Freelance Blog Writer

Creating a company blog has been one of the most popular inbound marketing strategies for the past few years. A blog is an excellent way to have your website rank high on Google search, and when your website ranks high, you attract more prospective clients. But, creating a blog is only half the battle — you also need high-quality content. And who’s going to write your blog?

Many startup business owners start with a sort of personal blog where they write about company updates and their thoughts on various topics related to their product, niche, or industry. While this is a great way to start, sooner or later you’ll need to hire a freelance blogger to help create content for your blog.

There are a few reasons you may want to consider hiring freelance writers for blog content creation. First, it can be difficult to find the time to write high-quality blog posts on a regular basis. A freelance blogger can help you by writing posts on a schedule that works for you.

Second, quality content is essential for attracting website visitors and growing your business, but there can be some difficulty finding a blog post idea that isn’t too complicated or boring. Freelance writers can help you with that by taking the burden off you and crafting interesting posts for visitors to read.

If you’re considering hiring freelance writers for your company blog, here are four important tips to keep in mind:

1. Know what you want. Before you start interviewing freelance writers, take some time to think about the topics you want them to write about, as well as the tone and style of your blog. This will help you find a writer who is a good fit for your blog.
2. Do your research. You don’t want to simply hire the first writer you find who seems like a good fit for your blog. Instead, take some time to research potential freelance writers by reading their posts and checking out other blogs that they’ve written for. This will help you determine which freelance blog writers are truly a good match for your company blog.
3. Be clear about your budget. It’s important to be upfront with potential freelance writers about your budget and what you can afford to pay them. This will help you find a writer willing to work within your budget and give you high-quality content. Take note that even though there are always new freelance writers to hire, the number of freelance writing jobs is also steadily increasing. That’s why a freelance writing career is very attractive to many blog writers these days. Don’t be disappointed if only a few freelance writers are willing to take your offer.

4. Set deadlines. One of the benefits of hiring a freelance blogger is that they can help you keep to a schedule for publishing blog posts. However, it’s important to set deadlines for them and make sure that they are clear about what is expected of them.

Many business owners are familiar with freelance writing services, but the number of people who have heard of blog writing virtual assistants (VAs) is fewer.

Exactly what is the difference between a freelance writer and a writer VA? The main difference between freelance writers and blog writing VAs is that a freelance writer typically works solo, while a writer VA is usually hired through a virtual staffing agency such as 20four7VA. Both of them can definitely take on freelance writing jobs, and they offer the same level of flexibility for you in terms of how many hours they work for you and their schedule.

When you hire a freelance writer, you will typically deal with the writer themselves; there’s no middleman. Meanwhile, if you get your blog writing services from a blog writing VA, you will be assisted by the virtual assistant agency with various aspects such as communication with the VA, training, payroll, IT support, and so on.

This goes both ways. Your VA will also get assistance from the virtual staffing agency with whatever they need professionally. This gives both the client and the VA a certain level of assurance about their professional relationship.

Writing a blog post is definitely the main task you’re going to outsource to freelance writing professionals, but are there other tasks you can give them? Here are some freelance writing tasks you can outsource to a blog writing or content writing virtual assistant.

Researching topics for blog posts

Thinking of interesting topics to write about is a major challenge. You have to really spend time studying trends in your industry to make sure that you put out engaging content that will resonate with your audience and improve your online presence. Blog writers can help you research potential topics for your future blog posts and monitor competitor blogs to ensure that your content is always compelling.

Proofreading and editing blog posts

If you love writing and have time to write your blog posts yourself, you can still hire a blog writing VA to proofread or edit the blog posts you’ve written. This will help ensure that your blog posts are free from grammatical and typographical errors and that the overall tone and content are on point.

Writing guest posts for other people’s blogs

Publishing your content on guest blogs is a great way to improve your blog’s reach and get in front of new audiences. However, writing a guest post for another person’s blog can be a lot of work. That’s where a freelance blog writer can help. They can write guest posts for you and send them to you for approval before submitting them to the other blog.

Writing social media posts to promote blog content

If you’re looking for a freelance writer who can help you develop social media posts, you’re in luck. A blog writing VA can help promote your blog posts by writing social media posts for them. They can also help develop ideas for social media posts that will help increase traffic to your blog.

Developing a content strategy

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the task of creating new content for your blog, you can outsource the development of a content strategy to a freelance writer. They can help come up with a plan for developing engaging content that will help you promote your blog and improve your online presence.

Updating your editorial calendar and scheduling blog posts for publication

If you’re not sure how to go about creating an editorial calendar, a blog writing VA can help. They can also help you schedule your blog posts for publication and ensure that your blog is always up-to-date with fresh content.

Doing keyword research

If you happen to find blog writers who also have SEO knowledge, they can help you do keyword research for your blog posts. This will help you identify keywords that you can target to improve your blog’s search engine ranking.

Monitoring the performance of your blog

You can also find a blog writer who can monitor the performance of your blog. They will keep track of things like the number of visitors to your blog, keywords used to find your blog, and traffic sources they are coming from.

Creating other types of content for your website

Your website has other pages aside from your blog. You have your home page, sales pages or product pages, a page about your company, and so on. Your blog writing VA can also create web content for these various pages.

Hiring a freelance blog writer can be a great way to produce high-quality content for your website without having to spend a lot of time doing the research and writing yourself. By outsourcing these tasks, you can focus on other aspects of your business while still maintaining a blog full of engaging and well-written content.

To find the best freelance writer or content writing VA, it’s important to know what skills you need to look for.

Stellar Writing Skills

The first thing you need to check when hiring a blog writing VA is their writing skills. Do they have a strong command of the English language? Can they write engaging and interesting blog posts that will capture your audience’s attention? Can they explain the topic well? Does their writing style match your company branding?

Aside from checking out the resume of each freelance writer, you should also check out their freelance writing work. Feel free to ask them for their portfolio to check their writing style.

Knowledge of SEO

In order to help you rank higher in search engine results, your VA should have knowledge of SEO. They should know how to target keywords effectively and use them in your blog posts. They should also be able to link your blog posts to each other and build backlinks when necessary.

Experience in Content Marketing

Blog writing VAs need to have past experience with content marketing in order for them to help you develop strategies that will improve the performance of your blog. You should look for writers who can help you come up with social media posts, infographics, eBooks, and other types of content that will help promote your blog.

Solid Grammar Skills

Your VA should also have solid grammar skills. This is important because you don’t want to publish blog posts with mistakes that will reflect poorly on your company. Of course, it’s perfectly alright if you don’t hire a native English speaker. Many freelance writers are from other countries and have their own native language but are very proficient in the English language.

You can hire a blog post writer from freelance job boards, social media, or by posting a job ad on a freelance marketplace. There are plenty of popular sites out there where you can post a freelance writing job targeting anyone looking for a writing gig.

Unfortunately, posting job ads on a free job board or creating a freelance writing job opening on a freelance marketplace will require you to do so much of the legwork yourself. For instance, if you post freelance writing jobs on job boards, you will have to screen the freelance writer applications you receive by yourself. Your job ad will also have to compete with the high-paying clients who frequently populate these job boards with multiple freelance writing jobs. While other freelance writers are open to working for smaller companies, many still prefer to take on freelance writing jobs from known good clients. Furthermore, many job boards and freelance marketplaces are not totally free; many have hidden charges that you will only discover after hiring a blog writing VA from them.

One excellent alternative to job boards and freelance marketplaces is working with a virtual staffing agency. A reputable virtual staffing agency not only pre-screens blog writing VAs before sending them over to you, but also help set up the rest of the hiring and onboarding process.

At 20four7VA, we send freelance writing VA candidate profiles to our potential clients for free; you only pay after you hire your freelance writing VA. We also have a dedicated customer support office for each client and VA pairing, so it’s easy to stay in the loop and get assistance at all times.

For more information about hiring freelance writers, or to find out how we can help you hire a virtual staffing agency blog writing VA, schedule a free consultation with one of our Business Growth Specialists today.