In his post this week, Richard examined 3 Effective Ways to Stay Productive as a Freelance Writer.

Productivity is something most of us could use some help with, especially when working from home, so check it out along with my article on healthy routines for optimum success if you’re looking to make maximum use of your business building potential.

As you might already know, at WriteWorldwide we’re all about what’s happening right now in the freelance writing industry, staying ahead of the curve and helping you – our awesome audience and switched on subscribers – get as far as you can in the shortest time possible when it comes to your professional goals.

That’s why today I’m taking a look at 3 tools you can use to get ahead, outsmart your competition, and guarantee freelance writing success.

Are you ready for it? Then let’s get down to business!

1. PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic is a social media management tool. As freelance writers, promoting and marketing is an integral part of what we do, for both ourselves and our clients.

It can definitely feel like an overwhelming task, with content having to be structured, scheduled and rolled out across multiple platforms each week and month, if not every day.

But it needn’t be a mammoth task, and PromoRepublic helps you automate a good deal of the heavy lifting that comes with getting seen and raising yourself and your brand above the online din. With PromoRepublic you can:

• Search for relevant content ideas, curated according to your preferences. These ideas can be tailored to your chosen category including holidays, news trends, and ‘on this day in history’ style trivia.
• Use and edit ready made graphics templates to share in your social media posts. PromoRepublic comes with hundreds of easily customisable images so you can make sure everything you share has that all-important visual element included, without having to use separate design software.
• There’s even a library of photos and content based on what topics and keywords you’re searching for, which means you can get ideas for posts and quality images to go with them all in one place.
• Scheduling your posts is easy too. PromoRepublic integrates with Twitter and Buffer, meaning you can map out your content for weeks at a time in one go. As well as saving you huge amounts of time, this will also help you stay on track in terms of motivation and organisation. There’s even a neat feature, called Momento, that will publish posts at the optimal time for the start and end of the day in your chosen timezone.

2. Better Proposals

Better Proposals is there to help you do exactly what it sounds like – write and send better proposals so you can win over more clients, close more deals and land more high-paying gigs. Say goodbye to bland, uninspiring documents and help your creativity and professionalism shine through from the word go.

A proposal is your chance to make the best impression of yourself and your skills to a client. With Better Proposals, you can do that faster and easier than ever before. Here’s how:

• Make use of templates that are completely customisable to help you gain a competitive edge when showing off your freelance writing prowess. Better Proposals lets you showcase your brand and services in the way that’s exactly right for you.  The templates autosave and format automatically too, so you never need to worry about losing your work or spending too much time making sure everything lines up and looks the way it should.
• Better Proposals also makes it easier to get inside the head of your client, and really tailor your proposal to them. With the preview mode, you can see exactly what they’ll see at every step, meaning you can view what you’ve written from their perspective in tandem with your own.
• Just as with an email, a proposal is something you’re going to need to follow up on. There’s no better way to close a deal than to be proactively persistent, and this crucial part of the sales process is fully integrated into Better Proposals. You get notified when your client has opened your proposal, and are able to track which parts they’re viewing in real time. You can also examine where each of your proposals fits into your overall sales structure, so you won’t lose track of what the next step is in terms of closing the deal.

3. SE Ranking.

For anybody striving for success in their freelance writing career, SEO (search engine optimisation) is now a pretty much unavoidable part of the job.

You can’t expect to make a living as a freelance writer or copywriter without at least a basic grasp of marketing, and you can’t really grasp marketing without knowing the basics of SEO. For your own site, SEO is important in terms of making yourself easily visible and getting found, and for client work it’s another string to add to your bow in the ethos of over-delivery. How can you use SE Ranking to gain control of your SEO needs? Take a look:

• SE Ranking bills itself as an all-in-one SEO platform. As with Google Keyword Planner, SE Ranking allows you to search for keywords and shows you results based on high and low competition. This alone is useful enough when planning relevant blog content and conducting client research.
• What sets SE Ranking apart from other SEO tools is the regular reports and audits you can opt to receive when you add a website as a project. These audits cover not just whole websites but also individual pages, as well as a step-by-step checklist for optimisation, backlinks, competitor research and an overall marketing plan.
• Whether used on its own or in conjunction with other software I’ve explored here, that kind of in-depth strategy could give you a serious advantage when it comes to showing clients what you can do for them.

I hope you find these tools useful and are encouraged to invest in yourself by giving them a try – I’ll be documenting my experiences with some of them here on the blog in the next few weeks.

Are there any other online services you’ve found to help you streamline your process and accelerate your freelance writing success? Let me know in the comments, but before you do, check out our pitching cheat sheet by putting your name in the box below. It’s free and it’s pure prospecting gold!