If you’re just starting out and you don’t have the budget to outsource, you’re probably writing your own content. It’s a laborious process and it takes a great deal of time. Hiring a content writer to do it for you is a logical step in building your online business, but if you’ve ever dealt with content writers before, you know that not all are made equal. You need to do your homework a bit first and check them out before you hire them.

Reliability Is Number One

There are several things that are important but the absolute most important is reliability. You need a content writer that’s going to deliver what you need when you need it. They have to be able to follow directions and they need to communicate well with you.

You can get a sense of their communication skills when you first contact them. See how long it takes them to reply to your emails. If you like using Skype or another method of communication, see if they can do that. Nothing instills panic like asking a writer how the job is coming and getting no reply.

Client Testimonials

Look for client testimonials. If the writer has their own website, you should see at least a few. Look for:

– A large number of testimonials, not just one or two (they could be friends or associates).

– Recent testimonials. It’s better if they have some recent ones and not just a bunch from years ago when they launched their site.

– Real people. It’s pretty unlikely that any writer would use fake testimonials, but follow the links to see who these people are. If any of them are established big-name marketers with successful sites, this is a plus.

The quality of the testimonials doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they have them. If they have testimonials, this shows that they’re serious about their online writing business.

Samples and Published Work

Any decent content writer will have samples of their work on their site. They may also have links to published work, or you can ask them for links to published work. If they’ve been published somewhere else, this is a huge plus. It shows that they’ve got good writing skills and they’re serious.

Read their samples as if you were a site visitor. Is it interesting and compelling in the way you need it to be? Look for grammatical errors or other mistakes.

Area of Expertise

Contact the writer and give them the topic and a good idea of what you need from them. Ask them if this is something they can do. If they’ve never written in your niche before, do they think they can handle it?

I always start off with a short trial job first. If I need 100 articles written, I give them 5 and see how they do. Never give a new writer a huge job or you’re asking for trouble.

Tony

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