Statistics show that roughly 5% of the US workforce are freelance writers. This means that there are a few million freelance writers in the US alone.
If you are looking to hire freelance writers, it can be hard to sift through all the options. Some writers are seasoned professionals. Others are just out to make a quick buck on the side.
To ensure that you hire a freelance writer who, a) can write, and b) is reliable, it’s important that you know the steps involved in vetting out a top-notch writer.
Otherwise, you might end up spending resources on content that is not up to scratch. Fortunately, once you know where to look and how to pick a good writer, finding a wordsmith for your content creation is possible.
If you want to learn how to find freelance writers that are worth their salt, keep reading.
Get Clear on Your Needs
The first step to finding a writer that is a great match for you is to get clear on your needs.
For instance, do you need someone who is versed in SEO, or will they get SEO guidelines to follow? How technical is your article? Do you need an expert in the field to handle the terms and the research?
Consider the range of content you want created. Perhaps you just need someone to write blog posts. Or, maybe you are targeting meatier projects like e-books. If so, it might help to find someone who has experience in e-books over blog writing.
Another thing to consider is turnaround times. Do you need content quickly? Or can you afford for it to be developed over a span of weeks or months? A lot of writers juggle multiple projects to maximize income security, so it is important that you stipulate your project is urgent if it is on a tight turnaround.
Speaking of time frames, is your project long term? If so, you might want to figure out a delivery frequency so that you can communicate this to potential writers. If you need, say, 3 articles each week for the foreseeable future, you need to make sure that potential writers can handle this workload without delaying your content posting.
Research Platforms for Finding Writers
Once you have determined your specific writing needs, it’s time to start the hiring-freelance-writers hunt. The first port of call is usually Google, however, you can also ask any friends or contacts for recommendations.
After typing in something like “hiring freelance writers”, you’ll likely be hit with a sea of results. To start combing through the confusion, it’s best to begin researching the different platforms that come up, as not all of them offer reliable results.
For instance, Freelancer is a big site that some people hire freelance writers from. However, the work quality on these types of platforms isn’t always up to scratch.
The same goes for content mills. In many cases, you will be better off choosing a platform for hiring freelance writers that vets all their writers before, and acts as a go-between.
The takeaway? To save yourself time and money, make sure that you thoroughly research any platforms that you are thinking of trying out. In most cases, managed platforms offer more security and better quality results.
Figuring Out Your Price Range
Another important step in how to find freelance writers is to establish your price range.
Our first word of advice is to steer clear of too-good-to-be-true prices. There are literally thousands of writers that will write for as little as 1 cent a word or less.
While these price ranges might look attractive, the results you get might not do your content strategy any good.
Instead, aim for middle-of-the-range pricing for simple topics, and a higher price range for specialized areas. To get an idea of exact rates, an acceptable hourly rate for a beginner writer (+-3 years experience) is up to $20-$40 dollars per hour or 1-25 cents per word.
If you are hiring a very seasoned writer or one that has expert niche knowledge, then you should budget for more than this.
Also, keep in mind when working out what rates you are willing to pay, that you are likely saving heavily simply by hiring a freelancer. Considering that the average cost of employee benefits is $11.60 an hour, paying a freelance writer $20 per hour and above is not a bad deal, especially if they can put out high-quality work.
If you want to learn more about what to pay a freelance writer, check out this post.
Look at Reviews
If you are hiring freelance writers individually, it is important to get an idea of what they are like to work with. One of the qualities to look for when hiring freelance writers is reliability. Besides this, you also want to make sure that they produce good content, and are easy to work with.
To gauge whether an individual possesses these qualities, do a little snooping. See if you can dig up some reviews on them from previous clients, check out their portfolios, and try and see if you can find any previously published work from them.
Ask for a Paid Sample
Once you have pinpointed some potential writers, you can ask them for a paid sample. This way you can isolate a writer (or writers) out of your selection that matches your needs and produces good quality work.
If you are tight on budget, you can also request a free sample. However, this might chase away the better writers.
Want to Hire Freelance Writers the Easy Way?
As you can see it’s not always easy to know where to find freelance writers. What’s more, once you do find a platform from which to hire freelance writers, the process can be time-consuming. After this, you might still need to spend time working with your writer to ensure that you get the content you want.
Does that sound like too much?
If so, we feel you. In fact, we feel strongly that hiring freelance writers shouldn’t be such a hit-and-miss process. This is why we have made it easy for you.
Here at iWriter we personally vet and train some of the best writers so that you don’t have to. Instead, you can order custom content through us and it will be executed by one of our experienced writers.
What’s more, we won’t stop until you are happy with it. This means you can request edits and changes free of charge. If this sounds like your kind of deal, check out our pricing today.
If you want to get started, sign up for free and get that content ball rolling—without the hassle of personally hiring freelance writers.
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