Hiring A Freelance Writer: Needed Qualifications

Is a freelance writer required to help build your web content? You can place ads on the web either through the freelancing sites or classified ad sites.

What should you ask for? Here are things that people ask for in their advertisements:

"Native English speaker." Actually, you just want it to be correct, formal or idiomatic English for wherever your audience is located. There are plenty of native English speakers in the US who are no good at it.

"Writing samples." It is common to ask for two or three sample articles. Check them for plagiarism using Copyscape, or just feed sentences into Google to see if it finds an exact match. Be conscientious about this. A plagiarist will do significant damage to your project.

"Three short articles on a specified topic." This is an even better test that they wrote the article. You should probably only try to impose this on finalists.

"Include this phrase in your reply: ..." A particular phrase to be included in the subject line of their response email. This is to weed out people who apply to all ads without reading them.

"A resume." See what qualifications they claim. See how they present themselves as professionals. See if they can point to tests and certifications.

"Excellent research skills" -- if you want them to look up the information themselves. You might be hiring a separate researcher, or be providing an ebook that they are to derive the articles from.

"The ability to write on the topic of ..." or "The ability to write on a variety of topics."If you are hiring someone only to provide content for your blog on one specific topic, of course you ask for that specialty. If you are setting up niche web sites on a variety of topics, your writer needs to be flexible.

"SEO articles." This means "search engine optimized articles" -- basically the inclusion of keywords. To be found on the web, your pages need to impress the search engines as being relevant to specific queries, and that can be accomplished by including the query phrase in the article's title, first paragraph, and a couple of other times throughout. (There are more sophisticated approaches, but they all involve using keywords.) The job for the writer is to include the keyword and variations of it enough times while still making the article sound like it was written by and for a human being.

"100% unique content." Even if the job is to rewrite an article, it must be completely rephrased. What the source of the information, it must be written in the writer's own words. Plagiarized content is worse than worthless. Your writer must be utterly committed to this.

"All articles must pass copyscape tests." This continues the demand for 100% unique content. Copyscape is a plagiarism-on-the-web detection service. This adds to the threat that duplicate content will immediately terminate the relationship.

"Articles submitted on time." If a web site is being built as a business, not merely a hobby, meeting deadlines is essential. Many advertisers add, "No just vanishing." Apparently, it is a real problem.

"This is an article for hire. The copyright belongs to the person hiring the writer." Some people go further and insist the writer not claim any relationship to the piece, for example by using it in his or her resume.

"Your own computer and internet connection." Outsourcing is a work-at-home job. Assignments will be send in email or posted on the web, and the writing will be returned the same way. They may not need to have their own computers and internet connections, but they better have good access to them.

Can you get all this from a writer? Probably not from the lowest bidder. They wouldn't be the lowest bidder unless they lack competence or experience.

You can enforce the requirement for unique, well-written, on-time content just by refusing to pay, but you do not have any guarantees of respect for your copyright unless you build an ongoing professional relationship with a writer whom you are paying well -- and whom you are treating with respect.