From Small Budgets to Booming Business

Many small business owners or entrepreneurs may find themselves intimidated by the volume of content a new site requires.

• Website Copy-writing
• Email Campaigns
• Blog Content
• Product Reviews
• Press Releases
• Newsletters

Adding more to the shortlist can become positively frightening for those who may not have the knack for creating high-quality, original content that this task requires. Many want to be sure they are getting the best possible content, and as much of it, as is possible for their money.

With that notion in mind there are some very important elements to weigh before you begin tossing your hard-earned cash around.

Website Content Requirements

All content created for your website should retain three main characteristics.

High-Quality Content

High-quality content is free of errors, provides helpful information or interaction to viewers, and answers the question the user was searching for when their search engine query located your site. High-quality content should include targeted keywords that represent your products or services, but never at the cost of the integrity of the body.

Aesthetically Pleasing

If you are unaccustomed to the required writing style for web content, it is important to know that those full-bodied paragraphs readers enjoy so much in books are a completely unwelcome sight on your web page or blog.

Website content should offer short burst of information, with subtitles, bullet points, and photographs for easy scan-ability. On average, one paragraph should contain no more than four sentences, and two hundred words of text should be broken into at least three paragraphs.

Original

Under no circumstances should you ever post or accept content that is copied from another source, and by no means are you obligated to purchase it. Good content etiquette, not to mention other potential up-linking benefits include actually citing the resources you used to create your own content, specifically in the cases of news or educational articles in which the content creator is not a bona-fide expert on.

All of the content a small business owner purchases should be filtered through an internet copy search protection website or application such as Copyscape or Dustball first.

Purchasing Content

If your business is in its early stage, you have a knack for writing, and some extra time on your hands, I’d encourage you to take a stab at building your own content, anything and everything can help. The knowledge of what is required can also be priceless in weighing the value of your content purchases against your bottom line.

However, for many small business owners, time is the one element most found lacking in their schedules. If this is the case, you will need to know how to find the best options for your web site’s content creation, without wasting too much of the second most important element of your small business, money.

Choosing the Right Freelance Writers

The freelance content creation world is rife with tricky folks who know how to make a great profile that doesn’t reflect accurately their true skills, which in some cases may be lacking. The best method for finding the right freelance writer for your business is to take the time to create an ad on the freelance or classified ad site of choice that reflects exactly what you need. State your needs and your topic clearly, and be prepared to ask for a writing sample relative to your niche and your particular content type.

The best way to measure the skill of a freelance writer is to make sure any content sample they create for you already has the top three web site content requirements included. Very few typos or small grammatical errors are a non-issue, even pro writers can have difficulty proof-reading their own work. However, jumbled off-topic content or a fluff-filled body in one huge paragraph with bad language inflection, or wording that sounds broken, are real signs of a writer of very poor quality.

There are some phenomenal freelancers waiting to be found who will happily dedicate themselves to your project, but the old adage about ‘You get what you pay for,’ will definitely apply here. To bring out the true skill of the writers you may interview, pay well for your samples.

You may certainly have some hits-and-misses; even those misjudgments will give you future wisdom. However, you will also bring out the utmost potential in the workers you are really looking for, those who can or are capable of creating high-quality, original content, reliably, for your business. You should be able to gather several samples for less than one hundred dollars and that is a phenomenally low investment for such an important element of your online presence.

A great freelance writer will also understand that the very nature of freelance writing in the online capacity is ever-changing. Additionally, each time a writer takes on a topic they are not highly familiar with, they are in essence, gaining the only education they will gather by self-driven, and self-guided research.

Content Building

Unless you find a lucky jack-of-all-trades of content creation, you will likely have to rely on a variety of different content writers who may each specialize in selected aspects of copywriting, blogging, press releases and so on. Your blogger may not always be the best writing option for your press releases.

The most important factor in building your small businesses brand awareness is getting that high-quality content directly to those viewers who are actively searching for it.  Expect to interact with your content builders often in the initial stages. Research on niche details, trends, or other imperative business building elements may always best be handled by you or your management, but keeping your content creators in-the-know is just as essential in the improvement of your web site’s content.

Sources:

Types of Web Content

High-Quality Content

The Role Of Content In Lead Quality