If you are a business owner who hates to write then you might find it frustrating to create website content. In fact, if you are someone who hates to write you are certainly not alone. Plenty of people feel exactly the same way you do.
Fortunately, there are ways to help lessen the burden. You’re not going to get out of writing completely, but the ideas I’m going to share here should certainly help make the task easier.
Create Video Content Instead
Perhaps you like to work with your hands. Perhaps you could show your customers all sorts of amazing things, but putting these things into written form is too time-consuming.
Video can be an incredibly effective way to market your business too. It even carries an advantage over written content since you can use YouTube and other video-based social media to push this content.
You can then write a short paragraph about what’s in the video on your blog, just two or three sentences with an appropriate keyword tucked somewhere inside. Publish and you’re done.
Don’t worry if you’re not a professional videographer. There’s actually a strange phenomenon that happens with videos.
Oddly the more polished and professional they look the less effective they can be. So if you decide to take this route just be yourself.
Outsource Your Content
Hiring a freelance writer or a ghostwriter doesn’t have to be expensive, and it can free you to actually work on your business instead of on your blog.
There are several different ways to find them. You can do a web search for “writing services,” “freelance writers,” or “ghostwriters.” You can ask other people you do business with if they use anyone.
You can also look for people on job boards like Elance.com, or post a free ad on Craigslist. Just be aware that you’ll get dozens of replies on both venues.
If you decide to take this route, know your budget and know what you want. Be ready to communicate closely with your writer.
Look for someone who is respectful of you and your business, and who pays attention to your deadlines and feedback. Check testimonials to see what kind of reputation the writer has.
Beware of writers who charge too little. They are usually non-native English speakers who will hurt your business more than they will help it.
Purchase Pre-Written Content
It is possible to purchase the rights for pre-written content in just about any industry that you can think of. There are two basic ways to do this.
First, you can purchase PLR, or private label rights content. You’ll generally get a package of articles priced at about $1.00 per page.
These articles are sold to multiple people so DO NOT use the PLR content “as-is.” Remember, there will be other businesses like yours using the same content. This doesn’t bode well for your visitors or you because Google won’t index your content if it is a duplicate.
Some say you can simply rewrite PLR articles by just tweaking the title and maybe the opening paragraph. That simply isn’t enough. You literally have to rewrite the entire article. I recommend using the PLR material as a starting point. The main ideas are there for you but you will want to write an entire new article around those ideas.
PLR varies wildly in quality, so it’s a good idea to be careful what you buy. Fortunately there are people who are already vetting different marketplaces.
You can try Private Label Rights Junkie, for example. This person maintains a list of reputable PLR providers.
You may or may not find content that pertains to your business, but it’s worth a look.
Often, you can use each provider’s mailing list forms to put in special requests that would target your business. The busier the provider is the less often this will work, however.
If you want higher-end plug-and-play content that you don’t have to modify you can go to Constant Content instead. You can buy full rights to an article that’s already been scrutinized by an editing team.
If you run the search term “chiropractor” for example you’d currently get 15 different articles that you could potentially purchase for your site. More articles are added every day.
You can also make article requests there to see if anyone will just write your content. This is a little like posting a request on Elance, except that the writer simply responds with an article instead of a bid. You then decide if you want to buy it or not.
Writing isn’t fun for most people and unfortunately there are no short cuts. If you want your blog to prosper (so you can have more traffic and sales), you’ll need to write. And when you do write, you’ll want it to be quality stuff. Hopefully the three ideas discussed here will make the task easier:)
