Calling all copywriters – pros and newbies alike. I come bearing glad tidings of great joy, an early Christmas present of sorts. My gift to you is a toolkit comprised of handy websites, software and apps that help make the work life of a copywriter (and other fellow wordsmiths) a whole lot easier.
Some of these tools you may be familiar with, others you may not be. Most of them are completely free to use, and the two that aren’t are well worth the investment! The important thing is they’re all incredibly useful for day-to-day copy and content writing tasks, and I’m here to explain how.
Semrush Writing Assistant
In a nutshell:
Powered by Semrush – the world’s leading SEO platform and tools suite – the Semrush Writing Assistant is pretty much a one-stop-shop for reviewing your long-form website content – be it a blog, a service page or another designated landing page.
Semrush Writing Assistant plugs into Google Docs and WordPress, measuring your written content against 4 categories:
- SEO (including keyword usage, keyword density and semantic term suggestions)
- Originality
- Readability
- Tone of voice
Great for:
- Scoring SEO content overall
- Identifying areas of writing that could be improved
- Making sure you’ve used keywords effectively
- Checking uniqueness of copy
- Keeping your tone consistent
Cost: Dependant on which plan you choose
Semrush Topic Research
In a nutshell:
If struggling to come up with ideas for content sounds familiar, you’ll love the Semrush Topic Research tool. Explore trending topics and subtopics, relevant competitor content and helpful data including topic search volume, topic difficulty and related questions.
All you have to do is give the software any word or phrase and watch it return hundreds of topics and ideas for engaging content.
Great for:
- Identifying hot, trending topics
- Getting inspired
- Researching engaging content that resonates
- Uncovering topic-related questions
- Discovering competitor content that ranks well
Cost: Dependant on which plan you choose
Grammarly for Desktop
In a nutshell:
I simply can’t recommend Grammarly highly enough; it’s a Godsend. This all-in-one writing assistant checks your grammar, punctuation, and spelling as you write. Plus, it works in your browser and across desktop apps, emails, and documents, making it your omnipresent guardian angel when it comes to writing content.
Great for:
- Keeping on top of your spelling, punctuation, and grammar
- Alerting you of errors in software with no built-in checker (such as Microsoft Excel)
- Analysing the consistency of your tone
- Use across an array of programmes, apps, browsers, documents and more
- Peace of mind
Cost: Free!
Power Thesaurus
I know that a thesaurus seems like an obvious tool to mention, but this particular thesaurus is my favourite. As well as generating synonyms and antonyms, it also gives you the option to generate related phrases, idioms and even rhymes – which is really handy when you’re having one of those days that’s marred by writer’s block.
In a nutshell:
- Remembering a word or phrase you currently can’t remember
- Helping you create eloquent content
- Building your vocabulary
- Unearthing interesting words and phrases
Cost: Free!
Great for:
The Phrase Finder
In a nutshell:
This website is another great tool for inspiring copy ideas – particularly when you’re trying to be witty or punny. Simply give Phrase Finder a word and it will throw back a bunch of idioms, phrases and proverbs that relate. This tool is great for stimulating ideas for things like email and ad copy.
Great for:
- Finding relevant, topic-related phrases
- Inspiring creativity
- Having a little giggle here and there
Cost: Free!
Ad Mockups
In a nutshell:
Regardless of which platform hosts them, there are a lot of components to digital ads, and sometimes it can be hard to accurately envision an ad in its entirety well enough to write copy for it.
If this sounds familiar, give Ad Mockups a try. This tool lets you create ad mockups on the fly with the ability to customise the brand name and logo, supporting imagery or carousels, and the post copy itself. You can even mock up ads for specific platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and more.
Great for:
- Visualising your ads
- Seeing your copy in-situ
- Testing copy alongside images or videos
- Making sure copy matches the feel of the brand
Cost: Free!
Hemingway Copy Editor
In a nutshell:
This tool is a bit like a spell-checker, but for style and formatting. Hemingway Editor gives you a readability grade for your copy, points out sentences that are too complex, suggests ways to optimise your content, and highlights any instances of passive tone.
Great for:
- Checking the reading grade of your writing
- Highlighting complicated sentences
- Suggesting better words
- Identifying areas of passive tone
Emoji Finder
In a nutshell:
If you’re a copywriter, then I wouldn’t mind betting that you frequently need to source emojis to support your social or email copy. Back in the day, I would just log in to Facebook and start a new post to access the emojis (only occasionally accidentally posting it). Nowadays, I use emoji finder, which basically does what it says on the tin.
Great for:
- Having a database of emojis on hand
- Easily searching through the sheer mass of emojis in existence
- Sourcing emojis without risking an accidental in-platform post
RiteTag
In a nutshell:
RiteTag will give you hashtag suggestions to support your social content based on real-time hashtag engagement levels across social media platforms. A must-have for Instagram and Twitter marketing, specifically.
Great for:
- Finding relevant hashtags
- Sourcing existing hashtags
- Measuring hashtag engagement levels in real-time
- Discovering hashtags by platform
Cost: Free!
Answer The Public
In a nutshell:
Answer The Public is a keyword tool which effectively scrapes Google’s autocomplete and autosuggest entries to give you a bunch of long-tail, question-based keywords to help fuel your content efforts.
Simply type in your keyword and get loads of helpful, pleasingly displayed data to give you a veritable goldmine of content inspiration and ideas.
Great for:
- Providing search insights
- Researching customer needs and wants
- Sourcing relevant FAQ content
Cost: Free!
What about AI copywriting tools?
“But what about all the AI copywriting tools!?” I hear you ask. Well, I left them out on purpose. If you’re a copywriter by trade, then presumably you can get along without such software.
I’m not saying AI writing tools don’t have their place, just that their place is not here in this article. If you’d like to delve deeper into my thoughts on AI copywriting, you can check out my blog Bot Vs Being: Is AI The Future of Copywriting?
Come and learn more at Coast Campus
If you’d like something else to drink from the Fount of Knowledge, join us at Coast Campus where we can provide you and your team with Copywriting training sessions specially tailored for your content needs and business goals.
No matter what skill level you’re at, even if it’s zero, we’ll gladly show you the ropes or further your existing understanding of how to write for the web. Plus, you can choose the topics and types of training that are best suited to you and your team.