5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Content Writer
--
Great content leads to increased sales. It’s as simple as that.
And just to be clear, content is not the only thing responsible for an increase in sales. But if everything else is done perfectly, without great content, you will still struggle.
It’s not easy to write though. Great content requires expertise, research, and time, a lot of time. You need people for this, and hiring someone in-house is often too expensive.
So what is your next best bet?
Obviously, hiring a freelance content writer.
And as much as content writers are now all over the internet. There are numerous agencies, freelancers, and other platforms where you can buy content for your website. Small businesses still struggle with the idea of outsourcing their website content.
Sometimes, business owners think they should do all the writing because they are the experts in their field, and sometimes they think writing is a skill almost anyone can do, and content writers can’t really do anything they can’t.
Both points are wrong.
Let me elaborate.
1. Content Writers Give Value to Your Audience
Writing is a skill, and like any skill, it can be improved. Expert writers have years of writing experience. This means they write better than the average business owner.
However, content writing is often a different skill. It includes marketing and a creative flair.
Content writers know how to attract your audience with optimized headlines and catchy introductions.
Once your readers are hooked and they start reading your posts, you have to keep them there. It is difficult reeling your target audience to your website, but keeping them there is magic.
This is where value comes in.
Exactly because you are an expert in your field, you understand your customers. If I asked you who is your perfect client, you could probably describe him so closely I could draw a portrait. You know who they are and what they need.
What you need then is someone to act as a bridge. A bridge between your expertise and your audience’s values. A content writer that understands, entrepreneurs know so much they forget how to present their product to an audience that knows nothing about it.
Content writers can write in a way that is valuable to your audience in a tone and language familiar to them.
Let me give you an example.
You want to sell a product that increases a team’s productivity. Something like a to-do list or a task tracker. It has everything for a team to work effectively together and everything for a manager or team leader to effectively supervise.
You could approach content writing from a managerial angle. Giving them solutions to problems like team management, keeping track of the changes, tasks, and payments.
But you could also approach from the employees' side, giving solutions to the everyday struggles of working in a team.
You are writing about the same product, for the same team, but for different people at different positions. So, your approach has to change accordingly. You won’t address the same problems or use the same language.
See? Just get yourself a content writer.
2. Creating Content Your Audience Needs Inspires Trust
Content leads to trust, trust creates relationships, and relationships increase sales.
You need your audience to trust you. They need to believe in your brand. How do you do this?
You show them you care about their problems.
You give them solutions to their problems.
Here is one problem with today’s badly planned marketing strategies. Customers can see through them. They are bored easily and at the slightest hint of untruthfulness, they leave.
They need social proof.
You need your audience to trust you and the only way to do this is to truly give them value. And keep giving them value until they become your never-leaving customers.
3. Build Relationships With Your Target Audience
You are the expert in your field, there is no doubt about that. You know your audience’s needs. So now, you need someone to present content in a way that makes it valuable to them.
Many business owners fall into the trap, that because they know their audience they know how to write for them. That is rarely true.
A great content writer can analyze your audience’s content online and present your ideas in a way valuable to them much better than a business owner.
Why? Because they are experts at understanding and giving value, they know how to break down all the problems into easily digestible solutions. They know the average reader’s span is around eight seconds.
Writers understand content shouldn’t be pushy or salesy, it should address real problems and provide real solutions. And they present it in a way that the reader thinks:
Oh, I can’t miss that!
The only way to build meaningful relationships with your customers is to give them value, educational, inspirational, or entertaining. And to keep your word, to keep giving them exactly what they need, always.
4. Great Content Improves Your Website’s Rank
Backlinko says the first Google result gets 31.7% of clicks. And results on the second page get only 0.78%!
The difference between the first result and the second page is insane.
Here’s a bit more reading for you. Neil Patel’s post on how to improve your Google ranking without getting penalized (yes, that’s a thing and it’s scary). You will notice steps seven and eight say:
Perfect your on-page SEO
Use your keywords to create great content
Unless you have the skills and the time to do both I would highly advise you to find someone else. Because only these two steps are already a lot of work. Without going into diagnostics and tracking metrics, keyword research and writing alone take huge amounts of time.
But, if done well, the reward is worth it.
If you find a great content writer that can do all of the stuff above and you give him or her (or them), enough time to do their magic, you will see traffic coming to your website.
But if you give them just a bit more time, if you wait just a bit longer, that traffic will turn into long-term customers and your sales will go up irreversibly.
5. Content Writers Save You Time or Money, or Both
I am sure this one doesn’t require a lot of explanation.
Entrepreneurs have their hands full. Actually, having their hands full is probably an understatement.
Small business owners looking to succeed usually carry the workload equivalent to two grocery bags in each hand and a backpack full of food while balancing a full Zulu basket on their heads.
It’s impossible they have time to write content and write it well.
But there is another, equally important reason.
When business owners think they can write content but don’t have the time to do it properly, they write bad content.
It is better to have nothing than to write something full of plagiarism, lacks flow, and contains grammar or syntax issues.
Content writing requires research about the industry, products, audience, keywords, and then writing and editing. If you skip steps and write just for the sake of having content, it could seriously hurt your SEO.
Then you will have wasted your time, and you will spend more for someone to fix everything.
If you waste time, you lose time you could be working, creating ideas, or investing.
You lose money.
