How to hire writers for your blog
Looking to hire writers for your blog? We’ve previously been through this process many times, therefore, here are our tips on what to look out for.
We found that the best place to hire freelance writers for blog content specifically was through UpWork. Meaning, we’ll be focusing on certain filters you could apply on UpWork specifically, in order to help find the right content writer for your blog.
However, please note that these methods could also be carried across to different freelancing websites too. As most of them are general tips you could consider, regardless of the freelancing website you’re using to hire from.
Get to know your writer before hiring
Getting to know your writer is important, as you need to know if they’re the best all-around fit for your project and business.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should stalk them but you should at least ask them some generic interview questions, which could be aimed towards freelance writers.
These freelance writing interview questions could include:
- Do you have a portfolio of past work?
- Do you have a personal blog website?
- What are you most experienced in writing about, what’s your niche?
- What makes you qualified to write my blog’s niche? – Consider E-A-T in SEO.
- What’s your experience with SEO?
- Do you have a day job, if so, would this impact any deadlines?
From the above, you can very easily gather information about the freelancer, from just their answers alone. However, for a much broader approach (without even contacting the writer), you can easily gather some information from their freelancer profile by using the methods below.
1. Check if they’re experienced
On UpWork, it actually shows you how much a freelancer has successfully earned, whilst being a freelancer on their website. There’s even a certain filter that you could apply to check this.
By applying this filter, you’ll automatically see that people who have earned higher numbers (>$10k) are shown as more experienced and those that have not yet earned their first dollar; are less experienced or have only just started using UpWork.
Using this filter is an obvious indication of the freelancer’s success. Meaning, if you’re going to start looking for good writers, you’ve got the proof to check if they’re experienced first.
However, it’s important to note that on UpWork, freelancers can offer multiple services. Meaning, it’s important to check their work history (you can check this in UpWork) and validate if they’ve generated their income from only writing projects and not through another service that they may have offered.
2. Check their portfolio
UpWork allows freelancers to upload their writing portfolio to their profile. Therefore, if a freelancer has added theirs, be sure to check it out.
In particular, you’re looking to examine their writing style using the points below (even if the portfolio piece has nothing to do with your blog’s niche):
- Do they write in small paragraphs? – As blog content should be easily scannable.
- Do they spell correctly? – Copy and paste the written work into Grammarly and try to find any obvious errors.
- Do they come across too aggressive? – You’re most likely wanting to avoid this.
- Is everything backed up? – Consider SEO, as reliable content will help you rank better.
In the event that a profile has no portfolio to show, don’t worry! You could even proof their bio and examine some of the obvious points here too.
3. Check their work history
As mentioned earlier, you’re able to check a freelancer’s work history directly inside UpWork.
This is extremely useful, as you’re able to determine a couple of things:
- What niche they’ve previously written for.
- How much to pay them per article.
Using the example UpWork freelancer’s bio above, you are able to quickly see that this freelancer has previously written articles for an art niche, at the rate of $10 per 800–1,200 words, which most likely depended on the number of articles required.
Using this method, you’re able to instantly check:
- If they’ve previously written for your niche (as it may save you costs if the freelancer charges for research time),
- The starting rate at which you could try to negotiate each article from.
- If a freelancer is open to lower their rates, on the basis you buy more articles from them.
Please note, not all freelancer’s work history on UpWork may look like this. It’s really down to the buyer’s request and what they write down once the job is complete.
4. Check if they have a large social following
This one is optional, however, still worth mentioning. As it helps to put the marketing back into content marketing by getting your own freelancers to market content for you.
It works by asking a freelancer for their website. Once you have this, make sure look for any social media links in hopes that they have a massive social media following.
You could even check for this by searching their name on Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
If they do, great! All you then need to do is kindly ask if they could share an article (of which they originally had written) from your blog once it’s published — it’s that simple!
Once this happens, hopefully, you’ll see a flood of traffic coming directly to your blog!
Places to hire online writers
If you’re looking for places to hire writers, then please use the table below, which helps to provide a general indication of quality, popularity and costs.
Website | Quality of content* | Popularity | Cost per article |
UpWork | Low to high | High | Low to high |
Fiverr | Low to medium | High | Low to medium |
Medium to high | Low | Medium to high | |
Contact another blog’s writer | Medium to high | Low | Medium to high |
Use an agency | High | Low | High |
*The quality of content is not a measurable/accurate statistic that we can provide. However, it’s based on our own experiences of using the said website. |
By looking at the table above, you can gather that the price you pay, determines the quality of each article. Meaning, if you’re wanting to come across as an industry leader, then you may need to pay the premium.
However, do note that this is not always the case. As, through trial and error; you could still find an affordable freelance writer, who is just good, if not better.
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