So you have an idea for a niche website. A profitable one that could make you some money through advertising revenue, product sales, or another business model. Unfortunately , you don't have the time to write the 10, 50, 100, or 1,000 articles you need written. But you need them done fast, and you need to hire a professional freelancer or article writing service to do the job. Your biggest problem--clearly--is finding the freelance writer that can do the job at an affordable rate.

That seems easy--just find writers on oDesk or eLance or Textbroker. But hiring freelancers--particularly, hiring good and reliable freelancers--takes some skill. First, you need to be aware of the pros and cons of outsourcing article writing, and then, once you're sure there are more advantages than disadvantages to the process for your purposes, you need to hire with care. Learn how to outsource your niche article topics so you don't end up wasting your money on writing that's substandard.

There's no denying the advantages of hiring a writer to write your niche articles.

• You don't have to spend time doing the research.
• The time you save in having someone else do your writing is time you can spend marketing or doing Web development (unless you're thinking of outsourcing Web development at oDesk, too. It's done more than you'd expect.)
• The cost is minimal, all things considered--by contracting out work, you avoid paying a writer a regular salary and benefits.
• It's efficient and amazingly fast. Within a week or two or three, or even just a few days, you can get your articles written by a team of one, five, ten, or a hundred professional freelance writers.
• You pay only after you approve the work, depending on the business model. ELance uses an escrow system. Textbroker asks you to pay up front. On oDesk, where this author has completed several freelance jobs for a client, if you opt to pay according to a flat fee, for example, you needn't put money in escrow. Rather, you list the job, do interviews, hire the writer or writing team, review the articles when they're completed, and if the work is up to standards, you pay the writer. Do More with Less on oDesk

Disadvantages to outsourcing exist, however. Watch for the following:

• The writer might not agree to your terms. What you want to pay may not be sufficient for the writer you want to hire. Many professional writers of niche or blog articles don't come cheap...though they don't come that expensive, either, compared to the traditional media industry.
  
• The writer or writing team may take longer than they anticipated to complete the job. This can usually be avoided by composing a specific and thorough job description, hiring writers with a proven track record, checking out the feedback a writer's received, and keeping in communication with your writer.
• If you're not savvy, you may end up with an amateur instead of professional writer. Look for writers who have a strong portfolio, and ask for writing samples. Ask for relevant writing samples similar to the type of article writing you need done. Read them.
  
• The writer may not be as experienced in SEO as you need. Review the writer's samples of search-engine-optimized writing.
• The writer may not write English fluently, or, even if he or she is a native speaker, the writer may still make amateurish grammatical mistakes. If you're not very confident with English grammar, yourself, ask a business partner or employee who is to review the writing first.
• The writer may be excellent at SEO, but not be very good at writing for human beings. Search engines prefer that text is written for people, and not them. If you want your niche articles to rank well, make sure they will be written for readers first and foremost.

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When you conduct the interview and/or review the writer's portfolio (which isn't really possible on Textbroker, which has a more anonymous system and limited profile information, but is easy to do on eLance and oDesk) make sure to do the following:

• Read the sample articles as if you were a visitor to your website.  Would you be impressed?
• Ask the writer how long he or she has been writing professionally.
• If it's a writing service that subcontracts to a number of freelancers, find out the qualifications of the freelancers.  As a general rule, it's more economical to opt to hire an individual writer rather than a freelance writing service, which has to cover more overhead--but there are exceptions to that.
• Ask for a realistic assessment of how long the project should take the writer to complete.  Even though you may be in a hurry, be wary of choosing writers purely on the basis of speed.  It's better to take a little longer and get better quality work, if necessary.