Posts tagged writing

The quality of your web content is critical if you really want to build your brands online and increase your web presence.

It’s vital that you provide quality content not only on your website but everywhere else you communicate online as well, such as article directories, press release sites or your email marketing efforts. Great content helps you achieve the two most important goals of your online marketing – increased sales conversions, and revenue online, and also creating future sales opportunities in the form of better SEO rankings for your website.

If you can’t provide the content that your target audience is looking for on your website, you should get someone to write it for you. Publishing often is a key to higher SEO rankings, as the search engines like Google LOVE frequently updated sites, it shows them that someone is actively managing your site and continuously communicating with your web visitors.

Here are some tips you should consider when looking to hire a content provider:

1. References

A reference refers to a personal testimony from a former or current client or a co-worker regarding your prospective contractor’s performance, attitude and work ethic. References can be included on an individual’s resume, on their business profile, or provided upon request. You need to contact those references in order to learn the background of your potential writer.

2. Writing Samples

Ask your potential ghostwriter to send you a few writing samples so that you can determine their writing ability and style. They need not be proficient in your niche (though it can be a big plus if they have some prior knowledge about it.) What you should consider most important is the writer’s overall ability to give your website a personality and character that your readers will love and relate to.

3. Search Engine Optimization

You must be absolutely sure your prospective writer is familiar with SEO. This is critical, since their written articles and webpages must get noticed by the search engines to have the most value. You should ask them to explain what they know about SEO, since their understanding of it may include mistakes such as spamming their articles with keywords.

4. Keep an eye for small details

Before you select a web content writer to interview, there will always be some exchange of communication between the two of you. Read messages carefully, and try to spot any mistakes in grammar or spelling. Simple typos are common and understandable, but poor writing is something that you should never consider when hiring a writer to represent and build your brand online. Ask the question: Would I be proud to have this quality of writing attached to my business, my brand, my product or service?

5. State the rules

As the paying customer, you have to state your policies regarding deadlines, quality, quotas or rewrites and edits, just in case you’re not satisfied with the work delivered. You should also specify any documents such as non-compete clauses or confidentiality agreements that must be signed before any work can start.

The mission of Hat Trick Associates is to provide one-source online marketing and consulting services to small and medium-sized business owners. We provide the expertise and resources of a large, nationwide marketing agency, with the responsiveness and flexibility that you would expect from a small, nimble team such as ours. “Big agency” results without the big agency price, we can handle all of your web and social content writing, SEO, graphic design, website programming and email marketing needs, among a number of other specialties. If it’s web, we can help. And our goal is to be as seamless and easy to work with as humanly possible, so you can spend your time doing what you do best – running your business. Take just a moment and contact our team if that sounds like something you might be interested in taking advantage of, and let’s get the conversation started today.