How To Generate A Steady Stream Of Tantalizing Topics For Your Blog

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finding new blogging topics

Business blogs always sound like a great idea, until you run out of interesting things to blog about. We’ve all heard of writer’s block, but “topic block” is another common affliction among bloggers, and it can set in three weeks, three months or three years after launch. Here are a few techniques to help you keep your posts full of information that your audience wants to read, listen to, or view.

Get Help!

Topic block has set in. Now what? One of the most valuable business lessons I ever learned is, when you’ve got a lot of hard work staring you in the face … get somebody else to do it! This technique works like a charm for topic generation. Perhaps the best sources of topics for your blog are your readers, your customers, and your sales and customer service teams — survey these people to get their ideas. This can be done by —

  • Talking to them in person
  • Writing a blog post asking for their input
  • Emailing an online survey
  • Asking publicly or through private messages on social media

The key to making this work is guiding the responses. Asking an open-ended question such as, “What should I write about?” requires the respondent to do too much thinking. Frame your canvassing efforts with questions that facilitate a useful and specific response. Examples —

  • What is your biggest business challenge with (product/service/industry)?
  • What is your biggest operational challenge with (product/service/industry)?
  • What is your biggest financial challenge with (product/service/industry)?
  • How has this (product/service) helped you save money?
  • How has this (product/service) helped you become more efficient?
  • How has this (product/service) helped you?
  • What (product/service/industry) issue confuses you?
  • What do you wish you knew about this (product/service/industry)?

You should include response options if you do an online survey and have some ready if you’re in a live meeting to make it even easier for the respondents.

Look at Keywords

Whether or not you’re worried about SEO for your blog (you probably should be), keywords are an excellent place to mine for blog topics. The keyword data about search terms reveals a lot about what issues are of wide concern, and the language people use to research those issues. Uncovering common issues drives interesting blog posts, and using the popular language in the post title and text attracts blog traffic and holds reader attention.

Online keyword research tools such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explorer are easy to use and exceedingly helpful. For instance, if you have a food blog and wanted to write about rice pudding, the Moz tool might lead you to consider one or more of the following topics —

  • How to Make Rice Pudding
  • How to Make Rice Pudding From Scratch
  • How to Make Easy Rice Pudding
  • Rice Pudding Recipe With Cooked Rice
  • Baked Rice Pudding Recipe
  • Simple Recipe for Rice Pudding
  • Easy, Creamy Rice Pudding
  • Best Rice Pudding Ever
  • Rice Pudding With No Egg
  • Stovetop Rice Pudding

Note that this type of result can translate into multiple posts around the same topic. In this case, a general “How to Make Rice Pudding” post could be followed up with several more specific posts using titles from the list above.

Also, if your company is running a PPC campaign, you absolutely need to review the keyword data. It will tell you what keyword phrases are generating conversions — which tells you what keyword phrases are generating interest. It’s a must-do topic creation chore.

Stop Writing and Start Talking

A final suggestion for topic generation — probably the most enjoyable and for me, the most productive of all — is talking to colleagues and peers. Co-workers, bloggers in your niche or related ones, and maybe even competitors, are just like you, in the sense they are living, breathing and thinking about the same issues day in and day out.

Whether you talk one on one, attend a local meet-up, travel to a convention, use Skype or social media, you will eventually find people who make great brainstorming companions, and topic ideas will flow like a raging river. The nice thing about this topic-generation technique is that it helps not only you, but also your companions. They will develop ideas to help their business and blog, and may lead to guest blogging opportunities and other forms of collaboration that are good for business all the way around.

How to Improve Website Conversion Rate with Content Writing

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improve-conversion-rate-with-content-writing-online-copywriting

Ultimately, everything is about website conversion rate. Whether you achieve it through content writing or any other method, you constantly want to improve your conversion rate. Through targeted online copywriting you can considerably improve the number of people doing business on your website.

Once they have arrived on your website, it’s all about keeping them there as long as possible and convincing them into doing business with you through engaging online copywriting.

You have a website to promote your business, ideology, cause, or simply to waste people’s time. Whatever you want people to do, the number of people doing it compared to the number of people coming to your website, is your conversion rate. Here is how you calculate your website conversion rate:

conversion rate

Here is an informative blog post on What is good conversion rate. The author correctly says that the industry perception is that 2.5%-5% is considered to be a good conversion rate but it can be easily taken to 11-15%, and in many other cases, even 25%.

Read: Can a web content writer help you improve your conversion rate?

Why do people worry about improving their website conversion rate?

Aside from the obvious reason – we all want to get more business out of our websites – people want to improve the overall performance of their website to reduce advertising costs.

Suppose, you are spending $2 for every click Google sends your way through your AdWords campaign. For 100 visitors, it means you are paying $200 to Google. If your convert 3 people and you are selling a product worth $75, by spending $200 you are selling your product worth $225. Your margin is $25.

This is not a good margin to have. You can either try to reduce the PPC cost (this can be achieved by creating more efficient AdWords campaigns), or you can try to improve the number of people buying from you (you should try both).

What if instead of 3 people out of 100 people, 5 people buy from you? Suddenly, your margin is $175. What if 10% buy? Your margin is $500.

This is one of the most obvious reasons why for many businesses improving conversion rate of the website, as much as possible, is very critical.

Aside from this, who doesn’t want to improve his or her website conversion rate, whether the person is advertising through AdWords or simply getting organic traffic from Google and Bing?

The connection between content writing and website conversion rate

There is a direct connection between how much helpful information is there on your website and how well your website converts.

There is a difference between content writing and copywriting and I will come to that later. In this section, I’m going to talk about content writing.

The purpose of publishing high quality content on your website is to provide highly relevant and useful information to your visitors. When they can find solutions to their problems on your website, on an ongoing basis, they begin to trust you.

Instead of constantly asking people to do business with you, let them associate you with useful information.

Take my blog for example. Although it is obvious that ultimately, I want people to hire my content writing and content marketing services, on my blog I try to share as much useful information as I can. Most of this information can be used by people to improve business on their own without ever having to contact me.

Still, there are many people who don’t want to create content on their own. They seek help. They know that I know my stuff. They’re constantly coming across my content on not just my blog, but also on Twitter, LinkedIn and other places.

When they’re looking for a content writer they know whom to contact. When they want someone to take care of their content marketing, they know whom to contact.

The same way regular content writing on your website can help you improve your conversion rate.

When it comes to improving your conversion rate with persistent content writing, it isn’t same as calculating your rate from a landing page.

For a landing page it’s easier to track your conversion rate because you know how many visitors you are getting from a particular link (from your AdWords campaign), and how many from these are actually buying from you.

Through content writing and content marketing, you improve your brand presence and when you improve your brand presence, your conversion rate improves. You may say that content writing doesn’t directly improve your conversion rate, but it becomes a medium.

Due to the strength of your content, you begin to improve your search engine rankings and your overall presence on the Internet begins to improve. People respect you for your knowledge and expertise. They would rather do business with someone they respect than someone they don’t respect or don’t know.

Here is how strategic content writing can improve your website conversion rate

  • Eliminate all doubts: There might be many questions and confusions that stop people from doing business with you. Even when they try to find a business like yours, they search for questions and queries on search engines. Try to answer as many questions as possible through targeted and engaging content writing. Create an information hub on your website. Let there remain no question unanswered.
  • Optimize your content for search engines: In order to improve your conversion rate you need targeted traffic. Optimize your content so that you get people from search engines who would actually want to do business with you.
  • Highlight the value you provide: This I’m also going to discuss in the online copywriting section, but people are not interested in knowing how great your product or service is. All they want to know is, how you are going to improve their lives. Giving my own example, people are not interested in knowing whether I can write like James Joyce or Zadie Smith; they want to know how I can get more customers and clients for their business website. If I can convince them, I get their business.

How online copywriting can improve your website conversion rate

Talking about conversion rate and ignoring online copywriting is like trying to improve your health without talking about food.

I don’t intend to boast, but most of my clients who work with me the second time (repeat work) come back to me because of my online copywriting skills.

Persuasive writing is needed to improve your conversion rate.

There is a difference between content writing and copywriting. Anybody who can write well can be a content writer. For copywriting, you need to be able to convince people to trust you and then do business with you. The art of persuasion and your website conversion rate are inseparable.

As I have mentioned above, copywriting is all about highlighting your benefits in as convincing manner as possible.

Your customers and clients want to know what you can offer. You can let them know in drab, factual language, or you can talk to them in a conversational, friendly style to make them comfortable and to make them trust you.

The best way to improve your website conversion rate is through storytelling. Then they can relate to the characters of the story.

A story can be woven around how your product or service helps someone in trouble.

Suppose you run a helpline service for people whose car has broken. You provide an alternative means of transport. You get the car taken to the repair shop. You can also arrange other facilities like food and stay in case these are needed.

So, you can write a story about one of your customers called George who was stranded on the highway during a rainy night. Although he was 120 km away, your rescue truck driver drove in the storm, reached George, gave him dry clothes to wear and safely drove him to a nearby motel. Afterwards, the car was taken to the service station. An alternative car was provided to George in the morning so that he didn’t miss his important meeting.

This can be a moving story and many people will relate to it.

This is the power of copywriting. There might be thousands of helpline services like these, but you tell the stories of how you have actually helped people.

Effective online copywriting can immensely improve your website conversion rate because it addresses the real issues people are facing and not just addresses those issues, but also offers solutions in an engaging, interesting manner.

Here are a few pointers to use online copywriting to improve your website conversion rate:

  1. Write in a conversational style.
  2. Empathize with your audience.
  3. Mention everything important “above the fold”.
  4. Use call-to-action at strategic locations.
  5. Use smaller, compelling sentences.
  6. Avoid using links because you don’t want to distract people.
  7. Keep up the pace.
  8. Use language people are totally comfortable with.
  9. Focus on the benefits.
  10. Convince people that you totally understand their problem and you have exactly the solution they are looking for.

After having said all this, if you want to improve your website conversion rate you have to use a mix of persistent content writing and a sprinkling of occasional copywriting to convert visitors into buyers and customers.

5 Reasons Your Website Needs Content Writing Services

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5-reasons-your-website-needs-content-writing-services

Still wondering whether your website needs content writing services or not?

In the early 2000’s people used to wonder whether their business needed a website or not. Web design agencies had to convince people, had to educate them. Most of the businesses had no clue what having a website could do to their business.

Content writing and content marketing are going through the same phase. There is a massive need for quality content but people don’t realize it. They don’t realize the fact that without content their website cannot do business. They don’t realize that businesses who acknowledge and accept the undeniable importance of closely working with a content writing service are doing much better in terms of getting higher search engine rankings and a better conversion rate on their websites and blogs.

Read What is quality content and how does Google recognize it?

The connection between your sales and content writing

An online business does brisk business due to the following reasons:

  1. It has a strong brand presence
  2. People already have respect for the business
  3. There is a fad value attached to using the products and services of the business
  4. The business has a huge marketing and advertising budget
  5. The business has been able to create a noticeable presence with its valuable content
  6. The business who has compelling content on its own website

The first four points are applicable to big businesses. Big businesses have a strong brand presence, their brand is already known and respected, there is a fad value attached to their products (Apple, for example), and they can afford to spend huge amounts of money on marketing and advertising.

Although these businesses have the capacity to spend billions of dollars on marketing and advertising, they have begun to realize that advertising doesn’t pay.

This is why Coca-Cola no longer depends on advertising, but on content marketing. Most of the Coca-Cola websites (they have different websites for different regions) have turned into online publications. Now their website is called “Journey”. Although they promote their products, their primary stress is the stories about the positive impact they’re making in the world.

Coca-Cola content marketing

Similarly, American Express as “Open Forum” where it provides top-notch business advice to its present and prospective customers.

American Express content marketing

IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Google, they all started relying less on advertising and marketing and more on high-quality content.

The last two points – creating a noticeable presence through valuable content writing and publishing compelling content on the website – is what democratizes the process of promoting online business.

The last two points are applicable to small as well as medium-sized businesses.

Content writing, although requires some degree of expense, isn’t as expensive as conventional advertising and marketing. Every business can create an online presence with targeted, valuable content writing.

The main hurdle faced by most genuine content writing services like Credible Content is that businesses feel it doesn’t make sense to pay a writing service because writing can be done by anybody.

This isn’t so. Although occasional writing can be done by anybody, if you really want to create a successful presence on the Internet, you need consistent content writing that is of great value. Consistency and value are the keywords.

A person or a business who doesn’t write content as a full-time job often finds it very difficult to create valuable content on an ongoing basis.

Listed below are 5 reasons your website needs content writing services:

  1. Content is the next form of online presence: As I have written above, there was a time when people used to wonder whether they should have a website for their business or not. The same state has come for content. Your business needs quality content writing to survive. If you haven’t realized that, your competitors have. Some of your competitors are already months, if not years, ahead of you.
  2. You need to publish high-quality content regularly: Content writing is soon becoming a regular business expense. Just as you need to promote your business constantly, conventional promotion is being replaced by quality content publishing. People don’t want your marketing messages. They want you to become a part of their lives by providing solutions to their problems. Search engines like Google want fresh content regularly. If you don’t publish fresh content, they stop crawling and indexing your website because they don’t expect anything new from it. Only an established content writing service can provide you a non-stop supply of high-quality content.
  3. You need to become an authority in your field: This is more so important in the B2B category. If you are in a business where personal brand value matters, you need to share your knowledge and wisdom with people so that they begin to recognize you for your authority. For this you need to publish expert articles and blog posts on a regular basis and then share your content and social networking websites to create an authoritative presence for yourself. People do business with you when they respect you for your authority.
  4. SEO doesn’t happen without irregular content: I always tell my clients that there are two reasons why SEO cannot exist without closely working with a professional content writing service – quality content encourages people to share your links and Google evaluates how many people share your links; and, Google constantly seeks fresh content because it doesn’t want to serve outdated content to its users. This is why, no matter how valuable your existing content is, if new content is available, Google prefers to showcase that in the search results instead of outdated content. Content writing services can ensure a steady supply of high-quality, relevant content to improve your SEO.
  5. Your content is your business asset: Just like you need professional help to build any other business asset, the same holds true for your content. Although there are many individuals and businesses who develop their own content, and there is nothing wrong in that, I’m primarily talking about businesses that don’t have the resources and the needed talent to publish high-quality content on an ongoing basis. Sure, you can start on your own and initially, since you will feel motivated and inspired, you may be able to carry out content publishing for a couple of weeks or even for a couple of months, eventually, you will need to seek out the help of a professional content writing service that can provide you content every week, every month, year after year.

You must have noticed that on this page I haven’t tried to mince words. It’s the reality of our times that your business needs content. If you don’t use content to promote your business, your competition already does. It’s your choice.

It’s also your choice whether you acknowledge that your website needs content writing services or not. What I can do is, make you aware, make it known to you that yes, your website needs content. Conventional advertising doesn’t work or is gradually ceasing to work. Content is the present, and the future.

10 SEO content writing rules you cannot ignore

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10-SEO-content-writing-rules-you-cannot-ignore

SEO content writing has evolved since the days when the only way to get good search engine rankings was to use your keywords and key phrases indiscriminately. People were becoming experts in “website optimization techniques” and “web page optimization tactics”.

Read 5 Reasons Why Content Writing Is Important for SEO

Although you still have to use your primary and secondary keywords for SEO content writing, the exercise has been superseded by many other SEO factors that impact your search engine rankings. Getting your website on search engines, especially among the top 10 results, has become an integral part of content writing and content marketing.

How SEO content writing rules have changed

As I have mentioned above, improving your search engine rankings takes a lot more than simply using your primary and secondary keywords. Social validation is a must. It matters a lot to Google ranking algorithms how people react to your content.

Of course, keywords and how you use them still matter but along with that, what also matters is the quality of your content. All professional SEO consultants admit that the only way you can get better search engine rankings for your website is through content writing.

Contemporary web page optimization best practices

In order to know how to optimize your website or blog, you have to find the “why”, “what” and “how” of the content that you are writing.

You need to give people what they are looking for. If your content is simply misguiding people into visiting your website, your content begins to lose relevance.

The true value of your content can be gauged better through emotional intelligence which machines cannot have. This is why Google seeks social validation to rank your links.

When people find your content valuable and useful, they begin to interact with your content. They respond to it from their own blogs and website (linking to it). They Share it on social networking platforms in order to endorse it, agree with it, or even to disagree with it.

Google’s ranking algorithm takes into account people’s reaction towards your content. Whether they agree or disagree, how do they react to your content? Do they like it? Do they share it on social media and social networking websites? Do they recommend it?

The web, being web, is interconnected. Google and other major search engines these days have access to data from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn (only to name a few social platforms available at this moment, in 2017). If your link is creating buzz, they know it, and then they use this buzz to determine your SEO. Content writing rules take into consideration, along with your keywords, social validations that pour in from various sources.

Read: 10 tips on how to write SEO content for your website

Why do you need to follow content writing rules to improve SEO?

You don’t need to. In fact, they are not even rules. I just needed a catchy title so I used the term “rules”, you can call them guidelines, benchmarks, or pointers or commandments, or whatever you feel like.

You don’t even have to follow these content writing rules to improve your SEO if you don’t feel like. They are there just for your reference. Sometimes you can use them, and sometimes you don’t need to.

But why use them?

They give you a template. This template doesn’t ensure higher rankings in itself, because your rankings depend on thousands of things in the universe, but they will make sure that if Google wants to rank your content, at least it has the information it needs.

It’s like using an SEO plug-in. Have you used the Yoast SEO plug-in for WordPress? Seopressor? These plug-ins make recommendations like how long your webpage or blog post title should be, what should be your content-keywords ratio, what sort of information you should have in your description, and so on. Provided you stick to these guidelines, there is a great chance that your link will be ranked higher compared to the links that don’t follow these guidelines.

The same holds true for the content writing rules that I’m listing below. If you stick to them, they may not suddenly improve your SEO, but you will 100% have content that will be optimized for better rankings.

So here they are…

10 SEO content writing rules you cannot ignore

  1. Clearly define the “why” of your business: Why would people do business with you? What need do you solve? How do you enrich people’s lives? How do you make it easier for people to work, to celebrate, to entertain themselves or to increase their self-worth? All these bits of information must manifest in your content writing.
  2. Clearly define personas: Whom are you going to target with your content? Who are these people? Where do they come from? What are their aspirations? What problems are they having that they need solved? What are their backgrounds? The more you know about your audience, the better will be your content.
  3. Compile a list of keywords and search terms: Once you have defined the “why” of your business and have also defined the personas of your target audience, it will be easier for you to compile a list of keywords and search terms that you are going to incorporate into your SEO content writing. Remember that you don’t compile the list of keywords and search terms for your own happiness; you need to know the keywords and search terms people actually use to search for your business. You need to look at your business from their perspective. Only then you will be able to compile the right list of keywords and search terms. Having a list of keywords and search terms will also keep you focused and give you a clear idea of what content you should be publishing.
  4. Prepare a list of topics containing your target keywords and search terms: When you talk of SEO we need to take care of these things. Your topics are very important. Your topics are generally the titles of your blog posts and webpages. The titles of your blog posts and webpages are so important that the Google ranking algorithm takes the words appearing within your titles very seriously. This is why it’s very important for your SEO that when you are writing content, your keywords and search terms are present in your blog post and webpage titles.
  5. Start writing engaging content: Once you have created keyword-rich titles, when you are writing content for these titles, initially don’t worry much about their SEO quality. Remember that it’s very important to publish engaging content. Eventually it is the quality of your content that decides your long-term search engine rankings. You will also need quality content to accumulate social validation. Social validation is so important that even if you don’t bother about your keywords and you are able to accumulate enough social validation, your SEO is going to improve considerably.
  6. Whenever possible, write longer blog posts and webpages: To counter “thin content” Google these days has started preferring longer blog posts and webpages. People were publishing lots of “thin content” – meaningless content of 300-400 words mostly to target keywords – and the search results were being filled with lots of junk information. Writing longer blog posts and webpages takes effort and considerable knowledge of the subject. I’m not saying do it always, but whenever you have enough to say, don’t hold yourself back.
  7. Incorporate your keywords once you have completed a blog post or a webpage: Once you are sure that you have created a good quality, engaging blog post or webpage, insert the keywords that you have included in the title of that particular blog post or webpage. Strategically incorporate the keywords and search terms in such a manner that you don’t overuse them.
  8. Format your blog post or webpage in an SEO friendly manner: Your web content should be easily scannable. Use headlines (tags like <h1>, <h2>, etc.) to organize your text under different sections and once or twice use your keywords and search terms within these headlines. If some bits of information can be presented with bullet points, use them. At least once bold your keywords. You can also use your keywords in the anchor text when you link to other blog posts and webpages either on your own website or other websites.
  9. Publish content at regular intervals: SEO content writing doesn’t just mean publishing a few blog posts and webpages and then resting on your laurels. For rare businesses, this works, but not for businesses that need to compete with other businesses. It is because lots of businesses like your business are publishing content with great speed. Even if you rank well for certain keywords and search terms, soon you’re going to be overtaken by your competition with better and more content. This is why you need to constantly supply Google with fresh content. At least to experience the initial SEO boost, you need to continuously post blog posts and webpages for 3-4 months. Holding yourself back would be like getting into a boxing ring and constantly pulling your punches without giving all you have got. If you are not regular, you lose even the slight advantage you have gained by publishing some content initially.
  10. Update your existing content: All the blog posts and webpages that you create are your business assets. You should nurture them and take care of them just as you take care of your other business assets. Constantly update your older blog posts and webpages and resubmit them to search engines to let them know that you have updated them. Add new information. Modify the data that might had been correct two years ago but not now.

Whether you realize it now or five years later, SEO content writing is an ongoing process. As Yoda says, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

yoda quote on SEO content writing

A message to content writers I’m contacting these days

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a-message-to-content-writers

Dear content writers:

In case I contacted you recently, and you responded, and I didn’t respond, there is a reason. My father passed away on August 31, 2017. We still can’t believe he is not there.

One has to make a living though, so here I am.

For many years I have been writing content on my own. Once or twice a year I do work with other writers but mostly I work by myself.

This traps me in an inescapable loop: I am marketing my services, getting work, completing work, and then marketing my services again, and so on.

My weakness is, I cannot do both. Either I can try getting work, or I can do work. Most of the time I’m doing one thing at the cost of the other. When I am marketing, I’m ignoring the work that I already have. When I’m busy doing my work, I ignore marketing.

Over the years I have realized I enjoy getting work. When I’m constantly blogging to increase my search engine traffic, when I publish my newsletter, when I’m tweaking my website, when I am interacting with prospective clients, I don’t feel tired. It means I enjoy doing this.

So, a few weeks ago, I thought, why shouldn’t I do something that I enjoy? I like writing, but I like journalistic writing. I’m comfortable writing professional content for my clients, but it tires me out. This means although, by habit, I’m able to complete my projects, my soul is somewhere else. Why not get work, enough work, and then hand it over to capable content writers, and then go on getting more work?

It isn’t that I haven’t tried working with other writers. It hasn’t worked so far. But then, I haven’t tried hard, this much I accept. I have had some bad experiences and then I have given up. I haven’t worked hard at building a solid team, which I’m going to do now.

Hence, using various means available to me, I have been contacting different content writers. If you are one of the content writers who have submitted their samples or requested further details, kindly be patient, I will be responding very soon.

What I’m looking for in content writers

I know you’re going to have this expression when you read this, but I like to work with people who can stick their necks out, otherwise I’d take that they are not committed and they cannot be relied upon.

disgruntled content writer

After all, I will also be sticking my neck out by giving you work. What if you turn your back on me? What if you don’t turn in the assignments on time? What if you suddenly increase your rates in the middle of the project knowing quite well that I’m totally relying on you?

You see, when my clients give me work, they can see my presence all over the Internet. Search for Amrit Hallan and you will find plenty of writing by me. I have a blog that I regularly update. I have my own content writing and content marketing website. I have a LinkedIn presence. I have a Twitter presence. I write on Medium. I’m on Instagram. Clients have written testimonials for me. They can find me everywhere.

What I mean to say is, I have been consistently there. Whether my clients are happy with me or not is another matter, they at least know I’m going to stick around and I’m going to respond. It means, my stakes are high. My clients know this. When they give me work they know that it’s my livelihood and I have put in effort.

I know it’s unreasonable to expect content writers working with me to create a similar presence, but they can show that they are really into content writing by writing for my blog. I don’t want people want to content writing just because they have got nothing else to do. I want passionate content writers.

Yes, now refer to the eyes-rolling GIF above.

I’m going to work with content writers who regularly write for my content writing and content marketing blog. I’m not saying they need to write every day, but at least once a week to show that they really want to collaborate.

I don’t want to arm twist you into doing this. If you don’t, someone else will. I’m cool with that. And I’m in no hurry.

Why I want my content writers to write for my blog?

  1. They will develop a writing style.
  2. It will show that they have abundant talent and they are not so desperate that they can write only when paid.
  3. We will be working as a team to get more work.
  4. I know my content writers are dedicated, driven and ready to put in at least an hour every week extra in order to get assignments.
  5. Most importantly, they will have a stake.

committed content writer

I have experienced that content writers who don’t have a stake act quite irresponsibly. They disappear suddenly and they change their terms and conditions haphazardly. If they continuously write for my blog they will know that they have put in effort and it is due to that effort that they are getting work and if they don’t do the work, all the effort will go waste.

So, this is how I’m going to select content writers for my upcoming projects.

Update: Faith (LinkedIn profile) asked some pertinent questions:

  1. Will I be given a byline?
  2. What are the guidelines for writing on your blog?
  3. When can I start?

These are very good questions and I should have addressed them before someone having to ask these questions. I’m thankful that she asked. Here are the replies:

Will the contributing content writers be given by lines?

Yes. With every post will appear the author bio. I’m also planning to put up a “Our Content Writers And Contributors” section where profiles of all the content writers will appear. They may also have their dedicated author pages.

You see, once they start contributing I would also like to provide them the right opportunity to get work from my website, directly.

What are the guidelines for contributing content writers?

Well, the only guideline is, be true to yourself. No plagiarism please. I’m not looking for a Salman Rushdie, although that would not be a negative.

Stick to a word length of not less than 400 words. As I said, express yourself.

This will also give me a chance to see how creatively you can create headlines that draw attention.
Of course the topics will have to do something with

  • Content writing
  • Content marketing
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When can you start submitting posts?

Whenever you feel like.