Top 20 Content Writing Interview Questions in 2023
Content Writing is a field of work that is prone to changes and evolves very fast. It is just like the online medium which is dynamic and constantly goes through changes for the user’s benefit. Content Writing Interview Questions aim to understand how well you understand Content to implement it successfully.
Content writing involves developing your knowledge, research skills, and increase your perception of the online user. This helps to become a more confident and productive writer able to take any challenge head-on.
Today we are going to delve into Top Content Writing Interview Questions. When you apply for a content writing job, your potential employer will look for enhanced skills in content writing that will yield results. They would also want to know about your understanding of the fundamentals of content writing. Your distinctive quality will be your originality and thought process.
It is one of the most exciting fields to have a career in. With so much content in demand, the field has great potential for learning as well as implementing your knowledge to create valued content on various subjects.
Today we are going to discuss 20 such important questions that your potential employer may ask you in a content writing job interview.
What do you think are essential features of content that works in the online domain?
This is one of the foremost questions that the interviewer might ask a candidate. The most essential features of good content or content that work exceptionally well in the online domain are its value and efficacy to the online users/readers.
In this regard, a potential job candidate has to emphasize the importance of content writers being discerning and understanding the requirements of the online reader.
The bottom line for all content writing efforts is to create content that facilitates engagement with the target audience, provides value, and ease some obstacle of the target consumer. All of this lends credibility to the content disseminated.
What skills do you need to master for a job in content writing?
This is also a very frequently asked popular question that your future employer might ask. To be a thorough professional in content writing, you have to understand the importance of high-quality content, eliminating any chances of plagiarism. Also, using important information data, facts, and statistics to strengthen the content copy.
Therefore impeccable research skills, analyzing the pulse of the focus group, and identifying the key objectives of the organization you are working for are important.
Moreover, a content writer in an organization should understand the relationship between the organization and its clients and create content accordingly. It is important to align the mission of the organization with the requirements of the target consumer.
Therefore, formulate an answer that speaks of how a content writer needs to have a strong sense of perception. Also, they should constantly search for new ideas and concepts to incorporate in their content copy.
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How do you determine which topics to choose?
This is a question that sometimes plagues even the brightest minds in the field of content writing. It is one of the most daunting tasks for new content writers to come up with pertinent topics that provide value and evoke a positive response from the target consumer.
However, there are a few simple ways in which to choose how to choose what topics to write on. There are many platforms today where consumers discuss and speak about their problems, issues, and grievances. A close look at these channels, social media, and discussion platforms can provide a lot of new ideas and concepts.
Some of the ways in which we can find topics to write on are
- Searching digital channels and platforms to understand the needs and requirements of the target consumer
- Social Listening which is a very important skill to acquire
- Searching for various keywords and their search volume on search engines. High volume keywords are the ones that are most searched on the internet. These keywords speak of the user’s intent. We can help to create great content.
Following industry veterans and thought leaders on channels like LinkedIn, reading their posts on websites, and articles help to find new topics to write on.
How important is Search Engine Optimization for content writing?
Be very clear when you are answering this question. High-quality content writing and SEO are not mutually exclusive and should be incorporated together to get the best results.
With this question, your potential employer will want to know how much you know about Search Engine Optimized content and the relation between the two.
It is absolutely essential for a content writer applying for a job in content writing to understand the fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization.
Content that ranks high on search engines without any monetary involvement speaks of the quality of content. It means that Google has analyzed the content of your site and has found it high-grade that answers the queries of the searcher.
It is the process of getting leads for your business without reaching out to them. The process is facilitated by organic high-quality content that brings users to your website.
Tell your potential employers that you can work with keywords judiciously so as not to stuff the copy with keywords but use them to provide maximum value.
How to schedule your content writing work?
Content writing requires you to have a plan of action as to what to write it and how to promote the content. To schedule your content writing work, you have to you first comprehend the goals, objectives, of the organization you are working for.
Next, you have to be clear about the product and services provided by the business. Your content will revolve around the various products, and services, advantages, and benefits that your organization provides for its target and existing consumers.
The third step is to create a spreadsheet and write down the topics that you want to write on. it helps to create a content idea and topic pool for a month. You will also have to determine how often you will post your content.
According to surveys, it is proved that more than 15 blog posts render much greater benefits to a company than a business that does not invest in content creation. Next is the most important process in the whole framework of the schedule of work. The writing part: It includes researching, creating an outline of your work, drafting your write-up, proofreading, editing, and finally publishing.
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How to create content for a new enterprise?
For brands, the goodwill and the reputation of the organization is a continuous process that needs to be maintained. New enterprises will have to build their Goodwill from scratch and sustain them meticulously in the long run.
For this purpose, content for new enterprises should research keywords relevant to the industry they operate in. There should be a steady flow of content to build credibility on search engines and get backlinks consistently.
Moreover, the content copy should confidently assert the qualities and value of the products and services offered by the new enterprise.
Target consumers should be thoroughly researched. The inverted pyramid style of writing should be implemented and there should be appropriate images to go with the copy. This helps target consumers to comprehend and retain information better.
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How to decide the tone and voice for content?
The tone, voice, and positioning of content are dependent on the behavioral patterns needs and requirements of the consumers and focus groups.
The other thing to consider is the native qualities of the brand. The tone depends on brand personality and traits. Any content strategy for that particular organization should be in consonance with the brand personality and profile.
A baby product will have an endearing tone, a woman’s product will have an empowering tone, and a family product will have the qualities of integration. Content style and voice should also concur with the attributes of the channel used for promotion.
For example
A content copy for LinkedIn will be more formal, focused, and would depict all the important elements of the brand properly, and officially through impeccable writing.
However social media channels like Instagram can integrate storytelling, interesting anecdotes, and share the attributes of the organization.
Every channel has a different way of disseminating information to the public. Content writers have to be aware of those inherent features of different channels while writing content.
How to back your content with facts?
The quality of any content copy is bolstered by facts, statistics, figures examples. Your potential employer would be interested to know how you will integrate and incorporate facts in your content copy to make it more believable and trustworthy.
To build faith with your consumers, research should be done from popular entertainment articles, resources, reports, and journals. Furthermore, every information that you site from these sources should be mentioned along with links to the sites as and when necessary.
When you hyperlink the source of the article from where you have gleaned these facts, you give your consumers the reason to trust your brand more.
It helps to always cite data from credible sources because people are aware of famous publications and survey channels.
What are the metrics for content performance evaluation?
As content writers, writing content and disseminating it doesn’t fulfill your responsibility is a content writer. You have to evaluate the performance of your content from time to time. It assists in understanding what is working and what isn’t. Employers will be interested to know how you’re going to gauge the performance level of your content.
Answer with honesty. Performance evaluation will help you to comprehend your strengths and weaknesses. It will improve your weaknesses and help to consolidate the strong points further.
Some of the important metrics to consider are as follows
- Page Views
- Recurrent Visitors
- Overall Size Of Your readers
- Average Time Spent
- Page Navigation Of Users Also Known As The Behavioral Flow
- Heat Maps
- Inbound Links
- Bounce Rates
- Pages Visited Per Session
- Subscriber List
- Likes, Shares, Comments, Engagement With Posts are some of the criteria to base your content performance on.
In terms of SEO, it an important metric that can give you an overall idea of the utility of your content as evaluated by search engines like Google. Google Analytics and Search Console are some of the tools that can help you to measure that.
When you appear for interviews for content writing profiles, you have to remember the tools and applications used for different content writing and creation purposes. This will help to instill trust in your employer about the credibility of your content writing efforts.
How to promote your content for greater visibility?
This is another very popular question that employers ask content writing job applicants. The reason being, content promotion is one of the integral elements of the entire content strategy and marketing process.
The most obvious answer that comes to your mind is sharing your articles, blog posts, content on various social media channels. However, there are some other means of promoting your content too. They comprise engaging with industry veterans, influencers for their evaluation and opinions on your article.
How is a blog different from an article?
A blog post is an informal conversational write-up that allows for personal opinions. Articles are more comprehensive, backed by important data almost always.
One other important distinguishing factor is that blog posts generally work around keywords. Articles do not emphasize the importance of keywords in the content copy.
Blog posts can be self-published, articles go through a rigorous step-by-step process of writing, editing, and proofreading by professionals and finally ends with the article published in online newspapers, magazines, journals.
To summarize it, a blog post is more informal and personal whereas articles are formal, traditional, and have a business-like attitude as its distinct feature.
Important Tip
However, the fact today is the lines are somewhat blurred between a blog post and an article. A deluge of blog posts inundates the consumer in the online domain today. Businesses try to provide comprehensive, incisive information to online users to provide more value.
What was once a simple chronological description of events has today changed into great forms of information distribution in the case of blogs.
Small, medium and angel-funded companies invest in blog posts today because online users love to read them. They are so abundantly informative and appealing that blog posts have become the in-thing today.
What are the tools necessary for creating great content?
Here you have to name some of the tools that you use to create error-free content. Employers look for content writers who are committed and create content with as much less scope for error as possible.
Mention the tools you know of and use. Most popular tools are incorporated by all or most content writers are as follows:
Grammarly, Hemingway, Portent, GMetrix, Piktochart, Compressnow, Small Seo Tools. Among these, Grammarly is one of the most popular applications that houses all important elements. Starting from a plagiarism detector tool to proofreading and editing tools you have it all.
What are some of the books and blogs have you read on content writing?
This is a subjective question that content writers have to answer for themselves. The only word of advice here is that they should actually go through blog posts of industry veterans and thought leaders.
The blog posts, websites of these eminent digital and content marketers are a repertoire of information enriched with interesting facts.
Some of the blogs that come to mind while considering content writing are as follows:
Search Engine Journal, Hubspot, Neil Patel, Moz, Convince and Convert, Copy Hacker, Daily Blog Tips, Content Marketing Institute among others.
Why did you choose content writing as a career?
With this question, you have to honestly answer why you decided to choose content writing as a career. Different people have different expectations from their writing careers. Mainly the purpose is to give vent to your creative aspirations. Content writers inherently have a creative bent of mind.
Your goals and objectives differ from one another. It is one of the most flexible forms of pursuing a career. For content writers who can create content consistently without compromising on quality, they have great chances of hefty remuneration with a very rewarding career.
These are the primary reasons why people want to become content writers. You have unique qualities and you should express them to accentuate your abilities and your reasons for choosing content writing as a career option.
What is the biggest challenge in writing content for the web?
This is one of the frequently asked Content Writing Interview Questions. There are challenges in every profession. Content writing is no different and from time to time you might encounter challenges that impede the writing process.
The main challenges are overcoming writer’s block and the immense allure of procrastination. Admit it, it has happened with you at some point in your journey as a content writer. You have given up on a piece of writing.
When you consistently write content you are always looking for new concepts and ideas. That can be draining after a certain point.
Also, content writers are required to have a very strong grasp of grammar and vocabulary. If you are not strong in these two counts your journey as a content writer will remain limited. The solution is to constantly evolve and learn content writing trends and best practices to remain relevant.
What is the difference between blog writing and social media content writing?
Content marketing strategy involves creating blogs and social media promulgation. Employees might want to know, how as a content writer you will segregate and write for the brand in different formats.
Social media content writing is more concise, blog posts pack in a lot more information about the product and services offered.
Social media posts should concentrate on factors that compel our customers to engage with the brand through different metrics like shares, comments, and likes.
Blog articles provide much more value and can be great sources of information that can solve the problems of the consumers. This cannot be achieved with social media posts.
What is the difference between content writing and copywriting?
The purpose of content writing is to provide information and value to the clients without pursuing the consumer to make a purchasing decision.
Copywriting is solely created with the intention of making sales. It does provide exhaustive information about a product’s attributes and qualities but the end goal is to make a sale.
While content writing tries to foster and nurture the clients in the long run, copywriting infuses the vision, goals of the brand with the products offered to induce sales. Content is organic dissemination of information while copywriting is essentially the advertisement of the brand.
How to stay at the top of your game in content writing?
Content writers perform a lot of activities to stay at the top of the game. Some are voracious readers who go through blogs, books, articles, features for inspiration.
Some are inspired by people and find ideas in different places sometimes unconventional places. They draw inspiration from nature, coffee shops, and even in their daily commute. Some travel for inspiration while others watch shows.
The only way to keep improving is to look for new ideas with the hopes of creating something that will have repeat quality in it.
What do you know about CMS (Content Management System)
Most content writers are familiar with content management systems like WordPress. A content management system is a software application that helps to structure your content and provide it aesthetically to your target consumers.
When you posed with this question, you can delineate how you find content writing systems like WordPress innovative with so much scope for aesthetic value.
You can also describe how the color themes, fonts, different plugins, help to facilitate the process of providing valuable information to your consumers.
What do you think are the three most essential things to become successful in content writing?
This is a generic question. the answer to which can however have a lasting impression on your potential employer. The answer depends on your reasons for becoming a content writer. Also, what you think would make you a prolific writer able to draft better content every time you sit to write.
Perseverance, enthusiasm to learn and evolve, and the wish to create better content incorporating all important components of content marketing to make it a richer copy are the three essential things to become a successful content writer.
Conclusion
Here are the 20 content writing interview questions and answers on content writing that will help you get a fair idea of how to answer the questions posed in the interview.
Content Writing provides great room for opportunities and professional growth. It also helps to bring the creative aspect of your personality to the fore.
These questions and answers will help you to get a head-start in your preparation for an interview for a content writing job profile. If you have plans to appear for an interview anytime soon, go through these questions. Also, bring in your uniqueness when you are answering the questions. This lends the trait of credibility to you as a dependable competent content writer.
