Thousands of blog texts in a short time – A case about how we scale content-creation

Our client is an SEO agency based in the United Kingdom. They regularly produce hundreds of articles in multiple languages each month. With their in-house team primarily consisting of native English speakers, they were seeking a European partner to expand their writing capabilities in all other languages.

The Challenge

The client has both an in-house writing team and external freelancers. To further scale their operations, they were specifically seeking a partner to alleviate several challenges, including:

  • Recruiting qualified freelancers for various languages.
  • Managing and coordinating the work of the team, such as assigning tasks and addressing queries.
  • Conducting final quality control of the work.

One of the client’s major concerns was ensuring that all texts meet SEO requirements through a rigorous QA process, without having to train each freelancer individually.

The Solution

In order to increase the number of freelancers for various languages and have a backup ready for sudden demands, our HR team sourced applications from qualified writers and editors through various job postings for over 15 languages. The applications were evaluated internally, and the best linguists per language were shortlisted. The most suitable candidates were then selected after conducting interviews with targeted applicants. We also ensured that we always had a pool of applicants ready to step in if needed.
Managing a larger number of freelancers was not a major challenge for us, as we already had the necessary infrastructure in place. We use Beaverapp, an internally developed tool, for coordinating work with our writers and editors, and Missive as a shared e-mail inbox for communication.
To meet the client’s quality standards and optimize our internal processes, we first standardized the client’s instructions into our internal format to simplify the process for all participants. One of our full-time project managers was trained on the client’s requirements and a workflow was defined, including the following steps:

  1. The customer places an order through their own tool.
  2. The order is transferred semi-automatically into our system.
  3. Our internal algorithm selects suitable writers and editors based on their skills and availability.
  4. Writers and editors, if applicable, accept the job in our app, complete it, and upload the result to our tool.
  5. Our project manager conducts a standardized quality control and, if necessary, provides correction orders to the writer.
  6. The final article is uploaded into the client’s system through a custom-built app that formats the files to the client’s specifications.

This process can be used for both individual orders and batches of several hundred texts.

Each month, our Head of Quality Assurance evaluates which linguists require correction requests and the frequency and reasons behind them. Individual feedback is then provided to the relevant linguists, allowing them to improve and also reducing the internal correction workload for QA.

The Results

  • Our collaboration with the client has been ongoing for approximately 3 years and is characterized by a friendly and personal relationship.
  • Over this time, we have written nearly 20,000 articles in over 18 languages.
  • Our efficient process enables us to handle large orders of over 100 items in just a few days, regardless of the language requirements.