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12 essential free tools for writing great content

Content writing doesn’t need to be expensive. Here are the most powerful free tools that can transform your content creation process without breaking the bank.

Writing and Editing Tools

1. Hemingway Editor

Transform complex writing into clear, impactful content. This free tool helps simplify your writing by identifying passive voice, complex sentences, and readability issues. Perfect for creating content that resonates with your audience.

The Hemingway Editor is particularly useful for marketing leaders who need to ensure their team’s content is concise and easy to understand. It highlights areas where your writing might be too complex, allowing you to make quick adjustments. For instance, it will flag long, winding sentences and suggest breaking them into shorter, more digestible chunks. This can be especially beneficial when crafting content for web pages or social media posts where brevity is key.

However, it’s important to use the Hemingway Editor as a guide rather than a strict rulebook. While it’s excellent for improving clarity, following its suggestions too closely might strip your writing of its unique voice or nuanced expressions. The key is to strike a balance between readability and maintaining your brand’s distinctive tone.

2. Google Docs

The ultimate collaborative writing platform with real-time editing, commenting, and version history. Integrate it with your free content calendar for seamless content management.

Google Docs offers far more than just basic word processing. Its real-time collaboration features make it an invaluable tool for content teams working remotely or across different time zones. Multiple team members can work on the same document simultaneously, with changes tracked and easily reversible if needed.

The commenting feature is particularly useful for content review processes. Editors can leave detailed feedback directly within the document, and writers can respond or resolve comments as they make revisions. This streamlines the editing process and keeps all communication about a piece of content in one place.

Moreover, Google Docs’ integration capabilities with other Google Workspace tools like Sheets and Calendar can help you create a comprehensive content management system at no cost. You can link your content calendar to individual documents, set reminders for deadlines, and even use add-ons to enhance your writing experience.

3. Grammarly

Catch grammar mistakes, improve clarity, and enhance your writing style with AI-powered suggestions. The free version offers comprehensive grammar and spelling checks.

Grammarly’s AI-powered system goes beyond simple spell-checking. It analyzes your writing for tone, clarity, engagement, and delivery, providing suggestions to improve these aspects. This can be particularly helpful for ensuring consistency across content produced by different team members.

The tool’s browser extension allows you to use its features across various platforms, from email clients to social media sites. This ensures that all your written communication, not just your main content pieces, maintains a high standard of quality.

While the premium version offers more advanced features, the free version of Grammarly is robust enough to significantly improve your content’s grammatical accuracy and readability. It’s an essential tool for any content team looking to maintain high-quality standards without incurring additional costs.

Research and Ideation Tools

4. Answer the Public

Generate content ideas by discovering what your audience is asking. Perfect for creating targeted content that addresses specific user needs and supports your long tail keyword research.

Answer the Public is a goldmine for content marketers looking to create relevant, audience-centric content. By inputting a keyword or topic, you’ll receive a visual representation of the questions people are asking about that subject online. This information is invaluable for several reasons:

  1. It helps you understand your audience’s pain points and interests, allowing you to create content that directly addresses their needs.
  2. It provides a wealth of ideas for blog posts, FAQ pages, and even product features or services.
  3. It supports your SEO efforts by helping you target long-tail keywords that your audience is actually using in their searches.

Using Answer the Public in conjunction with your keyword clustering efforts can help you create comprehensive content clusters that cover a topic from multiple angles, improving your website’s authority in your niche.

Track topic popularity and identify emerging trends in your industry. Essential for timing your content releases and staying ahead of the curve.

Google Trends is an often underutilized tool that can provide valuable insights for content strategists. By showing you the relative search volume for different terms over time, it allows you to:

  1. Identify seasonal trends in your industry, helping you plan your content calendar more effectively.
  2. Spot emerging topics before they become mainstream, giving you a chance to establish authority early.
  3. Compare the popularity of different topics or keywords, informing your content prioritization decisions.

For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, Google Trends can show you when searches for “workout routines” peak each year, allowing you to time your content releases for maximum impact. It can also reveal rising trends like specific workout styles or diet plans, enabling you to create timely, relevant content.

6. Evernote

Capture ideas, organize research, and collaborate with your team. The free version includes basic note-taking and web clipping features.

Evernote’s strength lies in its versatility and cross-platform synchronization. As a content marketer, you can use it to:

  1. Create a centralized repository for content ideas, making it easy to access inspiration when you need it.
  2. Save and organize research materials from across the web using the web clipper feature.
  3. Collaborate with team members by sharing notes and notebooks.
  4. Draft content outlines or even full articles that can be accessed from any device.

The tool’s tagging system allows for flexible organization, making it easy to categorize and retrieve information quickly. This can be particularly useful when managing multiple content projects simultaneously.

While the free version has some limitations compared to the premium offerings, it provides ample functionality for most content creation needs. It’s an excellent tool for keeping your content strategy organized and ensuring no great idea gets lost in the shuffle.

Visual Content Creation

7. Canva

Create professional-looking graphics with templates for social media, blog posts, and presentations. The free version includes thousands of templates and design elements.

Canva has revolutionized visual content creation, making it accessible even to those without graphic design skills. For content marketers, this tool is invaluable for:

  1. Creating eye-catching featured images for blog posts
  2. Designing social media graphics that align with your brand identity
  3. Producing infographics to visualize complex data or processes
  4. Crafting presentation slides for webinars or pitches

The platform’s drag-and-drop interface is intuitive, allowing you to quickly produce professional-looking visuals. Its vast library of templates serves as a starting point, which you can then customize to match your brand’s style guide.

Canva’s collaboration features also make it easy for teams to work together on visual projects, ensuring consistency across all your visual content. While the premium version offers more advanced features and a larger asset library, the free version is more than sufficient for most content marketing needs.

8. Unsplash

Access high-quality, royalty-free images to enhance your content. Perfect for creating visually appealing blog posts and social media content.

Visual content is crucial for engaging your audience, and Unsplash provides a vast library of high-quality, royalty-free images that can elevate your content. Here’s why it’s an essential tool for content marketers:

  1. It offers a wide variety of images across numerous categories, ensuring you can find visuals that match your content’s theme.
  2. All images are free to use, even for commercial purposes, without requiring attribution (though it’s appreciated).
  3. The quality of images is generally high, rivaling many paid stock photo sites.
  4. New images are added regularly, keeping your visual content fresh and diverse.

When using Unsplash, it’s important to choose images that not only look good but also reinforce your message. A relevant, high-quality image can increase engagement with your content and make it more shareable on social media platforms.

Remember to optimize these images for web use by compressing them and using appropriate alt text, which can also support your SEO efforts.

SEO and Analytics Tools

9. Google Search Console

Monitor your website’s search performance and identify optimization opportunities. Essential for tracking your SEO reporting metrics.

Google Search Console is a powerhouse of information for content marketers focused on SEO. It provides invaluable insights into how your content performs in search results, including:

  1. Which queries are driving traffic to your site
  2. How many impressions and clicks your pages are getting in search results
  3. Which pages have the highest click-through rates
  4. Any technical issues that might be affecting your site’s performance in search

This information can guide your content strategy in several ways:

  • Identify high-performing content that could be updated or expanded
  • Spot opportunities for new content based on queries you’re appearing for but not ranking highly
  • Understand which topics resonate most with your audience based on click-through rates
  • Quickly address any technical SEO issues that could be holding your content back

Regular use of Google Search Console can help you refine your content strategy over time, ensuring that your efforts are aligned with what your audience is actually searching for.

10. ContentGecko’s Free Keyword Clustering Tool

Organize your keywords into meaningful groups with our free keyword clustering tool. Perfect for planning content clusters and improving site structure.

Keyword clustering is a crucial step in developing a comprehensive content strategy. ContentGecko’s free tool simplifies this process, allowing you to:

  1. Group related keywords together, helping you plan comprehensive content pieces that cover multiple related queries
  2. Identify potential topic clusters, supporting a more structured and SEO-friendly site architecture
  3. Prioritize content creation by focusing on clusters with high search volume or business relevance

By using this tool in conjunction with your keyword research, you can create a content plan that not only targets individual keywords but also builds topical authority in your niche. This approach can lead to improved search engine rankings and a better user experience for your site visitors.

Productivity Tools

11. Trello

Manage your content calendar and track projects with this visual organization tool. The free version includes unlimited cards and basic automation.

Trello’s Kanban-style boards make it an excellent tool for visualizing your content production workflow. Here’s how you can leverage it for content marketing:

  1. Create a board for your content calendar, with lists for different stages of the content creation process (e.g., Ideation, In Progress, Editing, Published)
  2. Use cards to represent individual pieces of content, moving them through the lists as they progress
  3. Assign team members to cards, set due dates, and add checklists to ensure all steps are completed
  4. Use labels to categorize content by type, target audience, or campaign

Trello’s free version allows for unlimited boards, making it easy to separate different aspects of your content strategy (e.g., blog posts, social media, email campaigns) into distinct workflows.

The basic automation features can help streamline your process. For example, you could set up a rule to automatically notify your social media team when a new blog post card moves to the “Published” list.

12. Focus@Will

Boost productivity with scientifically optimized music for content creation. The free trial helps you find your optimal focus zone.

While not strictly a content creation tool, Focus@Will can significantly enhance your writing productivity. It offers:

  1. A variety of music channels designed to improve focus and productivity
  2. Personalized recommendations based on your work style and preferences
  3. The ability to track your productivity over time

The science behind Focus@Will suggests that certain types of music can help you enter a flow state more easily, potentially increasing your writing output and quality. During the free trial, experiment with different channels to find what works best for you.

Remember, everyone’s optimal work environment is different. Some writers may find Focus@Will incredibly helpful, while others might prefer silence or their own playlists. The key is to find what helps you maintain focus during your content creation sessions.

TL;DR

Free tools can significantly enhance your content writing process. From grammar checking with Grammarly to visual content creation with Canva, these 12 tools cover all essential aspects of content creation. By integrating these tools into your workflow and combining them with ContentGecko’s AI-powered platform, you can maximize your content marketing efficiency without incurring additional costs. Remember, the key to success lies not just in the tools themselves, but in how effectively you use them to create valuable, engaging content for your audience.