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 reality, it might probably generally really feel extra like attempting to swim in opposition to the present.)

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

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

Beneath, you may discover a listing of 36 incredible instruments and assets that will help you analysis, write, edit, and design content material extra simply. (You may discover there are plenty 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 individuals get probably the most nervous and annoyed. So don’t be concerned, we have a ton in there for you.)

Let’s get began.

36 Free Instruments & Assets to Make Content material Creation Simpler

For Researchers

1) Google Drive Analysis Software

Google just lately added a software to Drive that permits you to conduct Google searches with out ever leaving your Drive window. All you must 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. Mainly, it permits you to do a Google search that is restricted to a selected web site.

For instance, if I needed to go looking HubSpot’s weblog for advertising assets so I can cite one in every of our outdated weblog posts, I would do a web site:seek for weblog.hubspot.com with the search time period advertising assets. The system for web site search is web site:samplewebsite.com [search query]. So my instance could be web site:weblog.hubspot.com advertising assets.

3) Google Webmaster Instruments

Doing website positioning and key phrase analysis? Your advertising software program ought to have the ability to assist. But when it might probably’t (otherwise you’d like to enhance your knowledge), Google’s Webmaster Instruments is usually a nice assist. You’ll be able to verify issues just like the variety of listed pages in your web site, submit your web site to Google so that you’re getting crawled and listed, and even disavow unhealthy inbound hyperlinks. It additionally can provide you data on search queries which have a big quantity of impressions however low clickthrough price.

Inside Google Webmaster Instruments, go to “Your web site on the net” and select “Search queries.” You may see a desk exhibiting a search question, impressions, clicks, and clickthrough price (CTR). Evaluating this knowledge to your different analytics knowledge might help uncover some alternatives.

4) Proportion Change Calculator

I am unable to even start to let you know how helpful this little calculator is when searching for and analyzing knowledge. Ever need to know the share change of two values with out having to recollect the system? Merely enter the 2 values into this calculator, and it will spit out the share change. Belief me, you may need to bookmark this one.

Listed below are a couple of different helpful calculators:

• 3-Approach Proportion Calculator – Calculates solutions to those questions: What’s X% of Y? X is what p.c of Y? X is Y% of what?
• Conversion Price Calculator – Spits out a conversion price if you enter the overall customer rely throughout a selected time-frame and the variety of occasions throughout that time-frame these guests took a selected motion.
• A/B Check Calculator – Works for a primary situation 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 forth.).
• ROI Calculator – Analyzes your web site’s month-to-month gross sales and lead technology efforts to find out methods during which advertising efforts might be optimized.

5) Atlas

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

Supply: Atlas

6) Search in a Giphy

You already know that coworker who at all times appears to seek out the proper animated GIFs to your social posts or inside chat consumer? With the free Giphy Chrome extension, you’ll discover nice GIFs simply as shortly.

To make use of the software, all you must do is open the extension in Chrome, search, select a GIF, and drag and drop. To this point, the software works in Gmail, Twitter, Fb, and extra — they usually’re always 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 whole chunks of articles, it is confirmed useful at each step of the writing and enhancing course of.

One nice characteristic? Its cellular, desktop, and internet apps sync robotically so long as you’ve got an web connection. (And for those who work offline, it’s going to sync the following time you’ve got web.) Plus — and that is tremendous vital for content material creators like us — it is always saving and syncing your work robotically, making it a protected place to put in writing and retailer concepts.

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

8) Word2CleanHTML

When you like drafting weblog posts in packages like Microsoft Phrase, Evernote, or Google Drive as an alternative of your content material administration system (CMS), then this easy software might be your greatest buddy. 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 may paste straight into an internet web page CMS. Merely paste in your draft, click on one button, after which copy the ensuing HTML straight from the software. Once you paste that into your CMS (most may have buttons studying “HTML” or “</>” of their software bar above your draft), it’s going to seem good and clear. No hair-pulling or swimming by way of code required.

9) WordCounter

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

10) Cofftivity

In accordance 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 plenty of white noise turbines on the market, however my favourite is Cofftivity. This specific one presents continuous café background sounds at various intensities, from “Morning Murmur” and “College Undertones” to “Lunchtime Lounge” and “Brazil Bistro.” It is obtainable on the net and as an app on iOS and Android.

11) & 12) Zerys & eLance

Want to start out creating content material however do not have the bandwidth? We hear about this roadblock so much. One option to get round it’s by hiring freelancers from respected marketplaces like Zerys or eLance. These assets provide you with 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 data is shortly turning into a must have talent for the fashionable marketer — bloggers and written content material creators included. However studying from scratch might be daunting. The place on earth do you begin?

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

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

14) Weblog Subject Generator

If that you must get to writing weblog posts however aren’t certain of an angle or title to get your creativity transferring, HubSpot’s Weblog Subject Generator can do the give you the results you want. Merely enter a couple of key phrases that your weblog focuses on, and the Weblog Subject Generator will produce per week’s value of titles and subject concepts for you. It may not produce the ultimate title of your weblog publish, but it surely helps get you fascinated by inventive new angles for matters you’ve got written about earlier than.

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

15) Weblog Put up Templates

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

For Content material Editors

16) Editorial Calendar Template

Making a balanced editorial calendar might be robust, particularly if you do not have one centralized calendar that you simply and your group can consult with. To save lots of you time and headache, we have created editorial calendar templates for Google Calendar, Google Sheets, and Excel which you can fill in and share together with your group to start out the following month or 12 months off on the correct foot.

17) & 18) Grammarly & Correctica

Whereas human editors will have the ability to catch most grammatical errors, enhancing instruments like Grammarly and Correctica are nice instruments for triple-checking earlier than you press “publish” or “ship.” Each free instruments verify for grammatical errors — and Grammarly even checks for plagiarism.

19) Hemingway App

Ernest Hemingway, admired for his succinct writing fashion, is the namesake for this helpful enhancing app. Need 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 embrace figuring out passive voice and hard-to-read sentences. Take a look at the right-hand aspect of the screenshot beneath, the place the software 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

This 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 presumably the one likelihood so that you can compel readers to maintain studying — so it’s very value it to spend the additional couple of minutes arising with a extremely good one.

What does a extremely good headline seem like? The free software Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule can let you know. It scores your headline high quality and charges its capacity to drive social shares, site visitors, and website positioning 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 varieties. 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 should utilize 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 software I exploit day by day. Positive, you may seize a screenshot of your whole display or a part of your display utilizing the outdated keyboard shortcut methodology. However what if you’d like your screenshot to incorporate stuff that is not seen in your display?

Nimbus Screenshot allows you to seize the seen a part of an internet web page, a specific space, a specific scroll (my private favourite), your entire web page, or your entire browser window — together with every little thing beneath the fold.

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

22) Canva

When you like creating lovely visible content material in a extremely brief period of time, you may love Canva. The time and assets it takes to be taught design, pay for design property, and/or get impressed to create magnificence from scratch might be actually tough if you’re looking at a protracted listing of to-dos — however Canva presents an enormous library of pre-made templates and property which you can manipulate whereas additionally including your personal imagery.

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

This 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 permit customers to go to hyperlinks, watch movies, or learn messages you’ve got written. Plus, it is easy 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 information 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 Snap” button to take a screenshot of an internet web page — which then opened proper in Skitch for enhancing 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 software that focuses on serving to you create infographics, charts, and knowledge visualization. When you prefer 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 cellular 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 totally different templates which you can simply mess around with to customise to your content material and viewers — this is a sneak peek of 1 template, and you may seize the remainder right here. 

Supply: 15 Free Infographic Templates in PowerPoint

27) Google Fonts

Need to spruce up your web site pages, displays, ebooks, and different content material with cool and totally different new fonts? Little-known truth: 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 may copy and paste onto your web site. Alternatively, you may obtain the fonts to your desktop and use them when making new advertising 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 Coloration Picker

Keep in mind that time you needed to match your call-to-action design to that colour you have been utilizing on all of your occasion swag … however the one one who would know what that colour 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’ll put collectively compelling, visually interesting displays. Whether or not you are driving lead technology or reporting in your weblog’s progress to your group, maintain your viewers’s consideration with these eye-catching displays.

30) SlideShare Templates

SlideShare would not should be daunting. You’ll be able to simply create shareable, embeddable SlideShare displays in PowerPoint with the assistance of those templates — no want to start out from scratch or rent a freelancer. As soon as you’ve got created your first presentation, try our information to advertising SlideShares efficiently.

31) Haiku Deck

When you’ve ever needed to create a PowerPoint or SlideShare presentation in a pinch, you may want you knew about Haiku Deck. This software helps you shortly discover easy layouts, lovely photographs, and nice fonts. It is obtainable for the online and for iPad.

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

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

32) HubSpot’s Free Inventory Photographs

Looking for and shopping for inventory imagery is usually a ache within the you-know-what — particularly relating to deciphering legalese for various use instances. 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 exhausting?

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

Supply: The Free Inventory Photographs You’ve got Been Looking out For

33) PlaceIt

PlaceIt serves a really particular function: It permits you to add photographs of your web site or product into real-world environments of individuals holding telephones, tablets, and laptops. PlaceIt will robotically alter the picture to make it seem pure with the angle of the cellphone’s display — which is able to prevent time studying and/or enhancing in additional superior software program to get the angle proper.

You may should 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

Searching for the proper GIF to incorporate in your weblog publish? If it would not exist already on Giphy, you may make one your self utilizing LICEcap. Movie a screenshot and switch it right into a GIF utilizing this helpful, free software — we use LICEcap for our weblog posts, too. 

35) & 36) The Noun Challenge & 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 a couple of assets on the market for nice, resizable icons.

The Noun Challenge is an intensive library of 1000’s of icons uploaded by contributors. With a free account, you should utilize 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 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.)