It doesn’t matter if you’re new to blogging or a seasoned pro, we all need a little help sometimes. Here are some of my favourite tools that help me research, write and publish articles.
WriterZen
Pricing: From $27 per month
WriterZen is a topic research tool that is slowly dipping its toe into content creation. It aims to help you uncover content ideas and topic clusters and I’m finding it very useful at researching topics for blog articles.
Just give it a topic and it will research all releated topics in that area. For example, let’s say you’re blogging about photography, these are the topics you might want to consider:
- Cool photography
- Snow photography
- Wedding photography packages
You can also gain insight into the chosen topic via the keyword explorer tool. This provides you with stats around search volume, trends, related keywords and the ‘golden score’ for each. This score is an indication of the value of long-tail keywords to target.
I use WriterZen to get a feel for the topics to write about, it’s very useful at sparking ideas and the founders are very active at providing useful tutorials on content marketing and how to get the most out of the tool
The tool also features a content creator, but I’ve not made much use of this element, prefering to use Frase instead (see below).
RankingGap
Pricing: From $29 per month
A recently launched tool ideal for those of you with an established website who want to see who the competition is and what they are ranked for. The main tool allows you to compare your website to 4 competitor websites.
The comparison is purely based on where each website ranks and what they rank for. The results allow you to then identify which topics you should create content for so your site can better compete with the competition.
A recent update has introduced a brilliant new feature, one that helps you identify your competition. Enter your website and the tool provides you with a list of sites ranking for similar topics as your website. This has been incredibly useful, once competitors (many of which I didn’t know about) have been identified it takes just a few clicks to run the ranking comparison tool.
This is another great way to discover topics for your website and it works well alongside other tools in this list, for example take the topic and research it using WriterZen before writing an article in Frase or CloserCopy.
Frase.io
Pricing: From $39.99 per month
Frase.io is a machine learning platform that helps you build better websites by automating the process of content research and generation.
It uses machine learning algorithms to analyse web pages, identify keywords, and can help you generate new content based on what people are searching for online. The end result is a website full of content that’s optimized for search engines like Google and Bing, which means you’ll rank higher in organic searches.
I really like the simplicity of the Frase platform. To start, you enter your search term, Frase goes ahead andresearchess the search results while you start writing your article. The right side of the screen gives you a huge amount of information to help with the writing process.
In addition to content creation, Frase can also help with optimizing your existing content. Add your existing post URL and it will be imported into Frase and analysed against the top 20 search results.
The included AI writer can be a real time saver when you’re stuck for ideas. For example, let’s say I’m writing an article about machine learning, but I’m not sure how to explain what machine learning is. I’d start the sentance ‘Machine learning is best described as…’ and then I’d ask the AI to write the rest. Here is the result:
Machine learning is best described as a type of artificial intelligence that allows computers to learn without being explicitly programmed. This means that machines can make decisions based on their own observations rather than relying on human instructions.
I also really love the content analytics tool. Connect Frase to your Google services and it will analyse the stats for your website, suggesting which content needs optimisation, or areas that you might want to create content for.
Overall I’m finding Frase to be an excellent research and writing tool.
ClosersCopy
Pricing: From $29.99 per month
I approached ClosersCopy wondering if it was a tool I’d use, at the time it was being pitched as a way to write pursuasive closing copy rather than blog posts and I was unsure if I’d make use of it.
I took the plunge as they had a lifetime offer available. you might still be able to grab it if you join and ask in the official Facebook group: httpss://www.facebook.com/groups/749746929051361
ClosersCopy is a similar tool to Frase, but where Frase approaches blogging from a research point of view, ClosersCopy approaches it with the AI writing assistant front and centre. It takes a while to get the most from this tool. Fortunately, there is already a lot of community support and articles to help you understand all the features it has on offer.
As the name suggests, it actually started out aimed at helping your write sales materials, but recent updates have made this a powerful blogging tool. You’ve access to a range of frameworks that can help you quickly create a draft blog post.
These frameworks have been provided by the creator and the community, you’ve the ability to create your own. I’ve done some myself and it’s very easy. This is a very powerful feature, it means you can train the AI to write in a certain style, for example you might love how a competitor writes adverts and therefore train the AI to write in a similar style for your products.
A recent update rolled out the ‘Ultimate Blog Post’ workflow, a set of 11 frameworks arranged as steps that help you craft a blog post. It’s very easy to use and I’m finding the results are very good, it helps suggest the post title, introduction, subheadings and text for all sections.
This is just one of many frameworks available, and I’m enjoying testing different versions out to see different outputs for the same topic.
As with all AI writing tools you need to treat the output as a draft, not the finished article. I personally find editing a draft much quicker than writing something from scratch.
ClosersCopy benefits from a very active and helpful community that creates new frameworks for all sorts of situations.
It has 3 different AI models (SalesAI, BlogAI, StoryAI), and has been getting regular updates and new features since my original purchase.
If you can pick this up on a lifetime deal I highly recommend it, the founder appears to be moving towards adding in research tools to help you compete with existing blogs and this could be a game changer for the tool.
We Write Blog Posts
httpss://wewriteblogposts.com/ref/markJdraper/ (affiliate link)
Pricing: From $0.07 per word
Discount code: MARKJDRAPE10 (10% off your order)
If all the above sounds too complicated, consider outsourcing your content creation. We Write Blog Posts isn’t a tool, it’s a blog writing service.
There have been times I’ve not had the capacity to write blog posts, or have topics that I don’t have time to research, and so I’ve taken to outsourcing content. I’ve tried a number of different writing services and have found We Write Blog Posts to provide fantastic results that do well in Google search results and when shared socially.
The pricing is tiered. The more words you order, the lower the cost. They also do occasional discounted sales, very useful if you’ve a number of articles ready to order!
You’re able to provide the blog outline, or alternatively give them the topic of your website, and they will research and suggest potential article ideas that will help you gain more traffic.
I’ve found the quality of writing to be excellent, articles still need to be checked over and adjusted for your tone of voice/message, but generally of all the writing services I’ve tried, the articles they’re written have been closest to publishable without editing.
That’s not the only reason I keep using them and am happy to recommend, one of the articles they created for another site I own is currently the top performing article on the entire website!
They’ve also just introduced a new service that will set the article up on WordPress for you, taking care of all the formatting and images, meaning you just need to check it over and push the publish button.
Pictory
Pricing: From FREE!
With your article created it’s time to share it with the world. Rather than sharing the featured image, wouldn’t it be cool to turn the article into a video? That’s exactly what Pictory does:
Pictory uses AI to easily convert long-form video and text content into short branded videos for social media.
I’m a new user of the tool but so far I’ve been impressed with the speed of development and the ease of use. I’ve tried tools like this before and they usually require you to take the edit the post into key points, otherwise it would try and turn the entire blog post into a video.
Pictory is different, it uses AI to ‘read’ the article and find the key messages for you. It then attempts to match those messages to stock video, to tell the story visually. In use it can be a bit hit and miss, but you’ve full control over what text and video is used.
I really like the ability to add an AI voice-over (which sounds very realistic, but can stumble over things like URLs) and background music. A great tool to convert your article into a professional looking and sounding video you can share on social media.
Can Jiffypix be used as a tool to supercharge blog creation and publication?
Yes, Jiffypix social post generation can be a valuable asset for supercharging blog creation and publication. By quickly and easily creating eye-catching visuals to accompany blog posts, Jiffypix can help drive engagement and attract more readers. Plus, the seamless integration with social media platforms makes sharing blog content even easier.
Missinglettr
httpss://lttr.ai/J5rO (affiliate link)
Pricing: From FREE!
Missinglettr is a two part service. Part 1: it monitors your blog RSS feed and when a new post is detected it automatically greates a suggested social media campaign that drips out posts about your blog to your social media accounts. It can do this for up to 12 months.
You control the messages, but it does a good job of reading the article and providing snippets of text from it that you can use in your post. It’s very easy to use and means 5 minutes work will have your blog post automatically shared to your social media feed for the next year.
I really like that link clicks are tracked, so you can see how well the campaign has done, which content is generating interest, which hasn’t done so well etc.
The second part is the curation service. This service allows you to submit your articles for others to consider sharing with their audience. Likewise, others submit their articles for you to share with your audience.
It’s a brilliant system that can help you gain additional visitors to your site while also providing you with valuable content to share with your audience.
Good luck with your blog writing, I hope you find a couple of useful tools from this list.
