Top Reasons for Hiring a Ghostwriter to Optimize Your Web Content

TOP REASONS FOR HIRING A GHOSTWRITER TO OPTIMIZE YOUR WEB CONTENT

Whether you are starting a new business with a new website, or you need to overhaul your existing site to bring it into the 21st century, there are multiple factors to consider to make your website stand out. It starts with a clearly defined purpose of what you need the site to accomplish.

Second, a website that is not visually pleasing or easy to navigate will have a much higher bounce rate than those that are. Lastly and most important, a website that lacks relevant, interesting, original, and engaging content will underperform significantly in relation to its competitors.

The web content creation process can be overwhelming, especially if writing is not your forte. You may be well-versed in your craft, but a ghostwriter can really help you bring your web content into focus.

What does a ghostwriter do?

In very simple terms, ghostwriters are professional writers—either freelance or employed with writing agencies—who write high-quality content on behalf of an individual or a business. Ghostwriters work on a variety of fiction and nonfiction projects, including novels, autobiographies, general website content, blogs, white papers, and marketing copy.

Ghostwriter Jennifer Rizzo at The Writers For Hire says, “As ghostwriters, we frequently help our clients draft content for their web pages, as well as their blogs.”

Ghostwriters are sometimes recruited by politicians to write their speeches and by the music industry to write songs for top artists.

Ghostwriting is a perfectly legal arrangement in which the ghostwriter agrees to waive the rights to the intellectual property they have created and not disclose their contribution to any third party.

Why should I hire a ghostwriter to create my web content?

Ghostwriters are well educated.

A career in ghostwriting does not happen overnight.

Most ghostwriters will have a graduate degree in either English or journalism or some other form of higher education. These qualifications allow the ghostwriter to draw on a vast repository of sophisticated vocabulary and prepare them to write concisely and accurately.

Some ghostwriters go on to complete additional courses in speech writing or marketing, which helps them develop skills to write in multiple tones, voices, and for many different audiences. These qualifications and skills are unbelievably valuable if you want quality web content quickly.

By hiring a ghostwriter, you ensure that the content on your site relates directly to your target audience, speaks to them, and enhances the User Experience (UX).

Ghostwriters have extensive knowledge and experience.

Ghostwriters do not usually start their careers as ghostwriters and often spend years gaining other writing experience before they graduate to ghostwriting. In theory, an experienced ghostwriter will have written across multiple disciplines and mastered other skills, such as copywriting, proofreading, editing, and coaching junior writers.

An advantage of having all this experience is that the ghostwriter can easily evaluate information from various sources, making connections between them and logical deductions that lead to new, original information. This is called information synthesis and is a very difficult skill to master. With that in mind, one of the best ways to get original content on your website is by utilizing an experienced ghostwriter who has already mastered these skills.

Ghostwriters can articulate your thoughts and ideas for you.

When it comes to the type of content you want on your website, you may have a great idea, but you find it difficult to explain verbally or to expand on it. This is a very common problem for business owners who do not have any professional writing experience.

That's not to say these business owners can't write their own website content.

It just means that they will need to go through the same aches and pains established writers went through when they first started out—which by definition is a slow, frustrating, and time-consuming process that can take years to accomplish.

When you hire a ghostwriter or writing agency, they work closely with you on a consultancy basis. They know exactly what questions to ask to get precisely the right information from you in order to write the type of content you need on your website, whether that be blogs, landing pages, company history pages, or anything else.

Ghostwriters are research ninjas!

For most people, the internet is an endless expanse of information, but not for a ghostwriter. In fact, the internet is quite a limited database for an experienced ghostwriter.

Ghostwriters know the internet like the back of their hands and understand that, although much information exists out there, very little of the enormous amount of content published online daily is of exceptional quality—or original.

Ghostwriters can tell instantly when they visit a website whether the site and its content are of good quality, and they won’t waste any time reading sub-par information in their research process. They also know exactly how to construct key search phrases to find the information you want in your web content, and they can do this very quickly.

Companies with the most up-to-date and original web content do not just attract and retain a loyal customer base, they are also ranked much higher as reliable websites by search engines. If, theoretically, another website was to copy your original article written by a ghostwriter and post it on their website, the Google crawler or Googlebot can still tell that your article was the original one by the posting timestamp, which means this unlawful plagiarism won’t affect your ranking.

The opposite is true for the company that plagiarized, however: They will score very low on reliability, meaning they will appear in fewer Google searches.

Ghostwriters help you develop your business identity and persona.

“Your website really is your window to the world. It is frequently the first impression that people get of your business. A site that is poorly written can quickly turn potential customers away. However, a site that is visually appealing and written well will leave a lasting impression,” says Rizzo.

Brand identity is a combination of various factors, such as your corporate branding, your level of customer service, how and what you communicate to your customers, your history, and how your audience perceives your business.

One of the best ways to build a strong brand identity is by communicating your brand voice through regular content on your website. Depending on the nature of your business, a ghostwriter creates refined and well-crafted rhetoric, and the language used in any discourse is tailored specifically to the business persona you want to portray.

For example, suppose you are a trendy online fashion retailer that caters to a younger demographic. In that case, the ghostwriter may use more relaxed and informal language that resonates with this younger demographic. If you are a financial services provider, the ghostwriter may use more formal language and terms in your blogs or web content.

Ghostwriters have a deep understanding of SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental priority for any business in the information age. Most customers and leads are generated online, which means, if your business has no online presence or can’t be found by potential customers, you simply won’t be viable for very long.

In a nutshell, SEO is the process of improving the quality of your website to increase its visibility in search results.

The purpose of SEO is to show search engines like Google and Bing that the content on your website is best suited for the specific keywords that any potential customer searches.

A search engine’s main objective is to find the best quality results for its users when they look for information. It starts with the crawling stage, where a search engine discovers new web pages. This is followed by the indexing stage, which is basically the organizing and filing system the search engine uses. Finally, the search engine ranks all the newly discovered and indexed pages and decides whether to use them in search results.

In terms of SEO optimization, a ghostwriter does the following:

Keyword Optimization

Ghostwriters write for a living and, once you give them a topic to write about, they know what keywords to thread organically through your content for the search engine to recommend your page to potential customers. A ghostwriter usually incorporates between five to 10 keywords throughout the content they write. You get primary, secondary, and additional keywords.

Your ghostwriter will use a variety of primary and other keywords in the following:

• Meta Descriptions: These are simply 20-25 words that summarize what your page or content is about.
• SEO Title Tag: This tag is similar to your meta description and where searchers can click to get to your page in a Google or other search result.
• Article Titles: Using the main keywords in your article title is very effective.
• Other Heading: Google uses these headings to tell what is most relevant to a searcher in your content.
• The First and Last 200 Words: This is usually where the content is summarized.
• The Whole Project: Keywords will be used throughout the project naturally.
• Alt Tags: This helps your content show up in image searches.
• URL: This is the web address where your page can be found; it’s imperative to use the main keywords here.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is when you use any URLs or links from one of your website’s pages on another web page. For instance, if the ghostwriter writes a blog article on a subject that relates strongly to a previous article you have published, they may add a link for that previous article in the new blog. Internal linking is great for SEO because search engines and customers use links to find content on your website.

In a nutshell, the more a link is used either internally or externally, the better Google assesses the value of the content on that link and the more likely it will appear in search results.

External Linking

External linking is when another business or website uses a link from your website in its content. This is one of the most challenging but important aspects of SEO.

Basically, search engines rank the relevance and quality of the content on your website based on the number of times other websites reference your content. This link sharing is also how some content goes viral.

External links are also called backlinks and the more backlinks you have, the more likely your content will appear in search results. Unfortunately, this web content creation process takes a lot of effort, both in terms of quality and quantity of content. This is where a ghostwriter shines. They can produce high-quality, original content quickly. The more original your web content, the more likely readers will share it to their own websites, through social media, or to colleagues, friends, or family.

Ghostwriters ensure consistency across all your web pages.

If your business has an existing website with previously published content, it may be a good idea to ask your new ghostwriter to read any previous content to bring it up to a higher standard and rewrite it to ensure consistency in tone and language across all your posts and pages.

Rizzo says, “A ghostwriter needs to be able to get a feel for who the business is and what message they want to convey to the world. Do they want to come off as friendly and easily approachable? Or would they like to portray a more formal, serious tone? Ghostwriters also need to know what information (and how much) the business wants included in their website. Is this a site that is going to be high level and just give some details about the company, with some basic contact information? Or is the website going to be more in-depth and include things such as forms where customers can request service or detailed pages about the company’s offerings?”

One of the key aspects customers judge any business on is consistency across all their services and communications. You must demonstrate professionalism in all areas of your business, including the quality of your website and online content. 

Ghostwriters can help you choose a Content Management System (CMS).

A CMS is an application used to manage all the content for your website, allowing multiple users to write, proofread, edit, and publish content. A key benefit of using a CMS is that it requires no coding knowledge or skills like HTML. An experienced ghostwriter will have worked with all the main Content Management Systems and will be able to offer guidance on the following:

• An overview of the main Content Management Systems such as Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress
• The benefits of using a CMS
• The best CMS based on your budget and need
• How to assign user roles and permissions
• The features and extensions
• Content scheduling

Ghostwriters write very effective Calls-to-Action (CTA).

A call-to-action is an instruction, or recommendation, for a website visitor to do something on the site such as signing up on mailing lists or downloading free booklets. CTAs are great tools for:

• Motivating deeper engagement
• Boosting conversion rates
• Starting conversations
• Encouraging visitors to read more or spend more time on the website
• Sharing posts to social media
• Promoting events
• Closing sales

Through their years of experience, ghostwriters have learned to write very persuasively. In addition to pointing out clearly the features of your products or services, they use the following techniques to write very effective CTAs:

• Creative language with power words
• Strong imperative verbs
• Language that provokes emotions and enthusiasm
• Zero-pressure approaches
• A sense of curiosity

Ghostwriters can develop enticing web forms.

According to mindk.com, about 86% of people start to fill out an online form at least once a week, but only some follow through to completion. The reason? Poorly designed web forms.

One of the secrets to a well-designed web form is to keep it simple yet interesting.

With a first contact form, you should only capture essential information. This is referred to as the perception of complexity, which is where site visitors quickly assess the complexity of the form and how much time they need to invest to complete it.

In addition to being great at writing long-form content such as blogs or case studies, ghostwriters also know how to be exact and brief when necessary. When Ghostwriters design your web forms, they focus on using specific labels and keeping them short. They also provide examples of how to complete the forms. They know when and where to enhance readability by using sentence and title cases and what benefits to point out on the form to drive maximum engagement.

If you hire a ghostwriter, you get value for money.

Ghostwriting services are not free but they sure are worth it. Where you may save some money writing your own web content, you will lose a lot of time and it may not be the quality your customers expect.

As with any occupation, writing is a skill that is developed and refined over a long period of time, and by the time a writer is established as a ghostwriter, they are at the top of their game and can ensure the following:

• Working on a professional, consultative basis with you to deliver content specifically tailored to your business and audience
• Meeting quick turnaround times
• Allowing you to focus on the other areas of your business
• Producing high-quality original content
• Helping you build trust between your business and your audience

When asked how much time businesses can save by using ghostwriters, Rizzo concludes: “I don’t know that there is an average amount of time saved. Whether you are doing it on your own or with the help of a ghostwriter, developing content for a website takes a lot of time and effort. However, with an experienced ghostwriter, you can be assured that the time that is put into your website will be time well used. A ghostwriter already has the tools and knowledge to make your website shine and can do so without the need for a ton of re-writes or revisions that may be necessary without the aid of a professional.”