In Episode #348, Eric and Neil discuss how to hire a blog editor. Tune in to learn the tasks you can assign your prospective editor. Assess as much as you can before hiring an editor such as whether or not you they can work well with you. You’ll also find out why Neil prefers paying a flat rate rather than an hourly rate.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Hire a Blog Editor
- 00:55 – Eric has used ProBlogger to hire writers and editors
- 01:34 – Neil evaluates a team of editors by how they streamline a task
- 01:39 – Editors have to think of at least 20 variations of a headline
- 01:48 – Make sure the content is free of lapses
- 01:54 – Editors will also reach out to other editors that they’ve linked to through email
- 02:17 – Next is scheduling the posts in different social media sites through Buffer
- 02:40 – A blog editor makes sure the right content will post at the right time
- 03:00 – Blog editors need to have a process for how they get things done
- 03:40 – You can ask them if they can give you a sample of their work
- 03:50 – Neil hires editors who are also bloggers
- 04:07 – Neil usually hires someone to work on an article—he checks to see if they are on-time, organized and are doing a good job
- 04:30 – You can also have an editor on a per post basis
- 04:40 – Neil pays a flat rate of around $750-1K a month for 3 posts per week
- 04:56 – Neil doesn’t like to pay an hourly rate
- 05:51 – Hiring in-house allows you to have more control of the editor’s work
- 06:00 – That’s it for today’s episode!
3 Key Points:
- You should try out your editors first before hiring them.
- An editor should be a great writer—you can’t tweak content if you can’t write an article yourself.
- Pay your editors depending on the content they take care of and what you’ve agreed upon.
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Full Transcript of The Episode
Speaker 1: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing stargies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You listening to marketing school with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of marketing school. I'm Eric Siu and I'm Neil Patel and today we going to talk about how to hire a blog editor. So, the time that you need a blog editor is probably not in the beginning when you are starting out you know, you might be writing the content by yourself initially. But, as you start to build out more staff, and it's not you writing the content anymore or even just ... Not even just blog content for order stuff, then you probably need a blog editor. So, the question is how do you go about hiring a blog editor? So, the first tip I'll give is something that Neil and I recommend.
I've used pro blogger in the past it's great for writers but, it's also great for finding editors too. You can find the right people, that have the right background, you just need to be specific about what you looking for. And then you know give some example of tell them to give examples of sites were you know there the managing editor of, and then work off of that.
So, that's a good starting point Neil I don't know where go to find your editors.
Speaker 3: So, the way you look at editors is ... To back track a bit whether you are one man army or you have the team. The way I look at blog editors especially if you doing content you know in volume like, when I mean volume at list three post a week. That's when it really starts becoming worth it. It's about having them streamline the task, the task I usually assign them are making sure you using the best headlines. So, to come up with 10 or 20 variations of the headlines, pick the best one. Make sure their going through the content, make sure is readable there's no errors, grammar check all the image works, links work et cetera. The next thing that I have them do is, reach out to everyone that you linked out to and send them an email say like,"Hey John I just want to let you know we are a huge fan of your work". So, much so that we even linked out to you in our latest blog post.
Click here to check it out cheers, X-Y and Z P.S if you share the post it wouldn't not just make our day it would make our year. So, you want to send that to everyone that you linked out to. Then the next thing that they do is their job is to also schedule on all the popular social media sites. And also plug them in like lets say into buffers so that way you can schedule it for future dates as well. Because once you release an article once you just want to promote it multiple times. And ... Is there anything I'm forgetting on what else a blog editor really does?
Speaker 2: I think ultimately there just you know wrangling all the content their making sure that the stuff comes out. And there making sure that it's correct, it's stuff ultimately that you know if you creating you probably don't want to be doing it. They just need to be a really organized people at the end of the day so. I mean I think we can go deeper into it but, I think I can cap it of with a few more questions that I have asked editors to. There's a lot of tools out there so I'm interested on how they organizes things right.
Whether it's you know there just using spread sheet or are they using Trello are they using something or more like Co-schedule or smart sheet I want to know what their process is. Because, ultimate they're gonna be driving this thing. And if they are going to driving this thing ultimate, they come with a habits that are ingrained within them so, they might be driving the attire process or you might hand them something. But, ultimately if I'm going to hire somebody I'm hoping that they can just take the entire thing of me and just run with it.
So, that's one thing to consider, and then the order side you know I just mentioned being organized earlier you know. Maybe they consider screen shot of what you know there cotton calendar looks like, or you know maybe what there calendar looks like to. How do they go about wrangling people and making sure that people hit deadlines. Yeah, that's basically editor at high level Neil do you have anything else?
Speaker 3: Well and to find them I usually just go to jobs at pro blogger.net. I look for people who are bloggers if there not a blogger I don't what as an editor, reason being as they won't know how to adjust the content and modify it. You know fine tune it because if you can't write you not able to fine tune. And then what I do is, I then not to hire someone as an editor first. I like working with them on blog articles once they do a good job and I find out they're really organized and on time, no excuses they plan ahead then I consider hiring them. I usually do it on a pro post basis ... my quick sprout lady that I use she's amazing I don't want to give her name cause I use to give her name and now to many people her hitting her up.
You know when you looking for editor pro post basis, and you can typically pay them like anywhere from you know a cent per word or five, ten cents per word it varies. Five, ten cents is on the high end I usually do like a flat rate if I have three post a week. I mean like paying them like 750 to a 1000 dollars a month just to give a rough idea.
Speaker 2: Say again what's the hourly?
Speaker 3: I don't really like breaking it down hourly, a lot of them try charging me per word and I have had anywhere from a few cents per word up to 10 cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I then to just do it a flat rate, and a flat rate usually is like you know don't pay more than lets say if you doing around three post it ranges a lot. But, if you giving like 750 or a thousand for three post a week, 500 on the low end but somewhere in that range a 1,500 a month max if you doing three post a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, I mean that's the thing there's one time I lost my shirt basically because it was uncapped you know based on number of words, and then you know you use ultimately at the end of the day I think I ended up paying like four or five grand for that month. And then you know I dollar it back and said,"Hey you know we could continue with the hourly" it's about 45 bucks. Right now and then there a cap you know maybe the cap set like 1500 like Neil mentioned. And then you can go from there but, that's a good place to start and then eventually I think if things really start to take of for you and you want to take it in house. Then yes, by all means hire someone full time and bring it in house cause you going to ultimately have more control.
So Neil anything else?
Speaker 3: No, that's it from my end.
Speaker 2: Right so that's it for today and will see tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This section of marketing school has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics, to help you find the success you've always dream of and don't forget to rate and review. So, we can continue to bring the best daily content possible we'll see you in class tomorrow right here on marketing school.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of marketing school. I'm Eric Siu and I'm Neil Patel and today we going to talk about how to hire a blog editor. So, the time that you need a blog editor is probably not in the beginning when you are starting out you know, you might be writing the content by yourself initially. But, as you start to build out more staff, and it's not you writing the content anymore or even just ... Not even just blog content for order stuff, then you probably need a blog editor. So, the question is how do you go about hiring a blog editor? So, the first tip I'll give is something that Neil and I recommend.
I've used pro blogger in the past it's great for writers but, it's also great for finding editors too. You can find the right people, that have the right background, you just need to be specific about what you looking for. And then you know give some example of tell them to give examples of sites were you know there the managing editor of, and then work off of that.
So, that's a good starting point Neil I don't know where go to find your editors.
Speaker 3: So, the way you look at editors is ... To back track a bit whether you are one man army or you have the team. The way I look at blog editors especially if you doing content you know in volume like, when I mean volume at list three post a week. That's when it really starts becoming worth it. It's about having them streamline the task, the task I usually assign them are making sure you using the best headlines. So, to come up with 10 or 20 variations of the headlines, pick the best one. Make sure their going through the content, make sure is readable there's no errors, grammar check all the image works, links work et cetera. The next thing that I have them do is, reach out to everyone that you linked out to and send them an email say like,"Hey John I just want to let you know we are a huge fan of your work". So, much so that we even linked out to you in our latest blog post.
Click here to check it out cheers, X-Y and Z P.S if you share the post it wouldn't not just make our day it would make our year. So, you want to send that to everyone that you linked out to. Then the next thing that they do is their job is to also schedule on all the popular social media sites. And also plug them in like lets say into buffers so that way you can schedule it for future dates as well. Because once you release an article once you just want to promote it multiple times. And ... Is there anything I'm forgetting on what else a blog editor really does?
Speaker 2: I think ultimately there just you know wrangling all the content their making sure that the stuff comes out. And there making sure that it's correct, it's stuff ultimately that you know if you creating you probably don't want to be doing it. They just need to be a really organized people at the end of the day so. I mean I think we can go deeper into it but, I think I can cap it of with a few more questions that I have asked editors to. There's a lot of tools out there so I'm interested on how they organizes things right.
Whether it's you know there just using spread sheet or are they using Trello are they using something or more like Co-schedule or smart sheet I want to know what their process is. Because, ultimate they're gonna be driving this thing. And if they are going to driving this thing ultimate, they come with a habits that are ingrained within them so, they might be driving the attire process or you might hand them something. But, ultimately if I'm going to hire somebody I'm hoping that they can just take the entire thing of me and just run with it.
So, that's one thing to consider, and then the order side you know I just mentioned being organized earlier you know. Maybe they consider screen shot of what you know there cotton calendar looks like, or you know maybe what there calendar looks like to. How do they go about wrangling people and making sure that people hit deadlines. Yeah, that's basically editor at high level Neil do you have anything else?
Speaker 3: Well and to find them I usually just go to jobs at pro blogger.net. I look for people who are bloggers if there not a blogger I don't what as an editor, reason being as they won't know how to adjust the content and modify it. You know fine tune it because if you can't write you not able to fine tune. And then what I do is, I then not to hire someone as an editor first. I like working with them on blog articles once they do a good job and I find out they're really organized and on time, no excuses they plan ahead then I consider hiring them. I usually do it on a pro post basis ... my quick sprout lady that I use she's amazing I don't want to give her name cause I use to give her name and now to many people her hitting her up.
You know when you looking for editor pro post basis, and you can typically pay them like anywhere from you know a cent per word or five, ten cents per word it varies. Five, ten cents is on the high end I usually do like a flat rate if I have three post a week. I mean like paying them like 750 to a 1000 dollars a month just to give a rough idea.
Speaker 2: Say again what's the hourly?
Speaker 3: I don't really like breaking it down hourly, a lot of them try charging me per word and I have had anywhere from a few cents per word up to 10 cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I then to just do it a flat rate, and a flat rate usually is like you know don't pay more than lets say if you doing around three post it ranges a lot. But, if you giving like 750 or a thousand for three post a week, 500 on the low end but somewhere in that range a 1,500 a month max if you doing three post a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, I mean that's the thing there's one time I lost my shirt basically because it was uncapped you know based on number of words, and then you know you use ultimately at the end of the day I think I ended up paying like four or five grand for that month. And then you know I dollar it back and said,"Hey you know we could continue with the hourly" it's about 45 bucks. Right now and then there a cap you know maybe the cap set like 1500 like Neil mentioned. And then you can go from there but, that's a good place to start and then eventually I think if things really start to take of for you and you want to take it in house. Then yes, by all means hire someone full time and bring it in house cause you going to ultimately have more control.
So Neil anything else?
Speaker 3: No, that's it from my end.
Speaker 2: Right so that's it for today and will see tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This section of marketing school has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics, to help you find the success you've always dream of and don't forget to rate and review. So, we can continue to bring the best daily content possible we'll see you in class tomorrow right here on marketing school.
