Thinking of improving your writing skills? Every writer/editor needs to keep upgrading their arsenal of writing tools to be a better writer. Most people are quite confident in their writing skills. However, many do not seem to be satisfied with the quality of their writing.
Many people consider themselves professionals in the field of writing. The fact is that most have not reached that point of perfection. Sometimes we find it hard to spot the most random bug from time to time.
As passionate as we can be about satisfying our readers, they would be relentless if we made the slightest mistake. Having realized the need to resolve this, how can we avoid these errors? Apparently, we could get by with a bit of automation. Who doesn’t like an improvement in their productivity?
Grammarly
Grammarly is the best tool I have learned over the years. It’s a tool you can trust to ensure error-free articles. The best way to fully demonstrate and appreciate the beauty of this tool is to go through its archive and select some of its best articles.
Then copy and paste these articles into Grammarly. Within seconds, Grammarly will point out all the grammatical mistakes you’ve missed, no matter how subtle.
It’s one of those tools you’re glad you paid for and it’s definitely worth every penny.
Grammarly also offers suggestions on the proper use or substitution of words. There are limited bugs you can edit in the free version. To unlock the full benefit, you need to purchase the premium edition. However, I can assure you that the free version is just as good as the premium version.
Buzzsumo
This is the best tool to analyze the best-performing content for any topic or competitor. Rand Fishkin, the founder of Moz, said in a review, “I love the ease of use and the immediate value I get from using the product. I can search for terms/phrases and quickly identify content that works well in a niche or with an audience…”
Buzzsumo gives you the count of social media actions in “keywords“. For example, if you want to write about content marketing, it gives you an aggregate of the articles that get the most social media shares for that keyword. You can also see the update of the share based on the day, week, and month.
CoSchedule (Headline Analyzer)
According to its website, CoSchedule “will score the overall quality of your headlines and assess their ability to drive social shares, increased traffic, and SEO value.” I use this tool to write catchy headlines. If you’re in doubt about the appeal of your headline or copy, simply paste it into CoSchedule Headline Analyzer.
Based on a series of algorithms, you can get a 100% estimate of the attractiveness of your titles. Using factors such as title size, popularity, emotions, sentiments, and potential for attraction. Evaluate the use of power words, important keywords, and the title’s ability to evoke positive emotions.
Hemingway Editor
This tool is similar to Grammarly. To edit an article for sentence-by-sentence analysis, I recommend this tool. According to its website, the Hemingway app “makes your writing clear and bold.” You get many useful metrics that will give you information about the flow of the article.
You get things like readability, use of verbs, adverbs, and sentences with suggestions on how to improve them. It also highlights sentences that are difficult or very difficult to read. It is a tool to transform an item / make it perfect. Another beautiful thing is that it is completely free.
I invite you to try these tools to improve your general writing skills while increasing your productivity.