Money is the biggest motivator to most writers, but it isn’t the only one. There is an enormous demand for good writers. Many professional content writers work for multiple companies to keep their work steady in pay and varied in topics. If you find that your writers aren’t getting all of your work turned in, or it’s coming in slowly, there are things you can do to keep them motivated to spend more time on your content and less time on your competitors’.
The Choice of Titles
There are companies that assign titles and companies that allow you to look at the list of titles available and choose the ones you want. Guess which one writers would rather work for? I no longer work for any company that still assigns titles, but there are people who keep those companies as backups when times are slow. If times aren’t slow and your company is a backup, guess who will have writers not requesting new titles?
Even better than placing titles up for grabs is to put a topic up for grabs and to allow your writers to choose their own title that pertains to that topic. This can get the creative juices flowing for writers who see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of available titles per day from multiple companies.
Vary Your Topics
Some companies need content that pertains to specific topics every month with no real variation of those topics. Writing about the same things month after month can get way more than boring. It can make you question what you’re doing with your life. Maybe I should have gotten that marketing minor my mom suggested. Maybe I should have moved to a larger city when I had the chance.
Monotony is the opposite of creativity. It provides very little motivation, and it means that writers will jump at the chance to write for another company that isn’t asking them to write about plumbing for the seventh straight month.
If you have no choice but to present the same topics over and over again, there are ways to make them more interesting over time. One month could have a humorous plumbing theme. One month could allow essays as well as articles about plumbing.
Creating the Right Environment
Professional content writers work hard every working day. They come up with ideas, do the research, write, rewrite and edit their work for flow and typos. They are often required to use one or more keywords naturally in the copy and to add links when needed. It’s a tough job, and it’s made far tougher when an editor comes along and picks apart the work for subjective reasons.
There are some companies that create a poor working environment by pitting writers and editors against each other. With too little guidance given to both writers and editors, this can easily happen. Editors and writers should be working together to create content that will benefit the company rather than battling each other for dominance. Having clear writing and editing guidelines, and making sure that everyone has read them, can help create a better environment for everyone and a better end result.
Lizz S is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
