My 5 Favorite (Free to Low Cost) Tools For Writing Great, SEO-Friendly Copy

As a content marketer and copywriter, I often am asked to make recommendations for free or low-cost SEO writing tools. There are thousands upon thousands of tools out there. There are tools for research, for the writing process, for the editing process, and for maintenance. But, when it comes down to my favorite low cost or free tools, there are five specific tools that come right to mind: 

Google Trends

Cost: Free

Google Trends provides insights on search term popularity. Users can filter by location, dates, categories (arts and entertainment, finance, food and drinks, etc.) and type of search inquiries (web search, image search, shopping search, etc.).

Keywords Everywhere

Cost: $10 and up

I love using Keywords Everywhere for SEO keyword research. This tool provides keyword data right on Google’s SERP. Data includes average keyword volume, average CPC, and competition. Recently, a search trend chart, similar to Google Trend’s popularity chart, was added to this tool.

This tool is a Google Chrome extension, so it can only be used when using the Chrome browser.

Hemingway Editor

Cost: Free

The Hemingway editor is a tool that checks written copy for grammar, makes suggestions for fluency, analyzes sentence structure, and more. I like to use this tool after I finish the first draft of a piece of copy.

Yoast SEO

Cost: Free unless upgraded to Premium Plan

Yoast SEO is a Wordpress plug-in. It analyzes a page’s copy for SEO optimization and makes suggestions when needed. This tool checks readability, keyword density, page structure, and more. 

While Yoast SEO does have a free plan, a premium plan with more features is available for $89.

Keyword Density Checker

Cost: Free

This tool helps prevent keyword-stuffing. Generally, a good rule-of-thumb for writing SEO-optimized copy is to keep keyword density around 3-3.5%. If you don’t want to calculate your copy’s density manually, this tool will do the job.