Evergreen Times

Are you considering employing a freelance writer to help you with your website, blog, press releases, or social media content? Get insider tips on how to get the results you’re hoping for right here!

Where Can You Find Remote Content Writers?

SEO agencies are usually willing to offer you content writing services. It will tend to be pricey, but it can be a worthwhile investment if they know their stuff. A lot of the work I do is for SEO specialists. They liaise with the clients, develop a content strategy, and I produce the work. Of course, the customer ends up paying more for my side of the job and has to pay for the SEO expert’s time too.

Some clients prefer to work directly with the writer, and that will have a cost advantage. If you know SEO best practice and have a good strategy, it can work very well indeed. The biggest benefit is that communication between the client and the writer doesn’t go through a middleman. However, finding good writers can take time.

The big freelance platforms seem to have massive quality issues these days. They’ve been taken over by bot bidders who subcontract, usually to low-level writers who aren’t necessarily skilled. Good writers don’t often frequent these platforms these days. They’re too busy to comb through the piles of junk projects.

Even when they spot what looks like a good project, they know that the client is going to be overwhelmed with bot bids from people with fake PhDs. Their own well-crafted proposal may never be read as the customer soon gets the measure of the average freelancer and heads for the hills.

Jobs boards have drawbacks for freelancers and recruiters too. Most roles are full-time, and when freelance opportunities arise, writers can find themselves spending hours filling out applications and doing competency tests. With so many applicants, recruiters are unable to review all applications, so most of them are never considered.

While jobs boards might help you to find a writer, you’ll probably get your share of useless applicants. When considering the good ones, you should ask yourself how they have time to do all the job hunting it takes to find an opportunity and complete the application process.

You may find that you’re dealing with a professional bidder rather than a writer. There are plenty of them around, and since they’re happy to pass off others’ work as their own, you don’t have the direct communication you were looking for and quality can be variable.

So, where do most reasonably good freelance content writers find work? Usually, it’s through SEO and website development agencies or referrals. If you’d like to work directly with your writer, see if you can find a friend, colleague, or associate who knows a good freelancer.

Check for Specialties and be Clear About the Task

In just about any field, specialists do the best work. A writer should be good at research, so choosing one who has worked in your industry before may or may not be helpful.

Having technical know-how and being able to write well might seem like first prize, but a good writer who doesn’t know much about what you do at the outset will figure it out and present it without the jargon that a subject-matter expert might assume everyone knows.

Next, you might be wondering about SEO. Most writers work with SEO experts rather than being SEO experts – and most SEO specialists aren’t writers. Finding someone who is really good at both is going to be pretty hard and you should be careful of freelancers who claim to be jacks of all trades.

Sure, I know some SEO basics, but will they get you to the first page of search engine rankings? I wouldn’t like to promise that. The bottom line? If you don’t have a keyword strategy in place, you should probably get one formulated before hiring a writer.

SEO plugins can be a help, provided you already know what your SEO aims are, and most writers should know how to use them, but doing so adds to the time they spend doing your work. Specify what you want them to do when asking for quotes.

If you want your writer to look for images, resize them, name them and add alt text with keywords, you should check this point too. Finding images isn’t always easy, you need to beware of copyright issues, and some writers just won’t do it.

Finally, if you want your writer to post drafts to your website, you should check that the writer is familiar with your content management system (CMS). Does everything check out so far? You aren’t done yet!

Check Your Freelancer’s Writing Ability

How can you be sure you’re choosing the right freelance writer for the job? Don’t rely on resumes alone. It’s possible to fake them, and even if they’re real, what suited their former clients and employers may not suit you. Everybody’s looking for something, so think about what you want. After all, you’re the client!

Samples can be faked, and even portfolio websites such as this one aren’t sure-fire proof of a writer’s ability to produce the kind of copy you want. If your project is a large one or you’re hoping for a long-term relationship, content writers should be willing to craft a custom sample.

A sample written to your specifications will help you and the freelance content writer to see whether you want to work together, and it helps the freelancer to determine pricing. The bad news? There are times when freelancers go all-out with the sample and then produce substandard work thereafter. Nothing is foolproof. All the same, the custom sample is probably the best test of whether you and a writer are a good match.

Now that you’re ready to get started, it’s time to make sure you’ll get the results you’re looking for.

Give a Clear Brief

Getting what you want, or something close to it, requires clear instructions. For some tasks, you may simply request an article on a topic, specify the word count, state the target audience, and ask for the inclusion of certain keywords and phrases. For others, a fairly detailed outline of the desired structure and tone of voice will be needed in order to fulfill your requirements.

Consider your content strategy. If you’re looking for pillar content that links to several supporting articles on your website, you’ll probably get better results if you choose a detailed outline ahead of commissioning a freelance writer to produce the content.

You can also ask freelancers to pitch ideas, but since your website’s SEO strategy matters, you may want to brief them on this first. If they’re worth their salt, they should be able to identify opportunities for pillar content and suggest a framework of articles and blogs that support it.

Writing website copy or landing page text is rather tougher than article writing. At the very least, your freelance writer needs as much information about your business and brand as you are able to share. The more they know about your business, the message you want your website to convey to visitors, and the image you want it to project, the better your chance of getting the desired results quickly.

In this type of content writing project, total word counts are usually relatively low, but since the text must be impactful, it takes somewhat longer to produce and may require several drafts. A good freelancer should be willing to give you at least three options for each text field and be willing to craft additional options on request.

How Should You Pay Freelance Writers?

Time is money, as the saying goes, and both time and money are important to freelance writers. At the same time, there’s an adage that says work expands to fill available time. So, should you pay for outcomes or for hours?

In general, paying for outcomes is better. After all, it gives you a predictable cost for the project. A freelancer will generally check out your brief, judge how many hours it will take to complete the work, and quote accordingly. If it takes a little longer than they thought it might, they have to absorb the cost.

Payment per hour is sometimes the best solution when it comes to complex projects that may require several revisions. Website copy is a good example. However, you should only agree to pay a freelance writer by the hour if you’re fairly familiar with their work and outputs. As a compromise, you can offer them a small part of the work as a trial they can use to gauge total cost.

The payment method should be negotiated in advance. If you’re working with a freelance content writer who doesn’t know you and your business, they might ask you to operate the project through an escrow platform. In this instance, you pay in advance, but the money isn’t transferred to the freelancer until you’re satisfied with their work.

Other freelancers prefer to avoid the charges they’ll incur on these platforms and have a policy on how much they’re willing to let new customers run up their accounts before expecting payment. At the outset, this is likely to mean that you have to make small payments fairly frequently.

Once the freelancer gains confidence in your reliability, you may be able to negotiate higher limits or monthly payments. Asking for payment in advance, on the other hand, is unusual and may be a red flag.

Looking for a Remote Content Writer?

Finally, it’s time for that all-important call to action (CTA). This is the part of my blog post where I tell you that if you want bespoke content writing, I’m the person you’re looking for. But am I? The best way to find out is to put it to the test. Drop me a mail and give me a heads up in the comments section – it’s my secondary mailbox, so I don’t check it all that often.

Sounds a bit dicey? The fact is that I’m rather busy and I’m a sole operator. All the same, if you’re looking for a content writer who is exactly what she says she is, this could be kismet. Give it a try!