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Writing isn’t easy and blogging process is 80% of writing. Particularly nowadays with so many new entrants into the market, the price per word keeps dropping. The further prices drop, the more content we all have to produce in order to make the same amount of money. Simply put, that sucks.
Fortunately, there are a lot of tools out there that are speeding up the blogging and writing process. In this way, we can make sure that we don’t actually have to sit long hours. Even better, they’ll actually make us better writers as well, which we can then use to actually push our rates back up again.
Here are some of the absolute best tools out there that will provide you with some writing help to make your writing faster, better and more enjoyable in 2017.
Focus Writers
Interestingly, sometimes the best way to write more is not to have more. You still working with all of your social media and your email open? Then try out Focus Writer. It has a distraction-free environment where those buttons only pop up when you mouse over certain areas.
Even better, it allows you to set daily goals, timers, alarms, allows you to customize themes and even lets you create one of those typewriter sounds if that is something that will help you really get into your writing (for some people ambient sound is the perfect tool).
Oh yeah, and it influences your blogging process for free.
Hemmingway App
Almost every single piece of writing I do goes through Hemmingway so that I can give it that extra hit of readability to take my texts to the next level. The app does this by showing me which sentences are hard and very hard to read, pointing out adverbs so that I can reduce them down to a more acceptable level, as well as pointing out the passive voice.Then it’s my decision if I want to do anything about it.
Another nice touch I like is what reading level people will need to understand your text. I’m not actually sure how accurate that is, but watching that reading grade come down gives you an extra motivation to keep working at it.
And it’s also free.
Atomic Reach
Atomic Reach is a great platform that helps you make sure that your content is actually aimed at your intended audience. This takes the guesswork out of the process and thereby makes it much more likely that you’ll actually engage who you’re supposed to.
Even better, it also has built in the ability for you to share your content across the right platforms. In that way, you’ll have the best return on investment and won’t end up spending dollars where they won’t make any impact.
All that does come with a big steep price tag. It costs 75 US per person per month. Yeah, that’s not exactly cheap – but if you push your content hard, you can make that back by getting that extra bit of reach.
Evernote
When you’re doing research for an article you’ll almost inevitably run into articles about other topics that are absolutely fascinating but you can’t read right now. In that case, use Evernote! Throw the useful articles you find into this app and in that way make sure that it’s there for later! Never lose anything ever again!
You can use it for a lot more than that, in fact. For example, you can use it to research, cross-link articles and even compose the articles you’re writing. The great thing is that if you’re using multiple devices the thing will automatically sync across the different platforms, thereby making it possible for you to read the article you found while writing on your laptop on your phone while you’re waiting for a friend.
It’s free in its basic version and costs a few dollars a month if you need more functionality for your outstanding blogging process.
Crystal Knows
This is another great app for writers (and, for that matter, anybody else) Crystal Knows gives you an insight into people’s personality by analyzing who they are online. Of course, the first person you’re going to analyze is yourself. This will give you a whole lot of insights into who you are – and might even make you realize things about yourself that you didn’t know.
That’s not where the real benefit lies. You see, you don’t just analyze yourself but you can analyze anybody else as well. Including potential clients. In this way, you can pull a whole lot of extra information out of their ad – for example – so that you know how to approach them correctly.
Similarly, you can analyze emails even as you compose them, to make sure that you’re actually writing it in the right style for the person you’re addressing. In other words, this is hugely useful for making your communications run more smoothly.
Summing up the changes in blogging process
There are a lot of apps out there. Most of them aren’t even that expensive. So make sure you try them out. In fact, you should probably see that as a part of your job. After all, apps are like an extension of your mind space. They allow you to do more, with less effort.
Try out these. Yes, some do cost money, but all have a trial period. You’re bound to find at least one great app that will help you. And that can make an ocean of difference.