Four mistakes to avoid when working with your web writing partner

As an online business owner making an all-out effort to build your web presence, hiring an SEO copywriter can be a wise investment for you. But whether you’d be finding success or setting yourself up for failure hinges on your own approach towards SEO copywriting. Here are five things that can start you off on the wrong foot - and ways you can avoid them.

• Not identifying your business Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
  

What makes your business different? Why should people buy what you're selling? What special value do you offer your current and prospective clients? Don't waste your time or your SEO copywriter's by leaning on them to try to figure this out. Copywriters don't create value, they convey value through a language that engages and compels people to take interest.

• Provide sketchy details about what’s needed
  

Before you hire content writing service provider, you need to have clear guidelines for the work they need to get done. Your SEO copywriters are not mind readers. If they were, you would hire them to do that instead. Better to err on the side of information overload than find yourself disappointed because you provided inadequate information.

• Have no budget
  

Would you purchase a car without knowing how much you were willing to pay for one? How about a hi-definition TV? A house? Why should the decision to hire an SEO copywriter be any different? As cheap as possible is not a budget. $3 per blog post is not a budget. $50 per blog post is not a budget. Your budget needs to indicate what you're willing to invest in SEO copywriting. Before you even take the time to get hold of someone, you need to do your groundwork and budget for everything accordingly.

• Pay a paltry amount
  

If you pay peanuts, you're better off hiring monkeys instead of securing professional SEO copywriting services. You might be under the impression that a “500-word article” would only take an hour to be written, but realistically, it can take up to three, even four hours if you want it to say anything worth saying. Besides, you want keywords, relevant links and such. SEO copywriting is more than stringing words together or inserting keywords. It's real work that real people do, so you need to spend real money. Want original well-written content rich with keywords and strategically placed links? Well, you have to pay for it.

Conclusion

Of course, there are many more ways to get it wrong, many more oversights, errors of judgment you can make when hiring an SEO copywriter. But when you sign on an SEO copywriter, bear in mind that you're not dealing with a word machine. If you treat your SEO copywriter like a skilled professional, you are far more likely to get it right.