Who Are The Right Freelance Writers For You?

Hiring writers sucks.

Really hiring anyone may be a pain, but hiring writers especially is extremely difficult.

There are a couple of main reasons why hiring writers is especially difficult compared to other vocations:

1) There is a low skill-floor. Anyone with some basic linguistic competence can claim to be a writer. Everyone seems to be technically a writer.

2) There is a high skill ceiling. The nice writers are really, really good. Which also makes them really, really hard to seek out . And hence the noise of many crappy content mills certainly doesn't help that issue.

3) Marketplaces are bad. Upwork, Freelancer, etc. are all terrible ways to seek a decent freelancer - why? Because it isn't an optimized marketplace - you only see what their program wants you to see.

Companies waste thousands of dollars and months of effort on poor freelance writers who don't deliver what they're trying to find . On the flip side, if you discover the proper writer, you will probably have someone you're employed with for all times .

To optimize your search, we're publicizing the standards we use a day to filter the highest 1% of writers and add them to our network.

Know your voice

Nothing goes to hamstring your ability to seek out a writer than if you do not know the tone-of-voice that matches your business. The best way to do that is :

1) Find your top competitor blog. Not all of them, just one.

2) Who's your best customer? What blogs do they read the most? (Probably unrelated to your field)

3) What's your favorite personal blog?

Once you've got all 3 of these , find the Venn diagram between them. Catch the similarities in vernacular, see what makes each of them tick. You'll quickly find that there are tons of similarities and these 3 blogs are going to be your reference. When sifting through samples, always compare to those 3 blogs. Once you find writers send them those 3 blogs.

Trust us, it works.

Be open demographically, but be wise

The fact is, while speaking about content, we've to acknowledge one thing.

There are some countries within the world where there are tons of writers, and that they don't always have the type of quality you'd want representing your business. Places like Nigeria & the Ukraine have thousands of writers who are wanting to make a living writing, but aren't native speakers and do not necessarily have a robust command of the language.

With that said, a number of the simplest writers we've encountered have come from countries you would not expect.

The challenge here is to be cognizant of the very fact that there's tons of noise coming from non-Western locations, but if you discover reliable ways of sifting through the noise, you will probably find hidden gems. Writers from eastern countries, in our experience, are often more flexible to figure with and, due to much lower cost-of-living, charge lower rates.

Note: These are obviously generalizations and can differ on a case-by-case basis. However, since you cannot interview every writer on Earth, these generalizations are helpful.

Have clear requirements/expectations

One thing we've found through working with many businesses is that always times the difficulty isn't with the author or with the client, but more with misplaced expectations. One expected something completely different from the opposite , which miscommunication screws up the worth chain.

From a customer side, you would like to travel in knowing exactly what you're expecting, and more importantly, you would like to speak that with the author .

Ensure you have sample articles. Confirm you're clear with prospective writers on the quantity of hand holding and research you're hoping to possess involved. Be diligent about your brand voice, give all of them the assets you've got - any thought or expectation that's in your head isn't getting to be properly converted.

You'll be disappointed at the top and assume it is the writers fault, when really you merely didn't communicate your expectations properly.

Demand a versatile revision policy early

Writers will typically be very stubborn about their rewrite/revision policy (and in order that they should be - it's too easy to abuse flexible policies by bad actors). However, you ought to make some extent to urge full rewrites/revisions on the primary article or 2 - this permits your writer to create an honest faith relationship with you and, more importantly, it gives them ample opportunity to find out what you actually need.

Not only that, you essentially get multiple chances to speak expectations - and if at the top of a full revision/rewrite period you continue to aren't happy, that's a symbol there is a value misalignment, and you ought to look elsewhere.

On the writers side, it adds tons of labor , but it gives them an opportunity to ensure future business because, let's face it, you do not want getting to undergo this again.

Interested?

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