How to Hire a Freelance Writer: A Step-By-Step Guide for 2021

Getting Started

Content marketing is the heart and soul of business success online. People are searching for valuable information every minute, so if you do it the right way, you’ll drive traffic, leads, and sales. Thus, you need to publish blog posts, sales pages, email newsletters, product reviews, and more.

The problem?

Not everyone is a writer. As a business executive, you may not have the time to craft great content for your audience, or you probably don’t have excellent writing skills.

But that should not cripple your business, as you can hire a freelance writer to write engaging content for your business. With thousands of writers out there all claiming to be the best, how do you find the best one for your business needs?

Step I: Set Clear Goals

Like any other business project, content writing requires a well-structured plan and clear goals. Once you have goals in place, it will be easy to hire a suitable writer for the same.

So, what content goals should you set for your business?

1. The Content-Type

There are different types of content, including blog posts, email newsletters, landing pages, eBooks, press releases, case studies, and more.

You need to know what content type you need so you can hire a writer who specializes in the same.

Once you know the type of content, it will also help you establish the purpose of the material. For example, blog posts may be informational, while a landing page could be promotional.

You’ll need to communicate the content type, tone, and purpose to your writer.

And these days, all content must be SEO-friendly and be written not just for search engines but also for humans. With this in mind, you want to engage a writer who understands critical on-page SEO elements, such as:

• Title tags
• Header tags
• Use of keywords in content (both primary and LSI keywords)
• Meta description
• Internal and external links
• Ability to write informative but authoritative content; preferably a long copy
• Call to action

2. Content Schedule

You may need tons of content for your site, but you want to ensure it doesn’t overwhelm the writer. Otherwise, the overall quality will be sub-par.

So, you need to decide on how many pieces of content to be delivered and at what interval. Is it daily, weekly, or every two weeks?

But that’s not all.

3. Compensation

Under compensation, you need to look at three main aspects: total budget, how to charge, payment method, payment schedule.

• Budget: Since you are a business, you need to have a budget for the content project, but you should balance it with the rates charged by professional freelance writers. If you create a meager and fixed budget, you may repel expert writers and attract low-quality writers. If you don’t hire the best writers, then the quality of content written won’t impress you, let alone your readers.
• How to charge: Decide whether you are going to charge per hour, per article, or per word. Most people prefer to pay per piece or per word. If you have to spend on an hourly basis, ensure you find out how many words the writer can complete in one hour. Also, if possible, come up with a way to track the hours worked.
• Payment method: PayPal is a standard option for paying writers all over the world. In general, agree on a payment method and ask the writer if it works for them.
• Payment schedule: Agree on how often you’ll be paying the writer. It can be after a specific number of articles are completed every week, monthly, bi-weekly, and so on. Ensure on reviewing the work before paying. If any revisions are needed, the writer should be ready to fix it.

Step II: Create a Writing Job Ad

How do you create a job ad that will attract the right candidates?

You need to create a specific and brief post to get the right people. If you make it too generic, you are going to receive hundreds of irrelevant job applicants.

So, to make it relevant, include the following elements:

• Your business niche
• The number of writers you are looking for
• The type of content you would like written
• The nature of work (do you have short-term, one-off, or long-term work?)
• The writer’s requirements, including the experience level
• Sample articles on similar topics
• Payment expectations
• Your contact information

Step III: Finding Top Talent in Content Writing

Now that you have set your goals, it is time to find the best writer out there.

This is where most companies go wrong, but you can follow these criteria to land the best content writer for your business.

Consult people you trust: Ask from colleagues, friends, and family. I know it sounds cliché, but people in your immediate network most likely know someone reliable to write your content.

Significant publications: By reading a couple of useful articles at sites like Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, Business.com, and Medium, you will bump into some of the world’s best writers. These platforms allow writers to include a link to their blogs or social media profiles in the by-line. That is a perfect opportunity for you to contact the writer directly.

LinkedIn: On LinkedIn, you will find a vast number of freelance writers to connect and work with efficiently. You can send them a message or click on contact information to discover the writer’s email.

Craigslist: You may also write an ad and post it on Craigslist. But be prepared to receive a massive number of applications.

Job boards: This is another good source of great writers. A common one is ProBlogger where you can post a job and receive tons of proposals from interested writers in a few hours.

I really like problogger, but you must be specific with your goals.  They will charge you 75.00 to post a “gig” on their site.  Know exactly what content you need written and put in every detail.  Add what kind of specific writer you are looking for and what type of article you need written.

I posted two gigs in the past.  The first one was not specific enough and I got swarmed with people that were not knowledgeable in the topic I needed written.

Content Mills: The good and the bad

There are many content mills online, such as iWriter, Upwork, Guru, Fiverr and more. The problem with these platforms is that they have millions of freelancer writers who are always bidding for the next job.

So, it is difficult to find a writer who genuinely cares about your business. Of course, you can still find some good writers on such platforms, but it takes a lot of time to find the right person.

I used content mills before, I have had some ups and downs with these content mills.  You really must look at their work and reviews.  These are the ones I have used in the past:

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After putting your ad out there, the next hurdle is to sift through a massive number of applications.

Here is a simple solution for that:

Step IV: Interview Potential Writers

By now, you have probably received many applicants interested in writing for you, and you would like to hire only one or two people.

You only have two significant steps left:

1. Reduce the number of applicants and
2. Actually, hire the right person.

To reduce the size of those who applied, you need to assess the quality of their writing. You can achieve that by:

• Going through the writer’s samples where you can use Grammarly and Copyscape to check for the article’s grammar and originality respectively.
• Providing a trial project (consider paying for it if you end up hiring the person)

How To Find The Best Writer Based On Samples:

As mentioned earlier, your job ad should require all interested writers to include their samples. Samples can be either attachments or links. I prefer links to published samples, because it shows you the writer is more experienced.

But don’t dismiss those with attached samples though.

So, when going through messages or emails from interested writers, you should first, check if they have any samples as attachments or links. If they don’t have, drop them at this early stage.

Don’t consider any writer whose sample:

• Has lots of grammar, spelling and spacing errors between words. A keen writer should have proofread the content before sending.
• Is plagiarized: Run the sample through Grammarly or Copyscape and if you find it matching with content on multiple sites, don’t hire the writer. But if it’s published on one site, that’s okay, as the writer might have written it for a previous client.
• Has fluff: Some articles have repeated ideas or sentences that don’t add value to the reader. Experienced writers know how to craft tight but engaging content.
• Not well formatted: If the sample articles have huge walls of text, lack subtitles and have lengthy sentences, that’s probably from an inexperienced writer.
• Is not educative, entertaining or doesn’t provide any value at all.
• Give priority to writers with samples in your niche.

How to Find the Best Writer Based On a Trial Article

• Check out the content for grammar and plagiarism using Grammarly and Copyscape
• Test the time used to complete the project. If you need it in 24 hours and the writer turns it in after three days, they are probably not a good fit.
• Test for SEO knowledge: keywords placement, length of title and the other SEO elements mentioned earlier in this article.
• Read through to see if the content provides any value

Step V: Hiring the Best Writer

By now, you should have a name or two in mind of those you deem fit to write for you. In fact, you can hire the person directly at this point.

To ensure everything else is in order, you may want to discuss the following aspects and come to an agreement with your potential hire:

• The number of articles/words they can write comfortably per day or week
• Their willingness to handle revisions if requested to
• The acceptable rate to work with
• The payment method and frequency
• When to send an invoice and how to invoice: You may opt for an Excel Spreadsheet, Google Sheets, PayPal invoice, or fill out an invoice template.
• Signing an NDA: Create an NDA and send it to the writer to sign using one of the online tools for signing documents
• Set up a communication channel: For a content writing project to be successful, decide on one channel of communication, which could be emails or other project management apps, such as Basecamp, Asana, Slack, Trello, and more.

If a writer agrees to all these requirements and you have a long-term content writing project, go ahead and hire the person. If you need a one-off job, then you probably don’t need an NDA.

Final Thought

Finding the best writer for your business can be challenging, but with the above tips, you will find the right expert for your project in no time. Remember, you are scouting for someone to help grow your business and increase sales.