Regularly updating your business blog is essential to improving your website's SEO and positioning your business as a thought leader in the industry. But when you're busy running your business, you don't have the time to consistently write long-form, quality, optimized articles to publish.
This is why it's a great idea to hire freelance writers who are well versed in your industry to help with content creation. Freelance writers create optimized articles for a living, and they know how to conduct proper research as well as quality content that will get read and shared. However, managing a team of freelance writers can feel like a job all on its own.
Since we help to connect businesses and agencies to freelance writers, we have a few tips for managing remote blog writers and make it easier to get your articles written.
1. Put out writer auditions.
To find quality freelance writers who have the right voice for your business, we recommend putting out writer auditions. This way, you'll have a handful of different writers who are interested in your industry submitting content. If you don't like the article, you don't have to pay for it. If you do, you can pay the writer and add them to a list of your favorite writers.
Related: Using Auditions to Find The Best Freelance Content Writers
2. Set up a communication method.
There are different ways to do this. You can use a message board. You can invite writers to Google Docs or create a Slack board for your writing team. This way, you can easily locate and communicate to each writer what articles you need and when. Having a centralized method of communication is much easier than fishing around for each individual writers' email address and contacting them that way.
3. Create a content calendar.
When you are managing remote blog writers, you need to ensure you have a calendar of who is contributing what content when. You don't want to have large gaps in between each batch of published articles. You want to have consistency in your business blog, so assign each writer to a different time of the month so that they know when they need to be doing work for you. It's helps your business when you're consistent, and it also helps your writers to be more organized.
Related: 4 Advantages of Creating a Content Marketing Editorial Calendar
4. Ask for topic submissions.
If you want control over what type of content is posted to your business blog, then you can assign specific articles to your writers. However, to make your job easier, and to allow your writers a little more freedom, ask for topic submissions every month. Or, assign a specific keyword or broad topic to your writers and allow them the freedom to come up with the particular angle of each article.
5. Set up a content submission platform.
How are you having your writers turn in their content? With a content submission platform like Zerys, you're able to find and favorite your writers, communicate with them, assign them an article, and receive their content submission all in one place. You can even determine if you want to assign particular topics, or if you want to assign a keyword and give the writer more free range with the article. When you manage blog writers, the most important thing to do is find the most efficient way to communicate, assign content, and receive submissions. With Zerys, you can do all of the above with a single platform.
Related: Creating a Content Publishing Schedule
Managing blog writers doesn't have to be a chore. When you're able to find a process that works for you, it helps to make creating and delegating content for your business blog a breeze. To learn more, check out our "Writer Hiring Checklist" eBook.