Content Magician, Freelance web content writers

How To Have A Good Relationship With Your Freelance Web Content Writer

Have you ever hired a freelance web content writer only to find out that whatever he/she has been producing for you is not….in the style or format that you desire…much less want? This is a common problem. The reason is because all of us have different styles. Personally, my style is very ‘personal’. If you want me to write a ‘reporter’ style piece of content, I’m probably gonna suck at it really bad! But perhaps, if you’ve hired a web content writer who has been in the journalism scene a lot, then you’re going to get good results.

To be fair, I would like to say that most writers who do the freelance thing would do everything within their power to give you the content that you want the way you want it. it’s their bread and butter and they have no boss to answer to. If you don’t like the web content that they produce, then they have everything to lose.

To avoid the lose-lose situation, here are a couple of tips to enhance the relationship you have with your freelance writer.

 Sample the writing and see if it fits your taste

We usually have a whole list of ‘sample’ articles that we have written in the past placed in our websites to show the clients what we are capable of and your scope of experience. If the freelance web content writer you’ve hired is somewhat new, he/she might not have enough portfolio to show you – but this doesn’t mean that you can’t a chance on him/her.

What you can do is to give the freelance writer a topic and ask her/him to come up with a short sample. Something along the lines of 50 words, that should be enough to give you a basic idea of what to expect from the writer.

 Be precise with what you want

One of the biggest problems I’ve faced as a freelance writer is that sometimes…the client doesn’t know what he/she wants. For example, she/he would go something like this. “I want it to be funny and humorous” and then when we produce slapstick for her/him, he/she would come back with “Oh, that’s just too unprofessional. A funny and professional approach, plesase”

Oooh….that’s hard.

If it’s funny and professional and engaging, I would call it a very ‘personal and casual style of writing’ instead. if you’ve said that, the freelance web content writer would have gotten the right impression and you’d get what you want without too many problems.

There’s one more thing that you need to iron straight with the freelance web content writer and that is to tell them exactly what is wrong with the article so that you can guide the writer back on track. There’s no point in correcting it yourself and letting the writer know about the changes that you make. If you intend to use the content writer for some time, you’ll have to get him/her used to doing the corrections and editing him/herself.

Last but not least, be patient and believe that a good relationship with your web content writer is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE. But it takes time, effort and patience.