Has your blog fallen off the map? Maybe you need a website content writer.
It’s a truth of human nature: we’re better at starting things than we are at finishing them. More often than not, a major project that starts off strong can get derailed. If this is happening to your blog, it might be a challenge to right the ship by yourself… and you may want to look for outside help from someone who specializes in writing blog posts.
Perhaps you haven’t gotten your blog off the ground at all. Perhaps you’ve had to abandon it because of more urgent demands on your time. Or perhaps you’ve slowly lost interest, watching as your rate of return diminishes for the amount of effort you put into it.
Whatever the reason, you need to get that blog back up and running.
Why Blog in the First Place?
A professional blog on your website can improve your standing with search engines, drive web traffic, improve your credibility, and increase sales.
But that blog is not nearly as effective if it’s left untended for too long.
Even when we start something with the best of intentions, it’s so easy for us to lose track of our goals amidst the constant demands for our attention.
Writing a blog for your business isn’t a simple task. It’s a long-term commitment; an operation that’s successful over the long haul, typically after many posts and many weeks of work.
So when do you know it’s time to look for help?
Sign #1: Your Blog Is Out of Date
One of the most common problems that small business owners face is a lack of time to write their blogs.
The more a business grows, the more employees, clients, and customers it typically picks up along the way. That’s a good thing! That’s exactly what you want.
But as a result, business owners often find that they don’t have the free hours available to continue a blog. Invariably, they go through a period of weeks, months, or even a year where they are burning the candle at both ends.
The problem is that no one sees any of that when they visit your website. They don’t see the long hours you put in. They don’t see all the emails you send. They don’t see the meetings with investors, the training you go through, or the strategizing you do with your staff.
All they see is a blog that’s out of date.
This is because the blog is frequently the first point of contact with new customers. Whereas word of mouth and advertising might bring some customers to your site, the blog typically brings people who don’t know anything about you yet.
That blog is the first impression.
So if the blog looks like no one is paying attention to it, it sends an unfortunate message to people who could become new customers.
At the very least, you should be adding new material every week. If you’re in a position where the blog is woefully out of date, or you’re struggling to keep up, then it’s time to look for a website content writer.
Sign #2: Your Blog Lacks Quality Writing
This is one of the more painful things to admit, but not everyone is a born writer.
In fact, most professionals aren’t even “born” writers… they only become good at their job after countless hours on a keyboard.
If your writing isn’t readable, engaging, and easy to follow, people will tune out. Your readers are going to close the tab and move on to something less difficult (and probably less helpful to them, which is a shame.)
So really do an honest assessment of the writing on the blog, and ask if it’s as good as it can be.
It’s possible that there are great ideas on the blog that simply aren’t being communicated well. Sometimes a brilliant businessperson will have a lot to say, but just won’t be sure how to say it in a way that resonates with customers.
If that’s the case in your business, then you definitely want to work with a website content writer.
Content writers work all the time from outlines, titles, or topic suggestions from business owners. A business will provide the writer with some rough notes, ideas, or bullet points. The writer can turn that into a blog post that gets the readers interested and motivated to find out more.
Sometimes, it’s best to know where your strengths are. Focus on those and delegate everything else.
Sign #3: No One Is Visiting
This can be a problem when your content isn’t search engine optimized.
A website content writer specializes in creating SEO content that integrates keywords and trending phrases. The trick, of course, is to use these phrases seamlessly, in a way that people can still read and enjoy.
When done properly, this manages to get the attention of search engines and people both.
But if your content isn’t properly optimized, then you won’t be getting the traffic you need.
There are a few potential reasons for this. You may not be using keywords at all, or you may be using some that have such a high level of difficulty that yours are getting lost in the shuffle.
When you work with a website content writer, you get the expertise needed to find the keywords that will have the maximum effect.
Sign #4: No One Is Sticking Around
Another huge potential problem: you write the articles, you post the articles, and people show up… but then they leave.
Driving traffic to your site is great. But if potential customers don’t actually do anything more than read, ultimately, that doesn’t help you very much.
This is one of the challenges a website content writer can help you overcome. Writers will work to make sure that at least some posts (if not all) include a call to action, and make a strong argument for why they should choose your service or product.
In the end, helping your conversion rates is part of the equation too. If you feel like you’ve made all the arguments you can think of, you can get a huge boost from another point of view.
Sign #5: You’re Out of Ideas
And this brings us to another very common problem: idea fatigue.
It’s incredibly common for business owners to kick off their blogs with a flurry of activity… only to let them die on the vine once they’ve run out of inspiration.
This is perhaps the biggest quality of a website content writer.
Content writers produce, no matter what. They don’t wait for inspiration. They go out and find it, and research until they have something to say.
This is not the easiest skill to develop. And if you’re not in the business of writing thousands of words a day yourself, you might not particularly feel a strong need to acquire that trait yourself.
Sign #6: Your Best Posts Are Going Unread
But perhaps you’re not entirely out of ideas. Perhaps you only have 4-5 topics you really want to cover in-depth, and you simply need more relevant content to support these “primary posts.”
Fortunately, there’s a fantastic middle ground.
Hiring a content writer to create content for you will keep your blog up to date. Customers will always encounter a post that’s new.
Meanwhile, you can still write any additional posts you want to write yourself. But with someone else keeping the blog current, you don’t have to rush your main articles. You’re free to add them on your own schedule.
Often, a blog that has a few great entries will go largely unnoticed, because it simply doesn’t get updated frequently enough. If you write only a few really great articles a year, the extra work done by a content writer will make sure that people are still finding their way to your site in order to read them.
Where to Find A Website Content Writer
When you start to look for a writer, there are a few different places you can look.
You can find talent from within your own company. This is often a great way to encourage participation, but it can just as frequently become a stumbling block.
You can also hire someone using a gig site like Fiverr or Upwork. These sites specialize in connecting you with a specific freelancer.
The downside to this is that you’re working with just one person, which will often be a risk.
Lastly, you can work with a content company like SteadyContent, which will connect you with an entire team. The company will handle everything, from the keyword research, to writing, editing, and posting.
Occasionally, a content company can be slightly more expensive than a freelancer… but that’s also because these companies have a whole machine at their disposal, and they get results.
The Complete Blog Solution: SteadyContent
If you’re interested in boosting your web traffic with reliable, quality posts, SteadyContent specializes in just that.
There’s currently a “trial offer” that will sweeten the deal: a discounted rate for the first few posts, so you can try out the service and see if it’s for you (we’re confident that after you see how easy it is, you’ll stick around for more.)
All you have to do is approve the titles, then accept the content as it comes in.
With SteadyContent, that blog won’t be empty ever again.