Note (September 2026): This list contains sixteen tools, not fifteen as the original conclusion said, and several tools have changed since it was first published: AllTop now pairs news with prediction markets and HubSpot’s topic generator is now an AI tool. Each entry below has been updated as of September 2026.
The most useful tools to improve blog content quality cover five jobs: headline testing (CoSchedule Headline Analyzer), readability and style (Hemingway Editor, the WebFX Readability Test), grammar (Grammarly), topic research (BuzzSumo, HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator, Google Alerts) and visuals (Canva). Most offer a free version; BuzzSumo is the main paid-only tool on this list.
Key Takeaways
- All sixteen tools on this list were still online in September 2026, but several have changed what they do.
- AllTop now ranks top stories and links them to prediction markets from Kalshi and Polymarket, so it is a trend feed rather than a plain news directory.
- HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator, Hemingway Editor Plus, Grammarly and Canva have all added generative AI features.
- FocusWriter is free, open-source software; download it from the developer’s Gott Code website rather than third-party download portals.
Your blog can do amazing things for your branding efforts. However, if you want to continue to grow your audience, and get the engagement that you need for success, you have to continually up your blogging game. This means ensuring that your posts meet the highest quality standards, and that you are doing just as good if not better than your competitors when it comes to creating the kinds of posts that have the potential to go viral.
How to Improve Quality of Your Blog Content (Tools)
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer Tool
A great headline is more powerful than many people realize. After all, what makes people stop in the checkout lane and throw a copy of People magazine onto the conveyor belt? What makes you click a particular link when you are scrolling through search results? The answer is, a great headline. CoSchedule’s free Headline Analyzer scores any headline you give it and suggests ways to improve it. As of September 2026 the tool can also analyze headlines for ads, emails, podcasts, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn, not only blog posts.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer Tool
AllTop
AllTop began as an aggregator that collected trending stories in sports, entertainment, business, technology, and more. As of September 2026, AllTop describes itself as ranking the stories moving across the web and connecting them to live prediction markets from Kalshi and Polymarket, so treat it as a trend-spotting feed rather than a neutral news directory. Once you know what is buzzing in and around your industry, you can plan blog posts that cover these important topics.
Publications featured on the AllTop website have included the New York Times, Mashable, BuzzFeed, Fast Company, INC., and much more. If you can find a trending topic that will interest your audience, you’ll be able to create something that is truly shared worthy.
Read-Able
You may be writing content that is too complex for your audience!
No, that isn’t a slam at their intelligence. It’s just that as a general rule, the most effective web content isn’t all that advanced. In fact, unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, you want to aim for a reading level around seventh grade.
This is where Readable is exceptionally useful. The Read-Able readability test is now hosted by the marketing agency WebFX as its free Readability Test. It analyzes a URL, pasted text or an uploaded TXT, DOC or DOCX file and returns a readability score, with highlights for hard sentences, very hard sentences, passive voice and adverbs. This includes grade level and a bunch of other information. Not only will you learn how readable your content is, you’ll also learn why.
Jotform Survey Maker
Creating a survey is one of the most essential things you can do after you have written your blog. Collecting feedback from your audience can be a breeze with Jotform Survey Maker. Use Jotform‘s reliable drag-and-drop interface to create your survey with conditional logic, then share it with just a link or embed it on your website.
Use templates to make your surveys stand out and increase engagement. Integrate them with your most-used tools to analyze data and reveal important insights on your users. See your submissions on well-crafted spreadsheets to keep track of your data. Jotform’s free Starter plan lets you try the standard core features, but as of September 2026 it is limited to 5 active forms and 100 submissions a month and shows Jotform branding. Paid tiers (Bronze, Silver and Gold, plus Enterprise) raise those limits; check Jotform’s pricing page, because prices change.
BuzzSumo
Simply doing your own thing just doesn’t work when it comes to creating great blog content. You have to know what your competitors are doing, and then do the same thing, only better. BuzzSumo will clue you into your competitor’s’ content, and which posts are performing best for them. You can also enter keywords into BuzzSumo to find top performing posts. BuzzSumo is a paid tool with a free trial: as of September 2026 its entry Content Creation plan is listed at $199 a month billed yearly for one user, and prices change.
Grammarly
Nobody needs to be told the importance of ensuring that blog posts are free from grammar and spelling errors before they are published. Embarrassing mistakes can make your content ineffective as your audience focuses on your gaffe instead of your message.
Grammarly checks spelling, grammar and tone, and since 2025 it has added generative AI features. In 2025 its parent company, Grammarly Inc., acquired the email client Superhuman and announced a rebrand of the company to the Superhuman brand (the Grammarly product keeps its name). Checking your posts with it saves time you would have spent manually editing, which you can use to find your writing voice. Most people will agree that this is a much more valuable use of a writer’s time and efforts.
HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
This tool works quite simply. The original version asked for three keywords, preferably nouns. As of September 2026, HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator is a free AI tool: you describe your topic, audience and goals, and it suggests topic ideas and titles, then can build an outline and a draft post. If you don’t like those ideas, hit try again and it will quickly generate a new list of ideas. Not everything the topic generator comes up with will be a hit. However, since it is so prolific and works so quickly, it’s fairly easy to find something relevant in short order.
Disqus Comment Management Tool
If you manage to write blog posts that get lots of commentary and engagement, this is a good thing. You are clearly writing things that garner lots of interest. What you need to have now is a great tool to help you manage those comments.
Disqus allows your followers to upvote and downvote comments. You can use the tool to determine who your most engaged followers are, to moderate inappropriate comments, and track the which comments are getting the most reactions. You can even set up filters to send comments with certain words or phrases to moderation. This can help you create an environment where people feel safe engaging in conversation. Disqus runs on a freemium model supported by ads: it is free for commenters and small sites, and site owners can pay to remove ads and unlock extra features.
Disqus Comment Management Tool
Hemingway App
Have you ever read something that was insipid and mealy-mouthed, or that was excruciatingly boring? Of course, you have, but you may not have been able to identify what it was that made the writing so difficult to take. Well, Hemingway knows.
Ernest Hemingway was known for his ability to write compelling stories and get his point across strongly and quickly. His writing was certainly never insipid. The Hemingway App is inspired by the man himself. Paste a copy of your blog content and Hemingway Editor highlights adverbs, hard-to-read sentences, and other issues. As of September 2026 its maker, Boondoggle Studio, also sells Hemingway Editor Plus, which adds AI fixes, grammar checks and tone adjustments with a free two-week trial, and still offers Hemingway Editor Classic.
Survey Monkey
It’s always a good idea to flip the script every once in awhile and ask your audience to tell you what they think. Survey Monkey is a tool that you can use to easily create surveys and quizzes. This is a great way to get feedback on a variety of topics.
Use Surveymonkey to learn what your audience thinks of your products and services, what topics they want you to cover, even the things you can do to encourage them to like and share your content more often. SurveyMonkey is designed to be easy to learn: you can sign up free and start from more than 400 templates, with paid plans for larger or more advanced surveys. The company traded as Momentive from 2021 to 2023 and then returned to the SurveyMonkey name.
Canva
If you want to add the kind of visual elements to your posts that you know will increase quality and engagement, but don’t have a graphic design background, take a look at Canva. This is a simple and intuitive graphic design package that gives you access to layouts, photo editing and filtering, amazing fonts, beautiful images, and more.
You can use Canva to create magazine style layouts, collages, infographics, and add a variety of effects to your photographs. Canva runs on a freemium model. In April 2025 it released Visual Suite 2, which added a Canva Sheets spreadsheet app, AI tools and an updated photo editor, and in October 2025 it relaunched its Affinity design app with a free base version.
Focuswriter
Standard word processing apps are not always the best option when it comes to writing great blog posts. Sometimes these tools can add a layer of distractibility that can really stymie your ability to create great posts.
The makers of Focuswriter have dumped all of the bells and whistles. Instead, they have created a distraction free writing environment that you can use when you need to simply write. FocusWriter is free, open-source software from Gott Code, released under the GPL version 3; as of September 2026 the latest release is version 1.9.1 (July 23, 2026), with Windows and Linux builds. The developer’s own Gott Code website is the safest place to download it.
WordCounter
Word Count doesn’t simply let you know how many words you have written. It actually keeps track of the number of each word that you have written. The result is that you can begin to see words that you tend to use over and over again. This is a great way to identify words that you may be wearing out with overuse. You can then look for new words to add variety to your writing. The free WordCounter editor also offers a thesaurus, case conversion, find and replace, optional grammar and spelling checks, and auto-save and writing goals for signed-in users.
OneLook Reverse Dictionary
What do you call the little droplets of water and fog that appear on the outside of your glass of iced tea? If you guessed condensation, you are correct. But, what happens when you can’t guess the right answer?
You could awkwardly try and use the partial definition that you have, or you can use the reverse dictionary to work backward from definition or description to the word or phrase that you are seeking. You simply enter in a description of the concept or idea you have in mind and the tool returns a list of suggested words and phrases that fit. The reverse dictionary is now part of the combined OneLook Thesaurus and Reverse Dictionary.
Google Alerts
Google alerts is a simple news alert system. You sign in with a Google account and ask Google to email you when new results appear for any search term. You can choose how often alerts arrive (as it happens, daily or weekly at most), which sources to watch, and the language and region. This can include news about your industry, your competitors, the town in which your company is located, trending current events, or even entertainment news.
When something relevant is published, you will hear about it quickly. Then, you will have the opportunity to give your audience the scoop in your blog.
Idea Flip
Not all bloggers fly solo. Some have the benefit of working in a collaborative environment. This is great, but it can be difficult to collaborate without a sandbox to share. This is where many people find Idea Flip to be a perfect solution. It allows you to work with your teams to create shared boards where you can work together on the ideas that will make your blog great. Once team members have formulated their ideas, they can export them to share with your content team. As of September 2026, Ideaflip (made by Biggerflip Ltd) still runs as an online sticky-note board with a free sign-up.
Conclusion
Amazing blogs need to be well-written, timely, visually engaging and take a unique and original perspective on the topics that they cover. The sixteen tools on this list cover the main jobs that raise the quality of your blog posts, boost engagement, and help you increase trust and build great relationships with your audience.
Once you accomplish these things, you will see an increase in blog traffic, and you will notice that your audience is much more willing to answer your calls to action.
Which Blog Content Tool Should You Use for Each Job?
The table groups the sixteen tools by job and shows whether a free option exists, based on each maker’s website as of September 2026.
| Job | Tool | Free option |
|---|---|---|
| Headline testing | CoSchedule Headline Analyzer | Yes |
| Topic ideas | HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator | Yes |
| Trend spotting | AllTop, Google Alerts | Yes |
| Competitor research | BuzzSumo | Free trial only |
| Readability and style | WebFX Readability Test, Hemingway Editor | Yes (free checkers; Hemingway Editor Plus is paid) |
| Grammar and spelling | Grammarly | Yes, with paid upgrades |
| Word choice | OneLook, WordCounter | Yes |
| Distraction-free drafting | FocusWriter | Yes (open source) |
| Visuals | Canva | Yes (freemium) |
| Reader feedback | SurveyMonkey, Jotform | Yes, with limits |
| Comments | Disqus | Yes, ad-supported |
| Team brainstorming | Ideaflip | Free sign-up |
How to Build a Simple Blog Quality Workflow
Run the tools in the order you write, so each check happens once:
- Find the topic. Use Google Alerts, AllTop or BuzzSumo to see what is being published, and HubSpot’s generator for angles.
- Test the headline. Score two or three versions in the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and keep the clearest one.
- Draft without distractions. Write in FocusWriter or any plain editor, and check length with the free word counter tool.
- Edit for clarity. Run the draft through Hemingway Editor or the WebFX Readability Test, then fix grammar with Grammarly. See whether readability scores are reliable.
- Add visuals. Create a featured image or infographic in Canva.
- Collect feedback. Ask readers what they want next with SurveyMonkey or Jotform, and moderate the discussion with Disqus.
Common Mistakes When Using Writing Tools
- Treating scores as rules. Headline and readability scores are estimates built on formulas; a lower score is a prompt to review, not proof that a post is bad.
- Publishing AI drafts unchecked. AI generators can produce generic or inaccurate text; verify facts and add your own expertise before publishing. Search engines reward content that is useful to readers, as our guide to content that search engines take seriously explains.
- Ignoring formatting. Consistent headings help readers scan; the case converter can switch headings to title case or sentence case in one step.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free tool to improve blog writing quality?
It depends on the problem. Hemingway’s free readability checker and the WebFX Readability Test show hard-to-read sentences, Grammarly’s free version catches spelling and grammar errors, and the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer scores headlines, all at no cost as of September 2026.
Is the Hemingway App still free?
Hemingway still offers free online tools as of September 2026, including a readability checker, a grammar checker and a paraphrasing tool. Its maker, Boondoggle Studio, also offers Hemingway Editor Plus, a paid version with AI fixes, grammar checks and tone adjustments that comes with a free two-week trial.
Is AllTop still a news aggregator?
Partly. As of September 2026 AllTop still ranks top stories, but it now links them to prediction markets from Kalshi and Polymarket.
Does BuzzSumo have a free plan?
BuzzSumo offers a free trial rather than a permanent free plan. As of September 2026 its entry Content Creation plan is listed at $199 a month billed yearly for one user; check BuzzSumo’s pricing page, because prices change.
2 Comments
This is a fantastic list of tools, I’m a big fan of Hemingway.
I actually wanted to show you another writing tool, which swaps US English to International English in one click. It’s at fixspell(dot)com
Hope you (and your readers) find it useful.
Thank you for the 15 tool that will improve the quality of our blog contents. The article is really informative and helpful. It’s definitely going to help many of the readers. Keep sharing such posts.