Content Writing is a field that will never stop your learning; rather, it will boost your knowledge and develop your skills and intelligence, which certainly shows results. This field offers lots of learning, but it depends on the way you take it and apply it.
Are you thinking of working as a Content Writer?
Then you must enhance your content writing skills and must know how to prepare well for this profile before applying for it.
There might be tons of content writing interview questions revolving in your mind regarding what you might be asked in the interview. Some people might consider this profile to be simple and may take the interview lightly, but one must not underestimate any working profile (whether big or small).
Plenty of questions can be formed to judge your intellect, whether your background relates or not, and there are some primary queries that are surely asked from an interviewee to deduce a final opinion.
Gathering crucial information from the web, I hereby bring you some significant questions that are generally enquired in the interview for a content writing profile.
Top 10 Elementary Content Writer Interview Questions
What type of articles you have written? Provide 2-3 best publications or samples for review.
This is generally the second question enquired once the interviewer had gone through your CV and qualifications. The main motive to ask this question is to know your areas of interest and see whether you have written any piece of content as per their subject requirement.
If you have written on a particular niche, then let the interviewer know that you have expertise over these subjects, and you are willing to show your versatility by working on other trending topics too.
And, if you are a jack of all trades, then showcase your best publications and let them speak on your behalf. By reading your guest post samples, the person will get to know your dexterities and will tick on the first checkbox of his ‘list of prerequisites for hiring a content writer’ that he keeps in mind.
Prefer reading-How to Improve Your Content Writing Samples as a New Freelance Writer?
What process do you follow to get your articles finally done?
Writing articles, guest posts, blogs, white papers, research papers, and any other piece of writing, there is a step-by-step procedure that is followed to write quality and valuable content.
The purpose of asking this question is to get an idea that from where have you sourced your content, which are the websites that you usually refer to, which techniques, as a writer, you have applied in creating the best of your article/publication.
The process involved may include:
- In-depth research on the topic
- Sourcing good and relevant external/internal links
- Adding useful and relevant images or infographics
- Acknowledging the reader with some reports/surveys/statistics
- Providing the latest trends/knowledge on the subject
- Implementing all the content checks (like plagiarism check, grammar check, proofread, etc.)
It is highly recommended that you follow this procedure and add all these to your practice to further enhance your skills, thereby adding value to your work.
As a Content Writer or a Freelancer, how do you manage the deadlines or priorities?
Deadlines and work on priority is something that is witnessed in every sphere of life, and just because of these fixed time restrictions, one can deliver the end product as it was planned.
Usually, this query is asked to know how well you cope up with time and deliver the best quality in all that you promise. The interviewer intends to check your time management along with your primary talent of writing the best.
Being a writer or a freelancer, you might get a different type of work. Some are niche-based, some are typical and complex, some require a lot of searches, some are to be researched in-depth, and all these accounts to consuming a considerable amount of time.
So out here, try to schedule your work accordingly, start with the one that seems to be simple and less time taking, make up a plan for the delivery of your articles, set time for search, based on the topic subject, and consider the urgency of the work assigned.
Always remember, good quality content requires quality time to be created and delivered with full contentment. So always be flexible with your content writing assignments and keep your client/boss well informed of your work submission.
Do you use any useful tools to create content or make checks on it?
There are many content writing tools available, acting as a helping hand for content writers and freelancers. For some, you have to pay, and some provide their services for free.
The motive to ask this is to see your awareness of the relevant and useful tools and apps that are used in content creation and curation. If you make use of the available online tools, well and good, but if not, make it a habit to make your final checks on these before the article submission.
Some of the tools you can mention are:
- Headline Analyzer
- Grammarly
- Copyscape
- Hemingway
- UK vs. US spelling
- Thesaurus
- HubSpot’s blog topic generator
- And many more…
These tools will definitely help you find your loopholes and give you better suggestions which you can actually implement; nevertheless, one must never get wholly dependent on these as they might not always produce accurate results.
Note: Tools and apps available for writing or curating content, are merely built for your help. You should never blindly depend on them to get fruitful results. Human-made machines should never underestimate the human brain.
What do you think about Keyword Research?
To start with, Keyword Research is a major part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which is done to find specific words/phrases searched by the majority of people to narrow their quest for search.
This question is generally enquired to judge your knowledge about keywords and the value they hold. SEO plays a vital role in content writing and content marketing. Thus, it becomes crucial for you to be updated with the latest SEO rules and keyword research.
Thus, Keyword Research is important and let them know where it plays an actual role.
Do you possess any Writing Style? What tones of writing have you come across?
Every writer has his own unique style of forging a piece of information. Some explain things in detail; some write in the context of a third person; some focus on readability more while some pay attention to in-depth understanding. (especially technical writing)
Usually, this query is raised to know from you that what all techniques you use for word choice, tone of writing, sentence structure, syntax, and much more.
There are distinct tones of content writing, and you may choose to answer that which out of these you have used the most and why:
- Narrative
- Persuasive
- Descriptive and
- Argumentative
Many times it depends on the voice which viewers or readers prefer to listen to, and a proficient professional has to follow a specific tone to address the audience in the best possible way, leaving apart his/ her comfort of writing.
Sometimes, Content Writing becomes monotonous. How do you stay motivated with the repetitive work of writing?
Content Writing, when done as a passion, will never make a person get bored; instead, it will add on new things in your knowledge hut. While writing, sometimes you may feel annoyed and tired of writing in the same style or the same niche or context.
However, the best way to answer this could be that you like to experiment with different writing styles, and writing in different fields/domain helps you enhance your motivation. ‘Innovation is the ongoing trend, and I like to follow the ongoing fashion.
This reply can make you put a good impression on the person sitting in front of you where he/she will be amazed to see your dedication and zeal to work as a content writer.
Prefer reading- Tips to crack your next Content Writing Interview.
How many pieces of content do you think you can deliver in a week’s time?
This is usually asked to see your capabilities along with your skills and motivation towards the profession of writing.
I would say never exaggerate on this and let the person know the correct count of articles you can deliver in the asked time interval. As per your frequency of writing articles in a day, you must answer the question by calculating the average of a week.
Make sure that you consider all the necessary factors in delivering quality content and then make your final say. In case you are hired and unable to deliver what you promised, it may put a bad impression on your team lead or reporting manager and might affect your hiring too.
So be careful while entertaining such a question.
Do you think that your Content must be made SEO-friendly?
As a content writer, first of all, you must know what SEO is and what its role is in content marketing, as only then will you be able to answer this question as expected.
Yes, indeed, there is a real need to integrate SEO in your content to get it a high ranking on the search engines. Some of the basic SEO things which you must know as a content writer are:
- External/Internal links:
High-quality links sourced from good sites improve the performance of the content in the context of its engagement with the audience.
- Formatting and Body tags:
Alignment, formatting, and use of H1/H2/H3 tags help to enhance readability and describes the significance of titles, headings, and sub-headings.
- Keyword Density:
Keyword density must be between 2-5%, as keywords are the ones who help the search engine crawlers to find out what the content is all about.
- Meta tags:
Such tags help to describe the content in brief and must be appropriate as they are fit in the page’s code.
- URL structure:
It is essential to make your URL small, possessing keyword and location in itself as it helps Google (and other search engines) to reach the public easily.
Are you familiar with any CMS (Content Management System)?
Using a Content Management System is a different thing and having sound knowledge of its accounts to something else. If you have used any content management system, then do mention the CMS you have worked on, its functionalities, how it helped you, and the necessary information on the same.
However, if you haven’t used any, I would recommend you get familiar with some reputed CMS that are in the limelight and grab some information on them. One can get acquainted with some CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Radiant CMS, etc.
Conclusion
I hope you find these content writing interview questions and suggestions helpful! If you want us to add any other crucial question that you were asked in your interview and want others to know about it, let us know in the comments section.
Read more about- Top Content Writing Jobs in Chandigarh for graduates.
