You’ve hired a great team.
Now, it’s time to lead this team to greatness. And you’re the most important person to do it.
Leading a writing team is basic project management, but there are a few nuances that are specific to writers.
Let’s dive in!
How to set up the workflow
You’ll use a Kanban style on a project management tool. I currently use Asana because it’s more flexible for other types of projects, but if you’re only managing a writing team I’d recommend Trello since it’s much easier to use.
Create these columns:
– Upcoming
– Writing
– Review
– Editing
– Upload
– Finished
Articles will move through each column. Let’s see how.
Upcoming
This is where you’ll keep cards for basic ideas or article concepts that are coming up soon.
(For example, an upcoming product launch.)
This will be the responsibility of your content manager. Typically, you’ll want to establish SEO concepts here before moving on.
Once you’ve created all the writing details for this—most commonly a Google Doc with SEO details, which you’ll paste the link in the description—it’s ready for the writing column.
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How to create SEO Briefs
Before any of your writing team starts on an article, they need to have a clear understanding of what they’re writing.
The most basic elements are the deadline, subject matter, and the word count. I’ve worked with a few major teams that do only this.
For example, there will be an expectation of around 2,000 words, due on Friday, and the assignment will be “8 Instagram Campaigns to inspire Your eCommerce Store.”
That’s all the information I have. I don’t really recommend it, because it leaves a lot of open questions and flexibility—perhaps too much, if you have a more direct idea of what the piece should look like.
I’d recommend creating some type of brief ahead of time.
Ideally, this should include a specific word count, the topic, and a few reference pieces.
More advanced teams will also include SEO data, such as a target keyword and even a report from software—MarketMuse and Clearscope are the industry standards here, but there are other programs that provide similar results.
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TIP: Choose a slug for your article carefully. If you’ll be using keywords with each piece, use a keyword here. If you won’t, I recommend adding a code, like 2020-17. Article titles change throughout this process, and can be frustrating to keep track of everything later.
Writing
This is where your freelance writers live. Once a card from the first column has an outline and is ready to be written, you’ll move it over here.
Cards in this section will need to have any writer details (SEO brief, word count, reference pieces), a deadline, and an assigned writer.
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NOTE: I recommend giving your writers some degree of autonomy. This is just a good practice in general, but also helps ensure your writers care about the pieces and deliver better work.
I’ve seen two systems that work well. First, assigning a writer and letting them put a deadline based on their schedule.
And second, setting a deadline but letting writers self-select which projects they like best.
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If you need to commission graphics for each piece, this is also a place where you can do that. You can provide the graphics and the writing with the same deadline.
Once the writer has finished a draft, it’s their responsibility to paste the link to their Google Doc in the description, then move it over into the “review” column.
Review
I recommend two checking columns before publishing—first being someone on your team who can verifiy the information (“review”), and the second being a professional copyeditor to review grammar and style (“editing”).
I don’t recommend combining the roles.
Subject experts are rarely grammarians, and few freelance copyeditors will be able to judge the relevance of an industry-specific piece.
I should point out that the review stage (and uploading) are the two biggest bottlenecks in almost every company. Reviewing an article is usually pretty boring and tedius—each one might take 30-60 minutes—and it’s almost always the last priority for a content manager.
As a result, articles pile up in a backlog. It’s bad business, because you doesn’t get to use great content. But it’s even more unfair for your writers, since they typically won’t invoice until a piece is approved.
You have three options, listed in order of preference:
1. Assign someone whose priority is reviewing articles
2. Create an automated “approval” system
3. Admit there won’t be an internal review, and move on
For #2, this essentially involves using an application. If a piece gets an A or A+ on Clearscope, for example, it’s automatically approved.
While it seems like a giant timesaver, I don’t recommend it, especially for technical industries.
For example, an article could get a perfect SEO score for the keyword “day trading,” even with well-meaning but truly terrible advice. Without a human review, that piece will rank well and damage the company’s reputation.
And of course, I don’t recommend zero review process. But if that’s the reality for your business right now, it’s better to admit it than never publish something.
Editing
Invest in a copyeditor to review everything. A copyeditor will cost a few cents a word and is worth every penny.
There are a few levels of copyediting:
– Proofreading—Checking for basic grammar, spelling, and adherence to a style guide
– Copyediting—Revisions for clarity, basic fact checking, plus proofreading
– Light copyediting—Copyediting but without major changes
You’ll probably want light copyediting. This brings all your piece up to a certain level of professionalism, makes sure there’s standardization across different writers, and makes sure that there aren’t mistakes.
(A misquoted fact, incorrect source, or broken link is much more common than you might think.)
Expect to pay $0.01-0.02 per word, or around $20-40 for a 2,000 word article.
Upload
This is another major bottleneck.
You’ll need to figure out how you’re going to take your articles from a final draft to actually being published on your website.
The most common tools for this are Google Docs for writing and WordPress for publishing. The problem is that they don’t sync up perfectly.
You can use a tool to import one to the other to get this done. You can also hire a virtual assistant who does it manually.
(Manual may be the only way to upload it if you have unique formatting.)
A tip here is to use the easiest uploading software possible. WordPress is the industry standard and pretty easy to use. Generally speaking, the less your website software is designed for blogging, the more work it will take to create a blog.
In this stage, you’ll want to go ahead and schedule the piece to publish at a later date. You can also publish it immediately.
Finished
Once the piece is uploaded, it goes into this column. You can also remove this column and just archive each card (CMD + C on Trello).
Either way, I recommend not deleting the cards. It’s a helpful reference to look back later and see what’s been created.
You might also need it to double-check the status of a piece. Sometimes articles slip through the cracks, and this is the best way to make sure everything is still there.
Conclusion
With this in place, you can start publishing on a regular basis.
The key is to keep a system in place that helps everyone produce their best content so you can build up your blog.
If you drop the ball during this process—let an article slip through the cracks, don’t publish an assignment on time—bad things can happen.
If you’re in charge of the content, put a real focus on making sure it’s great.
