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Ask HN: Who wrote the content of your website?

5 points by tzury ↗ HN
Yes, that might be a stupid question, but I am willing to hire a person who will take our technical documents (internal) and produce a website which describe the product in a clear way.

Did you hire an external?

What's the title shall I use, if I want to publish an ad for it?

Feel free to recommend me one.

11 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 37.2 ms ] thread
chewxy
So you're looking for a copywriter
tzury
It might be more than that, as the writer shall have the ability to understand and explain sophisticated technical terms
chewxy
So, a technical copywriter. Those are kinda hard to find.
ready_set_go
After posting a number of jobs on freelancer.com I eventually found a guy for our content in the Philippines who was amazing and very cheap.

Id say try freelancer, odesk, etc but be very clear about what you want and expect to test out a lot of people with small tests before you find someone who is good. Once found get them on it fulltime for a few days or weeks until its done.

A great trick is to hide in the spec you give them a sentence that asks them to bring X up, this way you can tell if they read it or not.

smartwater
I've never given a spec to someone and needed to trick them into revealing whether they actually looked at it or not. That says a lot about outsourcing.
ready_set_go
It's unfortunate but it works, I actually picked it up from working at a Bank where the guys implementing the tech specs we wrote never read them correctly. These were in house guys making big bucks, arghhh

At the end of the day people matter, I use outsourcing for minor tasks to save a few bucks and keep great people around for everything else.

tzury
Your answer has nothing to do with my question.

Your account has been opened 2 minutes ago.

I suspect you simply wanted to put freelancer.com in here - I suspect you are a spammer.

ready_set_go
1. "Your answer has nothing to do with my question."

You asked what I did, I posted jobs on freelancer and odesk, eventually freelancer worked out.

2. "I suspect you simply wanted to put freelancer.com in here - I suspect you are a spammer.

I mentioned multiple sites..... Yes I am new to HN but calling me a spammer for trying to help YOU is a bit harsh.

eksith
Whenever we did our internal documentation, we tried avoiding getting people outside involved as much as possible. When producing product info sites, we sometimes hired outside, but a lot of the detail was still left with us.

This is for the simple reason that no one understood our products better than us at the time. We may hire a consultant to help us better explain it, but we would always do our own stuff.

You're looking for a designer and creative consultant.

tzury
Obviously, we will provide all the information and the content. But there shall be one who can take those technical terms and feature lists and turn them into a great product description.
jimwhitson
I'd call this person a technical writer, and it's a pretty tough job to fill. I have some experience in this area, so if you'd like to talk about options feel free to email me - jim@harundo.com.