I was just thinking about this as I am about to launch one. And yes, I headhunted pretty hardcore. Nigel
Even when you think you've found a great blogger be sure to stay on top of their work and read what they're putting out there for you. I've seen instances where the blogger was great but then a year later the work changed and there were numerous typos. I'm not sure what the situation was in this case but it almost seemed that someone else had started doing the writing. Make sure you monitor carefully.
Start it out small if you intend on doing this. See what they can do before committing to any form of long-term work. Perhaps a week or two at a time.
I have hired one or two in the past to manage a few of the sites I had on the back burner. I also manage sites for other people as far as posting and SEO goes. If you find the right person, you can definitely have a beneficial relationship with them. It is when they start slacking or demand more than what they are worth where the problems arise.
I agree, honesty is key, as with most business transactions. If you want x amount of dollars to manage a blog, and you are worth it, they will see the worth. The webmaster is the easy part, they want money and a successful blog, and the money they are spending in order to hire a writer to be well worth it. It is the event that they feel their money is being wasted that problems arise.
If you don't mind me asking what kind of fee would you pay somebody to oversee content publication and SEO, did you outsource to another country
I look for quality. Proofreading someone who can barely write in English without sound like a robot for $2 less a post has always seemed like a ridiculous idea to me, also, if they are posting, I want them to be quality posts that are search engine appeasing. I try and handle most the posting myself, since I contract out to manage other peoples presence on the web as well, I will usually take on jobs like that myself and try to handle all my own posting on my own. However, if I am running to many sites at once and feel quality will drop in exchange for speed, I have a network of people I personally know that I hire on for temporary work to update the site. These are usually college kids, so it works out to a few dollars a post, but they strive to impress because they understand if the site takes off on their writing, it can be beneficial to them. edit: I have been experimenting with services like hire writers however, but they have frozen my account once I requested 3 article to be written. So that is my experience with trying to contract out work to an unknown party so far.
I haven't hired anyone personally. Most "Native English Speakers" will do a worse job than any free spinner you can find on Google...
I never hired one but they constantly ask me if they can write for my site. I didn´t accept any offer yet.