Torchora
Back to Home

written word consultant

title: Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Written Word Consultant
salary: $65,000 - $130,000
categories: [Writing, Content Strategy, Communications, Marketing, UX, Editorial, SEO, Consulting]
description: A comprehensive overview of the key responsibilities, required technical skills and professional background for the role of a Written Word Consultant.
Comprehensive, recruiter-grade summary of the Written Word Consultant role: core responsibilities, measurable deliverables, career progression, and the technical and soft skills required to excel in content strategy, copywriting, UX writing, editorial governance, SEO optimization, and cross-functional content operations.

🎯 Role Definition

The Written Word Consultant is an experienced content strategist and senior copy professional who crafts high-impact written experiences across marketing, product, and corporate channels. This role is responsible for developing and executing content strategy, optimizing copy for SEO and conversions, shaping brand voice and style, and enabling teams through content governance, tooling, and training. The Written Word Consultant partners with product, marketing, design, legal, and engineering to translate user needs and business goals into clear, usable, and measurable content that drives acquisition, activation, retention, and brand trust.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Copywriter or Content Strategist
  • Product or UX Writer with cross-functional experience
  • Communications Manager or Marketing Content Lead

Advancement To:

  • Head of Content / Director of Content Strategy
  • Senior Product Writing Lead / Head of UX Writing
  • VP of Communications or Chief Content Officer

Lateral Moves:

  • Content Operations Manager
  • Content Design Lead
  • Technical Writing Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop and execute a holistic content strategy that aligns brand voice, UX goals, SEO objectives, and business KPIs across web, mobile, email, product UI, and social channels to improve discoverability and conversion.
  • Audit existing content across channels and platforms, perform gap analyses and user-journey mapping, and produce actionable roadmaps to improve content consistency, findability, and lifecycle management.
  • Create and optimize long-form thought leadership, blog posts, white papers, case studies, and editorial content designed to drive organic acquisition, backlinking, and lead generation.
  • Write high-conversion marketing copy for landing pages, product pages, email campaigns, paid ads, and CTAs, applying persuasion principles and research-backed messaging to improve click-through and conversion rates.
  • Produce concise, context-aware UX microcopy, error messages, onboarding flows, and in-app guidance that reduces user friction and improves task completion and product delight.
  • Build, document, and maintain brand voice, style guides, content templates, and glossaries that ensure consistent tone and messaging across global teams and channels.
  • Partner closely with SEO experts to perform keyword research, develop search-optimized content briefs, and implement on-page SEO best practices including metadata, header structures, and schema where appropriate.
  • Collaborate with product managers, UX designers, engineers, and researchers to translate requirements into user-centered content that supports product functionality and accessibility.
  • Lead cross-functional content workshops and training sessions to raise writing standards, introduce plain-language principles, and operationalize a culture of content excellence.
  • Define content KPIs (organic traffic, time on page, conversion rate, retention lift), implement measurement frameworks, and use analytics to iterate on content strategy and demonstrate measurable ROI.
  • Manage editorial calendars, prioritize competing requests, set deadlines and SLAs, and coordinate internal and external writers to ensure timely, high-quality content delivery.
  • Oversee localization and internationalization efforts, providing linguistic and cultural guidance for translated content and coordinating with localization partners to maintain consistency across markets.
  • Design and run A/B tests for headlines, CTAs, layouts, and copy variants to identify the highest-performing messaging and scale learnings into content playbooks.
  • Ensure content complies with legal, regulatory, privacy, and accessibility (WCAG) requirements by coordinating reviews with legal, compliance, and accessibility specialists.
  • Edit, proofread, and fact-check content for clarity, grammar, accuracy, and brand alignment while preserving author voice and intent.
  • Create modular copy systems, content components, and reusable templates to increase editorial velocity and ensure consistent messaging across multi-channel campaigns.
  • Translate complex technical documentation and product specifications into approachable, audience-appropriate content for customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
  • Monitor competitor content, industry trends, and search algorithm updates to keep content strategy current, defensible, and performance-focused.
  • Mentor and provide editorial feedback to junior writers and content contributors, setting quality standards and fostering continuous skill development.
  • Build and maintain content repositories, taxonomies, and tagging systems to improve content discoverability, re-use, and governance across teams.
  • Support incident and crisis communications by drafting clear, empathetic messaging for customers, press, and internal stakeholders during product or PR events.
  • Advise senior leadership on content investments, tooling (CMS, headless architectures), resource allocation, and long-term content roadmaps that support growth, SEO, and brand objectives.

Secondary Functions

  • Define content tooling requirements and partner with product and engineering to evaluate, select, and implement CMS, DAM, and headless content platforms that scale editorial workflows.
  • Collaborate with analytics and growth teams to extract content performance insights, synthesize findings, and recommend content experiments and prioritization.
  • Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming and agile ceremonies to integrate content work into product delivery cycles and ensure timely copy handoffs.
  • Coordinate vendor and freelance relationships for localization, multimedia production, and editorial support; manage contracts and quality assurance processes.
  • Maintain editorial budgets, resource forecasts and work intake processes to align capacity with strategic priorities.
  • Participate in user research, testing and qualitative interviews to validate messaging, iterate copy, and improve user comprehension and conversion.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced copywriting and editorial skills: punctuation, grammar, tone, voice, and readability optimization.
  • Content strategy development, content audits, content modeling and lifecycle planning.
  • SEO expertise: keyword research, on-page optimization, metadata, schema, and familiarity with tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush.
  • CMS and content tooling: hands-on experience with WordPress, Contentful, Drupal, or headless CMS architectures.
  • Analytics and measurement: Google Analytics (including GA4), Adobe Analytics, or equivalent platforms for tracking content performance.
  • A/B testing and experimentation platforms: Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize or similar.
  • UX writing and product copy: crafting microcopy, onboarding flows, and conversational UI text.
  • Localization and internationalization workflow management, including working with translation vendors and pseudolocalization testing.
  • Accessibility and plain-language best practices (WCAG guidelines and readability tools).
  • Technical writing and the ability to distill complex concepts into customer-facing documentation and help content.
  • Content governance, style guide creation, and documentation of editorial processes.
  • Familiarity with content-marketing and SEO-centric publishing workflows, including structured data and content hubs.

Soft Skills

  • Strong stakeholder management and the ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority.
  • Strategic thinking with a data-informed approach to prioritization and iterative improvement.
  • Exceptional attention to detail and high editorial standards.
  • Clear verbal and written communication tailored to different audiences (executive, technical, customer).
  • Project management and the ability to manage multiple deadlines and shifting priorities.
  • Mentorship and team development skills to grow junior writers and evangelize writing best practices.
  • Empathy and user-centered mindset to write for diverse audiences and accessibility needs.
  • Problem-solving and critical thinking when balancing trade-offs between speed, quality, and scale.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Marketing, Technical Writing, Linguistics, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Communication, Journalism, Marketing, HCI, or related discipline, or relevant professional certifications (Content Strategy, SEO, UX Writing).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • English / Creative Writing
  • Journalism / Media Studies
  • Communications / Public Relations
  • Marketing / Digital Marketing
  • Technical Writing / Information Design
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) / UX

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years of professional experience in content strategy, copywriting, UX writing, or technical writing with demonstrated impact.

Preferred: 5+ years of progressive experience at agency or in-house teams, with a portfolio of enterprise-level content projects, measurable SEO or conversion improvements, cross-functional collaboration, and experience managing external contributors or freelance networks.

Explore More Careers