Considerations for Contributors
If you’re running a small business and need content marketing as part of your digital marketing strategy, it can be challenging to find either the time or resources. Content is a major ingredient to SEO; consistent publishing of high-quality web pages or blog posts will attract potential customers. If you have the time and talent to write, fabulous. If not, we have a few suggestions on finding a ghostwriter or contributing blog author.
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Qualities To Look For In A Blog Author
The following highlights the six most important we look for when hiring a ghostwriter or contributing blog author. No doubt there are more but let’s keep it simple.
Organizational Skills – A large part of creating blog content is planning. What topics when? How often? What happens if they take a week off? Forward thinking and clear planning help you keep a blog on track. This is especially important if the person isn’t a dedicated internal resource or is a contractor, as they’ll be juggling other client work.
Enjoys Writing – This is a big one. The person who writes your blog will hopefully be doing it regularly. So they need to enjoy doing it. If they begrudge writing it, or it takes a really long time, then their standards will slip or it will interfere with the rest of their work. Plus, your readers will know.
Understands Storytelling – The best content is well written and draws your audience in. There’s so much drivel on the Web and you don’t want to add to it. Organic search is all about searchers asking questions. There’s an art to answering those questions in an interesting and compelling way. If your content is too salesy or too dry, then your engagement statistics will suffer.
Appreciates Good Spelling & Grammar – Blog posts riddled with spelling and grammar errors reflect upon your brand. There are several tools (like Grammarly) that find and fix misspellings, dangling participles, and missing Oxford commas. Make sure your contributing blog author or ghostwriter has a solid understanding of spelling and grammar rules or uses such a tool. Regardless of the blog topic or type of audience, your content needs to be organized, clear to understand, and visually appealing.
Some Industry Knowledge Backed By Facts – Well researched content is often done by subject matter experts (SME). However, SEMS are not always the ones with the time to write. Or, they offer great technical information but their writing is dull. So a compromise needs to be found. Find a contributing blog author or ghostwriter that has at least some industry knowledge. Or, find a writer that’s able to sift through an SME’s first draft and then craft a piece that readers want to read and share. Otherwise, your customers will see through it.
A Social Person – Blogging, in general, is a social activity. And if you’re doing it well, it can become interactive. Blogging isn’t just about writing the post, but sharing it and engaging with any comments you receive. A good blog author builds a community around the topics they talk about.
Stamina – Writing one blog once in a while is one thing. But writing regularly is different. It requires a different state of mind. When inspiration hits you it’s easy to write, but when you have to write for a deadline it’s much tougher. It’s easy for a “creative” writer to get burnt out, so don’t worry about finding an author who’s always having crazy out-of-the-box ideas. You need someone with staying power.
All of the above seven traits are usually found in a great blog author. Do you have a seventh to add?
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Photo credit – Top: Blue Diamond Gallery
Photo credit – Bottom: Nogran SRO
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