Tag Archives: Website Content Writer

Looking for a content writer? 8 things to consider

Why you need a content writer

Why you need a content writer?

The job of your content writer is to provide what your prospective customers and clients are looking for.

There are practically infinite ways people can come across your content.

They may simply land on your website or blog via search engine results.

They may come across your link on one of the social networking websites.

Someone may recommend your link through email or direct message, or even verbally.

They may discover your link on product packaging. Someone may mention you in his or her article or blog post.

People will be entering your website or blog through different links.

They may check other parts of your website or they may leave just after checking the link they arrived on.

The sales funnel stage where you get people to your website, is the education and information part. This part may manifest on your blog, in your newsletter or in your social media updates.

Once they are on your website, you need to convince them into doing business with you.

This is a convincing part of the sales funnel.

People are on your website, they are a bit informed and intrigued, and now, it is the job of the copy on your website to keep them there and convince them into doing business with you.

At every stage, your content writer plays a very important part.

You cannot educate and inform people with drab content.

Your content needs to be informative, conversational, engaging and in many instances, even entertaining.

It should be easier to read but at the same time authoritative.

Why am I explaining in such detail what sort of content you need for your website to generate business?

Because, when you’re looking for a content writer, you keep these qualities in mind, these needs in mind, and then accordingly, you settle for a content writing service that can help you achieve what I have mentioned above.

Writing content is a serious business. Your entire business depends on how well your writer can write.

Benefits of hiring a content writer and therefore, you should be looking for one

Benefits of hiring a content writer

You need to publish content continuously. If you don’t want to, your competitors certainly are.

It’s not just your competitors, in one way or another, everyone publishes content on the Internet, and this makes it hard for your prospective customers and clients to notice your business.

A consistent content marketing means good 15-20 hours every week doing research, writing, updating and editing.

You want to do this yourself? If yes, sure, go ahead.

You should be looking for a content writer because

You need to publish fresh content regularly.
You need to create long-term value and not just promote yourself in spurts.
Your business needs to stand out in terms of providing exceptional content on an ongoing basis.
You need to improve your conversion rate, and this can only be done by someone who can write persuasively and convincingly.
Bad writing can dissuade people from doing business with you.
You need writing all the time for your blog, for your web pages, for your newsletter, for case studies and social media updates.
You need to improve your search engine rankings, and SEO these days depends a lot on high-quality, relevant content.

If you need a content writer and you’re looking for someone who can help you create a convincing presence on the web, you may like to look for the following:

1. Look for talent, not for price

I’m not saying price doesn’t matter, but don’t make it the first quality when you start looking for a content writer.

You don’t want to save money at the cost of your business.

Often, it is a mental block that stops you from hiring a good content writer just because he or she seems to be charging more than another content writer.

A good writer is going to charge more, and this is fine.

Just like you need a web designer, you need a programmer and you need a graphic designer to have a professional website, and you are fine with paying him or her what he or she is asking, the same applies to a content writer.

Remember that writing is not a product. It is not something that can be automated. It is not a piece of code someone can save and then use as and when needed.

It takes the same amount of time every time a content writer writes 500 words for you. It may be a few minutes here and there, since you always need original writing, your content writer needs to make the same effort every time. So, keep that in mind.

2. Spend time studying the website of your content writer

If you need a content writer, it isn’t necessary that you look for someone who has a website (many writers work from various freelancing portals) but as a business owner, you can easily understand that someone who has his or her own website is going to be more serious about the business than someone who merely creates a listing in a directory where no stakes are involved.

A professional content writer is going to have a professional-looking website. The content will be well written. All the information you need to make up your mind will be there.

3. See if the content writer publishes a blog

Again, it isn’t necessary that you need a content writer who publishes a blog but, well, a writer must practice his or her art even when he or she is not being paid for it.

I have been writing professional content for more than a decade now and I have seen that writers who write just for money are, may be good writers, but not “good” writers, although, exceptions are always there.

Through the blog you can get an insight into how the writer expresses himself or herself.

4. Ask the content writer if he or she is comfortable writing for SEO as well as for better conversion

SEO no longer remains about using your keywords repeatedly throughout your blog posts and web pages.

Although you still need to use your keywords because that’s what people are looking for on search engines, more important is the quality of writing and the value it provides to your readers.

If the writing is not good, no matter how well-optimized your content is, your rankings are not going to improve.

Google has been updating its algorithm in such a manner that your rankings these days depend on how people react to your content rather than how you have “optimized” it and how many people are linking to it.

The above-mentioned attributes definitely help, but what helps the most is the quality and relevance of your content. An experienced writer must be able to strike the perfect balance between SEO and better conversion.

5. Take your budget into consideration but don’t be stingy

Although I have talked about the importance of hiring a good content writer irrespective of how much he or she charges, by the end of the day, it matters how much you spend on your content.

This is one advice I give to all my clients: if you don’t have the needed budget, don’t aim for having lots of content.

One high-quality blog post is always going to outperform five mediocre blog posts.

If you cannot publish a blog post every day, try publishing on alternative days. If that is also expensive, try once a week. Even once a month.

But never go for inferior content just because you are getting it in bulk. You will be wasting your money, and it is also bad for your SEO.

6. Go with a long-term content writer

This is another reason why I recommend working with a content writer who has a long-established business providing content writing services rather than someone from one of those freelancing websites – someone who has a business is going to stick around for a long time.

Just as you have stakes in your business, the content writer who runs his or her own business too has high stakes. This is why, he or she is going to stick around.

You can easily check these days the age of a website to know how long a particular website has been active.

7. Google your website or blog writer

Once you have come across your website or blog writer, or copywriter, Google him or her. See if you can find some bad references. Purposely use some bad phrases like “this writer sucks”, “stay away from this content writer”, or “very bad experience with this content writer”, or something like that – use the name of the content writer.

8. Pay close attention to your gut feeling

The way the content writer responds to your emails, the way he or she answers to your WhatsApp questions, your gut feeling will tell you whether to trust that person or not.

Does he or she sound too eager to please you, or this is the way he or she aggressively gets business from you (which should be fine)?

Does he or she seems to be over committing?

Remember one thing: if you compromise on the quality of your content, you are going to attract content writers who have no problem compromising on quality just to get work from you.

This is also a general life lesson. You attract the sort of people you want in your life, whether they are good or bad. I know, doesn’t seem like a business advice, but this happens.

Anyway, if you need a content writer or if you’re looking for one, first most, focus on finding an awesome content writer and then figure out whether you can afford him or her or not. Don’t start with money in mind because that way, you will always end up with a lousy writer.

How to find the right content writer for your content writing needs

Why is it extremely crucial to find the right content writer?

The content that you publish on your website or blog is going to stay there for a long time. Whether you get 10 visitors or 1000 visitors or even 1 million visitors, they are all going to consume the very same content that has been written by your content writer.

Hence, it is very important to choose or find the right content writer for your content writing needs.

Your content writer is going to help you

Improve your search engine rankings
Improve your conversion rate
Enhance your brand presence on the Internet
Write case studies
Write white papers
Prepare social media updates
Prepare email campaigns
Write blog posts and guest blog post
Write informative articles for your website

It is through your content writing that people will recognize you and form an opinion about your business and ultimately, decide to do business with you, or with someone else. The right content writer can provide you high quality content on an ongoing basis.

High quality content means more business

So, high-quality content – good business; low-quality content – less business or worse, no business.

Personally I feel any web content writer with decent skills should be able to help you improve your search engine rankings provided you target the right keywords and you are ready to spend enough amount of money and time into regularly publishing unique content on your website or blog.

The problem is not SEO, the problem is the conversion rate.

The problem is often not search engine rankings.

The problem is your conversion rate. And the right content writer understands this.

How many people actually do business with you after coming to your website?

Although there are many factors that affect your conversion rate, content writing, or the copy on your website, is one of the most important factors.

A content writing service like Credible Content can give you content that can improve your conversion rate.

Hence, even if your online content writer is not able to improve your search engine rankings, if he or she can improve your conversion rate, that’s what you need.

You can get targeted traffic to your website in multiple ways, but if the traffic does not convert, nothing matters.

I don’t mean to say you should settle for a website content writer who is unable to improve your search engine rankings. In fact, an experienced and capable content writer should be able to achieve both for you:

Improve your SEO
Improve your conversion rate

It’s all about finding the right talent. How do you do it?

Jot down the following to settle on the right talent for your content writing needs:

How are the communication skills of the website content writer you are evaluating?

Communication skills of your content writer

Communication skills of your website content writer

Writing, after all, is all about communication. The ability to communicate the right message at the right time is more so important during online content writing.

Can your website writer communicate convincingly?

Of course, if you are not sure what exactly is communicative writing, it will be difficult for you to judge your writer, but go with your gut feeling.

How do his or her emails sound? Does he or she take care that there are no spelling and grammar mistakes in the emails he or she writes to you?

Does he or she articulate in clear sentences without unnecessarily using words?

Is he or she too pushy?

Does he or she seem to be agreeing to every possible condition just to get the job?

Is his or her writing style conversational?

Is there a consistency in the manner in which he or she has written his or her profile on the website and the way he or she writes emails to you?

Does he or she understand your business needs?

Does your content writer understand your business needs?

It may be important, or it may not be important whether a writer has some sort of expertise in your business field. Still, a professional, established content writing service can be invaluable to your business.

I get to write a lot on technology – web design, server management, programming protocols and Cloud technology.

So, you can say that I’m comfortable writing on technology-related topics and my clients don’t have to spend lots of time explaining the specifics to me. Even when I don’t understand certain concepts, I know how to look them up on Google and then write about them in my own language. You can say that if you want an experienced tech writer for your business, I’m the right content writer for you.

I’m the right content writer for you also because I have been writing content for websites since 2007 and in all these years I have written for different businesses, from fashion to real estate to cooking to advertising and marketing to healthcare business to network marketing to accounting to financial consulting to house maintenance, and more.

Nonetheless, recently a client approached me who needed some knowledge of finance for his content writer. Although I told him that I can easily write on financial matters, he was reluctant because he needed a writer who has been writing financial articles for a while. I forwarded his message to another writer.

As a professional content writer with lots of experience, I know when I am the right content writer for you or not. I’m not here to get your work by hook or by crook. If I feel I’m not the right match, I will either let you know that you should look for the right content writer for your business somewhere else, or I will try to find one for you among my own group of writers.

Go for someone who you think can deliver your content for your business need.

Can he or she write search engine friendly content?

SEO-friendly content writing

There are many ways you can do business on the web without minding much about Google and Bing, and in fact, I advise my clients not to put all their eggs in the search engine basket. But, a big source of targeted traffic to your website are going to be the search engines.

Your search engine rankings are based on the following:

The age of your domain.
The number of genuine incoming links to your website.
The quality and the authority-factor of the websites linking to you.
The quality of your content.
The formatting of your content.
The relevance of your content.
How easy it is to access your content.
The frequency with which you publish fresh content and update existing content.
The timeliness of your content.
The sort of buzz your content creates on social media platforms.

As you notice, after the first three factors, it is all about your content, and in fact, without your content, the search engines have nothing to rank.

Your content writer should be able to write search engine-friendly content.

Don’t confuse search engine-friendly content with stuffing keywords into your writing senselessly. This is counter-productive. More than doing good, keyword-stuffing can bring you irreparable harm. The search engines can ban you for life.

Think it this way: there is a reason Google is called “the search engine giant”.

The company uses innumerable brains to make sure that you cannot trick the search engine into ranking your content higher even if your content actually does not deserve to be ranked higher.

Once I read that at a particular time, 240 math PhDs are constantly tweaking the Google search algorithm so that only quality content comes up when people use the search engine.

Too many people spend lots of time and money on trying to “trick” Google.

Even if they spend half of that time and money on publishing high-quality content on their websites, they will get better results.

Anyway, find out if your website writer can write search engine-friendly content and your content writing service can improve your SEO.

What is search engine-friendly content?

Keywords must be strategically used in the title and the body.
Keywords must be a part of the overall content rather than being forced here and there just for the sake of using them.
Content must be authoritative: as much information should be packed as possible in a single link.
The content is formatted so that it is easier for the search engine crawlers to analyze the content: various parts of the content should be arranged under the appropriate headlines and with bulleted points to make it “scannable” and understandable.
Various sections of your website should be interlinked strategically. No need to repeat the same content again and again if it can simply be linked to (within your website).
The sentences must be very simple, straightforward and clearly-formed. A 6th standard student should be able to understand what has been written.

How active your content writer is on the Internet?

Is your content writer active on the Internet?

No, I don’t mean that you should check out whether your content writer regularly posts cute cat videos on Facebook or the pics of his or her breakfast on Instagram. You don’t want a content writer who whiles away his or her time like that.

What I mean is, is he or she actively contributing to his or her field through constantly publishing high quality blog posts, articles and social media updates?

This is not a necessity: maybe you have come across a content writer who is so busy that he or she only gets enough time to write for his or her clients and he or she never gets time to write otherwise. That’s fine. There are always exceptions.

My personal experience is, content writers who only want to write for their clients are generally not good content writers. Many writers who approach me for work are very stingy about publishing content to showcase their services. They just want paid assignments. This makes them desperate and this has a direct impact on their writing quality.

Again, this has been my personal experience because I am often working with other content writers too.

Content writers who don’t blog often, who don’t write articles and blog posts on different topics, even non-paying topics, aren’t very interesting writers. They are lazy writers. Even greedy. They won’t write a single extra paragraph just for the love of the craft.

The case scenario can be opposite too. Is your writer so busy working on his or her own stuff that he doesn’t turn in your assignments on time?

There must be some balance. When you search for your writer on Google, you should be able to find lots of blog posts, articles and social media updates from the writer telling you that he or she actively participates in discussions relevant to his or her field. This shows that he or she proactively tries to grow his or her skill and he or she is also communicative and interactive.

How are his or her writing skills?

How are the writing skills of your content writer?

The most important quality to have for a writer or a content writer – writing skill.

Although there might be different styles of writing and different writers follow different writing guidelines, there is wrong writing and there is right writing, and your writer must be able to distinguish.

The following must be impeccable:

Sentence formation
Spelling
Grammar
Flow
Vocabulary

If the language in which you want the content writer to write is not a strong point for you, initially you will need to get the writing reviewed by someone you can trust (someone who knows the language well).

When looking for the right service provider for your business, keep in mind that good writing abilities are very essential to being a good content writer.

When the writing is well, proficient and error-free, you seem professional and you show respect for your visitors. It matters what image they form of you and hence, it shows that you pay attention to every word that you publish on your website or blog.

Is your content writer going to stick around for your ongoing content writing needs?

Is your content writer going to stick around?

The more your content writer writes for you, the better he or she gets. This has been my personal experience.

Organizations and individuals don’t want to let go of me once I have been writing content for them for a few months (provided they need quality content on an ongoing basis).

Comfort level develops.

Your writer knows more about your business after a while. You also begin to trust him or her. Your website or blog begins to adopt his or her writing style.

Although one of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your content writing needs to a content writer or a content writing agency is that it is very easy to change your content writer, make sure that you settle with a writer who is going to stick with you for a long time.

How do you know that your content writer is going to stick around?

Frankly, there are no guarantees in life. But there are some signs that you can pick to make sure that the content writer you are hiring is going to write for you for a long time. Some of them are:

If you contact your content writer from a freelancing website go through his or her profile and see for how long he or she has been writing content.
If you are contracting a content writing agency like Credible Content, just check for how long the person or the group of people have been providing content writing and content marketing services.
As mentioned above, check if your content writer is serious about his or her profession and if he or she continuously writes articles, blog posts and social media updates about his or her profession (that is, content writing).

Again, there is no guarantee. A company can go down no matter how impressive its website is, and a lone freelancer providing his or her content writing services from a freelance website may go on providing content writing services for years.

Conclusion

Whether right now you believe it or not, quality content is as important for your website as the web design itself.

Most of the entrepreneurs don’t realize that due to lack of quality content their websites don’t convert well and after a few months or after a couple of years, they have to wrap up their businesses. They think their idea was not good or people didn’t understand what they were trying to deliver.

The problem, more than 99% of the cases, is with content. They either underestimate the value of a good content writer or they don’t even realize that they need high quality content for their websites.

Note: Most of the images above are from https://unsplash.com

SEO guidelines for content writers

9 Replies

SEO content writer guidelines

You can find thousands of content writers on the Internet vying for your business and some of them are actually brilliant.

But your business website, or even your blog, doesn’t just need a content writer, it needs a content writer that can take care of your SEO needs.

What am I talking about?

The performance of your content writer can be gauged from the following two indicators:

How much search engine traffic your content attracts.
How much of that traffic actually converts.

Successful content writers know how to draw a balance between both the requirements.

What does an SEO content writer do?

What does an SEO content writer do

An SEO content writer writes search engine friendly content but more than that, he writes content that helps your visitors.

What does Google want to do? Does it want to crawl, index and rank your content or does it want to provide the best possible information to its search engine users?

It’s a mix of both.

It wants to provide the best possible information for the search being done.

The information cannot be found unless Google crawls, indexes and ranks your content (or content from other websites and Internet sources).

An SEO content writer knows what Google wants, from the inside out.

He knows that the content quality and the content relevance triumphs everything else.

Then, when quality and relevance are taken care of, the SEO content writer focuses on the keyword optimization aspect of your content.

Does he need to be a better writer? Obviously. He should be a great writer. He should be a great copywriter. He should be able to write convincingly and engagingly.

Your SEO content writer must also know how to format and organize your content in such a manner that Google can easily make sense of it.

Can any writer achieve that? Not without experience.

There are millions of webpages and blog posts on the Internet.

And when there are millions of webpages and blog posts to compete with, only the subtle things, things that cannot be directly observed by the eye, can make a big difference.

Hence, an SEO content writer

Develops a complete understanding of your topic/subject before beginning to write.
Completely understands what your audience is looking for.
Writes your content impeccably.
Knows where to use your keywords and where not to use them.
Knows how to organize your content under various sections so that it’s easier for search engines to make sense of it.
Write simple yet professional sentences that are easier to interpret both for search engine algorithms as well as human readers.

Does an SEO content writer just write content to improve search engine rankings?

It depends on in what capacity your SEO content writer is working with you. An experienced SEO content writer like me can provide both consulting as well as writing.

What does consulting mean? It means advising you with the topics that you must cover to improve your search engine rankings.

The sort of topics that you choose to cover is as important as writing the content itself. To create content that genuinely improves your search engine rankings you must know what information people are looking for and then write content accordingly.

You should also be able to write and publish unique information. Preferably, information that is not existing anywhere else. The more unique your information is, the better are going to be your search engine rankings.

The conversion rate of your content is as important as your search engine rankings. In fact, if you enjoy higher search engine rankings but your conversion rate is low, your rankings are of no use.

Hence, an SEO content writer must also be a good copywriter because only then he is going to be able to convince your visitors into turning your paying customers and clients.

Does an SEO content writer really improve your search engine rankings?

Well, this is the intention of working with an SEO content writer – your search engine rankings must experience a significant improvement once optimized content begins to appear on your website/blog on an ongoing basis.

“On an ongoing basis” is the key here. Publishing SEO content on your website or blog is not a one-time affair. Just like you continuously need to host your website, you continuously need to publish content.

The reason is, all your competitors are continuously publishing SEO content. They all want to outdo each other. Every competitor who is ranked below you, wants to rank above you, and he or she is not going to rest unless that objective is achieved.

Hence, you need to outdo his or her effort and for that, you need to publish SEO content on an ongoing basis.

Hence, provided

Your content writer is well-versed with writing SEO content.
You publish content regularly at set intervals.
You focus on publishing high-quality content that delivers value.

Your SEO content writer is definitely going to improve your search engine rankings.

Your SEO content writer must strike a balance between higher search engine rankings and conversion rate

Balance between SEO and conversion rate

Your website needs targeted traffic from all over the web in general, and search engines in particular.

After that, it isn’t just search engine traffic that does the job, you also need business, you need paying customers and clients.

When I say content writers, I mean people who totally understand the need of a business to convert traffic into customers and clients.

Add SEO abilities and you have the killer combination. So here are a few SEO guidelines for content writers that may help you as a content writer, and as also as a business owner looking for an SEO-proficient content writer.

Write for the target audience
Use the language your target audience uses on day-to-day basis as well as on search engines
Avoid using more than two keywords for a webpage, an article or a blog post
Stick to the main topic and try to remain as vertical as possible
Be original; search engines like Google dislike duplicate content
Use the primary keyword in the title
Write for your audience first, make sure your content is convincing and would convert well, and only then think about SEO
Use your primary as well as longtail keyword in the description
Write in a conversational style
Use appropriate images whenever possible because this can get you extra traffic from image searches as well as social networking websites like Pinterest
Solve a problem, or provide a solution
Use primary keywords and longtail keywords within headline tags (for instance, <h1>, <h2>, etc.)

While preparing content for these SEO guidelines for content writers I discovered that lots of points that I have mentioned above already exist, or rather, appear in regurgitated form on other websites. Since the language is almost similar it shows that most of these writers don’t actually understand what it takes to create SEO-friendly content that also converts well, and they have simply taken the content off other websites and blogs. Some have even copied the bulleted lists straightaway. Well, this is the first sign that shows that where you stand.

Why SEO guidelines for content writers

Every good, experienced content writer by default is also a good SEO content writer.

Amidst daily professional and personal grinds we forget these points so it is always better to keep revising them on a regular basis so that they get embedded into our subconscious. For instance, creating a title that contains the primary keyword should be done as a usability benefit even if you are not specifically writing for SEO. Similarly, highlighting important point with the help of the main keywords helps your readers quickly understand the gist of your webpage or the blog post.