If you decide that hiring a professional blogger to write your business blog is the right choice for you and your company, then you need to put together a job posting and publish it on sites where bloggers search for job opportunities.
For example, be sure to include a list of requirements in your blogging job posting such as:
- How often the blog should be updated.
- If the blogger needs to monitor and respond to comments.
- If the blogger is expected to promote the blog and drive traffic to the blog.
- If the blogger is expected to include images in posts.
- If the blogger is expected to research and come up with blog post topics or if topics will be provided by you.
Each of these requirements affects the amount of time it takes a blogger to write a post, which means they also affect the rates bloggers are likely to charge. It’s also important that you ask applicants to provide samples of their blog post writing and links to their work online as well as their social Web profiles so you can learn more about their skills and experience.
You have two options when it comes to addressing payments in your blogging job posting. First, you can leave it open to negotiation if you’re not sure what to charge. You’re likely to get a wide variety of payment requirements from applicants, and you’ll quickly learn to correlate experience and skills with reasonable payment requests.
Alternately, you can include a per post or per word payment structure in your blog post (which is recommended over per hour since it takes some people longer to write than others). For example, you might find a capable blogger with little experience who charges just $5 per post (blog posts should usually be between 300-600 words for maximum effectiveness). On the other hand, a highly experienced blogger might charge $50 per post. The most influential and popular bloggers might charge hundreds of dollars per post. Just make sure that the rate matches the blogger’s experience and abilities.
With those tips in mind, following are a number of places where you can publish blogging job openings and attract a wide variety of applicants:
- BloggingPro: Splashpress Media offers a blogging job board on BloggingPro. There are three types of listings: the first is free and the second two are paid featured listings and 30-day listings.
- Problogger: Darren Rowse offers a blogging job board on his Problogger blog. All listings are paid.
- About.com Blogging: The About.com Blogging forum includes a Blogging Jobs discussion folder where job opportunities can be listed for free.
- Job Listing Sites: Sites like Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, etc. provide places to list open jobs for a fee.
- Freelancer Sites: Sites like Freelancer.com, iFreelance.com, Elance.com, Odesk.com, Guru.com, and others provide a way to list an open job for a fee for freelancers to bid on.
- Craigslist: Believe it or not, a lot of bloggers search for jobs on Craigslist. Most job postings on Craigslist are free, but a few local Craigslist sites do charge a fee to post a job.
Don’t be afraid to ask applicants to write a sample post for your blog (which you agree to publish only if the blogger is hired), so you can get an idea of the type of content they could bring to your blog.
