45 Free Content Writing Tools to Love [for Writing, Editing & Content Creation]

Creating content isn't always a walk in the park. (In fact, it can sometimes feel more like trying to swim against the current.)

While other parts of business and marketing are becoming increasingly automated, content creation is still a very manual job.

That being said, there are plenty of tools out there to make creating content much easier.

Below, you'll find a list of 36 fantastic tools and resources to help you research, write, edit, and design content more easily. (You'll notice there are a lot of design tools in here -- that's because visual content is often the part of the content creation process where people get the most nervous and frustrated. So don't worry, we've got a ton in there for you.)

Let's get started.

36 Free Tools & Resources to Make Content Creation Easier

For Researchers

1) Google Drive Research Tool

Google recently added a tool to Drive that allows you to conduct Google searches without ever leaving your Drive window. All you have to do is click "Tools" from the menu bar and choose "Research" from the dropdown menu.

2) Site:search

This is a handy Google hack I use every day. Basically, it allows you to do a Google search that's limited to a particular website.

For example, if I wanted to search HubSpot's blog for marketing resources so I can cite one of our old blog posts, I'd do a site:search for blog.hubspot.com with the search term marketing resources. The formula for site search is site:samplewebsite.com [search query]. So my example would be site:blog.hubspot.com marketing resources.

3) Google Webmaster Tools

Doing SEO and keyword research? Your marketing software should be able to help. But if it can't (or you'd like to augment your data), Google's Webmaster Tools can be a great help. You can check things like the number of indexed pages on your website, submit your site to Google so you're getting crawled and indexed, and even disavow bad inbound links. It also can give you information on search queries that have a large volume of impressions but low clickthrough rate.

Within Google Webmaster Tools, go to "Your site on the web" and choose "Search queries." You'll see a table showing a search query, impressions, clicks, and clickthrough rate (CTR). Comparing this data to your other analytics data can help uncover some opportunities.

4) Percentage Change Calculator

I can't even begin to tell you how useful this little calculator is when looking for and analyzing data. Ever want to know the percentage change of two values without having to remember the formula? Simply enter the two values into this calculator, and it'll spit out the percentage change. Trust me, you'll want to bookmark this one.

Here are a few other handy calculators:

• 3-Way Percentage Calculator – Calculates answers to these questions: What is X% of Y? X is what percent of Y? X is Y% of what?
• Conversion Rate Calculator – Spits out a conversion rate when you enter the total visitor count during a specific time frame and the number of times during that time frame those visitors took a specific action.
• A/B Test Calculator – Works for a basic scenario with two groups of people (A & B) who get to see one version of your website and for whom you track the number of conversions or goals (purchases, downloads, clickthroughs, etc.).
• ROI Calculator – Analyzes your website's monthly sales and lead generation efforts to determine ways in which marketing efforts can be optimized.

5) Atlas

Atlas is Quartz's data center, and it's chock-full of graphs, charts, and data visualizations. You can search for almost any topic or keyword, and Atlas will have a graphic based on recent research data for you. This is a great tool to get background information on a topic you're researching, or to find fresh data to use in a project you're working on. Here's a chart based on data from early 2016:

Source: Atlas

6) Search in a Giphy

You know that coworker who always seems to find the perfect animated GIFs for your social posts or internal chat client? With the free Giphy Chrome extension, you'll be able to find great GIFs just as quickly.

To use the tool, all you have to do is open the extension in Chrome, search, choose a GIF, and drag and drop. So far, the tool works in Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and more -- and they're constantly expanding support.

For Writers

7) Evernote

I use the free version of Evernote every single day. From to-do lists and research notes to writing entire chunks of articles, it's proven helpful at every step of the writing and editing process.

One great feature? Its mobile, desktop, and web apps sync automatically as long as you have an internet connection. (And if you work offline, it'll sync the next time you have internet.) Plus -- and this is super important for content creators like us -- it's constantly saving and syncing your work automatically, making it a safe place to write and store ideas.

Use it to keep a running list of ideas, take notes, store inspiring articles or ebooks, or plan your editorial and social media publishing calendars.

8) Word2CleanHTML

If you like drafting blog posts in programs like Microsoft Word, Evernote, or Google Drive instead of your content management system (CMS), then this simple tool can be your best friend. Why? Because when you copy a document from Microsoft Office and paste it into your CMS, lots of little, weird formatting issues can crop up in your HTML.

Word2CleanHTML applies filters to fix all those things added into the HTML, resulting in well-formatted HTML you can paste directly into a web page CMS. Simply paste in your draft, click one button, and then copy the resulting HTML straight from the tool. When you paste that into your CMS (most will have buttons reading "HTML" or "</>" in their tool bar above your draft), it will appear nice and clean. No hair-pulling or swimming through code required.

9) WordCounter

There is no "right answer" for how long a blog post should be. As long as it serves its purpose -- whether that's thought leadership, driving leads, explaining a new concept, or something else -- length doesn't matter. But although we don't recommend writing blog posts with a word count in mind, sometimes word count can come in handy. WordCounter works exactly the way you think it does: Paste in your content and it'll spit out exactly how many words you have.

10) Cofftivity

According to a study out of the University of Chicago, "A moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition." In other words, being the tiniest bit distracted actually helps you be more creative. That's why for many people, myself included, white noise helps promote focus.

There are a lot of white noise generators out there, but my favorite is Cofftivity. This particular one offers non-stop café background sounds at varying intensities, from "Morning Murmur" and "University Undertones" to "Lunchtime Lounge" and "Brazil Bistro." It's available on the web and as an app on iOS and Android.

11) & 12) Zerys & eLance

Need to start creating content but don't have the bandwidth? We hear about this roadblock a lot. One way to get around it is by hiring freelancers from reputable marketplaces like Zerys or eLance. These resources give you access to skilled freelance writers who can write blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, and other pieces of written content for you.

13) HTML Hacks for Marketers

While this isn't strictly a writing resource, basic coding knowledge is quickly becoming a must-have skill for the modern marketer -- bloggers and written content creators included. But learning from scratch can be daunting. Where on earth do you start?

If you're a total beginner, start with HTML Hacks for Marketers, which my colleagues at HubSpot created with Codeacademy. It'll teach you quick but useful hacks anyone -- regardless of coding knowledge -- can use in their marketing. For example, you'll learn how to make small changes to HTML like altering headers and spacing, creating text in block-quote form, and inserting social share links. My personal favorite is the hack to change font colors.

Once you've mastered these basic HTML skills, move on to Codeacademy's free interactive courses. They found a way to make learning HTML and CSS actually fun -- and you can go through each lesson at your own pace.

14) Blog Topic Generator

If you need to get to writing blog posts but aren't sure of an angle or title to get your creativity moving, HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator can do the work for you. Simply enter a few keywords that your blog focuses on, and the Blog Topic Generator will produce a week's worth of titles and topic ideas for you. It might not produce the final title of your blog post, but it helps get you thinking about creative new angles for topics you've written about before.

Here are the blog post titles I received when I entered "content," "inbound marketing," and "blogging":

15) Blog Post Templates

All blog posts aren't created equal, but we've found that there are steps you can take to make your posts comprehensive and shareable. With these blog post templates, we'll walk you through an outline to write successful how-to, listicle, newsjack, and curation blog posts. Instead of starting from scratch, you'll save time and, hopefully, nail your blog goals.

For Content Editors

16) Editorial Calendar Template

Creating a balanced editorial calendar can be tough, especially if you don't have one centralized calendar that you and your team can refer to. To save you time and headache, we've created editorial calendar templates for Google Calendar, Google Sheets, and Excel that you can fill in and share with your team to start the next month or year off on the right foot.

17) & 18) Grammarly & Correctica

While human editors will be able to catch most grammatical errors, editing tools like Grammarly and Correctica are great tools for triple-checking before you press "publish" or "send." Both free tools check for grammatical errors -- and Grammarly even checks for plagiarism.

19) Hemingway App

Ernest Hemingway, admired for his succinct writing style, is the namesake for this handy editing app. Want to make your written content easier to read? Paste your content into this free web app, and it'll assess your writing and identify opportunities to make it simpler.

My favorite features include identifying passive voice and hard-to-read sentences. Check out the right-hand side of the screenshot below, where the tool has summed up how readable my writing is with a grade. (Some room for improvement here.) Their suggestion to improve readability overall? Shoot for lower than a 10th grade reading level.

20) Headline Analyzer

Here's a scary stat for you: Only 60% of people who click into an article end up reading past the headline. That makes your headline both the first and possibly the only chance for you to compel readers to keep reading -- so it's totally worth it to spend the extra few minutes coming up with a really good one.

What does a really good headline look like? The free tool Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule can tell you. It scores your headline quality and rates its ability to drive social shares, traffic, and SEO value. In my experience, its strength is helping you strengthen specific components of your title. For example, it reports on perceived sentiment and commonality of word types. It'll even show you how it will appear in search results.

So although you should take these scores and grades with a grain of salt, you can use this to give your headlines a “once-over." (And read this blog post to learn more about writing awesome headlines.)

For Designers

21) Nimbus Screenshot

This is another tool I use every day. Sure, you can capture a screenshot of your entire screen or part of your screen using the old keyboard shortcut method. But what if you want your screenshot to include stuff that's not visible on your screen?

Nimbus Screenshot lets you capture the visible part of a web page, a selected area, a selected scroll (my personal favorite), the entire page, or the entire browser window -- including everything below the fold.

Once you've taken the screenshot, you can crop, edit (like adding notes and callouts), and choose to print or save to your desktop or Google Drive.

22) Canva

If you like creating beautiful visual content in a really short amount of time, you'll love Canva. The time and resources it takes to learn design, pay for design assets, and/or get inspired to create beauty from scratch can be really difficult when you're staring at a long list of to-dos -- but Canva offers a huge library of pre-made templates and assets that you can manipulate while also adding your own imagery.

Best of all, they have so many assets and graphics available for free that you won't have to pay a cent if you don't want to. If you want to use more "premium" assets and graphics found through their image search, they'll charge you $1 for each. But there's plenty of value for free.

Here's an example of something you could make:

23) ThingLink

Ever wanted to make an image (or infographic) clickable? ThingLink lets you upload an image and add little icons to it that appear when a person hovers their cursor over the image. These icons allow users to visit links, watch videos, or read messages you've written. Plus, it's easy to share: Users can easily embed ThingLink images. (Click here for step-by-step instructions.)

Below is part of a a clickable infographic from Thinglink my colleague Ginny Mineo created for another post: