Freelance writing is a booming career in the writing business, mainly owing to benefits such as full control of your routine, no stringent office hours, no exhausting daily commute, and the ability to work from anywhere on the planet.
Freelance writers must multitask and excel at various facets of their business model. They’re running their own business, necessitating them to manage clients and search for new ones. The freelancer generates, investigates, researches new concepts, and handles the finances while balancing the production of high-quality writing.
Here are 18 useful tools to assist determined freelance writers in producing their best work. These tools will help develop new concepts, create captivating headlines, design shareable illustrations for your blog, transcribe with focus, and more.
Freelancing is a treacherous realm, but dedicated individuals can achieve success in their careers with the right resources, guidelines, and inspiration.
Tool #1 – Feedly
Feedly keeps you updated with the latest scoops from leading blogs. Search for a noteworthy blog or topic to subscribe to, or consolidate your feed into groups to locate what you need easily. Set alerts on certain words, and reveal when someone references the name of your blog or brand anywhere on the internet.
Tool #2 – Hemingway App
Keep it simple; try to be comprehensive, precise, and readable. No need to flaunt your extensive grammar knowledge and wide vocabulary. Hemingway assists you by highlighting intricate sentences suggesting substitutions for better word utilization, and more.
Tool #3 – Grammarly
Currently the world’s most accurate grammar checker and the most popular. Grammarly scans your manuscript for correct use of advanced grammar rules, amends spelling, proposes synonyms, and enriches your vocabulary. It’s compatible with all programs or transcript editors.
Tool #4 – Wordy
Fancy real-time human editing services? Wordy is the tool for you. Submit your content, and an editor will review it for you. You have access to a range of skilled editors across all major time zones, so someone is always available to edit your work.
Tool #5 – TextExpander
If you’re into shorthand typing, TextExpander is a great tool for helping you type faster. For example, it can change the letters “hagd” into ‘have a great day.’ Any shortcuts you create are uploaded to a cloud service, meaning this handy tool is accessible from anywhere you go.
Tool #6 – Site Explorer by Ahrefs
A marketing tool refining your research backlinks, keywords, and organic traffic. Ahrefs has a reliable reporting system to confirm whether your opponents’ content works best on Google and social media. It’s invaluable when creating new blog post ideas. Such data could be very useful for writers crafting innovative blog post ideas. There is a two-week free trial, after which you’ll need a subscription.
Tool #7 – Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule
Check the impact score of your headline with Headline Analyzer. Get a comprehensive analysis of how common, unusual, influential, and expressive words your title is and how it performs online. The tool scrutinizes how it appears in Google and presents guidelines for improving it.
Tool #8 – Streak
Keep track of your sent emails with Streak, a Gmail extension. Receive notifications when a receiver opens your email; it’s tremendously useful for distributing guest posts and pursuing clients. Schedule emails and create shortcuts.
Tool #9 – Copyscape
Plagiarism is rife in the freelance writing business. This tool detects whether the article is plagiarized or unique. This app is incredibly useful when publishing guest posts or ready-made posts from freelance writers on your blog.
Tool #10 – WordCounter
Repetition causes your work to lose effect, and Wordcounter helps to amend word duplication swiftly. Insert your text into a block, verify the settings, and the overused words are revealed with a click, allowing you to substitute them.
Tool #11 – Dark Room
This clone of Write Room allows Windows users and PC owners to have the same disturbance-free writing zone originally afforded to Mac users only.
Tool #12 – Write Room
Mac users were privileged to have a tool featuring a completely black background, offering a more focused writing experience. The lack of menu options makes for a user-friendly navigation experience.
Tool #13 – Skitch by Evernote
Apologies, Windows users; this tool is only available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad operators. Skitch by Evernote allows the annotation of a screenshot, document, or image. You’ll easily add symbols, writing, brands, and more to illustrations and articles.
Tool #14 – Google Keep
Google Keep allows you to create quick notes, a checklist, or jot down your ideas, much like a digital notebook. The presence of the search bar gives you easy access to browsing your notes and philosophies. It may seem minimalistic, but this app has all the bells and whistles.
Its versatility and availability extend to Android, iOS, and Chrome. The functionality lets you record audio and control the app with your voice.
Tool #15 – Focus@Will
Sync music with your creative needs. Focus@Will diarizes your music to play at specific times, so you can map your creative process while you work. This technique helps you concentrate on one task and is a perfect choice for writers, improving your focus. The app’s vast collection of instrumental music gives you a huge range of options for easy-listening tunes.
Tool #16 – Focus Booster
This app is based on the Pomodoro time-tracking technique. The Pomodoro technique relies on the 25-minute timetable of working and 5 minutes break. This helps to compartmentalize tasks and increase productivity.
Tool #17 – Pexels
Pexels offers complimentary high-quality illustrations for your articles and blog posts. It offers systematized photos from an array of free image sites and photographers in one place. Utilize the search box to find the image you require.