45 Free Content material Writing Instruments to Love [for Writing, Editing & Content Creation]

Creating content material is not at all times a stroll within the park. (In actual fact, it might probably typically really feel extra like attempting to swim towards the present.)

Whereas different elements of enterprise and advertising and marketing have gotten more and more automated, content material creation remains to be a really handbook job.

That being stated, there are many instruments on the market to make creating content material a lot simpler.

Beneath, you will discover a checklist of 36 improbable instruments and sources that can assist you analysis, write, edit, and design content material extra simply. (You will discover there are a variety of design instruments in right here — that is as a result of visible content material is usually the a part of the content material creation course of the place folks get probably the most nervous and pissed off. So don’t be concerned, we have got a ton in there for you.)

Let’s get began.

36 Free Instruments & Sources to Make Content material Creation Simpler

For Researchers

1) Google Drive Analysis Instrument

Google not too long ago added a instrument to Drive that lets you conduct Google searches with out ever leaving your Drive window. All you need to do is click on “Instruments” from the menu bar and select “Analysis” from the dropdown menu.

2) Web site:search

It is a helpful Google hack I exploit day by day. Principally, it lets you do a Google search that is restricted to a selected web site.

For instance, if I needed to look HubSpot’s weblog for advertising and marketing sources so I can cite one in every of our previous weblog posts, I might do a website:seek for weblog.hubspot.com with the search time period advertising and marketing sources. The formulation for website search is website:samplewebsite.com [search query]. So my instance could be website:weblog.hubspot.com advertising and marketing sources.

3) Google Webmaster Instruments

Doing search engine optimization and key phrase analysis? Your advertising and marketing software program ought to be capable of assist. But when it might probably’t (otherwise you’d like to enhance your information), Google’s Webmaster Instruments is usually a nice assist. You may test issues just like the variety of listed pages in your web site, submit your website to Google so that you’re getting crawled and listed, and even disavow dangerous inbound hyperlinks. It additionally may give you data on search queries which have a big quantity of impressions however low clickthrough fee.

Inside Google Webmaster Instruments, go to “Your website on the net” and select “Search queries.” You will see a desk displaying a search question, impressions, clicks, and clickthrough fee (CTR). Evaluating this information to your different analytics information may help uncover some alternatives.

4) Share Change Calculator

I am unable to even start to inform you how helpful this little calculator is when in search of and analyzing information. Ever wish to know the proportion change of two values with out having to recollect the formulation? Merely enter the 2 values into this calculator, and it will spit out the proportion change. Belief me, you will wish to bookmark this one.

Listed below are just a few different helpful calculators:

• 3-Means Share Calculator – Calculates solutions to those questions: What’s X% of Y? X is what p.c of Y? X is Y% of what?
• Conversion Charge Calculator – Spits out a conversion fee if you enter the full customer depend throughout a particular time-frame and the variety of occasions throughout that time-frame these guests took a particular motion.
• A/B Check Calculator – Works for a primary state of affairs with two teams of individuals (A & B) who get to see one model of your web site and for whom you observe the variety of conversions or objectives (purchases, downloads, clickthroughs, and so on.).
• ROI Calculator – Analyzes your web site’s month-to-month gross sales and lead era efforts to find out methods during which advertising and marketing efforts may be optimized.

5) Atlas

Atlas is Quartz‘s information heart, and it is chock-full of graphs, charts, and information visualizations. You may seek for virtually any subject or key phrase, and Atlas may have a graphic based mostly on current analysis information for you. It is a useful gizmo to get background data on a subject you are researching, or to seek out recent information to make use of in a venture you are engaged on. Here is a chart based mostly on information from early 2016:

Supply: Atlas

6) Search in a Giphy

You recognize that coworker who at all times appears to seek out the right animated GIFs in your social posts or inner chat shopper? With the free Giphy Chrome extension, you can discover nice GIFs simply as rapidly.

To make use of the instrument, all you need to do is open the extension in Chrome, search, select a GIF, and drag and drop. To date, the instrument works in Gmail, Twitter, Fb, and extra — and so they’re consistently increasing assist.

For Writers

7) Evernote

I exploit the free model of Evernote each single day. From to-do lists and analysis notes to writing complete chunks of articles, it is confirmed useful at each step of the writing and modifying course of.

One nice function? Its cell, desktop, and internet apps sync mechanically so long as you’ve gotten an web connection. (And in case you work offline, it’s going to sync the subsequent time you’ve gotten web.) Plus — and that is tremendous essential for content material creators like us — it is consistently saving and syncing your work mechanically, making it a secure place to write down and retailer concepts.

Use it to maintain a operating checklist of concepts, take notes, retailer inspiring articles or ebooks, or plan your editorial and social media publishing calendars.

8) Word2CleanHTML

For those who like drafting weblog posts in applications like Microsoft Phrase, Evernote, or Google Drive as an alternative of your content material administration system (CMS), then this straightforward instrument may be your finest good friend. Why? As a result of if you copy a doc from Microsoft Workplace and paste it into your CMS, numerous little, bizarre formatting points can crop up in your HTML.

Word2CleanHTML applies filters to repair all these issues added into the HTML, leading to well-formatted HTML you’ll be able to paste instantly into an online web page CMS. Merely paste in your draft, click on one button, after which copy the ensuing HTML straight from the instrument. Whenever you paste that into your CMS (most may have buttons studying “HTML” or “</>” of their instrument bar above your draft), it should seem good and clear. No hair-pulling or swimming by way of code required.

9) WordCounter

There isn’t any “proper reply” for how lengthy a weblog publish must be. So long as it serves its objective — whether or not that is thought management, driving leads, explaining a brand new idea, or one thing else — size does not matter. However though we do not advocate writing weblog posts with a phrase depend in thoughts, typically phrase depend can come in useful. WordCounter works precisely the best way you assume it does: Paste in your content material and it will spit out precisely what number of phrases you’ve gotten.

10) Cofftivity

In line with a examine out of the College of Chicago, “A average stage of ambient noise is conducive to inventive cognition.” In different phrases, being the tiniest bit distracted truly helps you be extra inventive. That is why for many individuals, myself included, white noise helps promote focus.

There are a variety of white noise turbines on the market, however my favourite is Cofftivity. This explicit one presents continuous café background sounds at various intensities, from “Morning Murmur” and “College Undertones” to “Lunchtime Lounge” and “Brazil Bistro.” It is out there on the net and as an app on iOS and Android.

11) & 12) Zerys & eLance

Want to start out creating content material however haven’t got the bandwidth? We hear about this roadblock lots. One method to get round it’s by hiring freelancers from respected marketplaces like Zerys or eLance. These sources offer you entry to expert freelance writers who can write weblog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, and different items of written content material for you.

13) HTML Hacks for Entrepreneurs

Whereas this is not strictly a writing useful resource, primary coding information is rapidly changing into a must have talent for the trendy marketer — bloggers and written content material creators included. However studying from scratch may be daunting. The place on earth do you begin?

For those who’re a complete newbie, begin with HTML Hacks for Entrepreneurs, which my colleagues at HubSpot created with Codeacademy. It will train you fast however helpful hacks anybody — no matter coding information — can use of their advertising and marketing. For instance, you will learn to make small adjustments to HTML like altering headers and spacing, creating textual content in block-quote kind, and inserting social share hyperlinks. My private favourite is the hack to alter font colours.

As soon as you have mastered these primary HTML abilities, transfer on to Codeacademy’s free interactive programs. They discovered a method to make studying HTML and CSS truly enjoyable — and you’ll undergo every lesson at your individual tempo.

14) Weblog Matter Generator

If you’ll want to get to writing weblog posts however aren’t positive of an angle or title to get your creativity transferring, HubSpot’s Weblog Matter Generator can do the be just right for you. Merely enter just a few key phrases that your weblog focuses on, and the Weblog Matter Generator will produce per week’s price of titles and subject concepts for you. It won’t produce the ultimate title of your weblog publish, but it surely helps get you excited about inventive new angles for subjects you have written about earlier than.

Listed below are the weblog publish titles I acquired once I entered “content material,” “inbound advertising and marketing,” and “running a blog”:

15) Weblog Submit Templates

All weblog posts aren’t created equal, however we have discovered that there are steps you’ll be able to take to make your posts complete and shareable. With these weblog publish templates, we’ll stroll you thru an overview to write down profitable how-to, listicle, newsjack, and curation weblog posts. As a substitute of ranging from scratch, you will save time and, hopefully, nail your weblog objectives.

For Content material Editors

16) Editorial Calendar Template

Making a balanced editorial calendar may be powerful, particularly if you do not have one centralized calendar that you simply and your workforce can check with. To avoid wasting you time and headache, we have created editorial calendar templates for Google Calendar, Google Sheets, and Excel that you would be able to fill in and share along with your workforce to start out the subsequent month or 12 months off on the best foot.

17) & 18) Grammarly & Correctica

Whereas human editors will be capable of catch most grammatical errors, modifying instruments like Grammarly and Correctica are nice instruments for triple-checking earlier than you press “publish” or “ship.” Each free instruments test for grammatical errors — and Grammarly even checks for plagiarism.

19) Hemingway App

Ernest Hemingway, admired for his succinct writing model, is the namesake for this helpful modifying app. Wish to make your written content material simpler to learn? Paste your content material into this free internet app, and it will assess your writing and determine alternatives to make it easier.

My favourite options embody figuring out passive voice and hard-to-read sentences. Take a look at the right-hand facet of the screenshot beneath, the place the instrument has summed up how readable my writing is with a grade. (Some room for enchancment right here.) Their suggestion to enhance readability total? Shoot for decrease than a tenth grade studying stage.

20) Headline Analyzer

Here is a scary stat for you: Solely 60% of people that click on into an article find yourself studying previous the headline. That makes your headline each the primary and probably the one probability so that you can compel readers to maintain studying — so it’s very price it to spend the additional jiffy arising with a very good one.

What does a very good headline appear to be? The free instrument Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule can inform you. It scores your headline high quality and charges its skill to drive social shares, visitors, and search engine optimization worth. In my expertise, its energy helps you strengthen particular elements of your title. For instance, it studies on perceived sentiment and commonality of phrase sorts. It will even present you the way it will seem in search outcomes.

So though it’s best to take these scores and grades with a grain of salt, you need to use this to provide your headlines a “once-over.” (And learn this weblog publish to be taught extra about writing superior headlines.)

For Designers

21) Nimbus Screenshot

That is one other instrument I exploit day by day. Certain, you’ll be able to seize a screenshot of your complete display screen or a part of your display screen utilizing the previous keyboard shortcut technique. However what if you’d like your screenshot to incorporate stuff that is not seen in your display screen?

Nimbus Screenshot allows you to seize the seen a part of an online web page, a particular space, a particular scroll (my private favourite), your complete web page, or your complete browser window — together with the whole lot beneath the fold.

As soon as you have taken the screenshot, you’ll be able to crop, edit (like including notes and callouts), and select to print or save to your desktop or Google Drive.

22) Canva

For those who like creating stunning visible content material in a very quick period of time, you will love Canva. The time and sources it takes to be taught design, pay for design property, and/or get impressed to create magnificence from scratch may be actually troublesome if you’re looking at a protracted checklist of to-dos — however Canva presents an enormous library of pre-made templates and property that you would be able to manipulate whereas additionally including your individual imagery.

Better of all, they’ve so many property and graphics out there at no cost that you simply will not must pay a cent in case you do not wish to. If you wish to use extra “premium” property and graphics discovered by way of their picture search, they will cost you $1 for every. However there’s loads of worth at no cost.

Here is an instance of one thing you would make:

23) ThingLink

Ever needed to make a picture (or infographic) clickable? ThingLink allows you to add a picture and add little icons to it that seem when an individual hovers their cursor over the picture. These icons enable customers to go to hyperlinks, watch movies, or learn messages you have written. Plus, it is simple to share: Customers can simply embed ThingLink photographs. (Click on right here for step-by-step directions.)

Beneath is a part of a a clickable infographic from Thinglink my colleague Ginny Mineo created for one other publish:

 

24) Skitch

Skitch is a free app by Evernote that helps you talk extra visually. It allows you to mark up photographs, digital property, PDFs, and different recordsdata with arrows, callout bins, textual content, and extra multi functional place.

Within the instance beneath, I opened this system on my desktop and used the “Display screen Snap” button to take a screenshot of an online web page — which then opened proper in Skitch for modifying and exporting.

Though it is free, it does require you to open an Evernote account — however that is additionally free (see above).

25) Infogram

Whereas much like Canva, Infogram is a visible content material instrument that focuses on serving to you create infographics, charts, and information visualization. For those who wish to create charts utilizing Microsoft Excel, you are in luck — it additionally presents compatibility with Excel by way of Infogram Charts. Additionally, their infographics are responsive with cell gadgets.

26) Infographic Templates

As a content material marketer, you would possibly really feel extra snug creating written content material than visible content material, however that is no excuse to exclude infographics out of your technique. Visible content material is rising in demand out of your viewers, and infographics are significantly shareable. We have created the backbones of 15 completely different templates that you would be able to simply mess around with to customise in your content material and viewers — this is a sneak peek of 1 template, and you’ll seize the remaining right here. 

Supply: 15 Free Infographic Templates in PowerPoint

27) Google Fonts

Wish to spruce up your website pages, shows, ebooks, and different content material with cool and completely different new fonts? Little-known reality: Google has a listing of 600 free fonts prepared so that you can obtain and use.

Merely discover and choose the fonts you want from their listing, then click on “Use” to get the HTML code you’ll be able to copy and paste onto your website. Alternatively, you’ll be able to obtain the fonts to your desktop and use them when making new advertising and marketing content material by clicking “Add to Assortment.” (Click on right here for step-by-step directions for doing this within the HubSpot software program.)

28) Picture Shade Picker

Keep in mind that time you needed to match your call-to-action design to that shade you had been utilizing on all of your occasion swag … however the one one that would know what that shade was did not work at your organization anymore? Subsequent time that occurs, snag an image of that swag and add it to ImageColorPicker.com, or use any picture URL to do the identical factor. Choose any level of the image, and instantly see its corresponding HEX, RGB, and HSV values.

29) PowerPoint Templates

Is there something extra boring than a PowerPoint presentation that includes black textual content on a white background? With the assistance of those templates, you can put collectively compelling, visually interesting shows. Whether or not you are driving lead era or reporting in your weblog’s progress to your workforce, maintain your viewers’s consideration with these eye-catching shows.

30) SlideShare Templates

SlideShare does not have to be daunting. You may simply create shareable, embeddable SlideShare shows in PowerPoint with the assistance of those templates — no want to start out from scratch or rent a freelancer. As soon as you have created your first presentation, try our information to advertising and marketing SlideShares efficiently.

31) Haiku Deck

For those who’ve ever needed to create a PowerPoint or SlideShare presentation in a pinch, you will want you knew about Haiku Deck. This instrument helps you rapidly discover easy layouts, stunning photographs, and nice fonts. It is out there for the net and for iPad.

Wish to see what one appears like? Beneath’s an instance I pulled from their checklist of featured decks. Word the simplicity of the design — if you wish to create tremendous detailed slides, this will not be the best instrument for you.

Snowed In? – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software program that conjures up

32) HubSpot’s Free Inventory Photographs

Trying to find and shopping for inventory imagery is usually a ache within the you-know-what — particularly in terms of deciphering legalese for various use circumstances. I’ve a liberal arts diploma, and Nietzsche was simpler to learn than no matter legalese inventory imagery firms tended to provide me. All I needed to know is whether or not to quote or not cite a inventory picture of a laptop computer. Why was it so laborious?

That is why our workforce determined to create a library of 550+ free and royalty-free inventory images. Whether or not it is a distinctive picture wanted for an book or that good photograph you wish to add to a weblog publish, that assortment ought to have you ever lined. Here is one in every of our “across the kitchen” inventory images — yum.

Supply: The Free Inventory Photographs You have Been Looking out For

33) PlaceIt

PlaceIt serves a really particular objective: It lets you add photographs of your website or product into real-world environments of individuals holding telephones, tablets, and laptops. PlaceIt will mechanically alter the picture to make it seem pure with the angle of the telephone’s display screen — which can prevent time studying and/or modifying in additional superior software program to get the angle proper.

You will must pay per picture to get actually massive or high-resolution variations, although I’ve discovered free photographs work simply high-quality for weblog posts and product web page content material. The paid downloads additionally take away that PlaceIt watermark from the underside proper.

34) LICEcap

On the lookout for the right GIF to incorporate in your weblog publish? If it does not exist already on Giphy, you can also make one your self utilizing LICEcap. Movie a screenshot and switch it right into a GIF utilizing this helpful, free instrument — we use LICEcap for our weblog posts, too. 

35) & 36) The Noun Undertaking & HubSpot’s Resizable Icons Assortment

Like with inventory images, one other problem content material creators face is discovering elegant icons that resize with out getting all fuzzy. There are just a few sources on the market for nice, resizable icons.

The Noun Undertaking is an intensive library of hundreds of icons uploaded by contributors. With a free account, you need to use icons so long as you both give credit score to the creator or buy them royalty-free for $1.99 apiece.

HubSpot has a library of resizeable icons, too, which you’ll be able to obtain at no cost and with none licensing or attribution. The equipment comes with a free information for learn how to change the colour of the icons utilizing PowerPoint, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

To that, we are saying …

(From HubSpot’s Free Icon Assortment.)