How to create more quality content in less time
High-quality content is a must-have to gain and retain followers for your website, blog, or social media accounts. Those followers eventually become customers, especially if your content is excellent.
But not all business owners are the best at producing quality content, not to mention that doing so takes up a massive amount of time. That is time that you could spend actually running your business. Including conducting higher-level planning and handling other important tasks that only you, as the business owner, can complete.
There are resources that can help you reclaim your time. If you need help creating solid, error-free quality content that doesn’t take all day, these tools are for you.
Blog Topics Generator
Writer’s block got you down? This blog title generator takes three keywords and produces five ideas for you to consider. Be sure to include at least one keyword that describes your industry so the ideas are relevant for your readers. Spend some time toying around with this tool and let it stimulate your creativity — you’re sure to come away with several new concepts for future posts. Also worth noting: Hubspot makes a similar tool.
Portent Title Maker
A title is an often-overlooked but vitally important part of any post. Unlike the Blog Topics Generator, the Portent Title Maker only requires a single keyword to give you a title suggestion for your post. If you don’t feel inspired, enter a new keyword and hit refresh to get a new title.
Once you have a title you like, plug it into the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and check the “score.” Not only does this tool analyze your blog title’s word balance and length, but it also gives you a preview of how your title will appear in Google searches or an email inbox. Try to aim for a score above 70.
Simplicity is the name of the game in content, and Hemingway can help you achieve that. Hemingway will tell you when you’re using overly complicated words or run-on sentences. Keep in mind that the best way to keep your content simple is by breaking it down into sections with headers or creating a list. While Hemingway won’t mention that, it will give you advice on how to simplify your copy.
Grammarly
While this tool is no substitute for carefully proofreading all of your content, Grammarly can help you by identifying over 250 types of grammatical mistakes, most of which you probably don’t remember from your high school English class, such as subject-verb agreement, article use, and modifier placement. It even provides synonyms for when your writing gets a little repetitive. You can install Grammarly on your browser and it will keep you covered across the board: emails, blog posts, website edits, and social media posts.
Visual design tools
Jing
This software allows you to create screenshots and video based on what appears on your computer screen. This is particularly effective for tutorials and other how-to content. Once you’ve added a screenshot,you can edit it in Jing by adding captions, arrows, and text boxes. Jing also allows you to create narrated videos of what is happening on your computer screen. The upload feature allows you to share your creation via a link, or save the file to your computer and add it to a blog post or web page.
Canva
Canva places a world of images, including stock photos, vectors, and illustrations, at your fingers. You also have the option to upload your own images. Canva provides a wealth of photo filters, shapes, icons, and fonts for your to choose from. But the most special thing about this tool is the ready-made templates, which allow you to take an existing design and fill it with your own information.
PicMonkey
Perhaps you already have some decent photos you are ready to add to your blog or website, but they just aren’t quite good enough. PicMonkey takes your existing photos and turns them up a notch through editing and touch-up features, then allows you to create a collage or another special design for the ultimate “wow” factor.
Infogr.am
A clean infographic can dramatically increase the appeal of any content. It’s an excellent way to convey ideas quickly, and Infogr.am helps you to create beautiful infographics in just 3 steps. Choose a template, add your data, and publish.
The more you use these tools, the easier it will become for you to streamline content production for your business. Stop wasting your time and start using the resources that are available to you! Content production is something that has to be done — but it doesn’t have to take forever.
By Simon Slade
