Creating a website is a challenge. Ask any business owner. It takes a creative eye, a certain amount of experience, and a business-oriented mind to build a site that combines useful information as well as an aesthetically pleasing look. If a company's website is well done, they've most likely hired a web design firm to handle the task. The web is as competitive a place as any other business venue, and people pay top dollar for quality pages.

So one would think that the same mentality can be found with a site's content. Sadly, this is not the case. 

There seems to be a misconception regarding content. Many people believe that once their site goes live, they are set for life. The fact of the matter is that in order to remain relevant for search engines, websites need to be updated with new content all the time. This content, though, cannot underestimated. Throwing together some shoddy writing won't accomplish anything. It'll only cheapen your website, making it look less professional. If you think you can handle the task, here are the main guidelines you want to follow when creating new content for your site. If you follow these rules, search engines will reward you with a better rank.

Content Writing Tips:

Make it engaging. 

Be smart.

Or funny.

Or both.

Make it interesting.

Use keywords.

Write abundantly.

Write for your audience.

Stay relevant.

Update often. 

We've talked about many of these business blogging rules before. Hopefully our interest in the area has proved to you just how important all of this is. If all of this seems a little too much for you, there is another option. Hire a writer for your site! An experienced SEO consultant can create unique, search-engine friendly text that'll enhance your overall site experience ten-fold. Your site will go from small blurbs of text to a database of useful information. The time saved makes up for the cost, considering how slow of a process writing can be. Paying someone to run your business blog is an excellent way to increase your site's page rank. An SEO consultant can take topics relevant to your business and turn them into full fledged blog posts. 

If you've decided to hire a writer, there are several things you should consider. Do you want the writer to write all of your blog articles, or just supplement your own posts? It'll be cheaper to hire a freelance writer if you just need a few blog posts written. Several sites specialize in finding freelancers, such as Elance and Odesk. For a small fee, you can browse through writer profiles and find one that you like. But, if you're looking for a staffed writer, it might be a good idea to hire someone for a permanent position. Depending on the number of blogs you have, putting them on the payroll full-time may be a good idea.

With freelancers, you're going to get what you pay for. If you want a very professional blog, you're going to have to pay for professional level work. Luckily, very often, blogs don't have to be ultra-professional works of grammatical art. For $15 to $30, an amateur can take care of a blog post that still includes all the SEO tags you could ask for. 

If you're uncomfortable with handing the reins over to a stranger to write your blog for you, don't worry, there are other ways to work with writers. You can scratch down some ideas and some basic paragraphs and let the writer flesh them out for you. Or vice versa, you can give a topic to a writer, who will make an outline and send it back to you. Then you can write the full article in your own voice.

Whether you decide to write content yourself or hire a writer, you'll be doing a great favor for your website. Remember, there are many different methods for getting content posted on your site, and freelance writers are flexible workers. Write on!