If you have a business on the Internet, content is key. You may be busy with other aspects of your business and don’t have time to write your own content. In addition, while you may have hired employees, you may have not specifically hired a blog or content writer. If you outsource content writing, then you should still know the important steps to writing a blog post so that your freelance writer does not fall short. Let’s take a closer look.

Citing Sources

One thing a freelance writer should do after writing content is to cite the sources, but to also use a hyperlink to do so. This allows the reader to click on the link within the blog post instead of leaving your blog to go directly to the sourced page. Citing the sources will give credibility to the blog post. Your information will be backed up by your sources and more importantly, those hyperlinks are excellent backlinks to get you higher ranking in the search engine.

Help a Reporter Out

Is your writer using HARO? HARO or “Help a Reporter Out” is a tool that permits the freelance writer to ask experts various questions about their industry. In so doing, the writer will be able to put the expert’s quote in the article. This adds a weight of credibility also to the blog post.  HARO allows the writer not only to ask questions of experts, but also with access to a large social media following, the expert may share the blog post after it goes live. The service at HARO is free and will impact your search engine optimization objectives in a positive way, adding more backlinks as well.  It may take time to send out pitches, but the results in the end are worth it.

Avoid Legal Issues

Is your freelance writer saying things that could harm your company? For example, there is a major difference between writing, “John is a thief” in comparison to ‘People have said that John is a thief” or “John is being accused of being a thief.” Your writer should ensure that the blog post is not delivering statements that could cause legal trouble for your company.

Facts and Figures

Is your writer using the right facts and figures? This is important because the blog posts should have clarity and be concise, not speaking in general terms, but being specific. This is where facts and figures come in. In other words, you should support what you say with the appropriate facts, statistics and figures. It will give your statements more believability and authority.

Conclusion

When writing a blog post, the writer also should keep conversion rate in mind. There should be an objective for the particular post, keeping the readers engaged enough to turn them into customers. The writer’s posts should be in the company’s tone. It should demonstrate that the company is an industry expert and lastly, there should always be a call to action.