Blogging or writing content without the proper tools is like trying to paint the Sistine Chapel with an inch paint brush. Not having the proper tools at your fingertips is probably the single reason most people give up before their blog has gained any traction. At Wealthy Affiliate’s the majority of individuals who give up do so at the three or four-month mark when they are on the cusp of success.I have written The Ultimate List of Free Content Creation Tools & Resources for you to try out new tools which will make your life esasier. Your productivity should improve as well. Don’t hamper your creativity by using hte wrong tools.

The first step is to know your niche. This will help you build an avatar of the person you are writing to. This one person is your potential customer. I write down everything I can about them, the age, where they live, what their problems are, etc. Then I pad it out with a gender and a name. When I sit down to write, I imagine I am leaning against the door jamb, with a coffee in my hand talking to that one person sitting at my kitchen table.

Writing great content does involve keyword research, but it is also so much more than that. It’s organizing the content and presentation which includes a captivating header and also a grammar check. All of these things needn’t be daunting you can do it all with tools.

Headline Creators

Headlines are important because they have to grab the reader quickly. They act as a hook to draw the reader in to read the article.

How Much Empathy does your headline convey?
This marketing tool from Advanced Content Management is particularly useful for copywriters. Take your heading and paste it into the box. Click the category of your headline in the drop down box. Then underneath there are three colored squares reading intellectual, empathic and spiritual, click on one of them. I put the headline here “The Ultimate List of Free Content Creation Tools & Resources” in and checked business and empathy. My score was 55.56 which I was chuffed about because anything over fifty percent is great. Nearer to the hundred mark is better but the more words you have makes that score harder to achieve.
Headline Ideas This gives you content ideas. It shows you real headlines that have already been published and whether or not they are trending. Don’t copy the exact headline use it for an idea and then go to the tool above and create your headline.

 

Analyze your HeadlineThis is my personal favorite because it analyses your headline from various perspectives. The headline here only scored 54 out of a hundred, but it does what it says on the tin it informs. I don’t want a contentious headline in this case.

Improve your writing skills

My all time favorite blogging tool the Hemingway maker

You can paste your text into Hemingway or write it online. It highlights unwieldy clunky text and shows you the parts that aren’t well written.The online version is free and there is also an app for mac or Windows which cost $15.00. There is no difference in performance between the two versions.

Writing Tools
Scrivener
Is a powerful writing tool for novelists, report makers, technical writers. My favorite part of this tool is the virtual corkboard which allows you to stick notes and plan your documents, your drafts your novel plans or your blog posts.

 

Grammar Checkers

Grammarly has a free and paid version. I have used both, but I prefer the paid version because it analyzes your content to a deeper level. it gives you general grammatical errors, the most serious errors which are just wrong. It also tells you that you have written passive text. Try the free one first. I needed the paid version because I am English, English. we write things in a different way to the Americans. I wanted these errors to show.

My Favorite Research Tools

Google Docs research Tools I love the idea of a tool within a tool. You can open a new Google doc and you a research tool is right there. Go to tools along the top bar and research is the drop down option. It opens a document to the right of the original. Top tip here, try searching for quotes to make your points more interesting, then press insert, it will insert the quote and the source.

Utilizing the Power of Google.

In Google search type in your keyword + statistics and this will bring up infographics and statistics.

Dealing With Images

Evernote Webclipper supersedes bookmarks. When you find something of interest, grab it in Evernote.

Time Management

Our brainpower is virtually unlimited. Unfortunately, our processing power isn’t. We are dealing with so many conflicting things at once hundreds of different visual signals a second sounds et cetera. Psychologists have long worked out that we work best in short, sharp bursts with a 10-minute break. The tomato timerTo time yourself for 25 minutes work and then a break.

Making Memes

Quickmeme
You will have seen memes all over the Internet recently they are an image with text which is quite funny. They break up blocks of text on your blog far more efficiently than the standard image. It’s incredibly quick to produce one you need only a caption a background image, and then you fill in the text field, and quick memes do the rest.

How to Make Infographics

CanvaFor making infographics you don’t have photoshop. It’s a very simple piece of software so it’s very quick to learn how to use it. It can take large images so you can make an infographic. Infographics tend to rank much better than images because they have both text and images. You can use them to post to Instagram or to Pinterest.

Run more smoothly and efficiently. If you can think of any more feel free to leave a comment down below and I will add them to the article.