Content is king! As clichéd as this may sound, this is particularly true when it comes to websites. The right content can help you build relationships with your customers, increase sales, and drive traffic back to your site. The findings in the 13th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends by Content Marketing Institute are indicative. The majority of marketers report achieving brand awareness (83%), credibility (77%), audience education (72%), loyalty (63%), and lead generation (67%) through content marketing. Naturally, crafting effective and compelling content takes great writers.
In this article, you’ll learn why you need to have an outstanding writer by your side and how to find the writer that your brand needs to build awareness and authority.
Let’s get started with the essential question…
Table of Contents
Why do businesses need to hire outstanding writers?
Your website and social media content can make or break the deal. This is just one of the many reasons why you should consider hiring a great writer. Here are some more:
Helps build authority
- Writing blog posts is one way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. It shows potential clients that you know what you’re talking about and gives them confidence in working with you.
- Businesses that want to stand out from the crowd need to hire a writer who can create compelling content that resonates with their audience. This builds trust and credibility, which are essential for establishing an identity in your industry.
- When potential customers see that you have an excellent grasp of your industry and know what you’re talking about, they’re more likely to consider your business as an option when they’re ready to buy.
Increases SEO visibility
High-quality content is good for search engine optimization (SEO). You may be thinking, “I don’t care about getting ranked on Google or Yahoo.” But you should care if you have a business website that’s not optimized for search engines and people can’t find it, as in this case, you’re failing to reach potential customers and make sales revenue from online leads. An outstanding writer understands perfectly well search engine algorithms and knows what and how many keywords to incorporate to ensure the appropriate keyword density and avoid keyword stuffing.
When search engines index your site, they look for keywords and phrases that are mentioned within the page’s content. The algorithms use things like readability level, length, and structure to determine which websites are going to rank better than others when someone searches for something specific.
Makes your company look professional
Your website is the first place potential customers will see when they are researching your business. The quality of the content on your site will reflect on the quality of your business, so it’s important to hire an outstanding writer who can produce high-quality content. A high-quality writer will make your company look more professional and increase trust with visitors to your site.
The requirements for the quality and quantity of content are ever-increasing
Ranking high on search engines requires creating plenty of high-quality website content. Writing large quantities of quality content, however, isn’t easy as it seems. If you want to attract more visitors and keep them engaged with your brand, then hiring a competent web copywriter is the best way to go about it. This means that you’ll have one person dedicated to ensuring diligence, consistency, and quality, which will enable you to build trust with readers so that they stay longer on your website and read more of your posts.
Human writing will always be in demand
You’re probably well aware of the breakthrough of AI content writing tools like Copy.ai, Jasper.ai, Surfer SEO, ChatGPT, etc. They’re becoming more and more popular these days. However, Google doesn’t seem to approve of AI-generated content. To comply with the Google Search Essentials spam policy, your copy should sound natural and compelling, and AI can’t do the trick as it lacks human emotions, intuition, and logic.
In addition, AI writing tools have a built-in pattern that is used to generate email, social media, and blog content. This means that AI-enabled tools can create the same or very similar content for several users at a time, which in turn means a lack of originality, creativity, and personal touch in terms of both content and style.
So, no matter how advanced AI tools get, they can’t fully oversee the strategy and take over the human agency in the writing process. That’s why hiring a great human writer will always be beneficial for your business.
What types of writing background to look for
There are multiple writing backgrounds and skill sets that writers can come with. Let’s look at the most viable options.
Creative writers
Creative writing is a broad category that comes to embrace everything from prose and fiction to nonfiction and poetry. Basically, creative writing is the art of painting and sculpting using language and written words as a medium and building blocks.
Whether you need your brand story told or your customer success voiced, a creative writer can do miracles by building the vision out of words and fleshing out the picture with as many details as needed to make it a compelling and memorable one.
Academic writers
Academic writing is a formal and objective form of writing that is used to convey study findings and ideas. It usually involves extensive research and may require knowledge beyond the basic level for a particular topic.
Academic writers are the perfect choice for industry reports, articles, and research studies that are subject-oriented and will establish you as an industry thought leader and authority.
Journalists
Journalists are trained to offer an objective account without injecting their personal opinions or being biased. They will make phone calls and interviews, digging out any new information that may be available on the topic. That makes them an excellent choice for the interviews, case studies, and news sections of your website.
Content writers
Content writers are professionals who specialize in creating relevant and engaging content for websites. They can help businesses improve their search engine rankings by ensuring that their websites contain high-quality, unique content that visitors want to read. Content writers can also help boost their social media presence by writing blog posts and other articles that will attract more followers on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Copywriters
Copywriting is the art of creating content that will appeal to readers while also serving as an effective marketing tool. Copywriters are hired by businesses that want their websites or blogs to be more popular and generate more leads.
Where to look for a great writer
Finding the right writer for your brand can be difficult, especially if you don’t know where to look. However, there are plenty of places where you can find people that have experience and expertise in writing for websites. Let’s go through your options together.
Freelance platforms
Freelance platforms are good places to start looking for writers. These sites allow you to search by location, skill level, and pricing range. The platforms allow freelancers from all over the world to bid on jobs posted by companies like yours. The advantage here is that you can get a wide range of writers at different skill levels bidding on your job, so it’s easy to find one who fits your budget. When using these platforms, make sure that you read reviews and check references before hiring someone.
Upwork
This is one of the largest freelance marketplaces in the world, with 1.5 million writers as of June 2019. It’s home to freelance writers who can help you with your content needs. Also, this is one of the most reliable platforms. It protects both you and the freelancers you work with.
You can opt for different payment arrangements – fixed per project or hourly-based. If you have a problem with the writer and the content delivered doesn’t meet the requirements agreed upon and set in your contract, you can file a dispute and have your money refunded. Also, freelancers on Upwork pay their own taxes and you don’t have to submit any forms and documents related to the taxes of the writers you’re working with.
Fiverr
As a freelance marketplace with thousands of writers available, Fiverr makes it easy to find someone in your niche and hire them to work on your website content. Seller ratings and levels indicate the most experienced and trusted writers. On this platform, you can reach out to sellers to get a link to their writing samples and portfolio.
Freelancer
This is another freelance platform where you can find a professional writer to collaborate on your website content creation. It offers a wide range of industry expertise and accommodates more than 1 million users from over 190 different countries around the world. So, you have good chances to come across the right fit.
Flexjobs
This is a freelance platform that offers flexible and remote job opportunities. Businesses can find freelance, part-time and full-time writers and journalists depending on their specific needs and writing tasks at hand.
WriterAccess
This is a platform that is particularly oriented to helping you find expert writers for your content marketing objectives. It has 15,000 selected experienced content creators. You can choose a writer across various industries, such as legal, bio/pharm, lifestyle, marketing, etc., and project types like articles, ads, emails, etc. Before you reach out to the writers, however, you need to purchase a subscription, which is the only drawback. On the other side, there’s a fourteen-day trial period, so you can try the platform and decide if it works for you.
Social networks
Another viable way to find writers is through social networks. Look at their profiles and see if they have any writing experience. If they do, ask them about their experience and what kind of writing they like doing. Many writers will have samples available on their social media accounts for you to see their work.
LinkedIn is a great place for recruiters because it’s so easy to find people based on their skill sets and interests, making it easy for recruiters like yourself to find the perfect candidates for your position opening. You can also easily see if someone has experience in writing or editing by looking at their resume or LinkedIn profile (if they have one).
Twitter and Instagram are other great places to look because it’s easy to find new talent by following hashtags related to your industry or region. For example, if you’re looking for writers based in Los Angeles, follow #LAwriters or #writersinla. This will help you find people who are already active on social media and may be interested in writing for your site or blogging regularly about topics related to your industry or niche.
Also, you can find tons of Facebook groups dedicated to content writing. These can be used for posting writing projects and attracting worthy writers. In addition, content writers and clients can meet and communicate on dedicated channels provided by platforms like Slack.
Job boards
A job board is a place where companies advertise jobs that they need to fill. You can also find freelance writers there by posting an ad as a client and allowing them to bid on the project (or contacting them directly). These sites are the obvious place to look for a writer. You can search for writers in your area, then contact them and see if they’re interested in working with you. You can see samples of the candidate’s work before hiring them.
The Peak Freelance job board, Freelance Writers Den, BloggingPro, and Contena are among the best job boards to find the writer that is best suited for your brand and needs,
How to find the best writer for your business
Irrespective of the particular place you choose to seek out the best writer for your website content, there’s always a risk of coming across a person that is not as skilled and experienced as necessary. How can you minimize the chances of such an occurrence?
Identify your needs
When hiring a freelance writer, it is essential to define your requirements clearly at the beginning.
- To do so, think about what kind of content you want the writer to craft for you.
Do you need website copy, product description, articles, or blog posts? What is their purpose? Note that if you’re looking to have your website copy and blogs created, SEO will be of ultimate importance, unlike the cases of writing your social media captions or email campaigns.
- The next questions will determine the tone and the style you’ll opt for. Who will be the audience? What kind of tone should your writer have?
- And last but not least, identify the scope of the work that you need your writer to get done. How many pieces will you need per week or per month? How long should they be? What budget can you allocate for crafting your content?
You need to ask these questions before starting the search for your writer as the answers will help determine the set of skills, experience, speed, and capacity to look for in a potential writer.
Do your research
With your specific needs in mind, the process of sourcing content writers begins. You need to do some research before you consider hiring any of the potential writers.
Find out what kind of work they’ve done in the past, what kind of clients they’ve worked with, and how much experience they have writing about your niche or industry. This will give you an idea of what kind of quality to expect from them and whether their style matches up with yours or not.
Set your criteria for shortlisting and selecting the best candidate
For example, if you need a writer who can write about finance and economics, then you should make sure that all of your candidates are qualified in this area.
If it’s not relevant to them, or they cannot provide relevant samples of work in this area, then they may not be good candidates for this job opening.
Create an effective job posting
The way you advertise your job can be vital for attracting the writers that best suit your needs. You have to provide as much information as possible to narrow down the applicants and make sure that you’ll consider relevant applications only instead of going through thousands of resumes and cover letters that are completely out of your focus.
You can go for something like the template below.
Copywriter’s job description template
Here’s a writer job posting template that can save the day and help you reach the professionals who are best suited for your needs.
We’re [company name], and we’re looking for a great writer to help us write our website content and product descriptions.
We’re a fast-growing startup that’s helping people [your company’s mission] (e.g. organize and experience their dream holiday). We’re operating globally, so we need an outstanding professional to produce hundreds of blog posts featuring [your products] (e.g. amazing places all around the world).
Our ideal candidate is someone who [your more detailed requirements] (e.g. has experience with SEO-focused writing for a variety of audiences and in different styles, a compelling storyteller, who will be able to craft our case studies and the stories of our customers’ marvelous journeys).
In this role, you will:
- Communicate with our chief editor
- Work [part-time/full-time/on-site/remotely]
- Deliver [number of articles/words] weekly
- Produce 100% original SEO content
- Have a lot of flexibility and creative freedom, etc.
If you’re that outstanding writer, we’re excited to have you on our team! To apply, please send your resume and cover letter to [email address] and provide [number] samples of your previous work.
Providing details and setting the right expectations will establish trust with your potential hire and help them know what they’re going for. Never forget to ask for a sample or portfolio that should showcase their best work. This is one of the most effective ways to get an idea of the applicant’s style of writing.
Ask the right questions
Before hiring someone, you want to know:
- What kind of experience do they have?
- How long have they been in business?
- How many clients have they worked with?
- How does the applicant approaches a given topic and what is their research and writing process (so you can see how they do things and make sure that it’ll work with your processes)
- Do they use SEO tools or keyword research tools, and how do they plan on using them on your project? (You don’t want someone who is going to write content without considering SEO factors because that type of content won’t help your rankings or bring in traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.)
- What is your applicant’s process for checking grammar, spelling, and punctuation? (These details are particularly important with longer pieces of content that might be 500 words or more (such as blog posts). A writer who checks their own work has a better chance of producing quality content than one who doesn’t check theirs before sending it off for publishing.)
- Do they have experience with guest blogging, email marketing, and other types of writing that may be necessary for growing your brand?
You can include all these questions in your job posting or bring them up in your further communication with the shortlisted candidates. Whichever of the options you choose, pay attention to the answers you get – this can save you from potential later disappointments and headaches.
Avoid choosing your writer blindfolded
When you’ve chosen the best candidates that are closest to your requirements, don’t rush the hiring process, as you may well end up with the wrong hiring decision. Instead, assign the several shortlisted applicants a test article to see how they do research and check their writing style.
Ask them to start with the outline of the future post and the main points for some extra fee. Outlines are indicative of the way a writer looks at a topic and structures their thoughts and arguments. Pick up those that are closest to your process, so you’re sure you’re on the same page and the communication will be smooth. Now, proceed with the writing out of the article itself.
When you get the test article written by all the candidates you selected for this final round, it’s the moment of making your ultimate decision. Whose voice best matches your idea of your brand voice? Whose values and way of thinking and interpreting are closest to your brand?
Use tools to check the delivered copy for plagiarism, such as Plagiarism Detector, Plagiarism Checker, and Check Plagiarism, which are free. CopyScape provides plagiarism checks and you can just put money on your balance from $10, with 3c per search of up to 200 words and 1c per extra 100 words. The results are very fast and they provide you with a lot of information about the source from which the duplicated text was taken.
Grammarly provides plagiarism checking along with checking fluency and quickly spotting mistakes, so you get an idea of the writing skills and grammar level of the candidates. Go a step further and test their editing process as well. Taking and incorporating feedback is essential for maintaining positive and productive relationships.
So, that’s how you’ve identified the best writer for your website content, and you’re ready to have your business growing and attracting new leads.
Conclusion
With the overcrowded online business landscape, creating outstanding, high-ranking content is not an option. However, finding the right writer for your website can be a daunting task. You need the perfect balance of professional expertise and personal qualities that make the best fit for you and your brand.
Following the tips above, you’ll increase your chances of recognizing and hiring the writer that will be able to craft the right SEO content for your website. This, in turn, will help your brand gain visibility, reach your potential customers, and thrive.