5 Tools to Help Improve your Writing Skills

Are you thinking of improving your writing skills?

Every writer/copywriter needs to keep updating their arsenal of writing tools to be a better writer. Most people are pretty confident of their writing capabilities. However, not many would seem to be satisfied with the quality of their writing.

A lot of people consider themselves as professionals in the field of writing. The fact remains that most have not reached that point of perfection. We sometimes find it hard to catch the most random error every now and then. As passionate as we might be about satisfying our readers, they would be unforgiving if we as much as commit the slightest goof. Having realized the need to address this, how then do we avoid these errors. Apparently, we could make do with a little bit of automation. Who doesn’t love an improvement in their productivity?

Over the years, the following tools have helped me become a better writer. Most were recommended by experts in the field of copywriting and these tools have increased my productivity and writing skills in ways I wouldn’t have imagined.

Grammarly

Grammarly is the best tool I’ve come to leverage over the years. It’s a tool you can rely on to ensure error free articles. The best way to demonstrate and fully appreciate the beauty of this tool is to dig through your archive and select some of your best articles. Then copy and paste those articles into Grammarly. In a matter of seconds, Grammarly will point out all the grammatical errors you overlooked, no matter how subtle.

It’s one of those tools you are happy you paid for, and it’s definitely worth every dime .

Grammarly also gives suggestions on the appropriate word usage or word replacement. There are limited errors you can edit in the free version. To unlock the full benefit, you have to purchase the premium edition. However, I can guarantee you the free version is as good as the premium.
 Buzzsumo

This is the best tool to analyze the content that performs best for any topic or competitor. Rand Fishkin, 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’s performing well in a niche or with an audience…” For every writer that is aiming for a viral article, particularly targeting social media networks,  this tool is for you.

Buzzsumo gives you the social media share count on “keywords”. For example, if you want to write about content marketing, it gives you an aggregate of the articles that are receiving the most social media shares on that keyword. You also get to view share update based on day, week and month .

This tool provides useful insights to guide you as a writer. You can then leverage upon those insights to determine the best way to structure your topic for increased virality and audience acceptance. If you want to know what is resonating with your audience, this is your tool of choice.

CoSchedule (Headline Analyzer)

 

According to  their website, CoSchedule  “will score your overall headline quality and rate its ability to result in social shares, increased traffic, and SEO value”. I use this tool to write captivating headlines. If you are doubting the attractiveness of your headline or copy, just paste it in CoSchedule Headline Analyzer.

Based on a series of algorithms, you can get an estimate out of 100 of the attractiveness of your headlines. Using factors such as headline length, popularity, emotions, sentiments and attractiveness potential. It rates your use of power words, important keywords and the ability of the headline to invoke positive emotions.

Hemingway Editor

 

This tool is similar to Grammarly. To edit  an article for a sentence-by-sentence analysis, I recommend this tool. According to their website, the Hemingway app “makes your writing bold and clear”. You get a lot of useful metrics which will give you insights into the flow of the article.

You get things like readability, verb, adverb and phrase usage with suggestions on how to improve them. It also highlights sentences that are hard or too hard to read. It’s a tool for turning an article around / making it perfect. Another beautiful thing is that it is totally free.

Microsoft Word (Spelling & Grammar)

This is particularly recommended for those who use notepad or other writing tools. I realized most people made the shift to various notepads that ensure clutter free writing while avoiding distractions. People have other reasons. Really, you are missing out on a lot of hacks available in Microsoft Word.

The intelligence of their Spelling & Grammar feature is now very good that you will doubt the involvement of some form of artificial intelligence. It’s so easy to proofread and correct errors in your article; edit and eliminate the grammatical errors, improve readability and many more minor tweaks.

I enjoin you to try these  tools to improve your overall writing skills while simultaneously boosting your productivity.

If there is any tool you feel is worth mentioning, you can share with us  in the comments below.