Should You Hire a Freelance Blog Writer?

It can be difficult to consistently produce high-quality blog posts that engage visitors and rank high in search results. You might consider hiring a freelance blog writer to do most or all of the work instead. But is this the best option for your business?

There are plenty of ways to outsource content creation for your blog. While a freelance writer may be a good fit for certain websites, you might prefer to produce blog content in-house. Alternately, if you want to grow a thriving blog and leverage outside expertise, a content agency can offer a higher level of service than a freelancer.

In this post, we’ll help you decide whether you should hire a freelance blog writer. We’ll consider the alternatives as well, and share some useful tips to get you started. Let’s jump right in!

Why You Might Consider Hiring a Freelance Blog Writer

A blog can be an invaluable resource for your online business. It can help you establish authority, grow an audience, and even generate conversions. However, an effective blog also takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate.

If you want to free up time and benefit from years of professional experience, you might consider hiring a freelance blog writer instead. Freelancers typically work on a contractual basis, and create content based on your requirements.

More specifically, businesses and individuals tend to use freelancers for particular projects (as opposed to ongoing tasks). You can reach out to experienced freelancers on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork:

Each freelancer will typically display a rate range. They’ll offer a more specific quote once you provide the details of your project. Hiring a freelance writer tends to be a cost-effective option. After all, you don’t need to offer any benefits, provide office space, or deal with other overhead costs.

You’ll find hundreds of professionals on freelance platforms. This means you have a good chance of finding a person with skills and experience that meet the needs of your blog.

Of course, you don’t have to stick with just one freelance blog writer. If you want to increase your content output, you can hire multiple freelancers simultaneously. Just keep in mind that it may be difficult to ensure consistency of quality and style when working this way.

The Drawbacks of Hiring a Freelance Blog Writer

There are definitely benefits to hiring a freelance blog writer, but you’ll want to consider the downsides as well. For instance, the accuracy of their work may be solid, but the content can lack ‘heart’ and real authority.

Naturally, a freelancer with no knowledge of your industry can still conduct thorough research to inform their content. But at the end of the day, it’s just a job for them.

If you want to publish thought-leading articles or passion projects, a freelancer probably isn’t the way to go. Plus, it can be difficult for a freelancer to capture your brand’s voice and values.

Additionally, since freelancers can be very busy catering to multiple clients, it isn’t uncommon for writers to cut corners using AI content generators. This can create issues with accuracy and plagiarism, while the resulting content may also lack creativity and flair.

It’s also important to note that most freelancers are incentivized to work quickly. The faster they complete your articles, the more work they can take on. This doesn’t necessarily mean they will rush. However, they may not take the time to ensure that each post is as good as it possibly can be.

Finally, it’s not always possible to verify how educated or experienced a writer is. An ad or profile may list “10 years of experience”. However, you don’t know how many projects that freelancer has worked on or what their writing is like (unless they provide samples). For example, a freelancer may under-research posts or fail to properly optimize content for search engines.

A freelance blog writer can be a good option if you’re looking for a quick and affordable way to create one-off articles. However, if you want to preserve your brand reputation, it may be better to focus on comprehensive tutorials or expert opinion pieces. This content can be more helpful to your audience, yet is more challenging to create using freelancers.

3 Alternatives To Hiring a Freelance Blog Writer

If you don’t want to hire a freelancer blog writer, there are other options to consider. Let’s take a closer look at three of the best ways to get quality blog content.

1. Create Your Blog Content In-House

One of the most straightforward ways to create blog content is to hire (or train) employees so you have an internal writing team as part of your staff. This way, you’ll have total control over the writing process.

This also helps to ensure that the content reflects your brand voice, as it’s produced by employees who understand the values and mission of your business. Moreover, with a dedicated team of writers, you won’t encounter any of the delays involved in hiring a freelancer (such as back-and-fourth messaging and revision requests).

On the other hand, creating content in-house is often only feasible for businesses with a sizable budget. In the beginning, you may simply require one writer, depending on the size of your business and your content goals.

But if you ever want to increase your output, you may need to hire multiple employees. Naturally, this includes costs like salaries and other benefits, as well as investments in training, resources, new technologies, and more.

All things considered, an in-house team works best if you value your brand image and voice, and require writers who are very knowledgeable about your niche and products/services. It’s also a great way to set up a regular posting schedule and publish a steady stream of content. However, it’s only a viable option for businesses that have the budget to onboard new team members, and the content requirements to keep them busy.

2. Invite Guest Contributors To Write for Your Blog

Guest posts involve partnering with external writers (usually from other blogs or websites) who write content to be published on your blog. Although you can pay guest writers for their posts, you’ll find that some contributors are happy to work for free, as it allows them to build a portfolio and get their work seen by more people.

That means this is a potential low-cost way to source new content for your blog. It also enables you to diversify your current content, and appeal to new audiences.

For example, guest contributors can come up with their own ideas for posts. You can benefit from the different types of expertise and perspectives they bring. This can also make it easier to target keywords that you haven’t focused on yet.

However, guest contributors are looking for maximum exposure and are likely to be attracted to websites with a very large audience. Therefore, this may not be the best option if you’re a relatively new blog with very little web traffic.

In addition, most guest writers aren’t open to long-term contracts. This means that guest posts generally work best as a way to fill out your content schedule. Just keep in mind that you’ll likely need to edit guest posts internally, in order to ensure consistent quality and style.

3. Hire an Agency To Handle Your Content Needs

If none of the options above sound right for your blog, you can also consider hiring a content agency. This can be an effective way to secure high-quality, well-researched, and SEO-optimized content.

Content agencies are made up of professional writers and editors who specialize in digital content. Some agencies also have SEO experts and account managers, which means you’ll be working with a team rather than a single individual.

An established agency provides you with access to writers who are thoroughly vetted and trained. They should have a high level of expertise, and an ability to research and write about a diverse range of topics.

Working with an agency offers many of the same benefits you’ll get from employing a freelancer. Since you’re working with a team, however, you don’t need to worry about relying on an individual who may take time off or become too busy with other clients. There will also be multiple eyes on your content, which is a great way to ensure top quality.

Of course, this approach can involve a few of the same drawbacks as working with a freelancer.. For instance, giving up some control over the content creation process means that blog posts may not align with your brand voice and messaging. Additionally, it’s very important to choose the right agency for your blog, to avoid receiving low-quality content that fails to resonate with your audience.

That’s why it’s best to approach a highly-experienced agency like WordCandy. Here at WordCandy, we create all kinds of content including blog posts, web copy, and user documentation. We can produce posts based on your briefs or outlines. Alternatively, our writers can generate headlines and topic ideas for your approval, on many different topics.

Our writing service includes internal and external links, SEO optimization, images and screenshots, and a thorough editing process. Most importantly, we’ll write for your target audience and in accordance with your preferred style. This means you get all the benefits of working with a freelancer or creating content in-house, with none of the resulting drawbacks.

Tips for Hiring the Right Writers for Your Blog

Whether you decide to employ a freelancer, guest post contributors, an agency, or some combination, it’s important to choose who you work with carefully. By implementing a few best practices, you can make connections with experienced professionals who can create quality content for your target audience.

Here are some key tips to keep in mind:

• Define your needs. You’ll want to make sure you know exactly what kind of content you’re looking to post on your blog (including target audience, preferred topics, word counts, etc.). This helps you identify the right writers and set clear expectations from the start.
• Carefully review portfolios. To get a feel for a writer or agency, it’s important to take a look at their existing portfolio of work. This will give you a preview of the quality level you can expect. Plus, it lets you know what topics the writer(s) are experienced in.
• Set up a trial period. If you’re nervous about committing for the long term, you can ask the writer or agency to produce an initial trial article or two. Then you can evaluate the writer’s skills and compatibility with your blog. You might even test a few different writers and/or agencies this way, before settling on the best fit.
• Negotiate rates and ask for details. Although agencies may have set rates for certain types of work, you may also be able to negotiate a price that better fits your budget. It’s also important to be very clear about payment schedules, deadlines, and other terms/conditions.

Hiring writers can help you grow your blog and free up time to concentrate on other areas of your business. However, it’s important to take the time and effort to find the right writer (or team) to trust with your content.

Conclusion

If you don’t have the best writing skills, or you’re short on resources, it can be a good idea to outsource your blog content to professionals. This way, you can benefit from the skills and experience of seasoned writers.

A freelance blog writer can be an affordable solution for short-term work. If you have the budget, you might want to hire an in-house team to produce content that aligns with your brand. Or if you’re looking for the best of both worlds, you can partner with a content agency. This provides the expertise of freelancers alongside the reliability of a dedicated team.

At WordCandy, you can retain as little or as much control as you’d like over the content creation process. Plus, all the content we create is optimized for search engines and customized to your exact needs (and the needs of your readers). Contact us today to get started!

Image credit: Andrew Neel.