Rules for outsourcing articles

Here's my 2 cents worth.
When hiring, make sure the article writer is competent at what they do. Do insist on seeing a portfolio or at least a sample write. Do not pay peanuts because this way, you won't attract high quality.
Run each article you get through a duplicate content checker such as Copyscape.com. The article should pass 100% unless the writer has quoted other sites and given credit or used common sayings/quotations etc which are likely to have appeared on other sites e.g a Ben Franklin Quote, Chinese proverb, Bible passage etc

Good luck

As a full-time web content writer, here is my view from the other side of the fence.

1. Always give a full brief, explain exactly what you need, the more information you give your writer, the better chance you have of getting back exactly what you want. If you simply ask your writer to "write me ten articles about dogs", and your writer returns you 10 articles, 1 each describing a dog breed, and this is not what you wanted, then who's fault would it be?

2. If you require key phrases used, then make sure you let your writer know the density you require, as well as how you would like the key phrases spread through the article. Don't be tempted to squeeze too many key phrases into a single article, even the best writer cannot avoid something reading like key phrase spam if you require 10% or more of the word count to be made up of key phrases.

3. Make sure your writer knows how to use LSI techniques, inform them that you require them to take advantage of LSI throughout the articles.

4. If you have any useful information, that may help your writer with research, then give it to them, the easier you make the task of research, the better the quality of the articles you receive.

5. Plagiarism can be checked by using copyscape, although any good writer will never have a problem with duplicate content, as they write, not paraphrase.

6. Specify a deadline, and specify a penalty for not meeting that deadline, agree this in advance.

That's about all I can think of right now, I'm sure there are many more tips.

Good luck with your outsourcing.

Mac made great suggestions. Here are some more from the "other side of the computer", so to speak.

--Tell your writer who you're trying to reach, what your angle is, etc. If they're writing articles about saving money and they know you want to reach people in debt and convince them to buy your ebook, they can do a much better job of gradually warming them up for the sale, for instance.

--Pay promptly and properly. The most professional writers don't deal with clients who are difficult -- it's just not worth our while. If you're known as an easy client who pays well and on time, you'll have a much better chance of getting a great writer to rely on. Also, if you pay cheap rates, there's a much greater chance of getting plagiarism and low quality.

--Look for samples, possibly testimonials, at least a little experience (over a year is great), and a professional attitude. Someone who's cheerful, prompt to reply to emails, and communicative will ease your worries significantly and likely send you the finished articles on time.

Start a correspondence with them before you hire them. You want to go back and forth a few emails to get a gauge for how smart they are.

Hi Bobby,

You need to ask these 2 important stuffs, samples and client references. We are using copyscape.com to check the output of our staff before we send it to our clients. Good thing is we have supervisors who manage our staff to ensure utmost productivity and quality of work.

If you have some questions, do not hesitate to contact us. Please see my sig for details.

You may check a few of their samples or a portfolio. Sometimes it also helps if they have their personal blogs just to give you an idea on how they write or how they express their thoughts. I'm not quite sure but I believe there are tools to check if an article has been copied somewhere.

check the articles if they can pass copyscape......

Copyscape is one good tool that's true but that's not the only way to see if you're going to use articles to market your business - merely writing content is definitely different. With copywriting, they have to have this "business touch" and marketing pitches to be able to promote your business extensively. Keyword research for instance will always be part of the requirement plus keyword placements and format of sentences.

I test English proficiency of my writers with Free English Tests for ESL/EFL, TOEFL®, TOEIC®, SAT®, GRE®, GMAT® and it stays effective for me. Once they passed the test, I would also ask them to write an article (of my niche) for me for at least 300 words to look how will they come up with that creatively. Also, I would check on their previous projects and contents written.

Good luck!

A lot of outsources use copyscape to check for uniqueness.

I'd also like to say thanks for the great responses, I was just about to ask this question and your information has proved invaluable.

As someone that owns a company that has been doing this for a long time my biggest advice is to make sure you are protected. See samples of the work the company does before buying. Ask them where they are from, and more importantly who writes for them. Are they English? Finally, ask them what happens if the articles they write for you aren't up to your standards, what will they do for you. The answer to this single question often will show you exactly who you're dealing with, and more importantly if you'll want to do business with them.

Hope this helps!

Clark

A quick one about Copyscape - you should NEVER rely
only on it because it's not accurate at all. I know
many will argue about this but trust me. I have had
articles that passed Copyscape rejected by EzineArticles
for "duplicate" problem. And when I investigated such
issues I indeed found copies that Copyscape didn't
find. So, obviously EzineArticles either do not use
Copyscape or they use other plagiarism checkers.

And of course, I am talking about the premium version
of Copyscape.

An alternative to Copyscape that I highly recommend is:

plagium (beta)::: plagiarism tracker & checker ::: home

It has found lots of duplicate copies for me that
Copyscape missed.

There are others of course, so it pays to use more
than one plagiarism checker!

Kingsley