8 Must-Haves In Your Content Guidelines: What Your Writers Need To Know via @sejournal, @MaddyOsman

Brands often crook to freelance writers oregon selling agencies to scale up contented production.

But that’s not ever a creaseless process.

A 2021 Semrush report shares that in-house contented teams look predominant issues with outsourced writers:

• Lack of hands-on acquisition oregon cognition (49%).
• Low-quality contented (42%).
• Multiple edits (36%).
• Lack of consistency owed to antithetic penning styles (27%).

These issues mean your contented squad has much enactment to bash – conscionable what you didn’t privation and what made you outsource the contented successful the archetypal place!

Now, you tin effort uncovering a connection magician who tin Abracadabra your worries distant and makes everything alright.

But it doesn’t ever enactment that mode – you bash tally into immoderate misguided wizards present and there.

Instead of leaving things to chance, enactment toward preparing contented guidelines you tin springiness the outsourced writers to minimize the challenges of moving together

Content Guidelines 101

Content guidelines (or penning guidelines) notation to the accusation brands oregon their in-house contented teams springiness their outsourced writers to nutrient commissioned content.

These see benignant guides, merchandise information, and entree to tools.

Detailed contented guidelines supply respective benefits:

Save clip and money.

Writers whitethorn beryllium professionals, but they can’t work your mind, particularly if they’re outer to your team.

By sharing the required details with them, you tin trim the revisions connected some ends.

In different words, contented guidelines springiness writers an thought and discourse of what you privation and expect from a contented portion earlier they commencement the draft.

This lets them spot the people earlier they effort to deed a bullseye, and you don’t person to realign the wide absorption aft the archetypal draft.

Encourages consistency.

A contented little ensures some writers and editors are connected the aforesaid leafage regarding the contented style, tone, and goals.

Sets your enactment successful the close direction: Great contented is simply a effect of collaboration betwixt brands and writers. By providing elaborate penning guidelines, you bash your portion and amusement the writers what you privation from the contented piece.

Helps you standard contented production.

A modular acceptable of penning guidelines lets you turn and standard the contented accumulation since you tin easy onboard much writers and editors to constitute and edit contented successful your brand’s dependable and tone.

So, if you supply contented guidelines, your issues are gone?

No, that unsocial won’t chopped it. Your results beryllium connected the details you adhd to those contented guidelines.

What To Include In Content Guidelines

• Welcome packet.
• Editorial process.
• Brand benignant guide.
• Visual guidelines.
• Content brief.
• Persona details.
• Product information.
• Industry’s resources.

Once again, external writers can’t work your mind.

They’re not a portion of your day-to-day squad meetings. In bid to marque up for this gap, you indispensable supply elaborate contented guidelines.

1. Welcome Packet

As you commencement moving with caller writers, supply them with a invited packet that includes each the details they request to cognize to make contented for you, including:

•  Your marque and its worth proposition.
•  Your contented goals.
•  Topics you commonly constitute about.
• FAQs astir moving with you.
• People connected your squad the writers tin scope retired to for contented and billing questions.

Your invited packet helps onboard caller writers and acceptable them successful the close direction.

But you inactive request much guidelines to screen mundane details.

2. Editorial Process

The editorial process details what the writers should expect to woody with regularly – your brand’s contented workflow.

It defines the expected timeline for each enactment aft some parties person signed an agreement.

For instance, here’s however my squad handles it, from the client’s perspective:

The penning process tin surely alteration lawsuit by case, but it’s bully to acceptable expectations with writers successful presumption of what happens before, during, and aft they crook successful a draft.

3. Brand Style Guide

If determination is 1 must-have with penning guidelines you springiness to writers, it’s a style guide.

A benignant usher covers the dos and don’ts of penning for your brand. It provides absorption to in-house and outsourced contented teams and ensures your contented is accordant with the marque ethos.

This consistency enhances the lawsuit experience and builds lawsuit loyalty.

After years of moving arsenic a freelance writer, I shifted to a content bureau model.

One of the archetypal things I did to acceptable my bureau up for occurrence was make The Blogsmith Style Guide – a papers that details my champion practices from years of acquisition moving with antithetic clients.

It helps writers seizure the dependable and code that The Blogsmith is known for and gives editors a straightforward modular for editing content.

A benignant usher covers:

• Grammar (active dependable vs. passive voice).
• Style and formatting requirements.
• Tone (conversational oregon formal).
• Punctuation preferences (oxford comma oregon not).
• Word usage (use of abbreviation, inclusive language, oregon jargon).
• Spelling preferences (e.g., ecommerce vs. e-commerce).
• Point of presumption oregon pronoun usage (first idiosyncratic oregon 2nd person).
• Citations.

If you don’t person a benignant guide, the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook serves arsenic a bully baseline.

4. Visual Guidelines

Most brands see ocular guidelines wrong their benignant guide, but immoderate similar keeping them separate.

Whatever the case, ocular guidelines are a must-have portion of your contented guidelines, arsenic marque visuals interaction the written facet of contented creation.

Not to mention, ocular guidelines guarantee accordant output if you outsource your graphics.

Make definite to see the pursuing successful your ocular guidelines:

Image directions

Include everything writers and graphic designers request to cognize astir creating oregon choosing images for your website, specified as: representation attribution, featured images, customized images vs. banal photos, substance vs. nary substance successful featured images.

Preferred formats

Share formats you similar for images and videos, specified arsenic .PNG, .JPEG, oregon .webP.

Image resolutions and sizes

Share your preferred representation solution and record size. For instance, it’s amended to bounds the record size of images to 250–300 KB to load them rapidly connected your website and people amended successful Core Web Vitals.

Colors

Include the marque palette and Hex, RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colour codes to relationship for people vs. integer (and truthful on). You tin besides see the intent of each colour (e.g., main vs. accent, headings vs. assemblage content, and truthful on).

Fonts

Include the fonts you usage for antithetic purposes. For example, Kinsta uses Brandon Text for headings and Roboto for assemblage text.

Logos and icons

Include each versions of your logos and their due usage cases.

You tin stock your ocular guidelines connected your website for freelancers and agencies to notation – similar Kinsta.

5. Content Brief

A contented little is simply a penning usher freelance writers tin travel erstwhile creating a peculiar contented portion for your company.

Compared to the different contented guidelines connected the list, contented briefs disagree successful topics depending connected the duty – but they are indispensable to creating a stellar contented piece.

The contented little indispensable see basal information, specified as:

• Client name.
• Topic.
• Word count.
• Article benignant (blog post, lawsuit study, oregon achromatic paper).
• Rate.
• Due date.

More elaborate briefs besides see further accusation that gives the writer context, like:

Intended Audience

Who are you penning the contented for?

Adding your intended assemblage is crucial, particularly if you person aggregate people audiences.

It informs the space you’ll beryllium taking.

For example, contented for C-suite executives differs from contented targeting entry-level employees.

While immoderate contented little details similar competitors whitethorn beryllium reusable, intended assemblage and contented goals whitethorn alteration crossed pieces.

It’s champion to capable retired each the accusation careless of whether it varies to guarantee you don’t miss anything.

Content Goals And Objectives

What is the intent of creating the contented piece?

One instrumentality connected the content selling matrix suggests that content’s 4 main purposes are to educate, entertain, inspire, and convince.

Whatever the contented goal, stock that with the writer.

Being wide astir your content goals and objectives besides makes it easier to bash keyword research, find hunt intent, and make a applicable telephone to enactment (CTA) for the post.

Also, you tin adhd a abbreviated abstract highlighting the important points you privation successful the portion oregon supply the writer with a suggested outline.

Keyword Research

If you’re creating SEO content, see the superior keywords you’re trying to optimize for and instructions oregon champion practices.

For example, you tin inquire writers to include:

• Primary keyword successful the rubric and wrong the archetypal 100 words.
• High-volume keywords successful subheadings.
• Low-volume keywords successful paragraphs.

More than often, your writer oregon bureau volition supply this. But you should inactive program to reappraisal and o.k. it, truthful everyone is connected the aforesaid leafage earlier drafting.

Competitors

Include competitors and top-ranking blogs to assistance writers benchmark content.

It lets writers observe what different brands did good and however they addressed the problem.

Not to mention, It helps them place missing accusation to strategize however to marque your contented basal out.

6. Persona Details

Buyer personas correspond the people assemblage astatine antithetic stages of the buyer’s journey.

Including this accusation successful your contented guidelines gives writers a amended representation of what your customers privation and need. They tin capable successful gaps and tailor messaging to each persona.

If you haven’t had the accidental to specify your personas yet, HubSpot’s Make My Persona instrumentality is an fantabulous spot to start.

7. Product Information

If you’re asking freelance writers to make product-led content, springiness them the tools they request to win like:

• A dummy relationship they tin play astir with and instrumentality screenshots of for tutorials.
• Case studies that amusement however customers person utilized your product and achieved results.
• Opportunities to interrogation SMEs (subject substance experts) astir the product.

In different words, the writer should cognize capable astir the instrumentality and the occupation it solves to code lawsuit symptom points and get them to convert.

8. Industry Knowledge

For thought-leadership content, springiness writers entree to accusation from manufacture thought leaders and SMEs.

As a courtesy, earlier you springiness writers the details of an SME they tin contact, fto the SME cognize a writer volition scope retired to acceptable up an interview.

Some SMEs whitethorn beryllium uncomfortable speaking with different radical (or excessively engaged to nail down a circumstantial clip for a unrecorded interview), truthful springiness them the enactment to bash an interrogation via a meeting, an email exchange, oregon a prerecorded video oregon audio response.

Make it convenient for some parties to get the accusation they need.

Conclusion

Good penning is often a effect of collaboration betwixt the marque and writers.

Don’t beryllium a client from hell. Improve the acquisition of moving with outsourced contented teams by providing penning guidelines they tin usage to make contented person to your goals.

More resources:

• The 7 Habits of Successful Content Writers
• 8 Free Courses For Writers & Content Marketers
• Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to What Works

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