Content writing is a thriving and easily accessible industry, but this accessibility is a double-edged sword. As much as it is a blessing in that it eliminates the need for difficult or expensive certifications or degrees, it is also a curse that makes it harder to stand out from the crowd. Like in any other competition-heavy industry, even the tiniest bit of edge can make a big difference. So you do what any sensible person would do: you look up ways to give yourself the edge. But then you come across lists of tools that are way out of your price range – they are next to nothing.

Luckily, some poor unfortunate soul found itself in the same sad situation and, after an extensive period of trial and error, chose to create this practical little list just for you! With a bit of pocket change (if even that) and some practice, you'll be breaking through the competition no worse than the poor saps who cashed out thousands in monthly subscriptions.

Here's that list:

• Grammarly
• Thesaurus.com
• Copyscape
• Quillbot
• AuthoredIn
• An unexpectedly useful tool

Grammarly

You've probably heard of Grammarly by now. It's famous for a reason—its extensive ad campaigns!

Jokes aside, it lives up to its advertising. Being available on practically all platforms is a big bonus. However, even if you're using an older version of Windows or Linux, you can still use the browser extension or their site to paste or write your document immediately.

It doesn't impose a single formal business or academic style on you; instead, it lets you choose your formality, style, purpose, and audience, so it knows what to propose and how to score your content.

The free edition includes tests and suggestions for grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery scores. However, it makes no recommendations for involvement or delivery.

These are only available in the premium edition, which also includes expert writing assistance and a plagiarism detector that alerts you if any of your sections require citations.

Thesaurus.com

Thesaurus.com is pretty self-explanatory, yet it has more capabilities than you may think.

It selects synonyms by relevance to the term you're using and helps you identify semantical similarities between synonyms using the compare feature so that you can get that word off the tip of your tongue and into your text!

Copyscape

Copyright infringements are the bane of any online creator, especially content writers. Stealing someone's work is a quick way to ruin your reputation. Still, some don't concern themselves with reputation or morals and are happy to scam buyers with stolen content or don't mind working with people who will pay pennies for copy-pasted websites if they get dimes in return.

Unfortunately, Google distinguishes between original and copied content, lowering both sites' search rankings. To avoid this, you can always utilize Copyscape to see if the material on your website has been stolen. Individual URLs can be checked for free, but the batch search can be used to scan your entire website.

Additionally, Copyscape offers a premium API that can be integrated to scan any new content that enters your system and copysentry. This service constantly monitors the internet for content that has been stolen from you.

Instead of a monthly plan, it offers a fairly unique payment method in which you buy credits and utilize them for the service.

It is, however, quite inexpensive; the average writer's $20 worth of credits can last a year.

QuillBot

Quillbot is essential for all writers, not just content creators! Its paraphrasing feature alone warrants a place on this list! The co-writer function, which combines all of QuillBot's capabilities into one easy-to-use, all-encompassing writing tool, will undoubtedly delight anybody who has been writing for a long time. It contains many basic, practical, and simple-to-use features that are well-organized and accessible without hassle.

These are the said features:

• Research

Instead of searching the internet on a separate tab and going through every single link you come across, Quillbot prepares the results for you and allows you to scan the search results for a summary, highlights, and topics.

It also keeps a record of the sites you used so that you may access them more quickly if you forgot about which sites you used.

• Notebook

The notebook itself, ironically, isn't noteworthy. It saves bookmarks from websites you've visited and allows you to scribble down notes and ideas. The only thing that makes it unique is how few writing tools include this basic but crucial feature.

• Citations

As the name implies, it appropriately makes citations for you. Now, if you have any experience with referencing anything, let alone online sites, you'll be wary of the word "appropriately, " given that there are so many reference styles. QuillBot, thankfully, has them all, even those in other languages. It generates citations and organizes them in a neat and clean user interface where you may modify, remove, or copy them to use elsewhere. The moment you add a citation, QuillBot adds a bibliography section at the end of your text, where it inserts the citation.

• Analytics

This tool is especially beneficial for content writers since it provides statistics about your content. It shows the hard data, such as word, sentence and paragraph counts, but also readability levels, sentiment and estimated reading time.

• Paraphraser

It offers adjustable paraphrasing so you can choose how much you want the text to be changed. It's a godsend when you write a technically correct sentence that just doesn't feel right and can't figure out why or how to fix it. The free version only provides the standard and fluency option, but the five other modes (Formal, Simple, Creative, Expand, Shorten) are only available with the premium upgrade, as is the final level of synonym replacements.

• Summariser

Last but not least: the most straightforward tool. It summarises text and allows you to choose how short or long you want the summary to be.

It also offers a separate plagiarism checker and unlocks the word limitations on the paraphraser and summariser while generally being faster if you subscribe to the premium version.

Even with the premium version of this all-encompassing application, expertise and talent cannot be replaced. Content marketing trends change and evolve rapidly, just like any other highly competitive industry. You must understand the new rules in content marketing to be able to adapt and stay on top.

AuthoredIn

You're going to wanna keep AuthoredIn on your radar.

It is an all-in-one solution for creating LinkedIn content. Its primary objective is to increase the visibility and interaction of your LinkedIn postings. You will gain more fans, connections, leads, and revenue.

You can see a preview of your post to see how it will appear in other people's feeds before publishing. Knowing where the "see more" button is located will help you create click-worthy, more intriguing headlines. The LinkedIn post preview is compatible with various post formats, including text, image, carousel, and video.

Readers will notice a significant variation in post formatting. Use bold or italics to emphasize important words. Use the emoji picker to portray emotions and make your bullet points and numbers more appealing. By counting the characters in your post, you may determine how long it is.

Your drafts are automatically saved; you can search them and keep the ones you find most intriguing.

The AuthoredIn app is currently free to download.

Voice to text

Using voice-to-text features is so much more relaxing and convenient. You can even do it while lying down with your phone and then fix some of the phrases your device misheard afterwards. Is it flawless? Of course not, especially if you're writing in a language with an undeveloped voice-to-text functionality. But it's miles better than sitting for hours in front of a bright screen, slumped over, your neck and shoulders aching.

Perhaps you need some physical rest but lack the necessary time. Just dictate what you want to write to your device to optimize your workflow during the breaks.

Voice to text has gone a long way these last few years. People think it's an unconventional method because they tried it once or twice back in its infancy and wrote it off as a gimmick. But trust me when I say this: don't knock it 'till you try it!

Conclusion

With all these tools in hand and a bit of mental elbow grease to master them, you, too, can now write awesome content on a pro level, only for it to be outranked by a copy of a listicle with lousy grammar because it uses botnets that Google hasn't tracked down yet (don't worry, they'll be taken down quickly).