How to Hire Writers in Malaysia [2023]
Looking to run a successful business in this digital age?
You need high-quality content that can help your digital marketing initiatives. Whether you’re producing email newsletters, improving your company’s blog, or creating a landing page, you need the best writing to attract your potential customers.
Let’s be honest here.
Not all business owners have the time and skills to create great content. That’s where content writers come in to provide their skills and time in exchange for money. The right content writer has the ability to create informative and engaging articles, blog posts, and email newsletters to drive quality traffic to your website and improve your sales.
Some businesses require technical writers who can write guides and manuals for their customers. But, finding the best writers in Malaysia is not an easy task. There are thousands of writers readily available on job sites, but the quality isn’t always guaranteed.
In this blog post, I’ll help you out with some of the best tips and guidelines for hiring the best writers in Malaysia.
How A Writer Can Help You Improve Your Business
Writing is hard. Just think about the days when writers had to go through hundreds of books and journals to write research projects and essays. The demand for professional writers has increased over the years when people started spending their time more on the Internet. Every writer has their own expertise. Some are good at press releases and some are good at writing blog posts. You need to make sure that you hire a writer who can convey your brand message to potential customers.
So, let’s move on to the benefits of hiring a professional writer for your business.
You Can Focus On Your Business
As a business owner, you want to focus on something you’re good at. You don’t want to waste your time and energy on tasks that can be delegated to professionals. When you have a professional writer in your organization, you don’t have to worry about creating content for the website and social media channels. You can fully focus on improving the quality of your products or services instead.
Improved Online Presence
People are actively searching for a solution to their problems. If your company has a product or service that helps them solve their problems, you want to make sure to get the information in front of them. A professional writer can help you create outstanding articles related to your products and services. Those articles can attract potential customers and convert them into paying customers.
Increased organic reach
An excellent writer can help you achieve content marketing goals. When content marketing is combined with SEO, it increases organic search traffic. The writer will identify the keywords or key phrases related to your business and develop the content around them. Experienced writers know that it is important to perform in-depth research about your industry and target market to create content that delivers purpose.
The best writers know that your contents need to be optimized for the search engine to increase search traffic and be positioned higher on search engines.
👩💼How to Hire Professional Writers in Malaysia
There are many ways to hire writers in Malaysia. But, you need to ask yourself whether you want an in-house writer or outsource the writing work to freelance writers.
Traditional In-House Writers
In-house writers are salaried employees who either work full-time or part-time for an organization. These writers will be treated like other employees with a specific work schedule at the organization. In-house writers are often referred to as staff writers.
There are many benefits to hiring in-house writers. A professional in-house writer can:
- Consistently create content that is aligned with the brand. It is easier for potential customers to identify the brand when the writing style and voice are unified.
- Follow the determined content schedule and don’t have the need to hire any new writers.
- It is easier to have face-to-face communication with the writer as an in-house writer will be working on regular working hours.
Despite having some of the best benefits of hiring in-house writers there are drawbacks too. In-house writers are expensive. Organizations need to pay their regular salaries and offer benefit packages. There are two situations often faced by in-house writers where the writers have nothing to do once they finish their content schedule or are completely packed with additional work.
In-house writers are also expected to write on topics that are out of their expertise. This results in extensive research that requires hours of research. If the company lacks in consistent writing work, it will reduce the number of in-house writers and turn some of them into part-time workers.
Freelance Writers
Freelance writers are independent contract workers who cost way lower than in-house writers. They do not have a confirmed salary and don’t receive any benefits packages from the organizations they work with. Freelance writers are the best choice for small companies as it is easy to bring them on board as a freelancer than a full-time employees.
When you hire the best freelance writers, you can expect the same quality of writing as the in-house writers and sometimes even better. And the best part is it costs less than having full-time writers. You will have the flexibility in choosing writers who are experts on a specific subject.
However, there are some disadvantages to hiring freelance writers as well. Sometimes it’s hard to communicate with freelance writers as they might be working in different time zones or working for multiple clients. If any issue arises with the content, it’s slightly hard to get in touch with them compared to in-house writers who might be sitting next to you.
In most cases, organizations tend to hire freelance writers and transition them into in-house writers as they become indispensable assets for the organization. With some of the best communication tools like Zoom. Google Meet and Microsoft Team, it is easier to keep in touch with freelance writers today.
☝️What To Ask When You Hire The Best Writers in Malaysia
There are certain things you can request from writers to determine whether they will be a good fit for your company and write the best content.
Ask for Writing Samples ( Published ones are better)
One of the best ways to judge if a writer is a good fit for your organization is to check out their writing samples. If you ask me I won’t consider writing samples that are delivered in a PDF or Word document.
I prefer published samples.
I want to know how the potential writer for my organization has positioned himself as a freelance writer. If they have a blog that exhibits their past writing work, I will be more than happy to consider them as they are serious about what I’m looking for. It would be better if they have past published works on authority sites.
Let’s say you want to hire a writer for a digital marketing agency. You will definitely want to see some of the best-published samples like the ones I’ve written in this blog. It will increase your trust in the quality of writing the writer will deliver.
Ask to Perform Paid Task
If you want to test the potential writer’s skills and knowledge, offering a paid test is something you should do. It may consume your time and money, but it will help you determine whether the writer is a good fit for your organization and has the ability to produce the best content in your industry. Moreover, it also helps to see whether the potential writers are responsive in communication.
Most organizations want to hire native English writers because they feel that those writers have superior spelling and grammar. If you ask me, I don’t care whether you’re a native English speaker or English is your second language. All that matters is whether you have the knowledge and skills to deliver the best content. You can’t expect to hire a native English speaker in Malaysia for sure.
Ask whether they want to get paid hourly or paid per piece
If you’re hiring an in-house writer in Malaysia, you’ll most likely pay them monthly for the writing services. As for freelance writers, they are often paid per piece. But, it’s better to ask the potential writer what type of payment terms do they accept.
Most professional writers charge per word basis depending on the niche. Some niche requires extensive research and the content needs to have stats and data to back up certain points. You can expect the best writers to charge RM0.40 to RM4 per word.
Do Your Own Research
You need to as relevant questions related to your industry to ensure that the potential writer actually knows the in and out of the industry. Apart from writing samples, and paid tests you need to make sure the writer has sufficient knowledge about your industry to produce the best content in a timely manner.
Where To Find Professional Writers in Malaysia?
There are a lot of freelance job sites with thousands of freelance writers. Some of these sites are crowded with a huge number of freelancers who are charging pennies for their writing services. You have to be extremely cautious when hiring writers from these platforms.
Being a Malaysian business owner, I would suggest hiring writers from Malaysia. Rather than focusing on hiring writers from other countries with the aim to reduce costs, you can hire some of the best Malaysian writers who can deliver better quality than others.
Favser
Favser is a Malaysian based hiring platform for digital talents. You can find hundreds of writers on this platform. I haven’t personally tried this platform to hire writers but I see them as one of the most credible platforms for hiring writers.
Website: https://www.favser.com/
Upwork
Upwork is one of the top platforms for hiring writers if you have small projects or a few articles to be written. According to Upwork, they have close to 12 million freelancers around the world. However, like I’ve mentioned earlier try to hire Malaysian writers from this platform as well. There are thousands of Malaysian writers available on Upwork. You can take a look at them here:
Website: https://www.upwork.com/l/my/writers/
Malaysian Freelance Writers Facebook Group
A community group for Malaysian freelance writers with almost 6,000 members. This is one of the best freelance writers’ groups that has a good moderation team with strict publishing rules. You can submit your post with all the necessary details and will be published once the moderator approves your post.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/MalaysianFreelanceWriters/
Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is similar to Upwork but has a huge database of 23 million users and approximately 45% of them are looking for writing tasks. I often ignore this site as they have a lot of terrible freelancers on the site and you can expect 150 to 200 bids for your writing task post.
You need to make sure to interview the candidates one by one to find the best writer. You can find thousands of Malaysian writers on this platform as well.
Website: https://www.freelancer.com/
If you want to hire the best writers in Malaysia, you also need to set clear guidelines and expectations when you’re working with writers. Communication is key to a good working relationship and for content writers, it’s extremely important.
As an organization, you need to have a system that makes everything easy for your organization and writers. You need to have an easy-to-follow workflow. In some organizations, writers are also responsible for publishing articles with the right images, internal links, external links, and proper formatting.
You also need to determine the payment schedule if you choose to hire a freelance writer. If you hire them on platforms, you can actually pay them through the platforms after they deliver the assigned writing work. Ask your writers for their preferred method of payment. In Malaysia, most freelance writers prefer to get paid via bank transfer.
Conclusion
You don’t want to settle for good writers. You need the best writers to craft the best content in your industry that your customers will want to read and share with others. Whether you want to hire an in-house writer or freelance writer, your main focus should be getting high-quality content that leads to your company’s success in today’s digital world.
Do you have experience hiring writers in Malaysia?
Please share your thoughts by commenting below.
