Content Writer Job Description Template (2026)

Full JD (copy-ready)

Paste this into your ATS or careers page. Edit the company name and any bracketed placeholders.

# Content Writer — Job Description

## Role summary
A Content Writer produces long-form editorial for a brand — pillar pages, SEO guides, thought-leadership essays, ebooks, case studies, and whitepapers. They own topic research, SME interviews, search-intent mapping, on-page optimization, and CMS publishing. This role is about journalism-grade reporting calibrated for SEO and brand authority, not short-form ad copy or persuasive conversion writing.

## Responsibilities
- Draft long-form pillar pages (3,000+ words) and SEO guides mapped to a target keyword cluster, primary search intent, and secondary entity coverage.
- Run keyword research in Ahrefs or Semrush — pulling SERP siblings, People Also Ask, and related entities — and turn the brief into a publish-ready outline before drafting.
- Conduct 30–45 minute SME and customer interviews on Zoom, transcribe with Otter or Descript, and translate raw quotes into credible reporting with attributions.
- Fact-check every statistic, quote, and claim against a primary source, link citations inline, and reject secondhand blog citations that cannot be traced.
- Optimize drafts against Clearscope, Surfer SEO, or MarketMuse content grades — covering entities, internal links, headers, and semantic HTML structure — before handoff.
- Publish directly into WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, or Contentful — handling image compression, alt text, schema fields, and internal linking at publish time.
- Maintain a brand style guide covering voice, tone, banned phrases, punctuation rules, and preferred vocabulary — and enforce it across articles by themselves and other contributors.
- Write scannable long-form: descriptive H2/H3 structure, pull quotes, comparison tables, numbered takeaways, and TL;DR boxes calibrated for featured snippet capture.
- Repurpose long-form into LinkedIn posts, newsletter issues, and short video scripts with the research cost amortized across the content system.
- Collaborate with the SEO specialist on internal linking maps, content refreshes of existing articles, and topical authority expansion over quarterly sprints.

## Must-have skills
- 3+ years writing long-form editorial or SEO content with a portfolio of published articles ranking on page one of Google.
- Working SEO fluency: keyword research in Ahrefs or Semrush, SERP analysis, and comfort reading Google Search Console performance data.
- Interview-based reporting — can run a 45-minute SME interview, ask follow-up questions, and extract quotable material without leading the subject.
- Native-level written English with clean grammar, varied sentence rhythm, and AP style competence (or house-style equivalent).
- Direct experience in a CMS — WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, or Contentful — including image handling, schema fields, and on-page SEO configuration.
- Content optimization against Clearscope, Surfer, Frase, or MarketMuse grades without gaming the score at the expense of readability.
- Fact-checking rigor: cites primary sources, avoids Wikipedia-as-source, and flags claims that cannot be verified.

## Nice-to-have skills
- Published bylines in tier-one industry publications or Substack with organic distribution.
- Domain expertise in a vertical your brand writes about (SaaS, fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, legal).
- Basic HTML/Markdown and familiarity with schema.org Article and FAQPage markup.
- Content refresh experience — auditing historical articles, identifying decay, and rewriting for current SERP intent.
- Ghostwriting fluency — can write in a founder or executive voice from recorded conversations.

## Tools and technology
- Google Docs
- Ahrefs / Semrush
- Clearscope / Surfer SEO / MarketMuse
- WordPress / Webflow / Sanity
- Grammarly
- Otter / Descript (interview transcription)
- Notion (editorial calendar)
- Google Search Console
- Hemingway Editor

## Reporting structure
Reports to the Head of Content, Content Marketing Manager, or in smaller teams directly to the Head of Marketing. Collaborates weekly with the SEO specialist on keyword targets and internal linking, with SMEs and founders on interview prep, and with the designer on article heroes and in-body visuals.

## Success metrics (KPIs)
- Organic traffic growth to authored articles (GSC impressions and clicks, quarter over quarter).
- Keyword ranking — percentage of target keywords in top 10 within 6 months of publish.
- Publish cadence hit rate versus editorial calendar commitments.
- Backlinks earned per pillar article (Ahrefs referring domains).
- Engaged read time and scroll depth on long-form articles (GA4 or similar).
- Content-to-pipeline attribution — MQLs or signups sourced from organic articles.