Blog Writer

Blogging is quickly becoming a popular means for businesses to market their goods or services. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a blog is a type of website or part of a website that provides content written in an informal style, often used by a person to talk about their interests.

Although blogging was originally designed to be used as a digital form of journalling, many marketers and business owners soon realized the value of creating engaging content in blog posts for inbound marketing.

Blog writing is the process of creating content for blogs to capture attention, inspire conversation, and influence buying habits. A blog can function as a marketing tool for promoting products, services, and companies.

Marketing subject matter experts know that blog content, particularly high-quality content, has a proven track record for getting search engines to notice a company’s site. Many content marketing strategies rely on short blog posts and long-form content to drive traffic to a website and establish a business as a thought leader within its industry.

Here are some of the benefits of blog content creation for small businesses and established companies alike.

• Blog posts help establish a business as an industry expert and forms credibility and trust.
• Blog content can be shared extensively across social media networks, driving more visibility to the brand.
• Dynamic website copy from a blog is excellent for SEO because it helps your site get higher placement in organic search results, driving traffic to your company site.
• Great content from your blog helps nurture your audience and turn them into warm leads.

Blog writers are necessary to create fresh content for your blog in a timely manner. Unfortunately, hiring blog writers to work for your company full-time isn’t always practical or even possible. Expert blog writers charge a hefty rate to create content, and blog writing services don’t come cheap either. An agency that offers a blog writing service also doesn’t generally accept smaller jobs, so you will have to sign a big contract to hire a top agency for a blog writing service.

For a startup or small business owners who want to hire top blog writers or bigger companies looking to build a solid team of professional blog writers, hiring freelance writers or blog writer virtual assistants is an excellent alternative to hiring full-time writers.

A blog writer virtual assistant (VA) is a contractor that works remotely to provide a blog writing service for your company. Because they work independently from your company, freelance writers or blog writing VAs typically cost less than hiring full-time content writing staff. Working with a virtual assistant means that you don’t have to hire someone full-time, allowing you to save money on overhead expenses while still getting expert blog writers on your team.

Exactly what does a blog writer do? Of course, it’s a given that blog writers can write a blog post or several blog posts for your company. But what does blog writing entail? And can freelancers blog writers or freelance content writers do other content writing tasks for you?

Here are some common content services and tasks that you might see on the job description of the blog writers.

Article Writing

Article writing pertains not just to blog post writing but to other types of articles as well. These include press releases, guest post articles, news articles, and product reviews.

Slide Deck Presentations

A blog writer can help you create slide deck presentations for an upcoming webinar or tradeshow. For example, a blog writer can work with the graphics team on your marketing team to write a presentation using PowerPoint software.

Ad Copy

The best copywriters understand how to craft ad copy and sales copy in addition to blog writing and SEO articles. A blog writer VA can help you create ads for social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to boost your content marketing strategy’s paid aspect.

Social Media Content

The best blog writers can help you write educational and promotional social media posts for your business. Social media writers can provide your social media manager with pre-written content such as tweets, posts, and status updates designed to get attention and engage potential customers.

Sales and Marketing Copy

Need someone to write content for flyers, brochures, billboards, and other marketing material? A VA that offers a blog writing service can also work on these content marketing tasks.

White Papers and eBooks

White papers are longer forms of content, typically 10-20 pages long, designed to provide valuable information to specific buyers. A blog writer can help you create these to use as lead magnets or gated content for your marketing campaigns.

Video Scripts

A video script is another form of written content. A blog writer can help you write scripts for YouTube videos, Facebook Live, or other types of social media content.

Hiring top blog writers to write blog posts for your site can be challenging. That’s why you need to know what skills and attributes good content writers need to have. To help you find the best writer to join your team, here are a few things you need to keep in mind.

Mastery of the written word

Although it goes without saying, it’s still worth noting that any content writing VA you hire must have top-notch written communication skills. Not only should they have impeccable grammar, but they should also know how to change their writing style to adapt to the type of content they’re working on.

Ability to meet tight deadlines

Content writers are used to strict deadlines, and they should be able to meet any deadline you set most, if not all, of the time. Content writers don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike; they must be able to produce quality content for their clients on time, all the time.

Basic SEO knowledge

Basic knowledge of SEO tactics, including keyword research and backlinking, is incredibly useful for any blog writing professional. After all, great content isn’t just well-researched and well-written; it’s supposed to drive traffic to company blogs as well.

Subject matter expertise

Subject matter expertise is not necessarily a must-have for freelance blog writers, but it certainly helps. Even if the freelance writers you’re considering aren’t necessarily experts in your particular niche, it would be useful to hire an experienced freelance writer who has done some work on similar topics.

Excellent research skills

Hiring someone with a background in writing quality content for your particular audience is great, but finding blog writers with experience in specific industries can be challenging. That’s why freelance writers need to have exceptional research skills.

Proofreading and editing skills

These are some of the most important skills that a freelance writer should have. Content writers don’t just write blog posts; they need to ensure that all their content is free from grammatical and spelling errors, and they also need to make sure that every piece of information in their articles is accurate and easy to understand at a glance.

Integrity

Because there’s so much content on the Internet, some writers try to take shortcuts when it comes to content writing. This can mean anything from content spinning to straight-up plagiarism. To avoid duplicate blog posts or having spun, pre-written blog content on your site, make sure to find content writers with integrity, so you’re guaranteed to have original content for every single blog post published on your company site.

There are many different ways to find freelance writers specializing in content creation and blog content in particular. You can post job ads on job boards, scour freelancer websites for freelancers specializing in content creating or content marketing, or check out social media groups for writers looking for a steady flow of content creation and blog posts writing gigs.

However, all these methods mentioned above can be very time-consuming. If you’re not used to screening writers and content marketing professionals, you might also find it difficult to find the right person for the job.

If you want the easiest, most convenient way to find blog writers or content marketing VAs, it’s best to go with a trusted virtual staffing agency like 20four7VA.  We have content writing VAs who specialize in blog posts for all kinds of industries, so you can rest easy knowing that your company’s blogs are in good hands.

20four7VA is a trusted virtual staffing agency dedicated to connecting talented writers with industry-leading brands. We help brands work with freelancers in the Philippines and across the globe to help them meet their talent acquisition needs. With over ten years of experience in the staffing industry, 20four7VA is more than capable of helping you build a team of competent writers that can provide your business with blog content and marketing copy that will keep your audience coming back for more.