There are many programs, apps, and tools that edit, transcribe, and improve your writing. If you write anything for your business—blog posts, emails, social media captions—the five tools I outline in this post will help you do it better, faster, and more effectively.
I'm not affiliated with any of these businesses and am not receiving any compensation for this post. My goal is to share what I use daily as a professional copywriter to make my job easier and my writing more effective.
1. Otter
Otter is a voice recorder and transcription tool that I use to back up my notes from client meetings and voice of customer research interviews. I still take handwritten notes because it helps me focus and capture thoughts that aren’t expressly spoken. But having a backup to my notes is a huge help when I go back to organize key messages and themes.
How it works:
A free (Basic) account offers 600 minutes of recording per month. The free version will also transcribe the first 30 minutes of each recording. I’m always impressed by the transcription accuracy of this tool. You can export the transcription to an audio or text file. The free version also offers summary keywords and word clouds.
As I mentioned, it’s perfect for recording meetings. It’s also great if you struggle to get the ideas out of your head. You could speak aloud about a topic and then edit the transcription to create a blog post or other content.
2. Grammarly
Grammarly has been around since 2009. It is a cloud-based tool with free and paid plans that scan your writing for grammar and spelling to clarity, tone, and inclusive language.
You may be wondering if Grammarly is worthwhile if you already have the spell check turned on in Google Docs or Microsoft Word. I find that even the free version Grammarly offers a more comprehensive scan for grammar, tone, and conciseness. If you upgrade to a Premium plan, you get added benefits like suggestions about sentence variety, formatting, vocabulary, and even plagiarism detection.
How it works:
In addition to accessing Grammarly through its website, you can also use its mobile apps and browser extensions. Wherever Grammarly is enabled, it will automatically check your writing as you draft emails and craft social media messages. If you have a blog post or longer piece of writing (for example, a page of website copy), you can upload the document on Grammarly's website and get immediate feedback. Remember to review each suggestion individually. As with any technology, Grammarly's suggestions aren't always right, and you can approve or reject each manually.
3. ProWritingAid
Like Grammarly, ProWritingAid checks spelling, grammar, and clarity. It also has additional insights that help you write polished, confident copy and content. The free version only lets you run reports on the first 500 words of a document. To scan longer text, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
How it works:
Open up the web-based app and paste in the copy you want to scan. Then, toggle to different reports in the menu to see detailed recommendations that will help you improve your writing. Some of my favorite reports analyze things like readability, sticky language, transitions, and overused words. These insights go well beyond what I’ve found in Grammarly and can help a ton when you are trying to tighten up your copy!
4. Words to Use
Sometimes you need word inspiration. You may be writing about a particular topic, and you find yourself repeating the same tired terms with none feeling quite right. In these cases, you could turn to a thesaurus, but it may not offer the right solution.
I recently came across a really basic but handy site called Words to Use. The tool has collections of subject-related terms instead of meaning-based groupings like in a thesaurus.
How it works:
You start by searching or browsing for topics like "real estate" or "beer." The site will then display terms related to that topic, grouped by part of speech. It even includes phrases and quotes related to the subject. The database is relatively limited, but even if exactly what you need isn't there, you may gain some inspiration by exploring a related topic.
5. CoSchedule Headline Studio
Writing just the best headline for your blog post is so important. Your headline must trigger curiosity, tap into emotion, and promise value. And then, to keep readers from bouncing, you need to write a post that delivers on the promise your headline made.
CoSchedule, a robust marketing management software, has been around for nearly ten years. In addition to their full paid marketing suite, they also offer a few incredible free tools for small businesses. I’ve been using their subject line tester, social message optimizer, and headline analyzer for years now.
In 2021 they launched a new product— Headline Studio. Even if you aren't interested in investing in the paid Pro version, the free version still offers headline scores that help you determine which of the headlines you've written is strongest.
How it works:
You type in a headline that you’ve written and click “analyze.” The product then uses an algorithm based on data from over four million headlines to score your headline on a scale of 0–100. The tool will offer information about the headline type, sentiment, clarity, skimmability, character count, word count, word balance, and reading grade level. You'll also get basic suggestions to improve your writing.
Need more help? Upgrade to a Pro plan to get an SEO score, more detailed recommendations, a running history of past headlines, and the ability to analyze headlines side-by-side.
I hope that learning about these tools helps you as you write on behalf of your business! As always, if you are ready to invest in expert help to write your website copy or blog content, I’d love to chat.