You’ve committed to content marketing. You’re excited about the potential. Then you realize…
How am I going to write all this content?
Combine writing with creating visuals, formatting the blog post, creating a downloadable content upgrade, and promoting the post. That’s a lot of work.
By hiring freelance writers, you can take a lot of that work off your plate and focus on marketing the content instead.
In this post we’re looking at 8 places where you can hire freelance writers as well as a few tips on what to include in your job ad.
[bctt tweet=”The 8 Best Places to Hire Expert Freelance Writers” username=”constantcontent”]
Social media can be a good place to start the hunt for freelance writers. Using not only your personal network but only tools like LinkedIn’s Profinder.
You can also look for freelance writers in your space by searching for “freelance writers + [industry]”.
For example, here are the results when I type in “freelance writer + SaaS”
Many freelance writers are also active on Twitter, so you should consider doing a quick search for some writers in your industry.
Searching for industry-specific hashtags with “freelance writer” will help you identify talented writers in your space.
Online Freelance Websites
The trouble with trying to find writers on social media is that it can take a long time to find someone qualified. This means you’re going to spend time and energy vetting writers that are far below your writing standards.
Some freelance writing websites do that work for you by building a network of qualified freelance writers.
Constant Content
Cue the shameless self-promotion: we think Constant Content is flippin’ great.
Joking aside, I truly do think a content writing service can be a marketer’s best friend.
That’s because finding, vetting, hiring, and managing writers is tiresome–and Constant Content makes the entire process a lot easier.
You can buy exclusive rights to pre-written content, request custom content from our top writers, or send out a job ad to our entire pool of writers and let them come to you.
On the Find Writers page, you can see top writers by industry or use keywords to search for writers with specific experience.
Upwork
Of course, we can’t forget to mention Upwork.
They are a massive freelance platform and boast several thousands of active freelancers. Finding and hiring writers is quite simple because you can use categories and other filters to narrow down the results.
The drawback here is that Upwork doesn’t vet their freelancers. From their eligibility page: “with a few exceptions, most everyone over the age of 18 who has an Internet connection can apply to join.”
Again, this means you’re going to waste time sifting through low-quality writers.
Job Boards
The previous 4 places to hire writers mostly focus on outbound hiring. In some cases, it may make sense to also do some inbound hiring.
Inbound hiring simply refers to putting out a job ad and letting writers apply to the project.
Indeed
Indeed is one of the largest online job boards. While it traditionally focuses on permanent hiring there is also a place for remote and freelance hiring.
Rather than just posting a job ad, consider searching for writers as well. There close to 18,000 resumes uploaded to the site with the keyword “freelance writer”.
More Places to Find Writers to Hire
While those are the conventional place to hire freelance writers, they aren’t the only places to find writers.
Large publications
Look at who is writing for the biggest publications in your industry. Many top freelancers use these publications to gain credibility and exposure.
If you’re going to attempt this strategy, simply visit the publication and find the author bio on a popular article.
Here is an example from Forbes. By click through to the author bio, you can get some additional info about the author and some contact info.
In a similar, but different approach, try using social trending tools to find writers behind the most popular articles on a topic.
For example, tools like Buzz Sumo let you search for the most popular articles for a certain term.
Here is a screenshot showing the top articles in the past year for the term “content marketing”.
What to Include Your Job Ad
In order to attract quality writers, you need to have a quality job ad.
A good job ad describes the type, topic, price, and a timeline.
Type
Why is it important to define the type of content needed?
Because copywriting isn’t content writing.
[bctt tweet=”Copywriting isn’t content writing.” username=”constantcontent”]
Writers can be skilled in one area and struggle in another so it’s important to clarify the type of content right up front. At Constant Content, we have a multiple different services to help you find the right writer for the right content, including a copywriting service, blog writing service, product description writing service, and more.
Topic
Clearly, a good job ad should outline the topics a writer would be covering.
Price
It’s no secret that you pay for quality, and most skilled writers won’t give a job advertisement a second look if they don’t see a budget listed.
Timeline
Style, experience, and pricing are moot if a writer doesn’t have the availability to turn around an article within your timeline.
Writing Job Ad Template
XYZ corp produces novelty beer cozies.
We would like to bring on 2-3 writers to produce articles aimed at increasing brand awareness as well as driving readers to our product pages.
Project Details:
- We want you to write articles aimed at the key pain points and benefits of beer cozies.
What We’re Looking For:
- Track record of producing high-quality content (please provide samples)
- Willingness to learn about our product and customers
- Strong attention to detail
Application:
- To apply, please send us 2 relevant samples along with a short bio.
Building a Writing Team
Developing a system for hiring content writers requires some upfront work. But the result is that you can easily scale your content marketing without sacrificing quality.
There are few better ways to improve your content marketing than by building a team of writers.
Interested in hiring freelance writers? Create your free Constant Content account today.