Hey 👋🏼 I’m Jeff, and I’ve been writing content for websites since I built my first site in 1998.
Since I was about six or seven, writing has always appealed to me, and it came easy to me.
As I progressed through my career in marketing, life became more about performance, but I always felt this was often at the expense of creativity. Blending the two together though? Profit.
By blending creativity in writing, with the performance aspects that search engines and marketing teams demand these days, content satisfaction for both your customers and for search engines can be satisfied. In fact, they’re two side of the same coin in so many ways.
With the advent of AI, generative content, and everyone and their grandma becoming content creators, how does your business cut through the noise? Don’t leave your website content up to:
- The intern that has 10k followers on Insta
- Specialist service teams that haven’t written any copy since their GCSEs
- Generative AI tools — or risk becoming as stale as your competitors
- Even worse, the committee of the senior team. Content design by committee is often the root of a lot of business content performance issues
Just do it properly and hire a dedicated specialist for the written content on your site.
— Me, 2024
I’ve worked solely in digital marketing roles for the past thirteen years, working in relentlessly busy agency environments for around ten of those. Learn to adapt quickly, what works, what doesn’t how to be incredibly efficient, and gain exposure of tons of different brands. You might also know me from my food & drink alter-ego where I’ve been Newcastle’s food blogger since 2011.
I’m based in Newcastle upon Tyne and love the city. We’ve got beautiful beaches, enchanting national parks, and a sometimes chaotic city life. What’s not to love?
Why do businesses tend to use outsourced content writers?
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Lack of time
The main reason people hire me is that they don’t have the time or headspace to dedicate the hours to writing.
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Lack of expertise
Most of us stop writing creatively when we leave school. Which is sad! Your team has other focuses, so hire a specialist.
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Flexibility
Expert web content often falls into the ‘nice to have’ bucket. Whether it’s a quick-turnaround website, or a longer term resource flex where projects overrun.
More interested in the work itself?
It’s all good and well knowing about working methodologies and values and who you’ll be working with. But your boss likely just wants to know ‘have they worked with a business like ours before?’.
Find out more about the words I’ve written in the past and how they’ve helped businesses like yours to drive better performance.
My background
Working in marketing agencies
10+ years
I’ve spent ten years in these, primarily in organic search roles, getting to really understand how the written word impacts inbound marketing performance.
Delivering growth for SaaS startups
4 years
I’ve been lucky enough to work on growth at a handful of startups, primarily using the written word to help them get a jumpstart in customer acquisition from search.
Freelancing with companies like yours
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Seeing results for small businesses is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Making content deceptively simple sits at that lovely intersection between art and science.
Values are everything
Choosing a content writer to work with your business can be difficult. From deciding on someone who will drop into your workflows, to trusting someone with your brand, and intensively understanding your vision and your target audience, there’s a lot to consider.
With that in mind, I’ve listed the values for this business, so that we can align on personal beliefs, be transparent about ways of working, and understand how to manage difficult conversations.
1.
Always prioritise performance
Creating content is time-consuming and resource-intensive. So like any other business activity, first and foremost it should be purposeful and drive performance. We’re not about writing fluffy words for the sake of it.
2.
No busy work, ever
Investing properly in content can be expensive! Bigger agencies will create work to justify bigger fees: account or project management, documentation and long-winded processes. Efficient, ‘time spent on the job’ is a core tenet here. Content is for performance, and that’s our North Star.
3.
Communication is paramount
When it comes to the written word, everyone has an opinion. That’s totally OK, and I welcome a two-way discussion on your content requirements. There’s no room for ego, and no being precious about right or wrong.