Creating regular content such as a blog is a valuable practice that can help companies connect with the audience. Content marketing is a proven strategy for building awareness, establishing credibility and authority, and driving traffic to your company website that can lead to potential sales.

But producing high-quality, engaging content that speaks to the needs and interests of your target audience isn’t always easy to do, especially with start-ups and smaller businesses that may not have the capacity to do so. You can choose to hire an in-house writer and exert extra effort to train and manage them, but other times, hiring a freelance writer is the better decision, so you can focus on your business instead of worrying about another headcount.

Here are qualities you may want to look for when hiring freelance writers:

Talent Writing skills aren’t just about being able to put words together fluently. An important quality to look for when hiring freelance writers is their ability to translate your objectives to clear, concise, engaging, and unique content. The last one is imperative to your success in finding a good writer because digital media is saturated. If you aren’t producing good content that is both helpful to users and adheres to the rules of SEO algorithms, then you are just adding to the clutter online.

Expertise A writer with expertise in the subject matter you need content for is easier to work with. A deep understanding of your industry or niche can produce insightful and valuable content.

Experience Writers who have more experience typically know the questions they need to ask you to get the right information to understand your business and your objectives. This makes it easy to collaborate as you’re dealing with someone who knows how to extract information from your narratives and ask questions that help them get answers to craft your content.

Attention to detail The last thing you want is for a writer not to check if his works are factual or deliver content that is full of grammatical errors. Freelance writers who are attentive to details are for keeps, so you don’t need to worry if any of the content you publish on your business’ website emanates credibility and is error-free.

Research skills Conducting research and gathering information on a wide range of topics is what everyone expects of a quality writer. This includes finding credible sources, synthesizing information, and being able to create new perspectives from the amount of information already available online.

SEO knowledge In today’s times, content optimized for search engines is extremely important to get your business in front of the right audience. Good understanding of SEO should be automatic in any digital piece you need. On-page SEO, or search engine optimization found on your website and within your control, should include the following.

• Writing for humans: Many try to cheat search engine algorithms to rank higher. Sometimes, content is written for search engines instead of helping people organically. With the recent Helpful Content update in August 2022, Google is focusing on people-first content that rewards contents that are actually helpful to visitors. Creating content that focuses on what your audience wants to read rather than gaming the search engine system is important so users can find your business organically through search engines.

• Creating original content: Having duplicated or plagiarized content will only do your business harm because search engines dislike writing that is already elsewhere. Having original content that helps your users is much more beneficial.

• Including semantically related phrases: synonyms and similar phrases, as long as used in the right context instead of s fluff, can be good for SEO. Having keyword-optimized meta titles and descriptions: Meta titles and descriptions appear on SERP and provide concise information regarding a specific topic to encourage users to click through. However, the keywords used and sentence structure must be done in a way that benefits your business.

• Having relevant internal and external backlinking: Linking to relevant content within your own website and using the appropriate anchor text helps with SEO. And so does linking content from external, authoritative sources can help you expand the writing and increase your domain authority—the ranking score that predicts how likely your website is to rank in the search engine results page (SERP). Words used for the link anchor text must also be of relevant keywords to contextualize the destination content of your hyperlink.

• Writing descriptive, relevant titles and headings: Each of the content you produce must have descriptive and relevant titles and headings regardless of length. This aids in SEO as well as tell to your readers exactly what to expect with your content.

• Writing valuable content of appropriate length: Search engines prefer longer content as it typically provides better value that helps readers. Depending on the type of content you are aiming for, standard blog posts and articles are best written with at least 1,000 words.

Reliability Consistent, high-quality work is an essential quality of a good freelance writer. Look for a writer who has an excellent track record of being dependable—meeting deadlines, being communicative, or producing good results regularly.

Professionalism When looking for a freelance writer for your business, professionalism is also crucial, especially as you are likely to only ever meet them virtually. Being able to meet deadlines, responding promptly to emails, and being easy to work with are some good qualities to have for writers you hire remotely.

Communication skills Another quality a good freelance writer should have is excellent communication skills, including the ability to understand and follow briefs and instructions, respond and act on feedback, and keep you informed about the progress of work without the need for follow-ups.

Adaptability A great freelance writer is adaptable to your business needs, such as adjusting their writing style to suit your brand voice and adhering to writing guidelines.

Time management skills Freelance writers should be able to manage their time effectively and efficiently. They are expected to have multiple clients due to the nature of freelancing, so how they manage their time is crucial to make sure your content isn’t delayed and you aren’t met with excuses.

Freelance content writer for hire

I’m Azelle, and the short version is: I’m a freelance writer for hire.

When looking for a writer, it’s important that you can let go and focus on growing your business. Each of the items mentioned above are things that I automatically apply to the services I offer. With 10 years of content writing and copywriting experience, I know what your business needs to help you connect with your audience through informative, engaging content that establishes your authority in the space.

Find out more about what I can offer here. Or you can schedule a discovery call.