7 Tools to Sharpen up Your Copywriting Skills

Copywriting is the voice of your brand and your ultimate ambassador. It speaks your values and beliefs and showcases your products or services. It’s the very reason your online brand gets seen at all. Content that is useful and engaging is likely to be shared and cited, attracting more traffic, which is why content marketers should dedicate plenty of time to producing high-quality copy that will cut through the noise.

So, with that said, are you ready to sharpen up your copywriting skills? Our Brand Content Lead and digital marketer, Kathryn, showcases the top 7 online tools that she couldn’t write (or live) without.

The best tools to discover the latest trends…

Before you start writing copy or even brainstorming topics, you need to know exactly what your target audience is looking for.

1. AnswerThePublic 

My first point of call is always AnswerThePublic.

I use AnswerThePublic to add insight and validation to my content strategies. Having built up a database from millions of searches it’ll predict what you’re going to ask based on the information that’s already been entered.

AnswerThePublic is an automated autocomplete tool that identifies potential topics for content, trying out different variations of your chosen keywords. The results are then displayed, separated according to the variations used to create them, broken down to: ‘whys’, ‘hows’, ‘wheres’, ‘whos’ etc and shown in a downloadable mind map image.

2. Google Trends

Google Trends is another great online tool that I use to visualise and discover trends in people’s search behaviour within Google Search, Google News, Google Images, Google Shopping and YouTube.

Google Trends works by using real-time search data and will not only allow users to see what topics and queries have been popular in searches but will also give access to data containing how often specific searches have been made over a certain period of time. You can view whether a trend is on the rise or declining. You can also find demographic insights, related topics, and related queries to help you better understand SEO trends.

I find Google Trends most helpful for discovering the latest trends and when deciding over the most searched for keywords and phrases to generate topic and title ideas.

The best tool for generating ideas…

We all know the importance of keeping a website fresh and exciting by producing new content that search engines shout about. Sometimes writer’s block isn’t the issue, but rather a brainstorming block. Continually coming up with relevant ideas, themes and topics for blog posts can be challenging and take up valuable copywriting time.

3. HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator

This is where HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator comes in. It’s great at formulating writing prompts and content topics to help you create the ultimate content roadmap. The app is easy to use – simply enter up to five different nouns and you’ll get a series of title idea cards to browse, showcasing your chosen topics.

Each time you use the tool, you’ll get a week’s worth of blog posts and by entering a few personal information details, you can unlock a year’s worth of ideas and best practices recommendations for optimising content. As easy as that!

The best tool for industry-relevant stats and analysis…

The best copywriters aren’t just writers – they act as consultants and analysts and are constantly looking for ways to help their clients improve results.

4. Quora 

Introducing Quora. This tool gives you access to industry-relevant stats, latest news, competitors and expert opinions, as well as being beneficial to your SEO.

Quora is a Q&A resource where users ask questions and experts come to share information, their knowledge and their expertise. I use it to gain insights into clients’ industries and sectors and check out what your competitors may be up to – what services or products they’re offering and what their unique selling point is. It’s a great way to ensure you’re always offering something different and something to help you stand out. With this tool, there are no excuses not to have fresh content!

There are 4 key areas to be aware of;

1. Topics: Q&A’s tagged with a specific topic will appear in your feed.
2. People: Q&A’s posted by specific people will appear in your feed.
3. Questions: Activity about questions within topics or by people you’re following will appear in your feed.
4. Boards: Allow you to organise, collect, and share anything from Quora or elsewhere on the internet.

The best tool to grow your organic traffic…

SEO-friendly copywriting aims to increase organic traffic through search engines, it can give you lasting search engine visibility and is huge part of your search engine marketing strategy.

5. SEMrush: SEO Writing Assistant

SEMrush is one of the best competitor SEO all-in-one tools. I’d call it the swiss-army knife of SEO and recommend every website to have it handy in their toolbox. When it comes to keyword optimising your copy, the Google docs and WordPress add-on: SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant is gold-dust. 

Using SEO Writing Assistant, you can;

• Maintain your brand’s tone of voice in each content piece you publish 
• Make sure your copy is optimised
• Improve your article before publication
• Make your article easy to read
• Quickly assess your article’s SEO quality
• Write a piece of content with the optimum number of words

You tell SEMrush what you’re writing about by adding your target keywords and set your target audience and then the tool will analyse your text and score it based on the below 4 categories;

Readability

This category scores your text on how difficult it is or which education level it corresponds to, depending on what your target audience expects.

Also in this score is the content length and the reading time of your blog and what the recommended target length should be.

Tone of Voice

There are three different tones in this category: casual, neutral and formal. It offers a consistency score to show how consistent your article is and then give you recommendations to remove sentences to become more in line with the overall tone.

SEO

This score label shows your recommended target keywords, plus a list of LSI keywords to enrich your text to get the best SEO results. You can also “Download extended recommendations from SEO Content Template” if you want to be in line with other search results.

Originality

This category gives the total percentage and number of copied words. It will also identify the sources of the copied words. In total it will do 5 checks and take some time to process. 

The best tool for writing correctly…

It may sound obvious, but a thorough understanding of grammar and spelling is essential if you’re embarking on a copywriting career. Your knowledge of the English language needs to be top-notch if you want to be a great copywriter.

6. Grammarly

Meet Grammarly. This handy writing tool is like your personal proofreader who cuts you some slack if you’re having an off-day!

Grammarly’s writing assistant offers both a paid and free version that provides invaluable help in detecting potential errors or awkward sections of your writing, understanding context and usage and even offering tone suggestions. Grammarly reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement and delivery mistakes. 

It uses AI to identify and search for an appropriate replacement for the mistake it locates and even provides a performance score. It calculates the accuracy level of your document based on the total word count and the number and types of writing issues detected. For example, if my blog achieves a score of 90, it means that my writing is more accurate than the writing in 90 per cent of other documents with similar goals.

The best tool for featuring your previous writing projects…

All professional writers need a website to build a personal brand and boost their digital marketing careers.

7. Copyfolio

This leads me to my final recommendation: Copyfolio. It’s a great tool for writers to easily create websites and a writing portfolio and showcase their previous projects. Copyfolio is essentially an intuitive website builder that helps to create a professional-looking website. You have a selection of templates to choose from as a starting block, and then you simply add your copy and images into each suggested section.

When you add a new project to your website, the platform helps you with prompts and guiding questions. These are all based on insights from top industry professionals and hiring managers, so you can write the type of case study your target audience actually wants to read.

Aside from when it comes to writing copy, these tools are an invaluable addition when carrying out SEO audits or tackling your upcoming quarterly strategy.

I hope these copywriting tools become an essential part of your day-to-day toolkit and help to sharpen your writing skills. Now you have these online tools at your disposal, it’s time to elevate your copywriting and take your content marketing to new levels!

If you’re just starting out in the world of marketing, check out our extensive list of free qualifications to self-start your digital marketing career.

If you’re looking for a helping hand to reignite your online presence, SeventhElement specialises in content, strategy and execution, as well as digital marketing audits to achieve the best results for your business; drop us a line.