“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” — Malcolm Gladwell
I’ve edited about two pieces of long-form digital content a day, every day, for a decade. In this blog post, I’ll draw on that experience to unravel five content writing myths so you can make more-informed decisions about your digital marketing strategies.
If I pay more for blogs and articles, I’ll get better quality
In the content marketing world, you get what you pay for. But only up to a point. That’s the point at which the content meets your needs. If it’s clear, correct, free of errors, and fit for purpose, it’s high-quality content.
Sure, you can pay a writer or a freelance editor to further refine and improve any content that’s already high quality. But you won’t get higher-quality content. You’d get higher-grade content. Grade is not the same as quality.
A high-quality article for the web is a piece of content that meets your requirements. A higher-grade article is a piece of written content fit for another purpose, for example, publication in a top magazine or newspaper, rather than your blog. It’s unlikely that publishing an article that reads like the New York Times on your business blog will bring you extra value compared to a high-quality piece you regularly publish.
For this reason, it’s a content writing myth that paying more will get you higher-quality content. To maximize the return on your investment in content writing, aim at getting high-quality content on time, all the time.
Whether I order a dozen articles from one writer or a dozen writers doesn’t matter
Some businesses that order articles from freelance writers don’t care who creates their content. If they need 100 articles, whether they come from a single writer or 100 writers makes no difference to the client.
Of all content writing myths, believing that you cannot benefit from getting to know your freelance writers is one myth that can undermine your entire content marketing strategy.
As a freelance editor, I’ve seen how hundreds of professional writers perform when they have a one-off order vs. batch orders from the same client. Here are some of my conclusions based on this experience.
Avoid one-off orders to maximize value
If you order one-off pieces from a pool of random writers, you might not get the highest value possible. Generally, freelance content writers can’t give their best when they have a single order from one client. This is because it takes time and effort for any writer to emulate a brand’s tone and voice, and writing style. More often than not, a writer who expects to craft only one article for your business won’t have the time or incentive to fully adapt their writing style to your exact needs.
But if you or the agency you use orders more articles from the same writer—and you provide detailed feedback on each article—the freelancers will be able to tailor their writing style to your exact preferences. This means the drafts you’ll get won’t need heavy editing, revision, or rewriting.
As a result, you can keep the cost of editing low if you use the services of a freelance editor. Or, if you copyedit the articles in house, your staff will spend less time reworking the drafts.
Nurture your relationship with your freelance content writers
In addition, you can also benefit from fostering your relationship with your freelance content writers. Be their ideal client and your freelance writers will be more likely to complete the drafts and revisions on time, do more in-depth research, and request fewer deadline extensions.
The writers may also come up with ideas for new content for your digital marketing campaigns or even contribute to promoting your business. For example, I’ve seen a freelancer who writes for a major brand in IT promoting the content of that brand in the blogs he wrote for another client (with that client’s approval). Specifically, he used quotes from and hyperlinks to the content of the first brand. The two brands are not competitors, of course.
Some of the things you can do to become a professional writer’s ideal client are the following:
- pay well and on time;
- know what you want and provide clear and detailed guidelines (a style guide, too);
- don’t change the project scope during the project;
- be flexible when you can (for example, accept articles that are slightly shorter or longer than you ordered);
- avoid rush orders or absurd deadlines;
- negotiate a fixed number of revision requests with the writers and never exceed that number;
- be available to answer questions or assign a project manager for your content writing projects;
- be reasonable (asking a writer to delete an extra space takes significantly more effort than deleting that space yourself);
- have someone edit the content you get from your writers and provide feedback to them; and
- be a nice person to work with—it goes a long way toward retaining talented freelance writers.
Only someone with hands-on experience in my industry can write about it
No matter your industry, it is helpful to have your content authored by someone with expertise in your field. This is true. A content writing myth is that you need a content writer with hands-on experience in your industry niche to write an expert article on a topic in that niche.
In reality, depending on your industry and budget, it may not be easy to find industry experts who are also freelance content writers available to work for you as consultants. For example, it might be hard to find professional freelance writers who are also software developers, or engineers, or economists, just to name a few.
If you cannot find a professional writer with the experience you need, there are alternatives. First, find a few experts in your topic. Second, find a professional content writer who has written in your industry. Then, have them work together. The writer will “translate” the experts’ knowledge into written content. The experts will review and fact-check the draft. Finally, have a freelance editor finesse the draft and you’ll get your professionally written expert content.
An alternative is finding a retired professional with expertise in your field (ideally one who has an interest in writing) and ask them if they’d like to write for you to supplement their retirement income. Professional content writers aren’t born overnight. So, give your amateur writer both time and timely feedback so they can improve their content writing skills. Pair the writer with a freelance editor and have the two work together to create professional articles that meet your needs.
Professional content writers always write perfect articles that are ready to publish
Another content writing myth that will dent the effectiveness of your content marketing is that you can buy perfection.
Not even the best professional content writers can produce perfect work all the time. You may get almost perfect articles sometimes, especially if you use the services of a reliable content writing agency that employs teams of professional writers and editors to create and review the content you get. But most often you’ll get drafts that need improvement.
Many factors lead to drafts in need of editing rather than perfectly polished ready-to-publish articles. These factors include tight deadlines, confusing guidelines, hasty research, budget constraints, and being human.
Instead of claiming for perfect articles from your content writers, aim for drafts that are the best they can be given the project limitations. Then, have those drafts reviewed by a professional freelance editor. Two heads are better than one. A team of writers and editors will achieve a higher level of accuracy than a single digital content professional alone.
If you have no idea about the process of draft creation, read this excerpt from Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird.[1]
Content writing will make me a thought leader
This is another example of content writing myths that can hinder your digital marketing strategy. You might have been led to believe that all it takes to become a thought leader is publishing high-quality articles about your industry as often as possible. Greedy content marketing agencies may make this claim to get more business.
The truth is that content marketing is one thing, and thought leadership is another.
Content marketing, or “the art of selling-without-selling”,[3] aims to bring your business more clients or customers. So, publishing blog posts and articles will serve your content marketing needs.
In contrast, becoming a thought leader requires, among others, that you publish content aimed at helping you build credibility in your field, gain the trust of your peers, and become a go-to authority in your domain.
Thought leadership involves “the championing of new ideas”[2] and requires a different approach than that of your content marketing strategy. The right communication specialists will be able to devise a plan to get you closer to your thought leadership goal. But it’s a myth that publishing articles relevant to your industry will automatically make you a thought leader.
Content writing myths: Take-away
I hope that by unraveling these five content writing myths I have removed some of the barriers to the success of your content marketing. The main take-away is that you can benefit from using a team of freelance writers and freelance editors and nurturing your relationship with them.
References:
[1] Lamott, A. (2005). “Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark, 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 93–96. Available at https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf (accessed 8 December 2022). [2] McCrimmon, M. (2005). “Thought leadership: a radical departure from traditional, positional leadership”, Management Decision 43 (7/8), 1064–1070. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740510610062 [3] (2018). “The art of selling-without-selling: Understanding the genre ecologies of content marketing”, Technical Communication Quarterly 27:2, 137–160, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2018.1425483
