When most people decide to hire a writer to create web content for them, they usually focus exclusively on the finished product: the article (or articles) that will be written on their behalf.

But if all you’re looking at is keywords and word count when you work with website content writers, you’re leaving money and opportunity on the table.

In addition to providing you with web content, your writer can also help you promote that content once it is published to your web site.

The best website content writes have an online presence of their own. You should already be looking to hire a writer who has a blog and experience with social media, preferably through their own twitter and facebook profiles. After all, if you’re paying them to help you create content specifically for the web, they should be able to demonstrate that they have experience not just with writing, but writing and marketing themselves online.

If you’re hiring a writer with an online presence, why not use that audience to your advantage?

Ask your content writer to link to you from their own blog or tweet to their followers when their articles go live. Writers are, in general, madly in love with anything they write and are more than happy to direct more eyes to their work – for a small fee.

Don’t expect your writer to promote your web site for free. You’re paying them for web content, not advertising. But once you’ve negotiated a fee for their time, you can usually get their help with added exposure for just a little more money.

Make sure to agree to specific pricing and promotional methods ahead of time. Is there a specific keyword you want them to use when linking to you from their blog? How many twitter updates will you expect per article written? Don’t assume that “tell people about your content” means the same thing to both of you, and do understand that their audience is valuable.

Britt Reints is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Content Creation, Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.