10 Free Resources for Copywriting

Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast. Let's do this. Hi, Erin here. Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast. So listen, I know that there's a lot of stuff out there that looks nice and shiny that you can buy to increase your skills at copywriting or an online business in general, but in this episode, I want to show you 10 free resources that you can use to help out your copywriting. So let's dive in. So number one is Grammarly. So I have Grammarly installed, I'm pretty good at my grammar, if I do say so myself. But I do have it installed on my laptop because it really is helpful, especially if I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to go back and really take a fine tooth comb to what I what I have written, I use the free version of Grammarly. You can pay for it. And it has, you know, even more bells and whistles. But it's great for grammar corrections and suggestions. Okay, so, you know, even just starting out with the free version is great. And even if you're like me, and you're like I'm good at grammar, it really is helpful. Another one is Canva. So I use Canva. Gosh, for everything. It seems like I am not a web designer by any stretch. But Canva is super helpful when I come up with my create my lead magnets and that sort of stuff. But it also is great for social media promotions, as well as lead magnets. So they have different tools, they can even post your social media profiles for you. I don't use it for that, but but it's really great for, you know, coming up with images, imagery and designs for pretty much everything in your business that you can there's a free version of Canva as well, I do use the paid version for Canva. It just gives me more tools and more images at my disposal. But that's a huge tool that I use. And you know, it can kind of also give you ideas for what to say a lot of their designs come attached with some copy that you can kind of like, you know, use as a launchpad for what you actually want to say. The next one I'll go over is called readable, okay, and I'm going to include links to all this stuff on the the page for this episode. But readable, it essentially gives you the readability of your website or whatever it is that you're creating. So it can tell you the reading level of your website copy. It's it's most accurate when you copy and paste the text directly into the tool. But you can also have it scan a web page by inserting your your by inserting your the URL of your website. So it's kind of cool. So it'll tell you like, okay, you know, the copy on this website is great for those in them, you know, with a fourth grade reading level and app. So if you're trying to have create copy for the greater, you know, audience, then you know, and you want to make things a little bit more simplified, then it'll kind of give you a gauge of like, okay, cool, the copy of this website will probably be easily understood by the majority of people who go there. That said, if your website is, you know, it really is targeted for more seasoned professionals or the like, then you know, it can also give you a read on that like, Okay, this is more for you know, those that have like, you know, high school education or college education and up so anyway, kind of a cool tool to check out. The next one I use all the time is character count. So it's a free online tool. I use it all the time to make sure I stay within a certain certain character count for my own writing, but mostly for clients, right. So if I'm writing something, and I want to make sure I'm not getting too wordy or too long, that the character count tool is great. It's also helpful for when clients submit copy to you, especially if you charge by word counts. So if you're a copywriter like myself, and you want to make sure you know you have certain packages that you charge clients like I you know, you know, for me, I charge you know, 250 $250 per 500 words, right? So you're gonna want to know the word count of what they're submitting to you. So it gives you the count for characters for words, sentences, paragraphs and spaces. It'll also give you word density, so you can tell If you're overusing certain words or phrases, which is really helpful, because there's some times and I find myself using the same word over and over again, and you don't want that, the next tool is word counter. It is similar to character count. But it also gives you the grade reading level, which readable does as well, the one I talked about, but also the reading time and speaking time, if someone were to read it out loud, so that could be helpful, especially if you're coming up with an audible presentation. I also like mirror, your mirror, your Merriam webster.com, and the source.com. So they're helpful when trying to find different ways to get a point across to try to find words that are more powerful and direct and helps to avoid using the same words, multiple times. Sometimes I'll also just use Google, then I'll just search for another word for whatever it is that I want to replace. I also use Google Docs and Google Drive quite a lot. They're great to create easily editable docs and versions as I go. So I use this a lot for my own internal stuff, as I'm creating outlines of copy. And also for my monthly membership, I will write everything up in Google Docs, before I transfer it over to a PDF and finally into the members area, within the platform that I use for that. And it's an easy way to accept an edit copy for clients. So clients who submit their copy to me for my copy, edit polish and strategy service, I just have them save it and share it with me in a Google Doc. So I can dive in there and make those edits on the fly there. Google Keyword Planner is also a great tool, you can discover keywords that'll help you reach people that are interested in what you're offering, because you get to see what they're searching, and then you you know, you would in turn, use those keywords into what you're creating so that what you're creating, it will come up with when they search. One look is a great tool. It's not is it the source, but it also has a filter, I love this part. You can filter by sounds like right. So if you're trying to have a certain flow with what you're writing, I need a more that sounds sounds like Kane, you know, it'll come up with that or starts with right. So maybe you want it, whatever you're writing to be pretty uniform and start with a certain sound. It'll also filter a number of letters or rhymes with something or a number of syllables. And there's also a Google Docs integration as well. So you don't have to leave what you're doing to go over to their tool to take a look at that. So related words.org according to their site, it looks for words, which have some meaningful relationship with your query. So you get related words, rather than just direct synonyms. Okay, so this is really great for brainstorming and kind of giving you a platform to jump off of when you're writing. So Uber suggests is a great keyword search, right. And so It'll even give you kind of like longtail phrases, you get so many kinds of suggestions from this tool. And for each keyword, you'll see the volume of you know that it's used or searched the competition, who else is using it, and even trends, seasonal trends for each keyword. So that's pretty cool. And then you can get a list of keywords based on what's working for your competitors, and based upon what people are actually searching in Google. So those are the ones that I use a lot, and some that I have researched and just look incredible, that I wanted to share with you. Some people also use Google Advanced Search. So that could help out as well. But just a few free resources, because there's so many things you could pay for out there. But there's some really good quality, free stuff out there that can help you with your copy editing, or in your copy writing yourself. So I hope you enjoy this and that it's super helpful. If you want to see ways in which you and I can work together, check out muscle creative.com/tools And I have laid out different ways that we can we can work together and help improve your copywriting. So until then, have a great week. Thanks for tuning into the Small Business Big mindset podcast. To keep the fun going. Check out our Facebook group start and scale an online business For even more free trainings and resources from fellow entrepreneurs. If you haven't already, head on over to muscle creative calm and click subscribe to join our email list for weekly updates. And if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, check us out on your favorite podcast platform to follow us and give us a review. As always be authentic bring an insane amount of value and keep refreshing