How to Hire Freelance SEO Content Writers

Choosing the right team of web content writers is crucial for your SEO success. If you have never hired content writers before, this post will offer you a helping hand.

If the ongoing recession is lurking over your Internet business, it’s time to think smart and trim your budget adeptly. One of the ways to cut down on your digital marketing budget is hiring web content writers in India. Many businesses in the West have outsourced their content writing assignments to Indian vendors and breathed a sigh of relief. However, hiring content writers in India is not as easy as it might appear in the first place. Particularly, if you’re someone who has never had any experiencing in hiring web content writers in India, you might do yourself a great favor by applying the following tips and tricks.

Relevant Experience

The first step to choose your SEO copywriter is to look at his experience. If he has enough experience in your industry, he will most probably create quality content for your website. However, don’t take his words for granted. You must see some work before you put your trust and money on him.

Previous Work

The second step to knowing your SEO copywriter’s skill is to review some of his samples. Ask him for a sample on your website or in your industry and the sample should be done within a timeframe. This offers your ample insight into the ability of the writer to deliver results within the deadline.

Cost of Content

There are various ways to determine the cost of hiring an SEO copywriter. Some freelancers offer you a price based on words. Others might offer your price for a specific content piece regardless of its word count. See what suits your needs and budget the best. Besides, you should check out quote from different SEO copywriters rather than just one.

SEO Freelancers vs. SEO Firms

Making a choice between a freelance SEO copywriter and an SEO copywriter firm can be difficult, especially when it comes to prices of seo copywriting services. There’s a prevalent myth that freelance SEO copywriters charge less than firms. However, it is not necessarily true because if a freelance SEO copywriter is able to deliver similar results within the deadline, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t charge as much as a firm does. Whether you should go for a firm or a freelance relies on your seo copywriting requirements. However, if you have large amount of SEO copywriting needs, you should go for a firm with a bunch of writers who are more likely to handle bulk orders and deliver results faster without compromising with the quality.

Ask For Resume 

A writer’s resume speaks volumes of his skills and achievements. By analyzing the resume of your potential vendors, you would be in a position to filter out web content writers that are more experienced and equipped to write content for your target audiences. Moreover, it offers you an opportunity to weed out inexperienced web content writers masquerading themselves as professional writers.

Ask for A Test Drive 

No matter how experienced a writer might appear in his resume, it’s always safer to ask for a test article to find out if he can write up to your expectations. Again, it helps you to decide a price that fits his quality of writing. Better still, you could save yourself from the pain and regrets of working with a poor web content writer. So insist on a test article before you hire any web content writers.

Check for Professional Experience 

Are you going to hire web content writers with no experience in professional content writing? Nobody would unless they wanted to risk their Internet business. Ask if the writers have any prior experience of working with similar projects in your industry. If not in the same industry, at least they should have some experience in writing content for other e-commerce websites. This also empowers you to fix an appropriate price on the web content writers based on their varied professional experiences.

Check Samples 

Many web content writers utilize their portfolio to procure new projects. However, there are a few that happen to fake it when it comes to their past experience. Samples offer you an opportunity to know how professional they are apart from testing their integrity. For instance, you could use any reliable anti-plagiarism software like CopyScape and run a test to find out if the samples presented by your prospective web content writers are their own.

However, I will be honest with you. Don’t just hire anyone just because their content writing prices are affordable. As a matter of fact, you will come across too many service providers whose rates are cheap but they will most likely offer you sub-standard quality which will hurt you SEO badly. If they are telling you that they can offer their services at “competitive prices”, it essentially means they are getting your job done by freelancers who are equipped with the skills or experience to deliver quality.

If you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur, you would love to work with a team of web content writers who know what exactly their are doing. Therefore, you need to be twice as careful before handing over your content writing requirements to a team. Look for an experienced team of content writers if you consider your project to be the key to your overall SEO campaign, which should be true in most circumstances.

Here are some scenarios when you should be very focussed on hiring the right team for your job:

Do You Have Unique Services on Offer?

Hiring cheap and affordable web content writers might help you save a few dollars on your SEO budget, but chances are you won’t be satisfied with the end results. If your business is extremely unique and industry is relatively new, an inexperienced team may not have thorough understanding of your industry, products and services or even demographics. Since high quality content is the key to traffic conversion, hiring an experienced  team of web content writers makes more sense.

Having a Low Budget for Web Copy Writing?

Professional web copy writers that create appealing web copies are hard to come by for cheap prices. Usually, your web copies are the face of your website and web content writers sweat it out to produce web copies for higher traffic conversion. Hence, if you happen to find some web content writers who are ready to deliver web copies for peanuts, then the content is probably is probably not worth it.

Avoid the common mistakes while hiring a freelance SEO content writer

Hiring Through Bidding Sites – Bidding sites are essentially the breeding ground for many raw freelance writers who eye on making some money from writing as a part-time activity. Many inexperienced newbie freelancer writers lurk around the free bidding sites looking for some work. They are usually not serous about taking up writing as their profession, or equipped with the proficiency and SEO copywriting skills to deliver decent content for your campaign. No wonder, they keep the prices shockingly low for you to fall for them. Before you are going to hire one of them, ask yourself a question – can this SEO copywriter help me succeed in my business? Am I saving money or just throwing it out of my window altogether? Chances are you will end up doing a disservice to your SEO campaign by hiring one of them.

Hiring Freelance Writers – Well, hiring freelance writers is actually a smart option for many western countries that prefer outsourcing their content writing projects to India. However, your ability to hire a professional freelance writer can make a critical difference to your SEO campaign. Are you going to settle for someone who is just a freelance writer? If you ever meet anyone who has born the brunt of hiring just a freelancer, you will know what hiring an average SEO content writer can cost your business. Don’t risk wasting time or toying with the credibility of audience. Research well before hiring a freelance SEO copywriter in India.

Hiring A Fake Firm – Many freelancer writers who join the SEO content writing jungle know the game to trick you into hiring them right away. Usually, they would pretend to be an SEO copywriters’ firm who exist since a decade and whose combined experience would be as old as two decades. You could be fooling yourself into believing the fake claims smartly presented by these freelance writes who never even own a website. Most of them wouldn’t even have a blog of their own! Would you risk hiring a freelance writer who resorts to false claims in the first place? Do the wise thing and ask if they have a website for their SEO copywriters’ firm.

Paying Full in Advance – This is usually the case when you enter the bizarre SEO copywriting head-hunting hinterland. This often happens with webmasters who are in a hurry to hire SEO copywriters with suggestively low prices. Usually, these SEO copywriters ask for a full upfront payment since they offer their services at such a shockingly lower price range. However, an upfront payment option is never a wise option especially when you’re hiring someone for the first time. May be a small amount, but you could risk losing the entire payment to your vendor for no work at all. But this happens in rare cases. Nevertheless, being careful saves a lot of regret.

Another way to secure your payment is to see if your freelance SEO copywriter has, for example, a verified PayPal account. A verified PayPal account usually empowers you to claim a refund from the vendor in the event of any default on terms of services.

Not Checking Testimonials: Client Testimonials are usually the best way to ensure the authenticity of a professional, experienced and skilled writer. A freelance SEO copywriter who doesn’t have any client’s testimonial to his credit doesn’t merit your serious consideration. Even though they mention some testimonials to you, make sure you verify their credibility by checking reference websites or contacting the clients directly for a comment on the services offered by them. It may sound like a lot of work to you, but it sure saves you from a lot of regret in the long-run.

Selling on the Web begins with customer engagement built over a period of time. And, customer engagement begins with informative and high quality content. Make sure you choose your team carefully.

About Susanta Sahoo

I'm the founder and content marketing head at Top League. Our team can help you build great content that helps you rank high on Google and generate high-quality leads. Get in touch with us and let's discuss your project. I'm on LinkedIn & Twitter, just so you know.