What if I told you that there is one insanely simple thing that can hurt your podcasting business’s credibility?

What if I said that one thing could also automatically make potential listeners take you more seriously?

If you haven’t figured out by this post’s title, that one thing is copywriting.

More specifically, clean, correct, and concise copywriting is one of the best, subtle tools to build your credibility and earn trust.

Materials like show notes, emails, and social media posts are how you present yourself to people who aren’t your listeners or customers yet.

If your copy is difficult to read, grammatically incorrect, or otherwise poorly written, it can hurt your credibility, and you can lose a listener.

Think about it. When is the last time you’ve seen a major business publish a typo, or even a confusing sentence?

It’s pretty rare. That’s because major businesses understand that everything piece of content that is publicly released is representative of their work.

Now, I’m not saying that mistakes in your emails and show notes are the end of the world. I write a lot of our Grow The Show copy, and I have certainly made my fair share of typos. We’re human, after all.

However, amazing copywriting signals to your listeners and potential listeners that you are a professional who takes your show, and their attention, very seriously.

So, you want yours to be as amazing as possible.

If you don’t have a writing background, this can seem like a daunting task. However, there are tools that can help you make sure that you are putting out the best copy possible.

As the GTS Content Manager, these are my top five free online writing tools that I regularly use.

Disclaimer: Take all edits these tools make with a grain of salt! You know your own audience and style better than any AI app.

1. Grammarly

If I could force every single professional I know to download one app, it would be this one.

Grammarly is a browser extension you can download on Google Chrome that will automatically check all of your online writing for basic spelling and grammar mistakes.

When the program finds errors, it will underline them in red and provide a suggested replacement.

If you want to invest a little more in your writing, there is a paid version with even more features that professional writers love.

However, if you’re like me and don’t want to budget for yet another monthly subscription, I’ve found the free version to be totally suitable.

2. Hemmingway

I recently discovered Hemmingway, and I wish I had sooner.

Ernest Hemmingway, the author that the app is named after, is known for writing with short, direct sentences that are very easy to read.

Thus, the program will score the readability of your writing based on a number of factors, including how complicated your sentences are.

In my opinion, the three most helpful features are its “hard to read,” “simpler word,” and “passive voice” features.

• Hard to read looks at how long and winding your sentences are.

• Simpler word finds places where you are using a word or phrase that can be replaced with something more concise.

• The passive voice feature identifies the use of passive voice. Passive voice means that your sentence subject is a recipient of a verb’s action. When writing copy, you almost always want to use active voice, where your subject acts on its verb. Active voice almost always packs a way bigger punch. You can learn a little more about passive and active voice here.

Like Grammarly, Hemmingway has a paid version– their desktop app costs $20. However, the online version is free and works perfectly well.

3. Cliche Finder

Cliche Finder does exactly what it sounds like— it finds cliches in your writing.

Cliches are phrases whose meanings aren’t literal. Some examples include “I lost track of time,” “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket,” “time heals all wounds,” “gut-wrenching pain,” and “scared to death.”

In the writing world, they are usually considered to be a huge no-no.

While there is some room for cliches in casual copywriting, it is usually best to avoid using them excessively because they can make your writing more difficult to read.

Since cliches are often woven into our everyday language, it can be tough to pick them out immediately (When I was searching for example cliches for this article, I was surprised to learn that “losing track of time” is one).

This is why I love Cliche Finder. It spots them for you so you can swap them out for more literal phrases.

4. Headline Analyzer

Coschedule’s headline analyzer is a great tool for writing show titles and blog titles.

It works like this:

You feed the program your headline. Then, they rank it out of 100. Their algorithm looks at the following (plus more):

• Words that make people more likely to interact with your headline.
• Words that make people less likely to interact with your headline.
• Number of words in your headline.
• Number of characters in your headline.
• The style of your headline.
• Reading grade level.

They will also give you suggestions for improving your headline.

Headline Analyzer and the next tool, Email Subject Line Analyzer, make it quite difficult to get a perfect score. I personally try to aim for a score in the 60-80 range.

Because of this, I find that they are best used if you are stuck between a few different ideas and want to know which is best. It can also be fun to see the difference that small tweaks can make.

5. Email Subject Line Analyzer

Also by Coschedule, this program analyzes email subject lines. It uses an algorithm similar to the Headline Analyzer, except the elements are optimized to get you the most email opens.

A particularly helpful feature is that it will show you how your subject line will appear in people’s inboxes. I find that this helps me avoid having to send myself a ton of test emails!

In Conclusion…

Copywriting is a subtle yet important way to gain credibility with potential listeners and customers. With the help of online tools, you can level up your writing and consistently put out clean, concise copy.