One of the most growing and in demand industries in the online marketing world is freelance writing.
But the problem is finding trusted ones and getting clients if you’re one.
So I will be showing you:
How to find good freelance writers & if you are a freelance writer, I’ll show you how to find clients.
If you have the skills to create great content, believe me, you are going to go far and find business people like myself who seek your services to make our lives easier. And if you don’t know where to go or what to do if you are seeking to get the gig as a writer, you will after reading this article, trust me.
Because this is such a large industry, I have come to understand that finding someone I can trust to write for me is very, very hard. Because my business has grown (yay!) I have come to the point where I simply CANNOT produce all the content without someone’s help…
And frankly, there’s a ton of garbage writers out there who:
- Simple do not know how to produce good content.
- Use recycled or duplicates of previous content they wrote (and/or they copy it of other sources).
- They just don’t care about the work they produce for you.
Unfortunately those 3 scenarios make up for a majority of freelance writers out there and if you’re a businessman looking to expand their site and content production, the last thing you want is to hire someone who will commit one of those 3 mistakes (or others). Your business’s life is on the line after all…
The 2 groups of people this article is for:
It may seem obvious already but you may be surprised for whom this article is best suite for:
1) Online business/site owners seeking writers.
If you are someone who owns a site and a blog type of online business and seeks to hire people who will write for them, I will show you how to filter out the bad ones and find yourself one or more people who you will confidently be able to trust with delivering your site the type of work that will get you more traffic, clients and business.
2) Actual freelancers looking for gigs.
I’ll show you how to find clients and build a great/stable income from this.
I used to be the type of person who believed that freelance writing was not something you could make a decent income from, that it was the sort of work where you produced one or a few articles for a client, and that was that.
But a recent trip to Las Vegas where I privately met with some of the most successful online marketers in the world showed me that not only was I wrong to assume this, but there was immense possibilities in this line of work.
Let me share a personal story which changed my view on freelance writing:
On the trip I mentioned, I was discussing the idea of outsourcing. Many of the businessmen I was speaking to were mentioning how they were expanding their content production into new sites and seeking to work on new projects while “automating” their existing websites and by automating, they meant hiring people to continue to crank out the content.
And through this discussion, most of us agreed that it was very hard to get people who we could fully trust.
However, one of us mentioned that for about a year, perhaps more, he found one person on Upwork.com that he personally trained for several months.
And by training, he meant that he showed him exactly how to do things he sough to see on his site.
I have written about what most good online business owners will expect from their writers here, but there is a small snippet of the MANDATORY things I expect both online business owners and freelance writers (the image to the right) to know and if you don’t, I’ll explain it further down in this article.
What ended up happening was that this person he hired became very good at what he was producing for the business owner. For about $50 an article, this person would write 2,000 words or more of great content and place it on the owner’s site.
And with what I heard about the amount of articles this person wrote up, he ended up making over $50,000 a year in the process and their relationship is still going, there’s a raise being added because of the great work he’s doing and it’s a continued source of income for the writer as well as a continued source of increase in business for the owner, a win-win.
It was this story that really pushed me over the fence about hiring writers and how to go about it, and it is what I will share with both business owners and freelancers here.
The purpose of this article will be to help you, whether you’re in one category or the other to recreate the same type of results my friend has with his guy and help your business grow. And of course, if you are the freelancer reading this, I will also show you how to how to find the business people seeking this type of quality work, get hired and get paid very well by them too.
So let’s start with:
The business owner seeking to find the trustworthy freelancer. Where do you look?
I would say anything involving iWriter.com, Upwork.com is fine. However, just finding people there is simply NOT enough.
You will want to find people who may not necessarily charge cheap prices for a good article. So for JUST the price, this is the only parameter I seek for now:
$40-$60 PER a single 1,500-2,000 word article. Negotiate bulk article discounts AFTER good results have been shown for individual articles.
It is expensive, but generally at that type of price range, you’re bound to have better chances at hiring a better quality person.
Now, beyond that, we go into more important and stringent parameters I personally recommend EVERY single business owner have for their hiring guidelines. Here are the 7 most important ones on who to hire, especially ghost writers.
Note: Whether it is a ghost writer you seek or someone who will be identified on your site as the author of the content, it makes no difference for the guidelines I am putting up.
In short, you need to get in touch with the person you find and/or who finds you. The key is to build a trustworthy relationship and that starts with you basically running them through those 7 parameters I mentioned.
Train your writer, it’s worth it:
Suppose I find one person who appears to be trustworthy and they show me work they have produced that I find satisfactory.
But perhaps, there’s problems…
- Perhaps he or she doesn’t know about the topic I wish they would write for me. Example: If I have a website on dog care and the person I hire has no experience with dogs.
- Perhaps they need time to research and come up with everything they need to get good work done.
- Perhaps they don’t understand SEO. Titles, keywords, how to write in a marketable fashion to attract traffic.
If you stumble onto a promising prospect who requires one or more of these things, and odds are you probably will stumble onto these types of people often, take the time to train them…
This brings me back to the story I mentioned about one of my internet marketing friends (Ian) who now has a writer he pays $50k a year to do work for him.
He even mentioned how “WELL WORTH the investment” it was to train that person and develop a great relationship with them it was because now a huge chunk of that internet marketer’s business is automated and he doesn’t need to worry about that person he hired, and just as well, that writer now has a good income being generated that he can live off.
So how do you train your freelancers if the need arises?
Here are some things I recommend you make sure to teach your potential prospect (writer):
Well you want to start of teaching them VERY basic SEO.
The whole concept of how traffic is generated through keywords, titles, great content and how it all fits together. Be ready to show them actual examples of what type of stuff you’ve personally written up so they have a reference to look at.
Now if you as the business owner is unfamiliar with SEO, here is a crash course on it. In fact, you may want to link your writers to that resource as well.
Make it very clear what the objective of your site is after the SEO talk.
Again, if I am using the dog care site example, I will want to let them know that I want them to write for me great content that helps dog owners read and take good advice from my site and that my writer needs to continue that trend by also giving out great information that my visitors will enjoy.
And as I said in the 7 things above, make sure they do NOT duplicate or copy ANY content.
Run through several articles with them together.
Basically hold their hand through the process as they deliver work after work to see if they are progressing and producing the type of work you will find to your liking.
If need be, I’d say 5-10 articles is a good start and the more you’re sure they are on the right track, the easier it’ll be to let go of their hand and let them do this on their own.
If it is a dog care site, I’ll walk through with the person how to find the keywords for various dog topics, see how they title the articles, how well they write, make sure they aren’t duplicating their work from other sources, how well they do things like interlink and create sales funnels to my promotions, be they affiliate promotions of my own services/products.
Once I am sure the person understands it, I will still check the final work, but at least by then, it’ll take less time for me to go over everything and moving forward, I can be confident it is going in the right direction.
Trust me, the time you put into the prospective writer you hire will pay you back many times so don’t be lazy about this.
Let your prospective writer know that if they produce good work, they will have a long lasting gig with you.
You’re building a business relationship here. If you let the person working for you know that you have long term intentions and will pay them a good price for their services, they are more likely to keep working for you and producing great work for you.
If they do really well, consider raises, that will certainly incentivize them to keep up the good work.
Again, it is highly unlikely you will find yourself an ideal writer right off the bat, so be ready to train them if necessary and know that it can be VERY profitable for you in the long run as the business owner.
Additional way to find more freelance writers:
Go offline with your endeavors. By that I mean find people in your circles who you know are very eloquent and write well, but are perhaps in need of work. I have personally though about getting a few people from my life that I know could use the money to do this for me. In this case, I know and have met the person so if anything, that extra layer of personal connection may bring about a more trustworthy relationship for us.
It is especially good if these people you know run their own personal blog. Through training them and giving them a good gig, you can also help them eventually start their own online businesses.
Now, onto the freelancers! How to get hired, get gigs and writing jobs that pay well!
You may be on the other end of the coin on this subject, but you are just as important for the business owner’s success and I’m going to show you several ways you can increase your odds of getting that gig that pays well, possibly full time even!
To be honest, the whole process isn’t all that different that the business owner seeking YOUR help, but the steps look a bit different. Let me explain:
I ideally recommend you find gigs for people who seek content production in things YOU already know about. So in the example of dog care, if you own dogs, know about caring for them, you now have knowledge and a certain level of expertise in the area you can bring to the table when negotiating with your client.
Whatever subject you know about or have, list them out, they may become necessary to write on your resume should you decide to get in touch with a business owner and/or they get in touch with you.
Submit your information/resume knowledge to iWriter and Upwork.com. You may or may not get in touch with people looking for your services, but it’s a good place that many business owners go to. And by the way, I do not consider Fiverr to be a good place to outsource your services, because it’s cheap work for cheap quality generally.
Be ready to write 1,500-2,000 word articles AND understand SEO. The understanding of the SEO part will be HUGELY important for when you get in touch with the business owner.
Find a list of websites (blogs, eCommerce, ect…) which deal with the subjects you know about and contact the owner. In your email to them, explain to them how you can contribute to the website with your content.
Let them know briefly that you understand SEO (And if they don’t, either don’t hire them or make them read this), and for their website (say it’s dog care again) get them an extra (hypothetically speaking) 1,000 visitors or more every single month for the type of articles and keywords you can produce for them.
A business owner will be much more likely to listen to you if they see that your work will directly help their business grow. After all, what would an extra 1,000 RELEVANT visitors add to the site owner’s income? Probably enough to justify paying you a substantial amount to produce the work to make that happen.
What happens if you find a good gig but for a topic you don’t understand? Well if it pays well, you will want to take the time to study up on the topic so you can turn that into great quality content for the business owner.
Normally, I wouldn’t suggest doing this and starting out with the topic you like and speaking to the site owner who would benefit from that relevant knowledge you possess, but anything can happen in the freelance world and you can get a proposition to start writing on things you know little about. Well, in that case, start Googling and learning!
Socially share your work and interest in writing for sites. Also consider finding freelance related fan pages and posting what you can contribute.
Negotiate, but don’t argue with the site owner. If they question some work you did or want you to rewrite something, generally the rule of thumb is to do it, after all, they are the boss, but if the change they request may negatively impact their SEO, traffic and rankings, for example, explain your position in a calm manner before awaiting their final approval/disapproval, then moving forward.
Remember, you need to maintain a healthy relationship here because if you don’t, they will cut you off.
Multiply your gig potential by multiplying your knowledge in various fields and/or site owners. Contact multiple sites on the same subject with the same email if you have to. The more who reply to you = more potential gigs.
Learn about other topics to multiply your potential to contact site owners in other niche topics and also increase your odds of getting more jobs.
Understand that 1 gig may be all you need. That guy who now gets paid $50k a year is doing this of 1 person and 1 website. If you can make your knowledge to the business owner/s known in that you are an asset and can bring them more traffic, more revenue and more business, you will earn a lot, for a long time.
There’s also nice guides on this like My Freelance Paycheck that are also recommended as extra resources.
And 2 places you should consider getting work at are Contentmart.com and Textbroker.com too.
Final advice: Be on the lookout for a great gig potential coming soon:
I strongly recommend that whether you are a business owner or freelancer that you join up with the following website called Wealthy Affiliate. It is where you can:
As a business owner find great information on SEO and build a profitable business. See how well I do through Wealthy Affiliate.
And as a freelance writer, find the same business people and work for them. This will save you tons of time in having to find them on your own and help you find work faster.
My final thoughts:
We live in a world where content is produced at an extraordinary rate and most site owners simply cannot keep up with the level of new content that needs to be produced for their pages to grow.
As such, by knowing how to find the quality freelancer and being the writer who can attract the business owner, you will be able to both grow and make good money moving forward.
If you personally have ANY thoughts about this topic, questions and/or suggestions from personal experience in hiring or being hired as a freelancer, please leave your thoughts below!
I have heard of Iwriter and once, I thought of registering with them. There was a time I wanted to be a freelance writer and to outsource my content for prospective clients. I didn’t register, not because I didn’t think it had any prospect but simply because I kept on procrastinating. $40-60 per 1500-2000 worded article is a good price for any aspiring content writer and I’m sure there are many people who have the skills but don’t know where to exactly exploit their skills for good income. Having read this article, I now intend to advise a few people in my circle who are great with writing. Thanks for the info.
As I’ve said many times, a good writer who knows SEO and knows how to write content on a website is extremely valuable. The key is to market yourself on the websites I suggested and let potential clients know this. Through this, a great income can be achieved as well as success for both parties.
Thank you, Vitaliy. I now know how to find a freelance writer if I ever need one. I think you are right about the training. A person may write very well but not understand the ins and outs of writing content to rank in a search engine. That training should be valuable to the writer as he/she will be worth more to other site owners if they master those skills.
I also know how to go about selling my services as a writer, if I ever need to do that. The suggestion to search out websites in niches I already know well is excellent advice. Thank you.
No problem Joe! I’m not sure if you currently do freelance writing but if you do and my tips help you, do let me know 🙂
Hi Vitaliy, your post has opened my eyes to outsourcing writing content for my website. However, my website is pretty brand new and based on your suggestions and comments here, it is better to get to a point where my website is earning decent income before even considering hiring/training a freelance writer. This is definitely something I will keep in mind for the future.
Also an idea that might be worth considering is similar to your idea of going offline and finding that trustworthy freelance writer. One can perhaps find a partner in building/writing content for your website. This way we as the website owner can delegate some of the tasks in growing our website and perhaps set a percentage between the two of you on how you’d split the income of your website. That way the freelance writer will also have a vested interest in producing quality content.
Thanks for this very informative article. Cheers!
You can certainly do something like that Mark, but the most important and difficult part would be to find the right writer who can truly add to your existing website content that will truly help it grow. If they can, then it’ll be up to you to set a proper compensation for them.
I would be careful in that you should not give away so much of your site’s profits as it can have more negatives than positives. For example:
If the site isn’t doing well, the writer isn’t making good money, so their incentive is gone.
If the site is doing well, you may have to share some personal financial information on the profits with the person and this can lead to arguments about how much they feel they should be paid.
I feel a more salary based approach is easier, because it creates the right incentive for the writer to do their job (provided it’s a good salary) so no matter what is happening to the site, you still full control, no one to argue with and the writer knows they can expect an X amount of money whenever they produce something for you.
Excellent post. I can see the value of having someone write your posts. It is one of the most time-consuming chores we face but good copywriters are expensive. Is there really that much value to getting someone to write your posts if you then have to teach them the basics of online marketing?
I believe it is, because then you can go about other businesses/vacations and feel confident in knowing someone is helping build your business. It basically alleviates the limited time you already have to work on your business and allows that newly freed up time on something else, and that is well worth the investment.
Great article. I like the 7 parameters. I would have to say that the most important thing is to train them. Communication is key to any successful teamwork. Clear expectations are the result and this gives direction and goals which will lead to success. I personally will be reviewing the 7 parameters for my own writing on my site. Thank you.
Hi Vitaliy,
Thanks for your post. I’d previously used Fiverr with limited results but from reading your article, it does put into perspective that the small amount of effort I put into this person (and cost) did generate a limited result.
At what point would you recommend starting to invest these larger sums of money (e.g. $50 per article) as I am conscious of keeping my business costs down whilst my site is still growing?
Many thanks,
James
I think I had someone ask me the same type of question before James but what I told them is the same thing I will say in regards to your question: Make sure your site is actually making enough profit to invest a portion of it into the writer and that you understand the SEO needs your site requires to grow, as does the writer you wish to work with.
I have previously used freelance writers in the past, but unfortunately they were hired through Fiverr and as you mentioned in your post, the work was of a low standard and possibly not unique to my website.
You offer some great points about hiring quality freelance writers and although I have heard of upwork before, I have never hired from there. It makes sense that as an online business grows, to hire out the writing to a freelancer, but if someone is in the process of creating a blog or building a new website, would you recommend they write their own content or hire a professional to do it for them?
I would definitely recommend they write it themselves, mainly for 2 reasons:
1) They probably can’t afford it anyway and the blog should reach a point when it makes money so a portion of it can be used to hire the writer, otherwise, why even worry about it?
2) By writing the content themselves, the owner of the blog can gradually gain a better understanding of the business of blogging and what they want on their site, which they can then relay to the writer they wish to hire.
I am glad that I stumbled upon your site. As a blogger, I am very busy with my day job that some times in a week, I have no time to write my articles. But maybe in the future, if blogging becomes full time, I might opt to apply as a freelance writer for others.
Yeah, I do agree that fiver is a cheap place to hire writers.
There are people who write for others full time but you really have to enjoy this work because it can become extremely frustrating and difficult to write on different topics all of the time and that can impact your work and thus impact the approval you get from clients.
Hey Vitaliy, fascinating reading session as always. I screenshot your paragraph about the places you said to find good writers, iWriter and Upwork. Do they charge for their service? And if they do, how much? I will stray away from Fiverr, because the last thing I want is cheap work.
A few more questions for you, how many writers have you hired in the past? How many writers do you have working for you on this particular website?
And does hiring writers take away any value from your content that your loyal readers may find dear? Would they see the content any differently knowing that someone else wrote it and not the original/knowledgeable content writer of the website?
I’m not sure if those 2 sites charge you, the last time I checked them, they didn’t. I’ve only had 1 consistent writer work for me in the past. He also does work for me today, but not on this site.
We’ve had to work through some tough periods where I had to relay to him the way I wanted the work to be done and thankfully, he was patient and obliging. Although we’re still moving to the point where I can fully trust him with giving me content on more important sites, I’m still keeping just 1 writer for now as I can maintain my own, individual flow of content, especially on my most important website which is this one.
That really leads me to the last answer in which you talked about readers and how another person writing may change the reading style and flow of the content and it’s a reason why on this site, I don’t do it. I want my readers to know the content I put out, that they trust, is only written by me.
The only way I would ever trust a writer to write something like a guest post or an article for me on this page is if we both had very similar ideas on internet marketing and I knew I wouldn’t even have to double check his/her work when they finished and that it already had my approval because we have/had good history.
It took me about half an hour to read this article. I am so quite interested since it came at the right time. I was impressed the way you wrote and explain things naturally.
I really have a hard time to meet the demands of producing quality content on my site since I was still on my full-time job. Maybe it is time for me to find a freelance writer.
Thanks, and please keep up the good work.
Well I would first gather more experience from your own content production so you can then pass that off to the writer you find. People who are new to blogging generally do not understand the type of content they need to write to get traffic, and without that experience and knowledge, they will not be able to pass that onto the writer they hire.
Hello, it is an interesting topic. And so contradictory. I heard two opposite opinions about hiring freelance writers:
– Never do that if you are building the authority site, as the content is your core business.
– Outsource everything, starting with the content, if you are going into a pay per click world.
When talking about freelancers, I always pictured ghost writers. And you say that it does not matter, what you choose – ghost or a new author. That is interesting.
Your example of the guy who is now getting 50 thousand per year writing for the one owner made me think that:
– You can look at it as on a win-win,
– But also you may look at it as an opportunity for this particular writer to start his own online business, and leave the owner.
And if a freelance writer can get more relevant users, it may be a great idea for them to start making own sites?
I never used freelancers for my site, but I just got started.
If I decide to go into the PPC world where ads are the king, it would better to rely on copywriters to succeed. With own site content, it is different.
Regards,
Andrey
Hi Andrey, there’s a number of points I need to make because you talked about a lot of different circumstances surrounding freelancers:
1. I somewhat agree with the point on not hiring someone to write for an authority site you have, but my reasons may be different. I wouldn’t hire them if I didn’t trust them enough for a big site that makes me good money because if they screw up and do something that gets my site penalized, my business is gone.
So that’s why if I get someone to write for me, it’ll be on another website, that I can test them on and see how they do, then if they do well, I can upgrade them to writing more for me and possibly the authority site I own. Until then, I will be the only person doing that for my main page.
2. I have no idea where you read the contradictory information about hiring freelancers and in different circumstances. The part about getting a copywriter to write your ads for PPC is ridiculous and unnecessary, and especially if you also want them to write the content that the ad will point to.
I can teach you how to write a successful ad in minutes here and you won’t have to ever pay anyone to do it. What you talk about was probably written by someone who wishes to sell their advertising “knowledge” to you.
And I say this because I’ve made six figures on multiple occasions writing good ads AND pointing the ads to a page which sells very well. Note, it’s not just about the ads, it’s also about the page the ad leads to.
If you hire someone who writes cheap stuff, forget it, the ad will cost you money and the content won’t convert into sales.
However, when you personally understand how ads should be written as well as how the content should be framed to make the sale, then you can PASS that information onto the freelancer you hire.
3. Finally on the point of the freelancer leaving to start their own business, I would ask, why not? If you give them good knowledge, and they give you good work that results in a lot of traffic coming to your site, I wouldn’t want to hold them back from making more money on their own. I would instead wish them well and tell them they can still work for me if they want to make extra money.
Trust me, when a person who writes for you sees security and the option to earn more by writing for you, they will be less inclined to leave.
Overall, I think you’re getting too much mixed information from other sources and that combined with the fact that you’re new is confusing you a lot.
However, like I said before, I’ve hired freelancers, I’ve done PPC and I’ve seen how easy it is for this option to screw up and ruin your investment, which is why this article is in my opinion one of the best strategies to pursue.
It’s simple: If you learn how to do SEO, ads, PPC, ect…, then when the time comes and you hire someone, you will be able to teach them to replicate this for you and they can then help you earn more.
Until then, I would absolutely NOT recommend you hire anyone, no matter how good they say they say they are, until YOU personally are knowledgeable enough to distinguish if they are telling you the truth and/or if you personally need to train them before you let them work for you.
There was a lot of good information in that article. I wish I had the money to use your advice to hire someone to do the writing for me.
I like the fact that you are helping two sides at the same time. I’m sure that is effective to get more hits on that article.
Also, it was good to put in the story with your friend and how he trained his hire. Again, using both sides in the same story.
Going into how to get someone trained, that could have been a post in its own. But, I really think it added to the article. It also gave me a feeling of maybe this guy is out to help.
Great Article!
All the best,
RickD.
Well the story, though anecdotal was talking about a person who is truly a successful marketing, successfully getting a writer, so that actually played a huge part in creating the central blueprint to help both sides, but I do appreciate it 🙂
You pose a series of good questions and satisfactory answer for online marketers who are too busy to write their own posts.
I have never thought of hiring a writer, the simple reason being that I enjoy writing no matter how cockeyed it comes out.
Writing my own posts gives me great pleasure, and personally speaking develops my writing skills. However there may be a time when I have to a hire a freelance writer should the need arise due to time constraints or work overload. Great post and thanks for sharing
Kind regards,
Richard
I am glad you are enjoying the solo aspect of writing Richard and I would keep this going for as long as you can, especially one a single website which is making you money. Hopefully the growth will continue and that may possibly even have you try and move into a secondary site, in which case you’ll already be armed with a lot of information to pass off onto the freelance writer you hire, which will then only help you continue to grow your business 🙂
I started a web page not too long ago, and I am having a hard time writing content even though I am a good expert in my niche. The main problem?
English is my second language (that I learned kind learned late in life), and because of that, brainstorming to get Titles, Keywords etc. is exhausting.
Another thing, I tend to be very technical in my articles and I can’t help it, so I end up writing boring things. Now imagine having to do all the writing you are doing in another language, even though you speak it well, it will never be spontaneous. Do you feel my frustration now?
I am going to need help so I will follow your recommendations and find a good freelancer writer, if you have any other suggestion for somebody with my disadvantage, I am all ears, so thank you.
I have to be honest, I think your English is pretty good, but yes I understand how hard it can be to write in a foreign language, especially in this business. My advice would be 2 things:
1) Seek out a freelance writer if you can afford it and give them the same recommended training I suggested in the article.
2) Perhaps you don’t need to focus on an English based website. Depending on where you live, the niche you choose and the potential audience (that speaks the chosen language) within that, you can make a website in that language and then it’ll be far easier for you to write.
This is a great article and has come for me at the perfect time! I really want to focus on growing another side of my business. However I need to keep my blog chugging along to continuously raise SEO. I am not a ”natural” writer and would love someone to do the research for me. Your $$$ parameters, are they American or Australian dollars? I’m sure the cost of writers vary world-wide and depend on specialty.
The numbers were in USD. But that’s also a number I’d pay a qualified writer, not someone whose work I was not happy with. The $50 mark is really something to start the negotiation at with your writer. I know several successful marketers who outsource and that is the average they pay their writer per article.
Hi there, great article on finding freelance writers. I wish I was at that point in my own business. I believe that content is king in any online business, especially if you intend to rank on the top 3 browsers. 40-60 dollars an article doesn’t seem that steep a price if it gets the job done. However, like you said, training the writer to do it towards your niche is critical. Thank you for the great content. Much appreciated.
John
Hi John, it’s important to consider all of these tips. I had to learn them when I had a decent writer, but the content he was producing just wasn’t satisfactory enough for me. I’m going back and re-training him to have good productivity be done for me in the future since he’s a good, ethical guy. Find one of these people if you ever need a writer and take the time to work with them, before they are good enough to work for you.
I really enjoyed reading this! I have worked for iWriter for a number of years. I have also outsourced a few articles with mixed results. Even though I used iWriter when I outsourced, sometimes the content wasn’t so great and the SEO wasn’t what I thought it should be. You get to know the writers you trust and request them.
You are right about teaching the person how you want your content to be and they will learn and write to your satisfaction. It is important that their tone and style of writing is somewhat familiar to your website.
This is absolutely true, a site which has a specific focus of helping people should have a writer or writers which produce content that helps them and the tone of that should be similar so people who read it get the idea that because the writers are saying generally the same things, that the advice is sound.
I have not really looked into freelance writing mainly because I am currently writing my own content but seeing this has got me interested in writing for others as I think it would benefit both me with making an income online, improving my writing with more experience, and help the site owner get more traffic to their site.
My question is, how many articles on average do you think I would be writing each week? Would it be like 3 or 4 posts a week?
I am curious to know because I would like to try making an income on this but also be able to have plenty of time to work on my own site.
Hi Arie, I am not sure if your question pertains to writing frequency for your site or for someone who hires you, so I’ll just give you the answer for both circumstances:
1) For your own site, write ideally, 1 post a day. Maybe 2-3 a week is also good.
2) For people who hire you, the frequency will be whatever number of articles they ask for and the given amount of time they set to get them done.
Hiring writers is probably one of the best things you can do if you have a website and increase productivity. Learning SEO is one of the best choices I’m making right now. SEO will be able to have a great impact on all my sites. Keep a good working relationship with the writers and remember to review their current portfolio before making any decisions.
Agreed Cedric! It is far better to invest the time and find that one quality writer, than hire any random one and likely increase the chances of not approving their work and waste time fixing the whole thing!
Hello, I like how you gave emphasis on looking for a good freelance writer. I was thinking of something closely related to this topic you have written. I am thinking of building a team of people who will help me manage my online store (even if it is just a plan yet.) I find it hard to trust people because I feel like most of them will just simply abuse whatever authority will be given to them and yes, there are people who couldn’t care less about what they do because its not their business to which they are creating a content.
Paying someone to deal with an online store type website is a bit different than having to deal with a freelance writer, you can technically automate the online store and not have to hire anyone to manage it, its when you get into the realm of outsourcing content that it becomes different and yes you are right when you say that people who work for you generally do not care about your success, they only care about the payment you send them after they write for you.
However, when you find or teach one person to write well for you and reward them with good money plus the opportunity to earn more if they continue to write good content for you, they will start caring about producing good work to keep getting paid and though they may still not care about your business, once they see that their good work is leading to good money being made, it’ll keep them pushing to work hard for you and that’s really what you want to strive to achieve with them. Now if you can get that AND a person who cares about your business, then you had better keep that writer around for a long time because those are rare.
Hi there, awesome article! I am still new to the world of online marketing, and was thinking to myself after doing tons of research how do many of these successful entrepreneurs keep up with all their work? This post just helped answer my question and given me everything I need to know, thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Tony
Yeah it would really be impossible for one person to run multiple sites and blog Tony, hence the need for freelancers.
This is great. As a former freelance writer myself I can tell you that there was indeed a plethora of terrible work flowing through the channels I did work in (upwork, etc). At the end of the day, it seemed that the biggest cause of bad work was bad business owners – they didn’t know the difference between good & bad content, didn’t know how what they wanted to how to pitch the gig much less fully train the people they hired.
Essentially, if you go about looking for work the wrong way, you’ll end up with a bad result – for a lot of freelancers, money can be tight and they’ll just pump out what is asked for rather than spending the extra unpaid time to figure out how to do it better.
In other words, it really does hinge on the involvement and knowledge of the business owner to pull good work out of freelancers. The whole section of this article that is directed at business owners is just as valuable to the freelancers themselves – if you think about it from a business owner’s perspective you’ll be much more equipped to find the right work and develop long-term working relationships.
Fantastic stuff Charlie, thank you! I really appreciate you sharing and backing up my points on freelance writing and that often, like we both said, the business owner is really the person who needs to know what they want and let the writer know. If the writer can deliver what is asked of him or her, then it will help both parties succeed.
The idea of hiring a freelance writer had never occurred to me. I am still in the habit of simply just writing my own work. Perhaps the opportunity may arise as time goes by when I have run out of ideas. Freelance writing does have an appeal to become a good career move if you become very proficient at it.
Hi Andrew, if you can still maintain a good pace of writing and doing it for yourself, keep at it. At the very least, more writing will enhance your experience with content production and it will be something you will be better able to pass onto any future writer you aim to hire.
I really liked your post, it helped me a lot. But I’m still wondering something that was not clear to me… When it is time to let your freelancer do their own work without further supervision? As you said, it is not an easy task to let your business go in the hands of other people…What would you say it is the exact moment to let him do his own job without supervision?
Hi Pablo, like I said, run them through a training period and supervise them during that period to see if they get it, then what I would do is have them submit works to you prior to publishing to get your approval.
If you see that your writer is indeed producing work you have to check less and less and even to a point where you already know what they’ll submit to you is perfectly fine to publish, then that is the moment you can let them hold the reins.
However, no matter how much you trust them, always make sure to have them deliver work to you and YOU be the person to publish it. I find that to be the safer route, at least until I know I can fully trust my writer.
Great information! I usually hear about Odesk, but I have not tried any freelancer just yet. I know hiring a freelancer is absolutely necessary because the quality of content is crucial for the Google ranking, and enticing readers to potentially becoming our customers. However, I am still shy about the idea of a freelancer because I was not sure how much of the return I would get for the investment.
$50,000 a year for the content is quite mind blowing! But it shows how much a valuable freelancer could be if they can write content correctly. Thank you for the tips on how to train them too.
Hi Kyoko, the only time it’ll be necessary is if your site grows so much that you can’t support it’s growth on your own and need help, or if you have a second, third, ect… site that needs content work done on it, then you will need to consider a freelance writer.
A win-win situation is ultimate! I was seriously just wondering about having ghost writers. Just starting out, I honestly didn’t know it was possible.
After reading through your article, I was thinking whether or not one is a better choice than the other. Do you have a personal preference between the two? Also, thank you for sharing the 7 most important parameters for hiring. Much appreciated article. Thank you.
HI Paula, are you asking me if I prefer to have ghosts writers or my writers identify themselves? Because if so, I would go with either, it’s the end work I am focusing on.
But if you’re asking me whether I prefer to hire the writer or be the writer, I would say the former. There is in my opinion much more room for growth and profits and you can outsource the hard job to someone you trust, while you can relax.
Hi, Vitaliy
I’m a fan of your content. I’m also looking for a person who can make me content for my website, but I really don’t know how to start and where should I start!
As you know, there are many spam writers out there. They are not trustworthy and just want to make money. I see many freelancers that have been 5 star rated but they are spammers.The ways you showed here are very helpful for me. I bookmarked your post. Whenever I want, I will come back and read it again.
I’m a non-English website owner, this makes it hard to make content but the prices for making content are high as well. What is your idea about the pricing?
Amir
Hi Amir, honestly, if English is not something you’re fluent in, then making content on your own will also be difficult, and hiring a writer whose work you trust will also add to that problem.
Whatever your native language, I would start there and apply all the same principals of SEO and try to hire a writer who speaks the same language to write for you, while following all of the rules I pointed out.
Through this experience, at least you’re going to feel comfortable in knowing that what you’re writing or what the writer is doing is sufficient. And while it’s going on, it will not hurt to improve your skills in the English language.
Doing both of these things, will really help you improve your knowledge of online marketing and freelance hiring, and also help you grow and enter into the English speaking market as you’re doing it.
Now as for pricing, the ones I pointed to are based of English writers. I would pay any good writer who speaks that language and can write the way I tell them to at least $50 per article. But I would only be prepared to pay this price (or even higher) if the website they would be working on would be profitable enough for me to invest in their services.
You will have to gauge all of this yourself when you try it. You will have to see how much money the site is making, how much you need to continue writing for it to grow, then measure if hiring the writer is worth it and if so, how much you’ll pay them so they do a good job and help your business grow.
This is not something I would try to tackle all at once. Start off with a website that is written in your language, see how it can grow, how much it can make, then worry about a writer.
Awesome and informative article here. I’m in the beginning stages with my niche site and don’t have the funds yet to hire help. I can see how it would be worth it down the road once the website begins to pick up some momentum. What do you think the average age is of the websites that you write for? I’d imagine they have steady income already coming in before they outsource.
Hi Ryan, I do not write for other websites, I’ve been more on the end of hiring someone, but my results have been average, thus I learned the important lessons I share here. But as for website age, I think a website which makes a good income and can afford to outsource would have to be at least a year old.
I really enjoyed seeing both sides of the deal here. I would really love to find a trustworthy writer that could take a thought of mine and go from there.
Could you explain to me how it will work, when you train someone to do what you do. And they start working for themselves, more then for you.
What I mean is if they can already write and decide that they are better off doing it for just their site. Won’t you have to replace each writer over and over.
How will the automation work when it keeps coming up and how could you avoid the problems when it does?.
Hi Eric, there is certainly a possibility that a good writer you find may decide they want to work for themselves and if that happens, you will have to find someone, but there are more details to this scenario that can really change it:
Consider a scenario in which you did indeed find that awesome writer you were talking about, great. You two have a great business relationship and he or she produces excellent work, you pay the person good money and you are both happy.
Now in doing this, you have to understand that one does not just go off on their own and start blogging and immediately sees success. Every new blogging venture takes risk, time and there is never a certainty that the blogger will succeed.
Now if the writer you hired KNOWS this, they will be less likely to dump you and go off on their own. Why would a writer give up a great gig when they are being paid well? It’s giving them some sort of stability and trust me, if you are paying them well, they will not just ignore this fact.
Now on the other hand, even if the writer considers all this and still decides to leave, I honestly wouldn’t want to stop them. If I were in the same position and wanted to embark on my own business ventures, it’s my right to do that.
In that case, just use the same tactics you did to find another writer. You never know, the new one may be better than the old one. And if you worry about that, consider giving your existing one a raise.
This may actually have them working for you, while on the side, doing their own blogging.
Hey Vitaliy,
I’ve have been thinking about this exact issue myself recently. With multiple sites, and a heavy content load needing to be produced, how can I find the time do it all and still create great content?
You definitely answered that question for me! I also really like the idea of finding someone you already know who has a way with the written word. I know a couple people who come to mind without having to think too long about it. I appreciate all the information you passed on! Thank you!
Hi Robert, it’s great that you appear to have people who may help you grow your site. Just make sure your understanding of SEO and keywords is good enough to pass onto them and that they too may also understand it and produce for you the best results!
Great stuff. I have been thinking about finding a freelance writer for a project I’m working on – I’m just not sure that the quality would be good enough? But judging from this, I’m sure I could find a decent writer if I try out a few prospectives.
Having said that, maybe I could offer my services to others? I love researching stuff and I’m sure I could write coherently… For money at least! Haha
Joe
Well for the first option, have the writer do 1 article for you, read it over and make absolutely sure it’s not duplicated and that you like it. If you don’t, have them rewrite it and explain what you want, if they do the job well the second time, then slowly open up the opportunity for them to write more for you and explain to them that they can have a long lasting financial relationship with you.
For your thing, if you understand SEO and all that other stuff and can relay it to a potential person looking to hire you, then why not try it?
I have three affiliate websites that I am presently working on but I am not in the position at this time to hire freelance writers.
With that being said, I found this article to be very informative and encouraging to know that I will have the knowledge to choose a good writer when the time comes.
I have often wondered how so many of my friends can manage to write so many articles for multiple sites. I think that one of my, and others I am sure, fears would be hiring someone who would do more damage to my websites then good.
With the advice and guidance you offer on how to find a freelance writer, I am confident that when the time comes, I will be able to make the right choice.
Hi Suzette, I am amazed that you can keep up with the writing on 3 blogs! I always tell people who are in this position to prioritize the MAIN blog above the others. As someone who also runs multiple ones, whenever I sit down and see I have to write an X amount of posts for an X amount of blogs, the one I always start with is the one which brings in the most money, that is the most important one to maintain!
Hey Vitaliy!
Awesome page you have here, I actually stumbled upon it right when I needed! I’ve been looking into freelancer writers, and quite frankly like you said, there’s way too much garbage writers out there. Not really them as a person, but they just don’t understand what business owners need, you know? Thanks for shedding some truth on this topic, I’ll continue my research into this! Thanks for giving me direction!
Cody
I hear ya Cody! If you find a good writer who doesn’t understand SEO, take the time to teach them that to mix it in with their writing skills, it’ll pay you back many times over, trust me.
I have two websites and I really do not have the time to work on both of them.
Hiring a freelance writer sounds like something that I should look at it. Its mainly to keep one of these sites ‘alive’.
Honestly speaking, I was going to go to Fiverr , but what you said makes complete sense. If I want quality work, then I got to go to a place that offers it at a premium price.
I think the main thing is finding people that are trustworthy. I am going to give Upwork a go.
Thanks a million for the helpful post.
Regards
Roopesh
No problem Roopesh, definitely don’t use Fiverr, at least not for cheap things like writers there. Upwork may indeed provide you with some good quality writers, but even if you don’t find the exact one you seek, don’t let potential prospects go. Talk to them and follow the guidelines in this article, they may go from being potential prospects to assets if you just work with them and help them, help you.
Hi Vitaliy.
Wow, really enjoyed reading this to the very end! I had thought about hiring a freelance writer awhile back.. just quite ready for it yet.
What you said about training them makes a whole lot of sense if the need arises. It will take some time to do that but I can certainly see the benefits. They can also get a much better understanding of what the requirements are by also becoming a member of Wealthy Affiliate and make my job of training easier.
I would come up with a checklist of all the things I need in the content like keyword research, alt tag, great opening, headlines, etc. for my freelance writer.
I have your content bookmarked so I can return to it when I’m ready to hire a freelance writer.
Thank you and this is very helpful indeed!
Monica
No problem Monica! A checklist is fine but I would keep it very simple: A keyword, a good title with the keyword and mentioning it a few times in the title while also having the content be relevant to it, those are the 4 main things I’d require my writer keeps in mind.
The rest such as interlinking and linking outside the site, I’d handle.
Hi Vitaliy
Some years ago I used to have a blog – it was more for fun but then I started making money from Adsense. In order to speed up the things I hired a writer. I don’t even remember how I found him but he was not a native English speaker. He charged $10 for 5 articles (500 words). Everything was fine till one day I noticed there are no ads on my blog. It turned out it was duplicate content and Google removed the ads. So that was my experience and since then I don’t really trust anyone 🙂
Maybe when I get to the point my website starts making money I will re-consider this but I find it very risky. I wouldn’t want to spoil all the hard work I have done and still am doing.
Hi Arta, you’re essentially paying the person $2 to write 500 words each time for you. This is the type of stuff I’d stay away from completely. I would not abandon hiring writers in the future, and if you do decide to try it again, use the tips I gave you here. Really put in the time to hire and get to know one before you make a decision to use them.
Hiring a freelance writer is something that I have been interested in for quite sometime, but I’ve just never really known where to look or how to go about it.
I found this information incredibly helpful. Especially the information about training the writers. I always wondered how to go about getting them to understand exactly what I wanted them to write about, and how to write it.
Thank you for this information, I will definitely be coming back to this page for future reference.
You have to think of it this way Laetyn: I’m sure that a writer wants to have a long term gig to guarantee themselves an income and you want to have a consistent source of good content produced, so it stands to reason that it’s good to go through that period of training with your writer to make a good friend, colleague and asset available to you.
Once you run through your content and show them what you want and see they produce it several times without you having to correct it, consider the training complete and a new asset has been added to help your business scale upward!
Thanks for the information on freelance writer sourcing and sharing your success in affiliate marketing. It is always an encouragement to see, in black and white, proof of what is obtainable through diligence and hard work. I’m always encouraged to see the new opportunities created by progression, just waiting to be capitalized on. I’ve always been intrigued by those stories of real wealth created by someone who had the eyes to see a need and found a way to fill it. You’ve got me thinking.
That’s how all successful businesses function Angie, they solve a problem and it does NOT change in the online world. All good niche sites do this too. And when it comes to writers, they fulfill the need of a blogger who cannot create enough content on their own, so that is itself a solution.
Vitaliy,
I have had my own experiences with freelance writers. I am not a great writer and always get writers block when trying to write for my website. I have tried online services, such as iWriter, but it was not very successful.
I found that the best way was to do it myself (ugh!). The idea of training them as you suggested may pay off in the long run, but that too takes time. Because of my writers block tendencies, I never considered writing for others. I find that my most successful method was to do my own writing. Perhaps I may find the time to train someone as you suggested. Thanks for such an informative article.
Bob
Hi Bob, I woulfd take a look at my writer’s block post I linked to your comment above to help. But I would not consider a writer just yet, make sure you have a personal understanding of your site, your niche and have success on it before relaying that information onto a writer you seek to train/hire.
An absolute eye opener for after reading this article. I write a lot of content and was writing for a text broker for a while and kept getting a load of work but the client didn’t want to pay a lot of money and I started to get a bit frustrated.
My content writing is good. Even if I don’t know a lot about the subject matter I research and research until I do. You have given me some fantastic guidance which will be helpful in finding new clients. I may even get paid for what I think I am worth.
Once again, many thanks for a wonderful article.
I am not sure if that text broker had you doing blogs, but if they were, you could have negotiated a better payment by letting them know about your SEO skills and the positive benefits of having them pay you more and the bigger audiences/money they’d get from using you.
And if they still wanted to pay you less, then it would definitely be better for you to find another client, there’s no sense in wasting your time writing for people who do not appreciate your services or adequately pay you for them.
Hello Vitaliy,
Great article that you have written. It is chockful of information in more ways than one.
I love the perspective that you gave on both groups of people. It clearly shows that you know what you are talking about.
I have at one time considered writing content as a freelance writer, however, time and circumstances were the dictators for that project and it never got ‘off the ground floor’. Now, having read your article, you have put me in reflective mode – and this is a good thing.
I will be doing my resume and your suggestions to get me started. I am psyched.
Thank you for your information and your motivation.
Michelle
Hi Michelle, if you have a website that gets traffic, that itself can be your resume for a writing gig and telling the owner or a website or blogger seeking to hire a writer that you know how to get their site traffic as well, something to consider.
Very informative article, I have not gone down that road as yet though I have had a few colleagues that did work for someone and ended up not getting paid despite them using the content, writing for others does seems a bit daunting to me however, your advice is sound and helps us find writers when we need them.
I have considered writing for someone else though I feel at the moment I am not good enough however perhaps as you say find something I can really relate to would be a good way to get started, do you recommend any good places to get started as a writer then?
If someone is serious about writing for others then as you say you can go learn the topics you wish to write about, I have book marked this article for future reference only this day was I looking at similar articles however they were more focused on becoming a blog writer.
Hi Katie, there is no new advice I can offer you other than what I mentioned in the post. The best one is: Seek out people and blog owners for topics you are familiar with and then let them know how your writing service will do so and so for them.
Hi Vitaly,
I never really thought there was real opportunity for freelance writers in a non-technical field. The reason being that non-native English speakers can be hired so inexpensively. I suppose I thought that bloggers would gravitate toward them.
I’m glad to know that this isn’t necessarily the case. Of course, it makes sense. A native speaker will (hopefully) give you better results.
I think freelance writing would be a good experience for anyone. You’re not only making good money, but there’s some practical experience in it if in the future you want to start running an even more profitable blogging business.
Hi Paul, unfortunately people do gravitate to more cheap writers which tend to be none english speakers and thus they get very low quality results, grammatical issues in the writing and often copied content. It is not worth getting a low quality writer just to save some money when the entire business is at stake, invest good money into a good writer to get a better ROI in the end!
I am interested to hear your thoughts regarding that balance of paying for better writers. At some point in your business you will expand and need people to take on writing for you. But how do you know when to really start looking for the better writers out there who obviously charge more. Is there a certain sign you look for or is it really just a feel thing where you just know you need better articles and need to pay up?
Well if I already don’t have a writer I pay that delivers great content, I’ll look for another, but if you’re lucky enough to find one and train them, keep them close Brad.
However, if you’re fresh of a new site where you have no one writing for it and you start looking for one of those expensive writers, start with those who charge about $40, see their work, train them if need be and then if they deliver on bringing you good results, give them a raise. Their work will contribute to your businesses growth so it’s important to keep them happy too.
Vitaliy,
Great insight in regards to finding and/or becoming a freelnace writer. So many people who do business online never realize outsourcing can seriously improve your business, when done correctly.
Likewise, hire the wrong writer and you’ll be throwing money away. Just like any other business that hires someone to work for them, you have the right to see their past work, references, etc. If ever there was a time for due diligence, this is it.
Likewise, like you said, if you want to become a freelance writer, know the SEO ropes and put your best foot forward in the way of your past writings and get on it.
Great resources here Vitaliy, Thanks!
Thank you Matt! You are right on with the due diligence point. When your business is on the line and you expect the best, you are entitled to it!
Hey Vitaliy, thanks for taking the time to write this up. As a freelance writer in the past, and even a little in the present, I know it can often be challenging to find quality writers.
Now that I’m actually outsourcing some things myself, I did want to offer you one additional offline resource that I have personally had some pretty good luck with. I went to colleges in my local area and hung some fliers up in the English department.
Not only did I have several responses, but I was able to find some really great writers that are willing to work for very fair rates. I was able to get several articles written by native English speaking writers for around $6 each.
Thanks again for sharing this resource. I look forward to putting some of these strategies into effect.
That’s an awesome idea Tony, thank you for sharing it with us! It is similar to what I mentioned in finding people you personally know to handle it, but in your case, you were able to find writers right there and then and adding to it the fact that college students likely need the extra money, it was easy to get them interested. Well done!
Hello,
I took the time to read your article and think that I might be interested in heading over to those sites to find some freelancing work myself. I do have my own blog, and may need a writer one day for that. I find that writing posts is challenging in terms of time, but you have to put out posts frequently and thoroughly to get good rankings.
I did hire a site once to write for me, but I ended up removing all the articles and stopped paying them. I just felt like they were putting out information I didn’t even believe in. That was for my nutrition blog, which I have temporarily set aside, but will start back up when I feel I am making more headway with my current site, which is called Bilingual StoryTime.
I agree on your points and I think that it is a good idea to consider training someone who requires that little bit of training, than to expect someone who is great right off the bat.
Hi Riri, I find that it’s better to make money of a blog first before you get a writer for that existing or new blog and it’s the advice I give everyone. You need to experience a level of success on a blog before you train your writer’s to continue on the road which lead you to have the successful blog in the first place.
Hi Vitaliy, I previously was trying out a few writers through one of the platforms you mentioned above. But I always received a final work that didn’t meet my expectations. I paid them anyways as I didn’t have experience in outsourcing back then and ended up spending time in correcting all the errors.
After reading this I have better idea how to guide them keep up the level and pay only when the work meets my expectation.
Do you have any suggestion on the price range per article if I were to bulk orders in one shot? Let’s say 10 articles?
First it depends on the price your writer gives you Max, then you need to determine if they are good by testing them on individual articles, and if and only if they are good can you negotiate a bulk price.
Have them write 2-3 article individually and make sure it’s something you approve of because if you do business with them in the future, they’ll use those 2-3 articles for reference, and then talk about buying bulk packages (10 or more).
Great post! It provides great information for both business owners and freelance writers. I agree that it’s not easy to find good writers. A lot of people say that anyone can write, but they need good knowledge and technique to produce good quality content. I think for freelancers who are just starting that career, it would be a good idea to write a post with tips on how to produce good content and become a successful writer.
This is why I told all of them to join Wealthy Affiliate, whether they are owners looking to hire writer or writers themselves. With the knowledge they get from WA which is mainly how to create great content and have a website become successful, they (freelancers) are going to become valuable assets to anyone looking to hire them.
Very interesting article. My understanding in regards to employing writers to produce content for your blog/Website was that it was easy to source them through text broker for instance.
I now see that there are many companies providing this kind of service. I once read an article about this guy who owned several blogs and would hire and fire constantly because the quality of the work was often poor.
He found It really difficult to find someone he could trust. I even considered writing for text broker but after some in depth research I found that they often didn’t pay all that much.
It is important to get the content right and I suppose it needs to be good quality content.
Hi James, of course it needs to be of high quality, otherwise, you’re wasting money on poor content just about anyone could produce, and the story you mentioned about that gentlemen further vindicates my position in training them and putting in the time to do so, so you won’t have go around and risk/waste time on unknown writers.
I honestly think if that gentlemen who has many websites spent at least a month with 1-3 writers teaching them exactly what he wanted to see from them and paid them fairly in the process, that he wouldn’t go back and forth in that cycle you mentioned…