Are you looking to improve your website traffic? Do you want to bring more people to your business online? E-commerce is a key component of any marketing strategy in 2021, but with so many small businesses worried about their financial future, not everyone has a huge budget for expensive ad campaigns. If you want to reach the maximum number of people without spending a fortune, the best thing you can do is hire blog writers.
Marketing During the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic
Many companies are discovering that upgrading their online presence is more crucial than ever right now, especially with so many people staying home. Maybe you already have a website that allows consumers to shop from their living rooms, but how do you get these visitors to notice you if they aren’t already loyal customers? The answer is to help new customers find you in online searches through careful use of targeted keywords and web content.
How Does Targeted Content Work?
Targeted web content contains signature phrases and “keywords” that help search engines like Google properly classify your site. The more accurately it does this, the more likely it is that Google will suggest your site to someone who is conducting a search. You almost certainly understand the importance of ranking high on Google when a search is done: the sooner your business pops up on the list, the better chance it has of getting a new visitor.
This process is called SEO or “search engine optimization,” and it’s the backbone of any online marketing strategy. In order to create this sort of targeted content, business owners generally have a number of different options available to them, but one of the most important is blog writing.
4 Ways to Find SEO Blog Writers
Assign the Blog to Someone in Your Company
This is one of the most common first steps for a small business to take. Usually, unless you are running a larger business, you don’t have a full-time position that is dedicated to managing your professional blog. The task falls to someone within the organization who may lack the expertise to apply SEO to the blog (or the enthusiasm for creating the blog).
There are a few advantages to keeping the task within the company, of course. Your employees will (hopefully) have a solid knowledge of your industry and the specifics of your company. They are also already on the payroll, which is a good way to keep costs low. The downsides are that employees may be diverted from more pressing tasks, or they may not have adequate experience with SEO. If this is the case, then your blog might not wind up actually bringing in any additional traffic, even if the content is top-quality.
Find a Freelancer
Freelance bloggers generally are individual writers who specialize in writing copy for SEO purposes. They know the basics of SEO writing, although experience and specializations will vary wildly. While you can find freelance bloggers for cheap, you may have buyer’s remorse when you see the actual results. Others will do a better job, but if you want someone who has a thorough knowledge of medical or technical topics, for instance, you can expect to pay more.
Freelancing is really a mixed bag. You can find freelancers for next to nothing on sites like Fiverr or Upwork, but there may be hidden costs that come into play after the fact. There is also a limit to what can be accomplished with a single freelancer. If you need more volume, you’ll need to hire more freelancers. It doesn’t take long before the administrative aspect of managing multiple independent writers can actually become just as time-consuming as writing the blog yourself.
Write the Blog Yourself
If you’d rather not hire blog writers at all, you can simply write the entries on your own. This is another tactic that many small business owners take, and it actually is often a workable solution, but only in the short term. This usually happens for one of two reasons.
The first has to do with company growth. In the early days of a small business, a business owner might be involved in all the small details and “chores” of the business. But as it takes off and other employees are hired, the owner needs to pay more and more attention to the “big picture” problems. The blog can often become an afterthought or just another chore, which is a shame because it can yield such an excellent return on investment.
The second reason has to do with keeping a blog fresh. At the start of writing a blog, you may be bursting with ideas. After a year of weekly posts, fresh ideas are harder to come by. A third-party blogger doesn’t just give you your time back: they also give you an added breadth of ideas that may help you connect with a wider consumer base.
Work With a Content Company
If you want to outsource your blog, you aren’t just stuck with the prospect of juggling freelancers. You can also work with a content company, which takes a holistic approach to SEO and blogs and looks at the big picture rather than just individual posts.
A content company typically works with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of writers. The disadvantage here is that you don’t know exactly what writer you’ll work with, although better content companies will often give you the option of working with a specific writer if you like their approach.
The plus side is that because a content company has more writers, you can typically get larger amounts of blog posts in much less time, and the company’s core staff will make sure that these posts are all SEO-driven and optimized for your business.
What to Look for When You Hire Blog Writers (Company or Freelance)
It’s probably not a great idea to give your company blog over to just anybody. Commercial blog writers need to have a specific set of essential skills. If any one of these is missing, the overall blog is going to be less effective as a result.
The Ability to Create and Deliver Content On Time
Google’s archiving software gives preference to newer web content. The best blogs typically update multiple times a month or even multiple times weekly. Your writer or writers should be able to keep up with whatever pace you set.
The Ability to Write Well and Professionally
There are over 152 million blogs on the internet, with a new post being published every half-second. As blogs become more and more numerous, the thing that’s going to make your blog stand out is its quality. Your writer should be someone who can engage your readers with whatever topic you pick for them to write about using proper grammar and spelling.
The Ability to Incorporate Effective SEO
The other thing that’s going to make your blog stand out is SEO. There are two big pieces to good SEO. The first is using the right keywords and phrases for proper optimization, which requires time, research, and accurate software. The second piece is writing content that uses SEO naturally. That way, your customers don’t think, “wow, this post reads like it was written by a robot.”
Your blog writer should be someone who knows SEO, but they should also know that there’s more to a blog than just picking keywords.
Knowledge of Your Industry (or the Ability to Research)
Every industry and business has its own microcosm of terminology. When you pick an SEO writer, you should make sure that you’re getting someone who has familiarity with your industry or who has the ability to research it well. Most readers will tell you they can tolerate the occasional typo, but misinformation and a writer’s lack of familiarity with a subject can cause them to lose confidence much faster than a spelling error.
The Company Advantage
If you’re looking to take your blog to the next level, the most direct way is to hire blog writers through a content company. It takes away the hassle of having to manage all of the details yourself, saving you time and freeing up both you and your staff to do other things.
Hire Blog Writers at SteadyContent
SteadyContent maintains a roster of over 500 writers, many of whom specialize in industry topics such as medical articles, automotive posts, or technical blogging. Our company has been producing high-quality, SEO-driven posts since 2010, and we have worked with hundreds of businesses around the globe. The process is streamlined for easy posting so that business owners can approve content with a minimum of fuss.
If you’re looking to boost your online profile, we’d love to work with you! We have a special trial offer right now that enables our new clients to “test drive” our content service without risk. We’re sure that once you experience our posts, you’ll want to work with us more. Contact SteadyContent today and see what a difference we can make for you!