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One of the best ways to scale your problogging business is to hire competent writers. With other writers on your blog, you’ll be able to generate more traffic and revenue.
But it can be difficult to find writers you can trust that will keep the quality high on your blog. There are many writers out there for hire but only a few of them will be a good fit for your blog. If you get the wrong kind of writers, you could waste your time and have a lot of headaches dealing with them. Plus, your brand could suffer.
Below are some places where you might look for a writer to hire. I’ll share my thoughts on each place.
Job Boards
Job boards are the first places many bloggers look when they want to add a writer to their blog. It could be a general job board like Craigslist, a more specific one for online workers like Elance, or one geared toward bloggers like the board on this site, BloggingPro, and ProBlogger.
In my opinion, most of the writers at the general and online worker job boards are not what you’re looking for. I’ve used these places to find writers for one-of articles like linkbait but I haven’t found success with finding good staff bloggers.
In my experience, the writers at these places tend to be generalists that write about many topics. As such, they probably won’t have a lot of knowledge and experience in your niche. And since they write about different topics for different clients, they typically have not developed their own unique tone and personality in their writing. Their content tends to be boring and dry, like something you would read on a college textbook.
Of course, this is not what you want on a blog. Blogs work best when they are personable. As the writers share relevant experiences and the readers get to know them, the blog becomes a trusted authority site.
On the other hand, the job boards that cater to bloggers are great places to find competent writers. Several of my friends have found great writers on these boards. Many of the writers that scour the boards have a lot of experience blogging. They understand the blogging culture and have developed their own unique write style.
However, if you’re in a smaller non-mainstream niche with fewer writers, you may not find a suitable candidate from the blogging job boards. If that’s the case, I recommend looking within your niche’s blogosphere.
Bloggers in Your Niche
I think the best place to look for competent writers is the blogs in your niche especially if you’re in a smaller niche that may not really know about the blogging job boards. One of the benefits of examining the blogs in your niche is that you can have a good idea of what you’ll get from them if you hire them. You can see which bloggers create similar content and target a similar audience as you. These blogger are prime candidates for your writing position.
One blogger in my niche started a blog just a couple months ago. With her hard work, quality content, and regular posting schedule, she quickly made a name for herself in the niche. After a couple weeks, two established blogs hired her. She’s flourished in her new positions and helped those two blogs grow their audience. Now that my blog has a solid income stream, I’ll probably send her a job offer some time this month.
The top blogs tend to hire other bloggers whenever they want to expand. Copyblogger is a good example. Brian Clark is the founder but he brought on Sonia Simone, who has a great blog at Remarkable Communication. She writes posts and helps edit the site. Her work has helped Copyblogger grow and she is definitely now a well-known part of the Copyblogger brand.
Other Places
Forums are another place to consider if you’re looking for a writer. This is similar to check out your blogosphere since forum members are creating a lot of content. While visiting a forum, you could come across members that regularly leave insightful forum posts. These members may be open to writing for you. Also, you may discover new blogs by browsing through a forum.
The comment section is a place where I did not expect to find a prospective writer. I just made an offer to an active commenter on my blog. Along with being a regular in the comment section, he occassionally leaves long comments that could easily be repurposed into solid blog posts. He has a great personality and I find his comments helpful. Other commenters also like what he has written and they interact with him in a positive way.
Over to You
Where else would you look to find writers?
Performancing offers blog management services.
19 thoughts on “Where to Find Writers for Your Blog”
I am looking for writers for http://www.managementcrazy.com – this site focuses on providing free leadership and management resources for leaders and managers alike.
If you know anyone that is interested or can help me find such people, that would be most appreciated.
Regards,
Naveed
Hi, I am also searching for a co author for my blog as my 12 hr job is not allowing me to give full concentration on my blog.
Hey Andrew do you still happen to have that friends email address?
The best way to find writers is to get them to look for you. Make a page on your blog”quest authors” optimize it so writers can find it in google when looking for a writing gig,and offer some kind of insentive-money, backlinks etc.
I am desperate. I just can’t find good writer. After testing more than 15 with no luck, I decided to write the posts by myself..
If you happen to know a decent one on career topics, please refer him to info @ my blog url.
Well, is there any place where i can get authors for my blog? I mean they will be paid according to the hits on their specific articles. Creating the content on solo basis is quite irritating. If I am intending it as a full fledged job then certainly I’ll miss other areas of work.
Diggi, our job board at BloggingPro is rather popular and visited by many content producers.
I must say Hire people with a really good understanding of your subject. Don’t just hire good writers and ask them to research topics in your sector. The audience of a specialist content website will spot the difference.
The best writers will come from your existing audience. Observe which people make the best comments and forum posts, and approach them to see if they will write for you.
Also, do a search for other bloggers in your sector. You will be able to read the quality of their posts on their sites. If you like what they write, ask them to write for you. Many bloggers are looking for ways to make money and will jump at the opportunity to get paid for posts.
A blog that’s growing its visitors and community has writers in its midst–from the audience itself!
Media is getting more and more niche. Blogs don’t cover a New York Times breadth of topics. They cover an industry, a hobby, a specific topic, etc. And thus your audience by definition has the expertise, the knowledge that you’re looking to get on your blog.
The key is to have the right platform with which to turn your users into contributors. It takes more than a blog, it takes grog or “group blog”. Grogs have blog-like tools but then provide additional features to help publishers attract contributors and then manage and filter the contributions of dozens or even hundreds of users.
The web is social. There’s no reason to write your blog alone. Open yourself up, bring in more content and succeed.
Courtney, great tips! Thanks for sharing. LinkedIn does seem like a great place especially if you have a large network.
Asking for recommendations from people that you know in the niche is a great place to start! Formal ads can get you a lot of attention quickly, but you also have to wade through quite a bit of nonsense to find the gems. If you’re on LinkedIn, chances are there is a good writer somewhere in your network. In addition to asking your Network you can also ask in the “answers” section which is a great resource I just realized was there last week!
If you already have a business, use some of your existing employees during their down time to write about the company blog. Make it fun, give out incentives monthly to those you provide the best articles.
Andrew, thanks for the info. She sounds like a great writer with rare talents.
Dee,
This might sound strange but she is a talented writer (won several awards) and can turn her writing skills to almost any subject. She does the research – even studies the blog owners style of writing and then copies it.
Andrew
Thursday, great point. I got my first blogging job a couple years ago by answering an ad, but all my blogging jobs after that one have been because of connections and relationships.
I’ve been on both sides of the table, as far as hiring bloggers goes. I write for quite a few blogs and then maintain a few of my own. I’ve found that personal connections — like someone who I’ve traded comments or tweets with — make for winning relationships on a blog. The more you can communicate with a potential blogger, both before and after hiring, the better the relationship will be.
Andrew, thanks for sharing your story. What topics does your new writer write about?
Writing is not my best strength and I’ve searched many places for good writers. After many failed attempts, I found one and she only lived a few miles from me. Found her via blogging and commenting.
Unfortunately, she decided to change career and she is now a volunteer working in Vietnam.
So I was without a writer for several months.
Then by chance, an ex-work colleague contacted me via Facebook. She told me she had also left the 9-5 corporate world (like me) and writes for a living. She is the best writer I have ever come across. If anyone is interested, contact me via my blog and I can provide her email address. She is an excellent writer.
Andrew
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