Ask Your Content Writers These 5 Questions

(The answers will tell you a lot about the quality of the content they’ll produce.)

Hiring quality freelance writers is a big part of the job for marketing and content marketing managers—and sometimes the hardest part. There’s no such thing as a foolproof screening process, but asking writers these five questions will give you insight into how they approach their craft.

The answers will separate the writers who simply pump out words from the writers who genuinely care about your audience’s experience, your brand’s reputation, and doing justice to the topic at hand.

1. Ask them why they became a writer (or, better yet, why they are still a writer)

Writing doesn’t need to be a person’s passion or life purpose or the thing they’d do even if they lived alone on a desert island, but it’s helpful to have some driving philosophy behind why they do what they do. If they’re just trying to churn out words as quickly as possible for a paycheque, you might not get great content.

An alternative to this question is to ask them which piece they’re most proud of writing, and why.

?? Red flags:

?? “My friend was doing it”

?? “It was easy to get started”

?? “I just wanted to work from home”

?? “I’m not really sure”

(These first three aren't problematic unless there truly is no other motivation present.)

??? Green lights:

?? “I like teaching”

?? “I like telling stories”

?? “I like learning”

?? “I want to inspire”

?? “I like creating an experience/leading a reader on a journey”

2. Ask them how they approach SEO

Ask some content marketers about SEO and they’ll tell you that rankings are the primary goal of content marketing. Ask others, and they’ll tell you that SEO matters, but not as much as it used to.

I don’t think it matters whether your content writers are crazy-obsessed with SEO, or whether they simply understand the requirements and know how to address it when necessary. What you’re looking for is a writer who can write to particular topics with certain keywords in mind, but who can still craft an engaging story.

If they think about nothing but SEO, your content quality will suffer, and if they don’t even know the basics of SEO, your content won’t get the leverage it deserves.

An obsession with keywords points to a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of content marketing. Traffic and rankings are necessary, but not sufficient. For content marketing to work, it needs to engage your readers and drive them to the next stage. And if all you’re doing is writing to make room for keywords, they’ll bounce like rubber balls.

The truth is that, as a marketing manager or content marketing manager, SEO is more your job than theirs. If you’ve done your SEO and content strategy right, the pieces you’re commissioning should be relevant enough to hit the right keywords naturally. And when you get your writer’s drafts back, a simple scan will tell you whether you need to work in a mention of a particular keyword, or if it’s good to go.

Keywords should help to guide your overall content strategy and topics, but they shouldn’t interfere with writing engaging, high-quality content. Think of SEO as a helpful tour guide, not a prison guard.

?? Red flags:

?? “My topic and my outlines are completely dictated by keywords”

?? “I aim to hit X amount of keywords per paragraph”

?? “When I write, all I’m thinking about is keywords”

??? Green lights:

?? “I understand the keywords/topic before I start, but I put it out of my mind while I’m researching and writing”

?? “I don’t let keywords limit my research”

?? “I see where the research and the story takes me, and then consider how to work it in”

?? “I perform a light keyword audit after the first draft, to make sure I’m on track”

?? “I write for humans first, but still make sure the keyword(s) is mentioned in a natural way”

3. Ask them how they research

The best content marketing is long in the research and quick in the telling. You want content that is deeply researched, but crafted into an engaging story that reads fast.

We’ve all read articles that make it obvious the writer doesn’t have a deep (or sometimes even a rudimentary) grasp on the subject. They use the exact words and clichéd phrases as other articles on the subject, they brush vaguely over complex topics, they fail to give specific and original instructions for moving forward.

Writers who understand their subject matter are willing to spend time in the research, and let it take them where it needs to. This is one reason you shouldn’t pay your writers per word. Pay for the time it takes to truly understand the subject matter, not the time it takes to copy and paste your competitors’ content.

The more interested your writer is in the research process, the better content you’re going to get. (In fact, if you’ve got a strong researcher with bad grammar, or a fantastic wordsmith with no interest in diving deeper, I’d go with the former. Bad grammar can be edited. Insufficient research? Not so much.)

?? Red flags:

?? “I just use my own ideas”

?? “I’m usually given the information” (not a red flag in itself, but it is if the writer offers no more insight into how they would go about researching)

?? “I just find similar articles and paraphrase them”

?? “I already know about this topic” (might be less of a red flag if they have a PhD on the topic, but even academics reference other sources)

??? Green lights:

?? “I’ll interview people in your organisation”

?? “I reach out to subject matter experts”

?? “I consult studies and journals, and I read the whole study”

?? “I check common sources for references to lesser known, primary sources”

4. Ask them how they write for a particular tone and/or brand voice

Striking the wrong tone can make or break your content, so you need writers who understand the importance of tone and brand voice, and who have specific processes for adopting a brand’s personality and working this into their content.

The key point here is that you’re not looking for a writer who naturally sounds like your brand. You’re looking for a writer who can adapt. Strong writers can easily adopt unique brand voices for every project, so don’t worry too much about how they sound on their own blog or that article they wrote for a company in another industry.

It’s also helpful to ask them for samples of different tones/voices, if they have them. (If they’re strongly niched, they might not.)

?? Red flags:

?? “What’s tone?” (just kidding, kinda…)

?? “I just use my natural voice”

?? “I have a neutral writing voice”

??? Green lights:

?? They ask (without being prompted) about:

• Branding work done previously
• Audience information, marketing personas
• Competitors

?? “I read previous work done by the company (if available) and then check with the content marketing manager to see if the tone should be consistent with these, or if a new brand/tone is required”

?? “I read other works of a similar tone/voice before I start writing”

?? “I match my sentence structure, diction and pace to the brand tone, and pay particular attention to this when revising”

5. Ask them how they tell stories

Not all writers are storytellers. Some write simply to deliver information. Others write simply to express themselves or, worse, to fuel an algorithm. But if you want to really engage your readers and make them actually love your brand and not just click on and click off, you need to start telling stories. Stories are useful everywhere, from your homepage to your email sequences, but weaving storytelling into your content marketing is a fantastic place to start.

?? Red flags:

?? “I just write content”

?? “I don’t write stories”

?? “My content is purely educational”

?? “I use bullet points and subheadings”

??? Green lights:

?? “I try to find the human story or personal angle within the data/research”

?? “When writing how-to’s, I use anecdotes or real-life examples to explain”

?? “When writing about a product or service, I look for case studies that feature pain points the reader can connect with, and results they can understand”