Words are powerful in business. They can attract new customers, sell products, and build brand loyalty. They can also help search engines get your website in front of the right people through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is a long-term marketing strategy and you need to be consistent with content marketing to target the right keywords and build up your site’s authority over time. That can be a challenge if you’re busy with other tasks or you don’t know enough about SEO and content marketing to create effective, targeted content that ranks.
One solution to this problem is to hire an SEO ghostwriter to help you build your site’s authority and rankings. But is hiring a ghostwriter the right move for your business? It’s important to consider the pros and cons before moving forward.
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The Role of an SEO Ghostwriter
SEO is an important marketing tool for every business, big or small. While recommended SEO tactics are a bit different for small businesses vs. large corporations, it’s still one of the most important ways to bring in high-quality traffic, regardless of a company’s size. The catch is that SEO requires some work and patience in order to see results.
Unlike digital advertising, SEO is a form of organic marketing, which means you do not pay any fees to have your website appear in online search results. However, creating SEO content does require an investment of either time from an existing team member, or money to pay an SEO ghostwriter.
The role of an SEO ghostwriter is simple: they can optimize your website copy to make it search-engine friendly and create high-quality content (such as articles or blog posts) that helps your site to rank in search engine results. Some SEO ghostwriters also do keyword research, to help you find the best terms for attracting high-quality traffic.
A ghostwriter is anonymous. They do not expect a byline and agree that you can put any name you want on their work. While some people have moral concerns about ghostwriting, it is an accepted practice that can be used ethically in many situations.
Save Time by Hiring a Ghostwriter
Hiring a ghostwriter can be a huge time-saver. Writing a long-form article that’s optimized for search engines is time-consuming, even with new tools like AI writing assistants. By outsourcing your content creation, you can free up hours every month (or even every week) that you’d be devoting to content marketing.
Even if you have someone on your team writing your SEO content, that’s still time that they could be spending on other tasks. Sometimes, it’s more cost-effective to hire a ghostwriter than it is to keep your content marketing in-house.
Bring in an Expert to Boost Your Results
No one can be an expert in anything. Although entrepreneurs have to wear many hats while they work to get their businesses up and running, that doesn’t mean the founder should be doing everything forever. Eventually, it makes sense to outsource some tasks to people with specialized experience.
Just about everyone can write. However, SEO writing requires more than basic literacy—it is a special skill that takes time to develop. Unless you want to become an SEO writing specialist yourself, then you might be better off outsourcing your SEO content.
Create Content More Consistently
If you take SEO off your plate and give it to an SEO ghostwriter, you’ll be able to ensure consistent posting, which is important for building your site’s authority and ranking higher. When you’re busy with lots of different tasks within your business, it’s easy to let long-term strategies that don’t show immediate benefits fall off your radar. However, the sooner you start putting out consistent content, the sooner you’ll see the benefits.
Ensure High-Quality Content Marketing
Great SEO writers understand the importance of writing content that is about more than keywords. Providing valuable information, presented through high-quality writing, will keep people on your site and reading longer. Getting that click is only the first step— you have to quickly show the visitor that your site is worth their time.
The more quality content you publish, the more your business’s authority will grow. Building that authority will add value to your brand and build trust within your target market.
Affordability Issues and ROI
One of the cons of hiring an SEO ghostwriter is that it can be costly. Independent contractors (freelancers are members of the “gig economy”) are responsible for their own benefits and they have no guarantee of steady work. Therefore, their per-project or hourly rate is generally going to be higher than someone on your payroll. Additionally, a ghostwriter is not getting their name on their work and building their own authority, so they might have higher rates for that reason as well.
Another cost issue is the potential ROI (return on investment) of SEO writing. For many activities in business, the ROI is pretty clear and you can easily measure it. For SEO writing, however, it’s not always clear how it relates to making sales, except for organic traffic. Deciding how much you can pay for a writer (and quality always costs more) can be difficult if you don’t know what you can expect in terms of ROI.
Reliability and Trust Concerns
Hiring an SEO ghostwriter can be a challenge. It can be hard to know if you can trust someone to work well with you, meet your deadlines, and deliver a quality product.
You should always ask to see writing samples or a portfolio from a ghostwriter. Keep in mind, however, that there may be confidentiality agreements in play with the writer’s past clients. One way to get a feel for a writer’s process is to do a paid test project, just to make sure you are on the same page.
Finding a reliable writer you can count on to provide consistently great work might take some time and you might encounter a few bumps along the way. It’s always a risk to outsource and delegate work, but it’s necessary if you want to grow your business.
The Difficulty of Capturing Brand Voice
Another con of outsourcing your SEO writing is that it can be difficult for a writer to capture brand voice as an outsider. Striking the right tone and really understanding the audience and product or service is a delicate process that can take time. The good news is that skilled ghostwriters are highly adaptable and expect this kind of learning curve.
Additional Paperwork & Regulatory Compliance
One last consideration is that hiring a ghostwriter can mean extra paperwork and inconvenience at tax time. Additionally, some states have different requirements for employee status regulations, so it’s important to get familiar with these potential compliance issues before you more forward.
Can an SEO Ghostwriter Help Your Business Grow?
So, should you hire an SEO ghostwriter, knowing all the benefits and challenges? As with just about everything in business, there’s no one right answer. It all depends on your business and goals.
Think carefully about what you want from your SEO strategy before you decide. Having a solid plan in place will not only help you figure out if hiring a ghostwriter is the right move but will also guide you in hiring the right person for the job. Investing in quality content can be a smart move— but only if you have a plan.
