One of the biggest challenges in scaling your publishing business is to scale the content as per the needs of the business.

When you start out solo, you are the only writer or blogger for the website. That is how everyone starts.

But when the site starts making steady traffic and revenue, the expectation rises. You can still decide to go solo, many popular bloggers do not hire external help and prefer keeping the tone and branding in their own hands. However, it gets really difficult to scale the blog to new levels without hiring additional help.

Thing is, if you keep doing things alone, you will eventually lose out to an organized team where many members are working all day to make it a success. Teamwork succeeds where individual effort fails.

At some point in time, you will have to invest a part of the revenue in hiring quality writers for your website who can produce well-written content and grow the traffic of the website to newer heights.

You can choose to go alone but then, you will not be able to produce substantial content on a regular basis. Every person has their creative limits. Also, a solo project gets overshadowed by a much bigger project with many voices contributing to it.

How High-Quality Writing Affects SEO

High-quality writing is one of the building blocks of Good SEO.

If your writing is not high quality, readers will not take you seriously enough. You will fail to make a good first impression. People will not refer to your site as often as other sites with high-quality content. Low-quality writing affects the brand really bad, it gives the impression that the creator of the website is not serious about the subject and doing a sloppy job.

It is an established fact that

  • Content that is well written attracts more links compared to content which is poorly written
  • Content that is well written gets more social shares compared to content which is poorly written
  • Content that is well-written drives more engagement and usage compared to content which is poorly written.
  • Well written content creates loyal readers who come back for more. Poorly written content is a big turn off for most people
  • Well written content establishes you as an authority in the niche. Poorly written content damages your brand and gives the impression of an average website with average material
  • Well written content is able to hook readers for a longer period of time. Poorly written content drives people crazy and then immediately start looking for alternatives.
  • Well written content captures more leads and drives more sales. Poorly written content does the opposite.

If the content is well written, informative, unique and useful – it will attract links naturally from other reputed sites. Well written content will hook the readers and their time spent on site will increase considerably. People will come back often for more and more content that has value in it. This is the biggest metric for search engine optimization – usability metrics which proves that the website delivers value.

On the other hand, poorly written content neither attracts links, nor it creates engagement and neither creates a strong brand which people remember and would want to come back later for more. This hurts the SEO of the website since search engines figure out that not many people are satisfied by the product – they are not coming back for more and nobody is referencing the product to other users in the form of links, social shares, and other engagement channels.

In short, High-quality writing is a fundamental building block for good SEO. Without high-quality writing, you will not get very far.

How Hiring Low-Quality Writers Hurts Your Website

The biggest mistake newbies make when their sites start making revenue – they end up hiring low-quality writers and produce poor copy and material which does more harm than good.

I will admit, I have done that mistake myself several times only to repent later on. Learn from my mistakes – do not hire low-quality writers to write content for your blog or website. Absolutely do not. If that means that your site is not updated for months, it is okay. But creating low-quality content with no additional value is far worse, it will hurt the foundations of your site and pull it down in no time.

You will lose loyal readers, people will no longer consider you an authority in the niche, users will not return to your site to read useful content, the user experience will go down and all this will affect the SEO of your website in an indirect way.

Google and other search engines love your website only after users love it first. If users do not like it and start abandoning the content of your site, search engines will follow suit in no time. It is inevitable.

Also, it is a painful task to go through grammatical errors, fix mistakes and then publish content on your website. It takes away your time and does not liberate you from the burden of writing great content – which is why you hired them in the first place. Fixing old articles which contains errors or low-quality content is again a very laborious task so it is very important not to work with low-quality writers in the first place. You are better off hiring one good writer compared to hiring 3 average or 5 low-quality writers.

So how does low-quality writing hurts your website?

  • It hurts your brand – it turns off readers and gives the impression that you are not serious about your website. You are getting the job done by cheap, low-quality freelancers who are here just for the money and know little about the subject.
  • Low Quality writing hurts SEO – Search engines do not want to rank a page higher in search results if it contains lots of grammatical and punctuation errors if the page is written hastily or the writer has not put enough hard work in creating content that is compelling and makes a point. Search engines have their own ways to figure out what is quality content and what is not, and there is no way you can try to trick them in making low-quality content rank higher in search results. If the writing is not high quality in nature, there is a high chance it won’t rank higher in search results.
  • Low-Quality writing is difficult to fix later – When your website gets hit by an algorithmic update or a manual action by Google webspam team, you will have to begin the process of improving old content on your website to meet content quality guidelines. This is a laborious task and the more low-quality content you have on the site, the harder it gets. You have to not only spend time and money in fixing the old content to meet new content guidelines, but you also have to  “Undo” the effect of low-quality writing across the whole website once and for all. You will most likely make the choice of hiring only established writers, once your website gets hit by an algorithmic penalty for poor content and presentation.
  • Low-Quality Writers are generally not Loyal – From my experience, I have seen that people who take less fee for writing articles on your website or blog are not loyal compared to their expensive counterparts. They do many gigs at once and will deliver sloppy work in no time. They will abandon you the moment they have a bigger project at hand because they are here for the short term and do not care about a long-term relationship. You will have to invest your time, money and energy in training them and they will leave as soon as they find a bigger client or a better project.

How to Find High-Quality Writers for Your Website?

Now the next point is – how do we find high-quality writers for our blogs?

Here are some good ways to attract high-quality writers and freelancers to contribute to your website.

  1. Write for Us Page On Your Website

    The first thing you need is a Write for Us Page on your website which clearly states that you are looking to hire writers for your website for publishing content. This is the page where most job seekers will go to look for information on whether you are hiring or not. So create a “Write for Us” Page on your website and announce that you are looking to hire great writers and freelancers for publishing content for your website. Leave an email address where prospects can contact you but it is advised not to disclose the rate you are willing to pay. You can disclose a base rate or a minimum rate but do not disclose a fixed rate because this may discourage some writers from applying. You are better off negotiating and deciding the rates with each writer depending on their experience, expertise, knowledge, skills and other things on a case by case basis.

  2. Write for Us Link in Your RSS Feed

    It is also equally important to leave the link of your “Write for Us” page in the Footer of your RSS Feed. Most credible bloggers and writers subscribe to your RSS feed and there is a high chance that they won’t visit your website that frequently. They will keep an eye on your RSS feed for more information and updates, so it is possible that they may not know you are hiring quality writers for your website.

    Hence, it is considered a good practice to leave a link in the footer of your RSS feed to encourage more applications from quality writers.

  3. Write for Us Link in Your Social media Profiles

    Similar to website and RSS feed, it is important to leave the link to your “Write for US” page in your social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Company page, Instagram. Post a pinned tweet, post a Facebook status and keep it highlighted at the top of all posts. That way, you will get more applications from writers who would occasionally visit your social media handles.

  4. Post in Freelance Writing Job Boards

    it is indeed a good idea to post in freelance job boards once in a while to attract job applications from credible writers who have the potential of delivering high quality content for your website. Find a really popular website in your niche, see if they have a job board or not and if they do, post the requirement of a writer there. A good job board will give you hundreds of applications which will help you make connections with good writers looking for a gig. Even if you don’t hire them write away, keep those applications handy since they will be useful the next time you are looking to hire writers for your blog or website.

  5. Contact Other Influencers and Bloggers for Leads

    If you are blogging for a while, you must have made some online friends who are in the same occupation. You must be in touch with influencers who are making a living blogging and writing content on their sites. They must have gone through the same experience of hiring good writers and getting rid of bad writers from their websites, so it makes complete sense to leverage their experience before you end up hiring writers for your blog. Write them a humble email asking for tips and advice on hiring good writers and see what they suggest. Next, ask them if they can refer anyone in their circle who is a good writer and currently open or looking for work. Often times, I have found that a reference based hiring goes a long way and offers more value compared to an independent hiring.

  6. Make a List of Credible Authors from Other Sites.

    If you are a blogger, you must follow other websites in your industry and niche. Make a list of credible bloggers and writers who write about the topics you cover. Closely monitor their social profiles and make friends with them – get to know them. It takes time and effort to hire good people and make them work for you. You have to make these connections first and only after you have done these things, you will be in a position to make the right choice in hiring a good writer who not only delivers high-quality content but also strengthens your website’s brand by contributing for a long time and becoming an asset to your business.

There are some important things to remember before you complete the hiring process for a blogger or writer for your website.

  1. A Good writer will demand more money. And it is okay to invest so long the writer delivers high-quality content. That investment will bring returns in many folds after a considerable amount of time, so stick with a good writer even if he demands more than the usual pay.
  2. Good writers rarely have time to contribute to average sites. They will judge your site before going further. They already have offers from other websites and blogs and they are not desperate for work. If your site is average in quality and does not have a good name or reach, it is difficult to hire good writers since they are less likely to contribute to newer brands that lack credibility.
  3. Good writers have many takers. If you are rejected a good writer based on cost, frequency, time and other factors, think again. A good writer has many takers. If you don’t hire him, someone else will hire him. And when that happens, he may not have the time to work for you since you rejected him first. Average people have no takers while good people are always in demand.
  4. It takes time to find the perfect fit. You won’t succeed in the first go. It takes time and repeated iterations to find the best writer for your website which fits to your budget and requirements. You won’t succeed in the first go. You will have to go through trials and errors and many writers will come and go. You will have to repeat this frustrating process for quite some time until you are able to find someone who sticks.
  5. Once in a while, write a blog post announcing you are hiring new writers. If your website makes steady revenue and has a decent traffic, it makes complete sense to write a blog post announcing that you are hiring writers for your website. A part of your audience is listening to your voice and closely following your work – they might be interested in working for you if the opportunity comes. They might know someone who could be a good fit to your job description, so do not shy away from announcing on your website if you are hiring a writer for your blog or website. There is a high chance you will end up hiring a loyal reader who has been following your blog for quite some time.