Hey, all you creative writers out there! This one’s to help you to upgrade your system with brilliant work.
Are you a freelance writer? Well, for that you would require a lot more than writing tools as there is a lot of tact, balance, and understanding of trivial concepts and terms.
You need to adopt a thoughtful approach to stand out amongst the hundred writers and secure a reputable position for yourself.
So, to make your work easier, there are a set of tools that you must use. Here are the top high-powered tools and apps that a freelancer must check out to make their work look edgier!
Freelance writing gives you the freedom to use the sword of words in the best possible manner and bring out the best concepts artistically. But most of the time, there are a few imperfections that hamper the work presentation, which leads to client disappointment.
You can take your business to new heights with these apps and highly recommendable tools for every writer. Let’s catch up on the 10 essential tools for every freelance writer without wasting a second!
10 Must-Have tools for freelance writers are as follows:
Develop a professional portfolio for yourself!
#1. Contently
Freelancers need to present themselves constantly to grab the best work available around! And a top-notch portfolio is only the start.
It’s good to have a paper portfolio but even better to keep a very high-end professionally designed portfolio on your laptop.
Keeping it handy helps you to share your work as a sample instantly. It also allows you to import various kinds of PDFs, documents, blog posts, and videos.
Hence, you can fetch some big projects by sharing the updated portfolio of work. Contently offers you a dedicated format to create an expert piece of work within no time.
Above all, it even helps you to develop an image online!
Make contracts and get esignatures online!
#2. Ever sign
Isn’t it daunting to follow the same old convention process to create a contract, print it, sign it, and then again scan it for the clients?
Well, every sign gives you a perfect solution to sneak through client proposal or contracts, edit it online and then exchange signatures for mutual approvals. It gets you into the legal commitment with your client so that you can keep track of agreements and contracts.
Freelance writers who are unaware of its usage can opt for its limited plan and experience the feasibility.
As per the free plan, users can share up to 5 signature requests every month, which is fair enough.
Once you get the hang of it, upgrade to its paid plan and keep better records with your clients.
Calculate time and charges!
#3. Toggl
Writing is a creative skill, and it is hard to keep track of it over time.
Freelancers have to stay on track with the tight timelines for their project submissions. Juggling between multiple clients and projects is like havoc, especially for beginners in this field. Toggle helps you to be on time and deliver every project efficiently.
Writers need to set up their rates, and there is a time tracker that enables you to record the number of working hours.
This tool is best as it helps in calculating the charges that the client would pay you.
Toggle is a fantastic app that keeps track of all activity reports and even helps you share invoices with clients.
If you are unsure about Toggl, start with its free plan and then upgrade to a paid plan later on.
Dive into the writing world and polish your SEO content
#4. Grammarly
Punctuation or spelling errors are part and parcel of a freelance writer’s work.
Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned writer, grammatical errors will happen. Popular tools like Grammarly help you reduce them and ensure that you deliver a perfect workpiece.
Grammarly also checks whether you are maintaining an ideal tone and also sends suggestions to make corrections. You also can use Grammarly for free at first, but to rectify advanced errors, paid plans are best.
There are many alternate Grammarly plans available, out of which you can select the ones that suit your requirements. For further convenience, you can even add it to the Google Chrome Extension. For more details make sure to check out this Grammarly review.
#5. Topic
Let’s now blend writing with user intent and keyword optimization. You guessed it – the result is content marketing.
With goals like brand awareness, keyword rankings, and lead generation, you need ‘EAT’ (effective + authoritative +trustworthy) driven pillar content.
Topic is an AI-enabled content writing and optimization tool to easily build your content briefs, study competitors’ document structure, and optimize your content the best way.
When you’re writing for SEO, you need web copy that ranks. As a freelance content writer, you need to buckle down and align with a legitimate content scoring model around your keywords or topic.
Design your imagination with quick formats
#6. Icons8 Background Remover
Background Remover by Icons8 is the perfect tool for freelance writers looking to enhance their content creation process. This user-friendly software offers quick and efficient background removal for images, allowing writers to focus on crafting compelling content.
Elevate your articles, blog posts, and social media content by adding visually appealing, distraction-free images with removed backgrounds.
This tool will help you create engaging visuals that complement your writing. Use Icons8 Background Remover to remove backgrounds from stock photos, screenshots, or product images.
With this tool, you can save valuable time on image editing tasks. Icons8 Background Remover automates the background removal process, ensuring you meet tight deadlines.
Background Remover is a valuable addition to the toolkit of freelance writers, helping you create visually engaging content that captivates your audience. Streamline your workflow, save time, and enhance the quality of your writing projects with this essential tool.
#7. Canva
Canva is a treasure trove for freelancers who want to market their content using attractive prints and formats. Whether it is a social media graphic post on Instagram or Facebook; or a Pinterest post, Canva is perfect for your visual content.
You can create impeccable fonts, backgrounds, templates, and standard cover pages using Canva’s easy-to-use options.
If you are not a pro in Photoshop, then Canva is a smart choice as it is easy to understand and highly usable for essential designing work.
Uses of Canva:
- Creating PPT slides
- Logo designing
- Video creation
- Instagram or YouTube posts
- CV and Resume
- Card designs
Switch over to the Canva Pro, which is again loaded with many features that help you get the best options out there.
Secure your digital documents
#8. Google Drive (and Docs)
As a freelance writer, you need to preserve your valuable data and documents on shared cloud storage.
Google provides you with help writing and saving your work through Google Drive or dropbox.
When you use Google Docs for writing something, it saves on the drive automatically, and then you can share it with the clients. Every single word you write stays safe so that if the laptop crashes, your digital documents are still very safe.
Google Drive offers you a 15 GB free storage limit. This is enormous, but if you have more images or graphics to store, you can buy more.
Manage the Email market campaigns
#9. Mailchimp
Do you also handle email marketing?
To manage the mail campaigns and set up an email newsletter, you need a one-stop solution that solves your problems.
A professional freelance writer can design and format every piece of content with impeccable precision and accuracy.
Mailchimp gives you access to numerous drag-and-drop templates to create professional content and various signup forms or social media ads.
You can get great assistance in organizing your email marketing campaigns and enjoy optimum benefits through it.
Digitalize your meetings through video conferencing!
#10. Zoom
After the work-from-home culture and the contemporary lifestyle, tools like Zoom – a video conferencing tool – are in high demand.
While freelancers have to manage multiple clients, going out for a meeting can be difficult. Zoom extends the flexibility of getting into video conferences or calls anytime and anywhere.
It saves a significant sum on your time and money. You can boost productivity by creating a better relationship with your clients and managing everything from your desk itself!
Get easy transfers from international clients
#11. Paypal
We guess most of the freelancers in this world are well-versed with the benefits of PayPal and use it daily.
This is an extremely accessible payment mode – you can set up an account within minutes and start processing payments through it.
You can also get personal and business PayPal accounts for different purposes. With these accounts, you can easily make freelance payments and transactions without any hassle.
On a few transactions, PayPal charges you a nominal fee, but that also depends on multiple factors.
Simplify your accounts and invoices!
#12. Wave
Wave is a savior for the creative writers who excel in spectacular vocab and text but lag behind in accounts.
If you are not that great at keeping up with numbers, Wave is an excellent option for you.
It allows you to explore your creative side and deliver invoices to freelancers through its dedicated software. The level of ease it provides in keeping track of invoices and payments is impressive.
Signing up with Wave helps you to send business-related invoices, and track and manage receipts and accounts.
For accepting credit card payments, you need to bear a minimal fee as a service charge on every transaction.
Final words
Hopefully, these must-have tools for freelance writers might interest you and generate a curiosity to try each one of them.
For all the creative folks out there, freelancing can be a great business for growing big, but you need the right tools to synchronize the whole process for you.
Trying these tools can help you understand their vitality and significance when you are pepping up a masterpiece with your valuable words!
Your thoughts and comments on this post can help a lot of beginners find the best tool.