If your company is relying on your freelance writers to take care of your SEO strategy, you’re most likely not setting your campaign up for success. It’s important for your business to take the lead on your SEO strategy and figure out the roles different members of your team should play within your larger strategy. Within your team, how do your freelance writers fit in?
Writers Shouldn’t Determine the Strategy
Some businesses order content from a freelance writer, instructing him to find keywords and include them in the content. They might also ask for meta descriptions, social media posts and other elements without specifying requirements for those aspects. This method often won’t get you the best results.
Some writers might double as experts in SEO, but many of them focus their time and energy on writing, with a basic to intermediate knowledge of SEO on the side. If you leave the SEO strategy up to a writer without the expert knowledge, you’re not taking every measure you can to succeed.
Finding Your Leader
Your team member(s) running your strategy should have extensive knowledge and experience in the SEO field, including expertise in optimizing the website’s pages, performing off-site optimization, understanding how to structure the site and much more.
In general, your best bet is for your employees or an SEO company to run the SEO show. They know the goals of your business and have more of a vested interest in the entire SEO campaign. Your freelancer might stop taking your assignments, or you might use more than one, so leaving your strategy up to the writer of each assignment could leave you with inconsistency.
How to Include the Writer in Your Team
Your writer can add keywords to content, and create meta titles and descriptions. She can formulate social media posts and different types of quality content, including articles, landing pages and blog posts. Many freelancers are looking for long-term client relationships, so you can work with one writer who will get to know your company’s voice and direction. Depending on how much content you need, you could hire a few writers to gain different voices and takes on topics.
The best way to include a freelance writer in your SEO team is to specify exactly what you need from him for each written assignment. Most content writers have general knowledge of SEO, so they can handle including these techniques in assignments. But you will get the best results from the writer if you specify instructions such as the keywords you want them to use, the keyword density, whether they can use stop words and the meta description requirements.
Sharon T is a freelance writer with an interest in Internet marketing. For her, writing always comes first, and she sees SEO as writing’s little sibling — important but second in line.
