Freelance Writing Jobs
Tools

A craftsman is only as good as their tools. That holds true whether you're a woodworker, a lapidary, or a wordsmith. Writers, editors, content marketers, information managers, bloggers, and site owners; you can all benefit from using modern tools to help with your workflow. Here are our favorites.

Job Boards

  • FreelanceWritingJobs Job Board – For too long, I've watched writers struggle to find clients, and clients struggle to find writers. Many of the job boards currently available are fragmented, outdated, or focus on more traditional employment and leave no room for freelancing. We decided to solve the problem by developing our own job board. It's still a work in progress (for now) but check it out!
  • ProBlogger and Alternatives – Rather than list a ton of different job boards here, we wrote a comprehensive guide to writer job boards on our blog. This post is framed as alternatives for the ProBlogger job board, but it's really more of a general list. We also add more when we find them, if they're active and worthwhile.

Writing and Editing Tools

Whether you're a freelance writer, an editor, or a publisher who needs to review the content provided by writers, you need to use tools to streamline your workflow. Here are some of the best tools available.

  • Grammarly – Grammarly is one of the most widely-known grammar and spelling checkers available. Their checks aren't the greatest, even in the paid version, so you need to know your way around the language and can't just blindly accept every suggestion. However, it's a great tool to help you get 90% of the way there.
  • Ginger – Ginger is an AI-powered grammar checking platform meant to be an alternative to Grammarly. Some people love it, while others find it doesn't do quite what they want. The only way to find out is to give it a try.
  • Hemingway – Hemingway is a readability editor that helps you tailor your content to the reading level of your audience. A common mistake by freelance writers is assuming too high of a skill level from their audience, and this lets you tone it down.
  • Copyscape – One aspect of web writing that many people don't talk about is the need for unique content. Unfortunately, working with freelancers means you need to extend trust that they're producing unique writing. What if they aren't, though? Copyscape maintains a massive index of content on the web (and some offline content too). It allows you to scan a piece of writing and check to make sure it isn't copied from somewhere else. Plagiarism is serious business, so even if you trust your writers, verify.

Marketing and Publishing Tools

What about the business end? There's more to writing than just the writing, especially if you're managing a large-scale project, ensuring a packed editorial calendar, or working as a copyeditor between the writer and the marketer. Here are some of our favorite tools to help pave the way to a smooth project.

  • Clearscope – AI is swiftly growing in power and capability, so it's a good thing we're leveraging it to help us out. Clearscope is an AI-powered SEO tool that helps you take writing that is "pretty good" and turn it into a marketing powerhouse. You'll be astonished at how just a few little changes can kick your content to the next level. It's a bit expensive but well worth it.
  • Evernote – Evernote is a cloud-based, cross-platform note-taking app that allows you to clip and save quotes, inspiration, notes, and anything else that catches your eye. It's excellent to use when you're on the go and have an idea or when you're reading something and want to note it down for inspiration later.
  • Headline Analyzer – Your H1 headline is the first thing people see when they find your site on Google, and it's 90% of what determines whether or not they click through to your site. Thus, writing great headlines is the #1 most important part of successful content marketing. This tool, provided by CoSchedule, analyzes headlines and helps you write better, more attractive headings.
  • Obsidian – Have you ever wished your thought processes could be documented and interlinked like a Wikipedia article, so you could click around from thought to thought? Well, this tool lets you set up a network of interconnected pages with all the relevant information you write down. It can't read your mind, but as you build it up into a comprehensive resource for your blog or your inspiration, it swiftly becomes indispensable. Seriously, you don't know how great it is until you use it.

If you have anything you think should be added to this list, drop us a line! We love to check out new tools and resources, and if we think they'll be a helpful addition, we'll add them to the page.