Have you wondered how you can improve your workflow as a copywriter? We all struggle with pushing to the next step in our productivity, but we can do it. Today, we look at seventeen tools you can use to enhance your copywriting workflow across several areas of your workload.
Let’s get into it.
1. Hemingway Editor
Editing your work can be time-consuming. Sometimes, it’s challenging to be objective about your writing. Hemingway Editor takes an objective approach to your work, making it much more straightforward to identify areas for improvement. It highlights areas where you can simplify your language to create more effective writing.
Biggest Pro: Provides a readability score and clear instructions to improve.
Biggest Con: Can suggest irrelevant edits or changes that could weaken your work.
2. Answer the Public
When you’re in the early stages of research for your writing, you may struggle to find relevant questions to guide your content. Using Answer the Public, you can enter a topic or long-tail keyword and see a vast range of common questions surrounding that topic. Answer the Public streamlines your research stage, making it easy to find the proper focus for your content.
Biggest Pro: Provides many directions to explore for your writing.
Biggest Con: Visually overwhelming, can be difficult to understand results.
3. Also Asked
Also Asked is another tool that breaks down content ideation and keyword research into a more straightforward task. Enter your keyword topic and get a series of subsections that show all the different questions users search in relation to your topic. Like Answer the Public, Also Asked provides an insight into search intent that can give you direction and help you create customer personas.
Biggest Pro: Provides live People Also Ask data in its results.
Biggest Con: Only allowed limited searches without a paid account.
4. Grammarly
Grammarly is arguably the number one editing tool for copywriters. This tool lets you set goals surrounding your work’s domain, intent, audience, and formality. You can also adjust the language settings, making writing in a second language easier or localising your work to a different dialect. Grammarly even has an assistant version you can download to edit your work on any platform.
Biggest Pro: Highly customisable editing choices.
Biggest Con: Some goals are behind a paywall.
5. CharacterCountOnline
Effective meta descriptions, titles, and tags are crucial to excellent copywriting. The best meta-content stays within a specific character range, so writing them can be challenging. With CharacterCountOnline, tracking your characters and words is easy, keeping things simple and speedy. The site also saves your last session, making it easy to refresh your mind when you open it.
Biggest Pro: Simple design that’s easy to use.
Biggest Con: Doesn’t analyse the content for SEO applicability.
6. ChatGPT/AI tools
There’s no denying that AI has had a massive impact on copywriting. You can use a chatbot like ChatGPT to streamline various aspects of your work, enhancing your workflow more efficiently. It can produce drafts, meta tags, market research, and more. Experiment with ChatGPT to discover how it can benefit you the most. Every copywriter should explore this new avenue of content creation.
Biggest Pro: Potential to significantly increase efficiency and workflow.
Biggest Con: Potential to produce plagiarised or outdated content that needs correcting.
7. Surfer SEO
When you write with SEO in mind, you produce optimised content that boosts the rankings for your site. You can improve your speed and quality with a tool like Surfer SEO at hand. Input your keyword or phrase, and let Surfer SEO recommend the best related keywords you should use, as well as how often you should use them to create the most compelling piece of content.
Biggest Pro: Makes it significantly easier to increase organic traffic.
Biggest Con: This tool requires a paid account to use most of the content.
8. Copyscape
Copyscape is every copywriter’s best friend. You can effortlessly check your content for plagiarism, making it easier to submit work to clients with confidence. Tools like Copyscape are essential if you use any AI generative tools when creating your content. You can also identify if any other sites have stolen your content without credit, compensation, or permission with this tool.
Biggest Pro: Offers free website banners to dissuade plagiarists from stealing your content.
Biggest Con: Stronger plagiarism tools and more content behind paywall.
9. Ahrefs
The biggest advantage of using a tool like Ahrefs is that it can help you improve your site’s rankings and boost your traffic. Ahrefs acts as a kind of copywriter’s multitool. You can use it to perform keyword research that pays off, assess your website’s organic search traffic and backlink profile, and analyse the areas of your niche that are worth creating content around.
Biggest Pro: Lots of SEO tools all in one convenient place.
Biggest Con: Fairly expensive memberships required.
10. Canva
Most copywriters have to present some work or create draft graphics to complement their writing at some point in their careers. Canva is an excellent tool for elevating your content to the next level, whether it’s a poster concept or presentation slides. It’s easy to create professional and unique designs with this program, making it easy to stand out amidst the crowd.
Biggest Pro: Tons of free templates for any type of content.
Biggest Con: Paywall for more advanced accounts with different features.
11. TitleCase
TitleCase is a tool that’s easy to overlook - at your peril. You can enter your text and convert it to any case setting you need. Many copywriters find their clients use a specific case style for their titles and subheadings, like AP style. You can use this tool to take the work out of figuring out the right capitalisation and make it instant.
Biggest Pro: Simple and easy to use.
Biggest Con: Doesn’t have every case style, although you’re not likely to need more.
12. StackEdit
StackEdit is another editing tool that can enhance the quality of your work very efficiently. You can synchronise your files on StackEdit with your Google Drive, updating your files instantaneously. You can even publish your writing through Blogger, Zendesk, and WordPress, all from the StackEdit page. Thanks to its synchronisation tool, a whole team can work on StackEdit, and it automatically merges their changes.
Biggest Pro: A versatile editing tool that’s available offline as well as on.
Biggest Con: Busy UI can be intimidating for new writers.
13. Yoast
You can write the most moving content ever, but it won’t make a difference if your SEO is not right. Yoast helps you boost your SEO effortlessly through a range of various plugins. You can use Yoast to improve your local visibility, an excellent tool for small businesses looking to drive traffic. Yoast offers 24/7 support with a premium subscription and free support forums for other account levels.
Biggest Pro: Expansive SEO academy is great for new copywriters.
Biggest Con: Premium accounts come with a monthly charge.
14. Squarespace
If you’ve watched a YouTube video in the last five years, you’ve probably heard of Squarespace. This common video sponsor is an excellent tool for creating your own website. It has a wide range of templates to use for your design, as well as 24/7 support if you need it. With Squarespace, you can create professional websites without needing any coding knowledge.
Biggest Pro: Range of websites and portfolio templates makes it highly customisable.
Biggest Con: No free prescription level.
15. Calendly
Freelance copywriters know that organising meetings and video calls can be time-consuming and confusing. Calendly is an excellent tool for keeping scheduling simple. You can send clients a link to your Calendly account and ask them to book a slot with you to meet. Both parties get email confirmations with the date and time of the meeting, as well as reminders to keep you all on track.
Biggest Pro: Free tool used by millions already.
Biggest Con: Doesn’t provide video calling, users still need software like Zoom or Google Meets.
16. Ommwriter
Writing doesn’t always come naturally. Sometimes we struggle with distractions of writer’s block, and it can be difficult to move past it. Ommwriter is the perfect tool for writers who need to enter a zen state to do their best work. Soothing sounds and pleasant minimalistic designs fill your screen, and suddenly you can hear yourself think again. Ommwriter’s beauty is in its simplicity, an easy tool anyone can use.
Biggest Pro: Gentle waves, distant trains, and peaceful scenes promote focused writing.
Biggest Con: Having the full-screen experience means checking other sites and apps is harder.
17. Semrush
Semrush is an SEO powerhouse tool that helps you grow your online visibility through various methods. Using its toolkits, you can get comprehensive research and advice for content marketing, competitor research, and anything else you need to boost your site’s reputation and ranking. You can boost your workflow using Semrush to do the heavy lifting of SEO research, giving you more time to write the best content.
Biggest Pro: Comprehensive tool kits leave little out.
Biggest Con: No free subscription tiers available.
What is the Best Copywriting Tool?
Identifying one ‘best’ copywriting tool is an impossible task, but it’s safe to say that Grammarly is possibly the most-used tool on this list. Most freelance copywriters know that clients usually run your work through Grammarly before they accept it, so it’s worth getting to grips with it. While other tools are perfect for improving your SEO and keyword terms, using Grammarly consistently enhances your content and simplifies editing.
Which Tools Do You Use Daily in Your Copywriting Work?
The bare necessities of copywriting vary from one writer to the next. However, most copywriters use editing tools like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor to get their work done. Other tools, like CharacterCountOnline and TitleCase are excellent to have on hand for streamlining the fine details like meta titles and proper casing.
Copywriting is a multifaceted discipline that requires various skills. Using tools to simplify certain tasks or streamline your workflow is an excellent way to progress and grow professionally. Join us at The Author’s Pad for more information about advancing your copywriting career.
FAQs
Take a look at our responses to some frequently asked questions about copywriting.
What Tools Should a Copywriter Know?
There are many tools that can help a copywriter, but an understanding of an editing tool like Grammarly can go a long way for writers in the early stages of their careers. We also recommend using ChatGPT to your advantage. Any tools that can offer you more time to dedicate to things like writing and networking are worth utilising.
What are Strong Copywriting Skills?
Excellent copywriting requires both soft and hard skills. Soft skills like communication abilities, active listening, and charismatic networking all help you build your career and contacts that generate more work. Hard skills involve knowledge of tools like the ones in this blog, market research abilities, and thorough SEO comprehension. All of this, combined with excellent technical writing abilities, makes for a fantastic copywriter.
What is the Most Effective Copywriting Formula?
Most copywriters use the AIDA formula for creating their content. This stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. You grab the reader’s attention with something bold; then, you can hold their interest with more information surrounding their pain point. After that, stoke their desire by indicating how your product or service can help them with their pain point. Finally, use a call-to-action to prompt them to make a decision to go further with you.