11 Things to Consider Before Hiring Your Next Content Writer
Content writing can be quite a task especially if you have a series of websites or blogs that need constant updates with new and fresh content. To satisfy this overwhelming demand, webmasters hire content writers either directly or through other online content writing sites.
Hiring content writers can however be tricky especially if don’t have a firm grasp of the bolts and nuts concerning the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘from whom’. The following 11 tips for hiring content writers should be on your fingertips searching for content writers.
1. Type of content
What type of content are you looking for? If you’re a webmaster, either managing a blog(s) or a website(s), you will obviously need textual content to drive your agenda.
Depending on the core business of your website, you may hire content writers to write reviews, Press release, academic papers, newsletters, product or service descriptions, video or animation transcriptions, short stories, news updates, e-books, and so on. Find out which type of content will best drive your content marketing
2. Consider your content management plan/strategy
This boils down to how often you need to update your website or blog with fresh web content. Depending on the type of content you’re creating, a blog will generally need more frequent updating than a website.
Find out how much content you will need in a set period of time and factor this in your time and budget, along with sharing that content on social platforms. Two to four posts per week is a good beginning.
3. Which type of content writer?
Do you intend to hire online or offline article writers? I will rather you go for online freelance writers. There are thousands of freelance writers offering content writing services online, but you don’t need thousands, do you?
“Small” websites and blogs can be sufficiently serviced by one or two dedicated content writers. You may, however, need to hire a team of writers if you do run a series of large commercial or social websites or blogs. The cost and turnaround period will vary depending on
4. Where to find content writers?
If you’re hiring an in-house writer, you will probably want to vet a few knowledgeable local content writers and marketers within your niche. It’s important to work with industry experts who can offer insightful, fresh and informative content.
Hiring full-time in-house writers can, however, be costly and unjustifiable for small and medium business unless you’re running a content marketing agency. The best alternative is to hire freelance content writers at a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house writers, wihtout compromising on quality.
5. Watch out!
Beware of fraudulent individuals or agencies who pose as genuine article writers, only to disappear with your hard earned dollars. You know them, don’t you?
If dealing with relatively new players in the field, be sure to take your time and carry out some background check. You may also want to start by uploading a smaller amount of money and then submitting a test article, just to learn how things work.
6. Submit your content request
After identifying your preferred content writer, submit your project making sure you specify the category, length, dateline, skill level
7. Tone
How do you want your content to sound like? Experienced content writers are able to write articles across humorous, friendly, critical or professional tones depending on what you want to archive.
8. Article/content structure
For purposes of clarity, and in order to get the best out of your freelance writer, be sure to specify structural and stylistic preferences for your content. For example, most web content clients (and readers) prefer articles with short sentences and paragraphs, and with bullets highlighting the main points where necessary.
9. Keyword
“Keyword” is the keyword (excuse the pun 🙂 ) when it comes to content writing business. For purposes of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), most web articles are nested around specific words or phrases to enable them to rank high in search engines.
Always provide well researched and focused keywords for each article so that your content writer doesn’t write blindly. Also, specify the keyword/keyphrase density (number of times the word or phrase appears in an article), and how/where you want it placed in the article.
Ideally, keywords should be placed in the article title, first paragraph, subheadings, and last paragraph.
10. Consistency and clarity
If you are consistently ordering a large amount of web content, you may want to formulate a simple format that lessens the time required for you to write instructions.
If there is anything you need to be included in your content, feel free to mention it to the writer or better still, point the writer to some sought of reference through a link for inspiration.
11. Revision
My last and equally importance tip for hiring content writers concerns revision etiquette. In some cases, the delivered final and the envisioned product may just not tally. In such cases, it is always a good professional courtesy to remind the content writer of your initial instructions and give them another chance to get it right. To avoid cases of revision, be sure to give concise and clear instruction the first time.
Bottom Line
Follow the above 11 points and you shouldn’t have trouble getting the best writer for your content needs. If you’re considering hiring a freelance content writer, NeonWriter.com can help. Our writers can create high-quality content for your blog or website, ranging from 100 to 2000 words per article. Check out our affordable web contetn pricing. And…we don’t charge you unless you’re 100% satisfied.
