The biggest challenge for someone leading a team is maintaining consistent quality.
Look—EVERYONE talks about “quality” and “excellence.”
But as someone who knows writing, few teams actually put this into practice. And a good writer can tell the difference.
Here are a few ways to make sure you get quality.
1. Don’t resort to “because I told you so”
Look, you’re the boss. There’s a Russian saying:
“The one who pays for the music gets to choose the song.”
And it’s true. But if you’re always resorting to “because I said so,” you’ll start having writers who put in the minimum. Instead, encourage their motivation.
2. Pay a fair rate
You get what you pay for. I’ve seen job postings for “quality, 10x writing that’s better than anything else online.” They then offer $0.06 per word.
If you want a chef, don’t pay the wage of a burger flipper.
3. Have a good writer review
Most teams view the review process as an afterthought. A shocking number of teams outsource this to someone who is not fluent in English.
(Yes, really.)
Your review will only be as good as your editor. Don’t stick this to your CMO unless she’s excellent with the finer points of English grammar and has nothing better to do.
This is an area where it’s worth hiring someone with real writing (and ideally content writing) experience, even if they’re on a freelance basis.
4. Set firm guidelines up front
Be extremely clear about what you want before the writers start. Don’t leave any room for confusion.
This is why model articles are so important, because there are thousands of questions a writer could have.
Rather than answer them all, a few model pieces can clear up those questions quickly.
5. Follow through with those guidelines from the start
Your writing will only be as good as your enforcement of your guidelines.
Be gentle yet firm. The first time an article dips below your standard, send it back for revisions.
I’ve had writers quit after the paid test article because they weren’t willing to do the edits. Lesson learned, and a lot of hassle saved.
6. Give specific praise
This is key for morale, and also just keeps writers focused on their strengths.
ALWAYS point out something good in every piece, and ideally have an equal number of compliments to critiques.
Don’t say “good intro,” say, “great job voicing the prospect’s current thoughts in the intro.”
Don’t say, “solid writing style,” say “Good job mixing up the pacing by including both long and punchy sentences.”
7. Give specific feedback
Don’t say “cut out the fluff.” Say, “our reader is the project manager at a Fortune 500 company. Please take out the information they already know.”
Don’t say, “make the piece more interesting.” Say “explain why the problem matters, and give more specific action steps to solve it.”
It takes practice to know what an article needs.
8. Don’t rewrite a piece yourself
As a writer, I’ve had one piece get a greenlight on the first draft. Then on the next piece, editors cut or add major sections and rephrase 60% of the content, with the comment that it’s “unreadable.”
It’s demoralizing and not constructive.
If you plan on maintaining a long-term relationship with a writer, it’s always a better use of your time to share specific feedback than doing it yourself.
9. Provide consistent work
When a writer creates something for you every week, they learn your tone and get better each time.
When you assign a piece every other month, they’re always coming at your projects as a beginner. They have to relearn your tone and review your requirements.
It’s better to have a few consistent writers than a large pool that only write for you occasionally.
10. Listen to feedback
Yes, the editor’s job is to give feedback. But you should also listen.
A good writer will quickly become an expert on their assigned topic. Their feedback is valuable.
A client once assigned me a piece on a redundant term—think “PIN number.”
They rejected the piece, asking me to replace every instance of “PIN” with “PIN number.” I explained that an article stuffed with incorrect terms would hurt their credibility as industry experts.
They said nope, do what we say. (See rule #1.)
So I rewrote a worse article that now ranks under articles with the correct term.
And I stopped giving them suggestions. Why waste my time?
11. Give a vision
This sounds like woo-woo silliness, but it’s true. A clear vision makes writing better.
Imagine writing an article on daytrading strategies for sites with the following vision:
- “We’re the most credible investing site online.”
- “We break down complex topics for beginners.”
- “We share quick tips for busy professionals.”
When your writers have a broad goal for the site or piece, they can answer a lot of questions on their own.
12. Don’t mandate busywork
Writers excel at doing interesting, creative work.
Editors excel at creating specific, detailed guidelines.
Don’t let your guidelines get carried away with the minutiae that kills writer motivation for the creative work.
For example, one client required writers to give every image a name and alt text from a database of broad website keywords.
So a photo of someone holding a pen was called “best-trial-attorneys.jpg” and had the alt text “Get a free lawyer consultation.”
This sort of pointless hack the system doesn’t get results, but it does kill writer morale.
13. Explain why
This is the best tip.
If you have a weird requirement in your guidelines that isn’t immediately obvious, explain why.
For example, one client required us to put all the headings in bold—a weird requirement I’d never seen before.
But there was a simple explanation: their website had a bug they were working on. In the meantime, bold the subheads.
Simple solution, easy explanation.
14. Edit with experience
It’s the last tip, but it’ll save you the most hassle: get an experienced editor to manage your teams.
That’s what we do.
It’s fast, more results-oriented, and even more cost-effective in the long run than hiring someone in-house.
