Copywriting Is Disgusting… 6 Tools we Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Use
Copywriting is a dirty profession
If you write copy for a living, I hope you don’t complain when athletes get caught doping.
We are cut from the same cloth… look at all the things we do to make our copy bigger, stronger and faster.
We use headline analysers, advanced spell checkers, software that spies on our competitors, and apps to help us fine-tune our every word. Disgusting.
The game has changed, we’re out of control, the modern copywriter will do anything to write better copy.
So, am I upset with the current state of copywriting?
…Heck no. I’m juiced to the gills.
My favourite performance enhancing copywriting tools
1. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
It doesn’t matter how good your content is, if you write a weak headline — few are going to read it. Use headline Analyzer to see whether you’re onto a winner or not. And if that wasn’t enough, it’ll provide you with a list of pointers to help you write a stronger headline.
2. BuzzSumo
Before you commit hours to writing, run your keywords through BuzzSumo to see how similar content has performed on social media. Seeing what you’re up against is a huge advantage. This helps you create a compelling piece of content, knowing what’s needed to give your work the best chance of making an impact.
3. The Hemingway App
The Hemingway app highlights any difficult sentences in your writing and it’ll give it a grade level score. It’s recommended to aim for a score between 5th and 8th grade to make sure your copy’s an effortless read. Hemingway was renowned for his compelling stories, delivered in short and crisp sentences. So does his style work for copywriters? It sure does. Claude Hopkins, the legendary adman, said it best:
“My words will be simple, my sentences short. Scholars may ridicule my style” .
4. Words-To-Use
It can take time to adjust to the right tone and vocabulary when switching between different industries. Words-to-use gives you a quick nudge in the right direction. From cars to apparel, click through the lists of suggestions to help you find your feet.
5. Grammarly
Copy and paste your work into Grammarly to catch your typos. Mistakes will be underlined with a clickable note to explain the error in detail. The free version is an excellent tool but you can take it a step further by upgrading to Grammarly Premium for a monthly fee. This checks for advanced mistakes and it offers “vocabulary enhancement suggestions” as well as a few other extras.
6. Capitalize My Title
Your blog post is 99.9% done. You’ve completed all of your checks and it’s formatted to perfection. But somehow, despite all the work you’ve done, taking those few seconds to manually capitalise your headline seems like a mountain to climb. Save moving your cursor to upgrade all those lower case letters to capitals, just copy and paste your headline into Capitalize My Title and let it do the grunt work for you.
Disgusting…
