So, you’re a business owner thinking of hiring a freelance writer. Maybe you are building a team for your content marketing strategy to level up your content operations. But you dont have time to write blog posts or other content by yourself, or you don’t have the right skills to create engaging blog posts.
Whatever the case, a freelance writer can help your business reach your content marketing goals.
A great freelance writer can help you create engaging content that saves your time and help to boost your conversion rate. So today, we’ll show you how to hire freelance writers to maximize your business’s potential.
(Best Job Post Template – Hiring Recruitment Content Writer Facebook Or Instagram Post)
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Why Should Anyone Hire Freelance Writers For Their Website?
In simple terms, composing an engaging piece of content that wil attract useful web traffic is a complex process, and not every business owners have time for that. Hiring a freelance content writer can reduce your workload managing digital content.
A good content writer attracts better leads for your business and improves the online presence of your products and services. Hiring a freelance content writer will save you time and boost your productivity as a small business owner.
Also, great copywriting on a business website and other digital content will be the deciding factor for a customer to select your product or services.
Even with such content, you can ensure that all your past clients keep coming back to you for your services.
Therefore, you need to know how to hire the Best Freelance Content Writer for your company.
What to Look for in a Freelance Writer?
Experience
When interviewing a freelance content writer, pay attention to the type of writing experience on their CV or portfolio. Review their portfolio and past writing content to see if their writing niche, style, tone, and perspective align with your brand.
If you are in a fitness business blog, you may come across a talented and skilled writer whose past work is mainly based on tech. This writer, although professional, may not be an excellent fit for the targeted audience you are trying to connect with.
Writing skills
Your content writer should have a top-notch writing skills. They should have a strong command of syntax, grammar, and punctuation. They should be skillfully able to construct sentences and in combining words. They must know how to help you write the content you need to move your business forward. Some freelance writers depend entirely on the editor to improve their work, but the best freelance writer knows the technical ins and outs and requires minimal updates.
How to Hire Freelance Writers
Now that you’ve decided to build your small blogging team, it’s time to figure out the exact steps of how to hire freelance writers to scale up your content marketing game.
It would be best to consider a few things before hiring a freelance content writer for your brand.
1. Draft a Definitive Job Description
Defining a job description upfront gives your potential freelance content writer a clear image of what you’re looking for so they can help determine the best approach to the content, and possible pitch topics, establish a schedule and set a reasonable payment structure.
All your primary work starts from here; stating a detailed and specific job description not only help in initial filtering but also ensures you meet the suitable content writer who suits your business.
Here are a few things to consider before hiring a freelance content writer:
- Requirements: it does not matter if you are looking for a freelancer to write a single post or a series of blog posts for your company website. That job requires a range of expectations, including deadlines, proper keyword usage, word count, tone of the articles, stock images, etc.
- Type of content: are you looking for a short, entirely SEO-optimized blog post or an or-in-depth academic article that requires deep research? Sort this out and add the required details.
- Budget: how much are you willing to pay over the scheduled time?
- Deadline: Don’t forget to set deadlines and provide your freelance content writer plenty of lead time.
You are creating better chances of finding a good content writer to handle the job and deliver great content by sharing exact needs.
You can create an editorial calendar with a job description, but don’t clutter by the small prints, spare some room for your writer to work some magic.
Here is an excellent example of a freelance SaaS writer job description:
2. Ask for Sample and Portfolio
One of the best ways to hire a freelance content writer is to take note of the published articles or web content that attract your attention. An organized portfolio of a freelance writer will give you a fair representation of the writer’s writing style and expertise. It will also help you judge the experience level, tone of the writer, and type that you need to suit your brand.
The content writer will perfectly fit your brand if you find the match.
However, don’t immediately cut off writers who do not hold experience in your industry. A professional freelance content writer will have thorough research on the niche and the writing skill to do your business justice.
3. Conduct a test assignment
The next step would be to give out an assignment to the selected writers. It will help you evaluate the writer’s skill level and knowledge about your business niche. A sample test assignment is a final call to pronounce your decision.
In any case, don’t just ask for a sample; give a relevant topic to the content you expect the freelance writer to work on later and allow them a reasonable period to deliver their assignment.
A good content writer will deliver the right content that suits your Content Marketing strategy.
To ease your work, there are many online tools to judge content in terms of grammar, spelling, and readability.
4. Ask the Right Questions
Now that you’ve got a suitable freelance writer with excellent writing samples, you still need to interview them to determine if they fit your business well. Some essential questions you should be asking them during the interview are as follows:
- What kind of content do you prefer to create?
- How many articles/how many words can you comfortably write daily?
- What type of SEO and keyword tools do you use to conduct research?
- What is your work schedule?
- Are you willing to work on a long-term project?
- What are some content ideas you can suggest for my business?
- What are your prices?
- Do you charge on a word count or an hourly basis?
Like any other position in your business, you need to ensure the freelance content writer you choose is the right fit for your brand. He should be able to produce quality content that will boost your content marketing strategy.
5. Set up a Communication Plan
If you’ve hired a remote content writer, you and your freelance writer will be in two different places. So, you must develop a proper communication plan for both of you.
Establishing a simple way of communion is essential while working with a remote worker. You need to be able to contact your content writer to discuss specific topics and updates on the ongoing projects, and they need to be able to get you to replay any answers regarding the project.
While you may prefer daily phone calls or skype video call sessions, your freelance writer probably won’t.
Email or messaging is the preferred method of communication between an employer and the employee, with an occasional phone or skype sessions to connect and stay on the same page.
6. Brief Your Freelance Writers
Your content writer will already have a rough idea about your brand based on your communication. But now, you will need to give more information about the type of writing work you expect. Like your writer may have some ideas that you need X number of blog posts for your website. But you will need to discuss it in detail, covering everything from the blog strategy, blog length, targeted keywords, your potential customers, etc.
Remember to give them enough information about your brand and targeted audience. You can provide them with your brand book and strategy documents to help your freelance writer familiarize themselves with your brand and tailor your website content to boost your business growth.
In a blog article brief, you’ll want to add some of the following aspects:
- Title
- Topic
- Headings (H1, H2, H3..)
- Target keywords (long-tailed, Short-tailed)
- The tone of the blog post or arctic
- Due date
- Outline
The article’s tone can make a huge difference that may encourage a potential customer to take action over one that scares them. You can broadly describe it to the freelance writer, like “we like the article to be memorable for the customers ” or “we want the article to be politically correct but highly informative,” which is enough to direct the freelance writer in the proper direction.
