Literally all you need to know about hiring SEO writers. How to source, evaluate, hire, and pay.
Hey guys!
So I've seen the question of hiring writers pop up on just about every SEO sub, so thought I'd make a mega-comprehensive post to share our experiences with it. The guys at Just Start loved the post, so thought I'd share here too.
For context, I've sourced and vetted thousands of writers from literally every sources – Facebook ads, groups, problogger, job boards, referrals, and so on.
And yeah, the entire process is a pain in the ass. Most writers you source WILL suck, and you'll end up spending long hours sourcing, vetting, and trialing these writers.
Luckily, there ARE ways to make the process of writers less of a pain. In this post, I'll teach you what worked for us so far.
Freebies: For free stuff, Direct Message (DM) me. Includes content outline example, SEO learning track, free local SEO checklist, and a bunch of other stuff. No opt-in or any of that BS required. There's a limit of how many people I can DM on Reddit so, if you want the freebies, YOU need to dm ME. If you really dig this post, I'd appreciate it if you subscribed to my subreddit, r/seogrowth <3
So, first thing's first – let's start with: Writer Sourcing by the Numbers
When sourcing writers, here's the general picture we get: • When you post a job ad on almost any online job board, you'll get around 100 plus applicants. For some job boards, this can be up to 200 – 300. ProBlogger, specifically, gets us a TON of applicants. • If you source around 100 writers total, you'll see that: • 90/100 of those writers are going to suck. That's just part of the game, nothing you can do.
• Around 3-5 out of those 100 are going to be the "I wrote for Forbes and charge a dollar per word" type. You won't be able to hire those without breaking bank big-time. • The final 5 of the 100 writers sourced are going to look good on paper. If you trial all 5 of them, chances are, you'll end up hiring 1-2. You'll discover that one of them is commiting identity theft (cosplaying a good writer), and another is not as good as they claim to be (they worked with an amazing editor, so their samples don't represent the quality you'll be getting). • So, at the end of the day, from sourcing 100 writers and trialing 5, you end up hiring 1-2 writers tops.
So the lesson here is, hiring writers is a numbers game. You have to source and vet a whole lot of them if you want to make a handful of hires. Sourcing Writers
Here's a list of writer sourcing channels that worked for us, sorted by how well they worked: • ProBlogger. You'll get 200 – 300 applicants per posting, so definitely worth paying the 70 USD fee. The quality ranges from "awful" to "amazing." • Facebook Jobs. Create a job on your Facebook profile and pick a target location. Create an ad out of the job and target people with 1) English as a language, 2) content-writing / SEO related interests. • Facebook groups. Think, "Expats in [location]." These groups have a ton of quality English-speakers/writers. • Referrals. If you hire an expat writer in Bulgaria, for example, you can ask them to refer their friends. Chances are, they know at least a handful of people who'd be good writers. • UpWork / JobRack / Outsourcely. All of these platforms are pretty decent for head-hunting specific writers. Posting jobs on UpWork usually leads to very questionable quality applicants, though.
Now, as for the process of sourcing writers, here's what you gotta do:
Pick a target word count per month. Say, you want to publish 30,000 words of content per month.
The average freelancer writer can, from our experience, take on around 10,000 words of work per month. So that means you have to source enough writers to make 3 hires.
Meaning, you want to source around 200-300 writers to make this happen. Use the mix of the channels we mentioned above to get this number. Ask for the Right Info
Get your writers to fill out a Google Form. This is going to make the process of vetting the writers (explained below) much easier.
The form should ask for the following information: • Basics like name, email, location, etc. • Portfolio URL. • 3 writing samples. You HAVE TO ask for samples, otherwise you'll be wasting a lot of your time. If you're OK with hiring recent graduates (more on this later), you can mention that "academic writing samples are OK."
Vetting Writers
Now that you're sourcing hundreds of writers, you have a new problem:
You have a database of 300+ writers, each with 3 writing samples.
That's a LOT of samples.
So, unless you want to spend the next week reviewing hundreds of samples per day, do this:
Create an SOP for evaluating writers and hand it over to a virtual assistant. The Virtual Assistant (VA) is going to go through their writing samples and evaluate writers based on the following criteria: • Basic English. Does the writer make very obvious English mistakes throughout the post? Disqualify the ones that do. • Content type. Does the writer have quality, educational long-form samples? Disqualify the ones that send in generic 500-word articles. • Topic complexity. If your topics are going to be complex, you want a writer who has some technical background. What I'm saying is, you don't want to hire a travel blogger to write about accounting.
Once the Virtual Assistant (VA) short-lists the writers that look good on paper, you should give the samples a final look and invite the writers for a (paid) trial task. Hire the ones that perform well.
When giving the trial task, provide the writer a Google Doc that they're supposed to write on. This way, you can check article history and see 1) who wrote the sample (i.e. if the writer did it themselves, or outsourced it) and 2) how long it took the writer to write the article (not including research time).
Pro tip – yes, the trial task is very important. Sometimes, you'll see that the writer 1) isn't the person behind the samples, 2) had a very good editor who basically "carried" the articles they submitted as samples. Hiring Full-Time VS Freelance
If you ask me, full-time writers blow freelancers out of the writer. Here's why: • Freelancers are motivated to fluff up the articles and try to write the content ASAP instead of actually taking the time to perfecting the posts. • Freelancers can usually do more output (since they get paid per word), but this usually reflects on quality. • Freelancers aren't going to spend as much time on research as they're only getting paid for the end result. • Full-timers can also learn how to do other tasks like landing page copy, ads, etc. since you're paying them per-month instead of per-word.
Other Relevant Tips
Here's a bunch of other tips that didn't fit anywhere else in this post: • Hiring recent university graduates is a good strategy as long as you train them extensively. Meaning, weekly calls, training sessions, workshops, etc. Give them regular readings on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), writing, copywriting, and whatever topic they're going to be writing about. • When working with writers, use content outlines (Direct Message (DM) for example). This helps ensure that they cover the topic in such a way that the article will stand a chance at ranking on Google. • Upgrade your best writer to an editor. Upgrade your best editor to "Head of Content," if you're going to scale your content hard. • Give your writers extensive feedback if you want them to improve. Don't just leave a comment saying "this sux pls improve" – actually tell them how/why they can improve specific bits of text. • Give your full-time writers a task to master the topic they're writing about. For 2-3 days, 100% of their workload should involve reading articles about this topic, reading up FAQs on Quora, reading what questions people ask about the topic on Reddit, etc. • Do video call feedback with your writers once a week. They'll learn the topic / writing a lot faster if you do that as opposed to just leaving comments on Google Docs. • Use Google Docs for all your content creation and editing needs. Use Mammoth Docx to automatically upload content from Google Docs to WordPress.
Aaaand that's it
That should be about all you need to know. Got any questions? Comment below! 22 💬🗨
badgergravling "provide the writer a Google Doc that they're supposed to write on"
I'd be buggered after 20 years of being a professional writer. I pretty much always write in Word, and then upload it. Nothing worse than having client profiles at the top of the screen, and potentially looking at a draft while you're trying to work out the best way to phrase something and trying different approaches.
Most of the advice is fairly sound – especially actually providing a good content brief. But the idea that full-time writers always blow freelancers out of the water (I'm presuming that's what you mean to type) isn't true. Speaking as someone who started as an in-house writer and journalist before switching to freelancing…
If you pay per project, including research time, and allow for a word count guide, then that wipes out all of your main complaints. And after 20 years as a writer and 10+ in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I'm also capable of writing landing page copy, ads, and performing a full technical audit of your website at the same time.
Good full-timers are better than bad freelancers. Good freelancers are better than bad full-timers.
kickit Yeah, the mandatory Google Doc thing is the only thing up above that I would not ask of a professional writer. Personally, I like to write in Word (I hate doing offline work within a web browser) and I really think it's up to the writer what tools they use to get their work done. How long it takes doesn't make a difference for me because I pay by the article or by word count.
The full-time vs freelance thing really comes down to personal preference. There are some absolutely top tier freelancers out there. There are definitely some upsides to having a full time writer (like giving them time to really educate themselves on the subject matter, or being able to bring them in on other tasks like landing pages or whatever), but those upsides don't really have to do with the quality of the writing itself.
In general, I won't look to a freelancer to take on tasks other than the one I initially hired them for, and would not enlist a freelancer to help with landing pages or tech audits or whatever. It takes time to onboard a new writer to what you need as far as content goes, and I'm generally not interested enough in pulling a freelance writer in on new areas to take the time to do so. With a full-timer, it's different \- because you're working with them more consistently, time investment to take on new items is generally a better bet than making the same call regarding a freelancer.
kgal You're right. My company primarily uses freelance writers, but has 2 full time editors and then I'm the SEO. Works great, but I've worked in editorial since <year> so I have a large pool of freelancers I work with at this point. Sourcing writers becomes way easier the longer you do this. badgergravling I totally understand your point if a new freelancer needs training, but generally the reason I'm hired as a freelancer is because I've got more in-depth knowledge about a specific subject than a lot of full-time people, along with some fairly detailed SEO expertise as well…
Most of my clients ask me to train them, rather than the other way around :)
kickit People are nit-picking this post hardcore, but it's probably one of the most helpful guides I've seen posted here, about an area that doesn't get talked about nearly enough (producing quality content).
The only thing I wouldn't personally require here is the Google Doc \- if I'm hiring good writers, I just don't feel the need to micromanage them. I pay freelancers by the article or by the word, and if you're hiring full-timers, you should be meeting with them very regularly and developing a strong working relationship.
How long have you been using Mammoth Docx? I used to use it, but these days I've found the copy/paste from current Word to current WordPress works really well. There used to be a ton of html cruft you'd inherit no matter what you imported from into WP, but at least the last time I looked at it, it seemed like the issues had been largely fixed in recent versions.
DrJigsaw ✍️ Thanks fam! I get the hate coming from the writers but y'know, different perspectives.
The only thing I wouldn't personally require here is the Google Doc \- if I'm hiring good writers, I just don't feel the need to micromanage them. I pay freelancers by the article or by the word, and if you're hiring full-timers, you should be meeting with them very regularly and developing a strong working relationship.
Right so using Google Docs is not a big deal for, well, 100% of the writers we've hired. No one ever complains.
The reason we have this as a mandatory rule is that when you're working with a ton of writers/creating a lot of content, you'll end up in situations where the writer starts outsourcing the work, which 99% of the time impacts quality.
When I hire a content writer, I expect them to do the work, not their intern.
Now someone might say, "hey, you don't get to do that!" To that I say, my business, my rules lmao.
How long have you been using Mammoth Docx? I used to use it, but these days I've found the copy/paste from current Word to current WordPress works really well. There used to be a ton of html cruft you'd inherit no matter what you imported from into WP, but at least the last time I looked at it, it seemed like the issues had been largely fixed in recent versions.
Been using it for a whiiiile haven't had any issues. Think we had a Virtual Assistant (VA) back in the day fixing up the HTML stuff but don't think that's required these days.
Ayesha This is a great post with lots of helpful advice for people like me who are new to hiring writers. Do you have tips for finding writers who have professional knowledge/expertise? For example, medical professionals who can write and review health content — will they be on these sites? For my use case, freelance is best because I'm looking for lots of different perspectives, although for certain articles, I could work regularly with a core group of two or three writers.
DrJigsaw ✍️ Thanks fam!
Do you have tips for finding writers who have professional knowledge/expertise?
So one way is to hire a FTE writer and actually give them a task to sit down and learn at on about the topic.
If the topic is something that REALLY requires expertise/background, then that won't work, though. E.g. if you need someone a degree in medicine. In that case, you're better off headhunting the writers who specialize in the topic.
You can try finding them on UpWork if you're feeling frisky, or LinkedIn if you're looking for a more reliable method lol. E.g. get a Virtual Assistant (VA) to make a list of people who pop up under "HR writer," put them on a sheet, and do outreach to get their samples/rates.
Also, ProBlogger can be pretty decent for finding writers w/ specific specializations so you can try that. Think it was 70 bucks per job ad which ain't bad at all.
