Resume Keywords for a Content Writer (ATS Skills List)
Content marketing roles are heavily screened by ATS platforms like Greenhouse and Workday for SEO and CMS-related terms. Including keywords such as SEO writing, content strategy, and WordPress ensures your resume matches the exact skills recruiters filter for. The categorized lists below help you cover both craft and tooling without keyword stuffing.
Top ATS Keywords for a Content Writer Resume
Most employers store applications in an applicant tracking system (Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, iCIMS). The system parses your file into plain text, and a recruiter then searches that text for terms from the posting. These are the terms recruiters search for this role — work in the ones you can honestly claim.
Core Hard Skills
SEO writingContent strategyCopywritingEditing and proofreadingKeyword researchEditorial calendar managementContent marketingLong-form content
Tools, Systems and Software
WordPressGoogle Analytics (GA4)SemrushAhrefsSurfer SEOHubSpot
Certifications and Credentials
HubSpot Content Marketing CertificationGoogle Analytics CertificationSemrush Content Marketing CertificationHubSpot SEO Certification
Soft Skills ATS Scans For
Attention to detailCommunicationTime managementAdaptabilityCollaborationCreativity
Why These Keywords Matter for Content Writers
| Keyword | Why recruiters & ATS weight it |
|---|---|
| SEO writing | Nearly all content roles require search-optimized writing, so this term is a frequent ATS filter and recruiter search. |
| Content strategy | Signals you plan content around goals and audiences, not just execute assignments, which appeals to senior roles. |
| Copywriting | Confirms you can write persuasive, conversion-focused copy in addition to informational articles. |
| Keyword research | Shows you can identify what audiences search for, a core input to any organic content program. |
| WordPress | The most common CMS, so many postings screen for it as a practical publishing requirement. |
| Google Analytics | Demonstrates you measure content performance and make data-informed decisions, valued across marketing teams. |
| Editorial calendar | Indicates you can plan and ship content consistently at scale, a signal of reliability for editors. |
| Content marketing | Ties your writing to a broader funnel and business outcomes, matching how marketing job descriptions are framed. |
Keywords by specialisation and seniority
“Content Writer” is an umbrella title, and postings under it want noticeably different things. In our study of 3,910 real job postings, two postings for the same job title at different companies shared a median of only 25% of their named requirements — the control for different titles was 11.1%. In practice that means the posting in front of you matters more than a generic keyword list, including this one. Work out which of the profiles below the posting is really describing, then lead with those terms.
| If the posting is really about… | Lead with these terms | Back them up with |
|---|---|---|
| SEO and organic growth | Search intent, content briefs, on-page SEO, internal linking, content refreshes, organic traffic growth | An Ahrefs or Semrush workflow and one traffic or ranking outcome per role |
| B2B or SaaS content marketing | Thought leadership, subject-matter-expert interviews, case studies, funnel stages, product-led content, sales enablement | HubSpot or Salesforce familiarity and lead- or pipeline-adjacent results |
| Brand and editorial | Brand voice, tone of voice, style guides, editorial standards, feature writing, storytelling | AP or Chicago style, plus the titles you edited or publications you shipped |
| UX and product content | UX writing, microcopy, content design, information architecture, user flows, error states | Figma collaboration and a usability or support-ticket outcome |
| Email and lifecycle | Email marketing, lifecycle campaigns, segmentation, A/B testing, click-through rate, deliverability | A named ESP — Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Braze — and one campaign metric |
| Senior and lead roles | Content strategy, editorial calendar ownership, content audits, briefing writers, freelancer management, stakeholder management | Team or budget size, publishing cadence, and processes you built rather than followed |
Seniority changes the vocabulary as much as specialisation does. Junior postings lean on execution terms — drafting, proofreading, publishing, CMS uploads, fact-checking — while senior postings lean on ownership terms such as strategy, audits, briefing and mentoring. If you are applying a level up, borrow the ownership verbs only where you genuinely carried the responsibility; a mismatch between the title you are chasing and the verbs you use is one of the easiest screens for a recruiter to run.
Shortcut: if you have one specific posting open, paste it and your resume into the free checker — it lists the must-have terms from that posting that are literally missing from your resume.
Named tools that appear beyond the big six
WordPress, Google Analytics, Semrush, Ahrefs, Surfer and HubSpot (covered above) are the usual suspects, but postings regularly name a second tier of systems — and a recruiter searching applications for “Contentful” will not find “headless CMS experience”. Name the product, not the category, for anything you have genuinely used in a working role.
Other CMS platforms
ContentfulWebflowDrupalShopifyGhostSquarespace
Workflow and planning
AsanaTrelloNotionAirtableJiraMonday.com
Editing and quality
AP styleChicago Manual of StyleGrammarlyHemingway EditorStyle guide development
AI-assisted writing
ChatGPTClaudeJasperPrompt writingEditing AI drafts
The AI card deserves a moment’s honesty. A growing share of content postings now raise AI-assisted workflows directly, and the credible claim is neither “I avoid it” nor “AI writes my first drafts” — it is that you can brief, edit and fact-check AI output to a publishable standard. If you list a model or tool as a keyword, be ready to describe your editing pass in the interview that follows.
Turning a keyword into a bullet someone will believe
A keyword in a skills chip gets you found; the same keyword inside a believable bullet gets you shortlisted. The difference is nearly always one of three things: a number, a system name, or a duration. Compare these before-and-after pairs:
| Weak bullet | Stronger rewrite | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Wrote SEO blog posts | Wrote and optimised eight long-form posts a month in WordPress, growing organic sessions 41% over six months (GA4) | A number, a system and a duration replaced a category |
| Responsible for the content calendar | Owned a 90-day editorial calendar in Asana across three product lines, hitting 95% of publish dates for a year | Duration, system name and a reliability figure |
| Did keyword research | Built 12 data-backed content briefs a quarter from Ahrefs keyword research, prioritised by volume and difficulty | System name plus a countable output |
| Edited content for the team | Edited 15–20 articles a month against an in-house AP-based style guide, cutting average revision rounds from three to one | A volume, a named standard and a before/after figure |
| Improved website traffic | Refreshed 30 decaying posts in one quarter, lifting their combined organic clicks 25% (Search Console) | A duration, a scope number and the measurement system |
| Worked with other teams on content | Briefed designers in Figma and coordinated launches with demand-gen in HubSpot, shipping six gated assets a year | Two system names and an annual output |
Reminder: the figures above are illustrative patterns, not numbers to copy. Pull your own from GA4, Search Console or your email platform before you write the bullet — interviewers ask where a number came from, and having a real answer is the point.
What to leave off a Content Writer resume
Most keyword advice only ever adds. But a Content Writer’s resume is itself a writing sample, and padding is the most visible writing sin there is. Cutting these usually strengthens the page:
- Tool lists you cannot defend. A chip earns its place if you could talk about the tool for two minutes. One-off exposure reads as padding the moment an interviewer probes it.
- Word-count achievements. “Wrote 400+ articles” is volume without outcome. Swap it for what a smaller number of pieces actually achieved.
- Personality-brand labels. “Wordsmith”, “storyteller at heart” and “grammar nerd” occupy space a specific term could use, and recruiters do not search for them.
- The full list of places you have been published. Three or four clips relevant to this employer, linked from a portfolio, beat a fifteen-line publications section.
- Retired platforms and dated tooling. Google+, Vine or a CMS you last touched in 2014 date the resume; drop them unless the posting specifically asks.
- Soft-skill repetition. If “attention to detail” sits in your skills section, it does not need to reappear in four bullets — demonstrate it once with an editing outcome instead.
How to reference your portfolio and samples
For content roles the portfolio is often screened before anyone speaks to you, and the resume is where a recruiter looks for the door to it. Give that door a keyword-bearing label rather than a bare URL.
- Put a single clean link near your contact details and label it with searchable words — “Portfolio: B2B SaaS writing samples” works harder than an unlabelled address.
- The platform itself can be a legitimate keyword: Contently, Muck Rack and Journo Portfolio are recognised in the industry, while a personal WordPress or Webflow site doubles as CMS evidence.
- Frame two or three samples as one-line case studies inside the relevant role — “wrote the pillar page that ranks for the brand’s core term” — rather than leaving “samples available on request” to do the work.
- Match the genre of your samples to the specialisation table above: a UX-writing posting is better served by two microcopy case studies than by eight blog posts.
- Before you send anything, open the link in a logged-out browser and on a phone. A dead or permission-locked portfolio link undoes the rest of the page.
If you have no published clips yet, build two or three speculative samples aimed at the kind of company you want — a product-comparison article, a feature announcement, a short case study — and label them as such. An honest “spec piece” that matches the posting’s specialisation is stronger evidence than an unrelated clip with a byline, and it gives the interview something concrete to circle back to.
How to Place Keywords So the ATS Reads Them
- Mirror the exact wording from the job posting (both the acronym and the spelled-out term, e.g. “CRM (Salesforce)”).
- Put your strongest keywords in your summary and your two most recent roles — ATS weights recent experience.
- Add a dedicated Skills section, but also weave keywords into your bullet points so they read naturally.
- Use standard section headings (“Work Experience”, “Skills”) and avoid tables, text boxes, or headers/footers that ATS parsers drop.
- Never keyword-stuff or use white text — modern parsers and recruiters both catch it.
Put These Keywords Into Strong Bullets
Keywords get you past the filter; quantified bullets win the interview. See Content Writer resume bullet examples to see these terms in action.
Frequently Asked Questions
What keywords should a content writer put on a resume?
Focus on SEO writing, content strategy, copywriting, keyword research, and your CMS such as WordPress. Match the specific tools and skills named in each job posting for the best ATS score.
Do I need SEO tools listed even for editorial jobs?
If the posting mentions SEO or organic growth, include tools like Semrush or Ahrefs that you genuinely use. For purely editorial roles, emphasize editing, style guides, and CMS keywords instead.
Are content marketing certifications worth listing?
Real certifications like the HubSpot Content Marketing or Google Analytics certification add recognized keywords and credibility. Only include ones you have actually completed.
Resume Keywords for Related Roles
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