It’s not necessary that a native English-speaking person is a better content writer

Can a John Smith write better website content than a Kwasi Nkrumah from Ghana? Do you need to hire the services of Lindsay Cambridge from Virginia to write great contents for your site? Interesting enough, most people think it takes a native English Speaker to write quality web contents that prompts the reader to take an action. A good content can pave the way to success. Putting right words at right places doesn’t just ensure the outcome of quality content but it also guarantees a steady growth in the conversion rate of a website.

A well structured, search-engine friendly, informative content can ensure regular flow of traffic. But does it necessarily have to written by a Native English Speaker, preferably an American or a British?

First thing first, the purpose of this article is not to prove that native English speakers are not good content writers. The purpose of this article is to show that even people from non-English-speaking regions can create professional, good quality and relevant content.

In this article, I intend to convince you why you don’t need to ALWAY hire a native English Speaker to write your content. For those of you who don’t know what content writing is; Content writing is a service offered mainly to website owners and businesses, where the individual (content writer) specializes in providing relevant text content for the website. Content writing itself can come in many forms and companies or individual that offers it can write about one specific category or a broad range, usually the ones that target a certain niche.

Content writing is a skill; and like any other skill the more you practice the better you get. You can be born in London, by parents who are English Teachers and even might have attended the most prestigious Journalism school in London. That would certainly not make you a good content writer. Never ever think because you are surrounded by native English Speakers or you are a native English Speaker; you could one day wake up pick your laptop write some few words, get it published on a website and bam! You are the next Ninja content writer sensation on the Internet.

Content writing is an art, and just like learning how to play a game of Chess; the more you practice the better you become. You can’t learn Martial Art by watching videos from a Martial Art Expert. Likewise you don’t become a better content writer because you are a Native English Speaker. Of course you have the advantage of already knowing the language and not having to spend too much time learning the finer things, the subtle nuances of the language.

Characteristics of a good content writer

The role of a content writer and the process of developing content for a web site is often an unclear task. Generally, when a company decides to redesign their site, they do not take the task of content creation and management fully into the scope of the project, and very rarely understand the nature of the role, the process or the deliverables involved. Finding someone to manage the content process for your website requires the person to have (some of) the following characteristics:

• Self-Running: A good content writer needs to be self-running or a self starter and must have the understanding of what is required to develop website content. Each project and situation is different. This person will need to manage a very daunting and deadline driven process. Digging for information, pushing to make deadlines and running solo without much guidance is a prerequisite.
• Organized: Every content writer needs to have the organizational and management skills to manage the process of content development. This generally requires the ability to set and make deadlines, manage resources and budgeted time, set expectations and communicate effectively. In addition, good content writers use a writing checklist, a calendar or task organizer. The individual needs to be detail-oriented and able to handle multiple tasks at one time.
• Web savvy: Content writers don’t need to know the ins and outs of HTML but should be familiar with enough markup to call out links and bold or italicized text to increase the chances of the content being ranked higher by search engines. A good content writer should also master the art of creating catchy heading and sub headings for any piece of article to grasp the reader’s attention.
• Ability to write and Edit: A good content writer should have the flair for writing and submitting nearly flawless (preferably, error-free) work. Despite living in an age where texting and three letter acronyms are common, writing issues like misspellings, typos, improper subject-verb agreement, poor grammar and slang should not be a part of a properly executed Content Writing.

There are some characteristics that make one stand out as a good content writer. So if you are a Kwame from Ghana, a Thiago Brazil, Asmara from Indonesia or an Amrit Hallan from India; if you develop these characteristics your chances of becoming a good content writer would increase exponentially.

You do not need to hire a native English Speaker to write better contents. Content writing is a skill, the more you write the better you get, and the more effective you become in communicating with your target audience.