text, use shorter paragraphs and headings to split your content and draw attention to what your reader will be interested in (in a logical way). Avoid using jargon and abbreviations that aren’t explained properly too. Some words are seriously overused in marketing and corporate businesses so you might want to skip these.

Keep It Informative and Engaging

Hands up if you love reading or watching super-salesy content, or the feeling of really obviously being sold to. I totally get that your products are great and you want to tell people about them, but keep it useful, informative and engaging first then add in relevant product information second.

A call-to-action is a great way to embed product messaging into your content piece in a way that doesn’t feel extremely salesy. Plus it’s right at the end of the content, so if people get to the bottom it’ll be the last thing they read.

Free Tools To Make Your Content Better

Here are some easy, free tools that you can use to make your content better – there are alternatives to each of them, so if you love what they do but not how they do it then I guarantee you’ll find another tool out there that’s right for you. You might also want to check out this post on where to find content ideas for your emails, ads and blogs too.

They’re all tools to enhance your writing, rather than doing it for you, and often need used with some common sense. They can really elevate your content and help you spot common mistakes when you use them in the right way.

Grammarly

Grammarly has a paid-for option and a free option. It can be used to spellcheck, edit, pick up on grammar issues and even for things like picking up plagiarism or expanding your vocabulary. Millions of people use it every day, and it’s pretty easy to pick up. It isn’t perfect though, and sometimes you need to just sense check before blindly approving the recommendations it offers.

Otter.ai

If you’ve ever had to transcribe information from an interview, video or sound recording (or you’re still doing it the old-school way with a pen and paper) then otter.ai can be a helpful tool to help you transcribe automatically. You then just need to tidy it up afterwards to making sure it’s understood everything quickly. Far easier than the stop-start method when you do it manually.

Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is for you if you have a tendency to write long sentences, use overly complicated words or use passive voice a lot. It’s easy to use and comes with a free or paid-for version. It should absolutely only be used as a guide and a “good” Hemingway score isn’t an automatic signifier of good writing. It can actually completely strip the personality from your writing, so use sparingly and don’t take it as gospel.

MyBib

Need to reference an academic paper in a specific referencing style but don’t know or can’t remember how to do it? Say hi to MyBib. You just copy and paste the link to the paper that you want to cite, say which referencing style you want and it turns it into a reference-ready link that you can use in your citations.

Hubspot Blog Ideas Generator

In need of some inspo? The Hubspot Blog Ideas Generator can help you to come up with a plan for some content topics you might want to write about. Google Trends, looking at competitor or industry blogs (please don’t just copy) and SEMRush are some other options that can be useful for this, though they’re not just used for this specifically

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

CoshSchedule’s Headline Analyzer takes the headline that you’ve come up with and will score it for overall headline quality, uniqueness and its ability to result in social shares, increased traffic, and SEO value. This is great if you’ve got the content nailed, but aren’t so good when it comes to thinking of snappy headline to make your readers engage. Some blog editors also include this type of tool, so you may not need this depending on which one you use.

Does Writing Your Own Content Sound Like Too Much Work?

I get it, in that case it makes sense to hire a freelance content writer. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or uninspired about your content, get in touch for a chat about how we can work together.