Would you hire a writer who has an existing site in the same niche?

CaptainHustle

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So I am looking to hire this really good writer with a keen interest in the niche. However, she already has an existing site in the same niche.

On the one hand, her passion, interest and skill make her a great fit for this purpose but on the other, she could potentially steal my keywords, perform sub par for me only to execute it better on her own site, or just copy my ideas for my site.

Have you guys ever been in this position? What would you do in my situation?
 
Sounds like a great circle jerking opportunity.

U know u cam team up outside of the I’m the boss here’s the keyword rite me an article neeeeow type stuff.
 
Anyone can steal your keywords. It's likely that she knows your site so I wouldn't worry about that.
 
CaptainHustle said:
On the one hand, her passion, interest and skill make her a great fit for this purpose but on the other, she could potentially steal my keywords, perform sub par for me only to execute it better on her own site, or just copy my ideas for my site.
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Can't she steal your keywords and copy you without writing for you too?

You'll know if she tries to be sub-par by doing things like under-optimizing your on-page, and you'll just fire her. Then go steal all her keywords as revenge.

Any risk you assume by hiring her is one you assume by not hiring her (like her knowing about your site anyways) or experiencing the same problems you would from any other writer.

But it can happen. I discovered a competitor who was systematically trying to steal all my keywords in their sub-niche. So I plundered theirs and outranked them on all of it. There's nothing you can do to stop it, and it can be helpful in urging you to move faster and cover more ground and outpace the competitors.

If the niche is small or the other webmaster is way too emotionally involved in one passion project, that ups the chances, but it ups the chances whether you hire them or not. Otherwise, most people are too busy with their own plans to halt everything and adopt your plan instead (though there are people who's entire business plans consist of copying someone else's moves step by step. I've seen two people in my life who've done that. It never works out but it's supremely annoying and gets under your skin).
 
secretagentdad said:
Sounds like a great circle jerking opportunity.

U know u cam team up outside of the I’m the boss here’s the keyword rite me an article neeeeow type stuff.
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Man, don't take this the wrong way but I have trouble deciphering what you say most of the time. What does a great circle jerking opportunity mean in this context? I know what a circle jerk is but what does it mean here?

DarkRed said:
Anyone can steal your keywords. It's likely that she knows your site so I wouldn't worry about that.
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This is a new site that I am just launching. So if I don’t tell her, she will likely not know about it. The thing is I would like to avoid any potential for conflict of interest in the initial stages of the site, which is when I feel these kind of problems can inflict the most amount of harm.

Ryuzaki said:
Can't she steal your keywords and copy you without writing for you too?

Any risk you assume by hiring her is one you assume by not hiring her (like her knowing about your site anyways) or experiencing the same problems you would from any other writer.
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She technically can if she knows about the site and has the skills to execute it. In this case, I am giving her an over the shoulder look on all my content and monetization strategies she could easily use in her own site, which is much older but doesn't really have any traffic or authority. To be honest, it is like a hobby blog except she has "studied" digital marketing and SEO which makes me a little uneasy. She is going to be a ghostwriter but she can know which site she is working for.

Ryuzaki said:
There's nothing you can do to stop it, and it can be helpful in urging you to move faster and cover more ground and outpace the competitors.
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My worry is that my strategies if executed on an older site (albeit without a lot of authority) can lead to better results on her site as opposed to mine which is newer, in the sandbox, and what not.

Ryuzaki said:
If the niche is small or the other webmaster is way too emotionally involved in one passion project, that ups the chances, but it ups the chances whether you hire them or not. Otherwise, most people are too busy with their own plans to halt everything and adopt your plan instead (though there are people who's entire business plans consist of copying someone else's moves step by step. I've seen two people in my life who've done that. It never works out but it's supremely annoying and gets under your skin).
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I guess my question at the end of all this is what degree of conflict of interest do you tolerate? When do you go "Oh, I can't hire this guy!".
 
It means go around making noise and link dropping for each other.
 
secretagentdad said:
It means go around making noise and link dropping for each other.
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If I understand correctly, circle-jerking here is a positive thing then?
In my experience, it's usually a bad thing, as in "nothing gets really done".

Anyway, link dropping for each other sounds like a great idea to me, as long they don't overdo it.
 
I'd probably offer her equity tied to certain milestones, I've had this work well in the past. This assumes you can work effectively together, this assumes she's committed to the project, and this assumes a lot of other variables line up nicely.

Also, if you're paying her a revshare as a partner, rather than a salary as an employee, this brings down your expenses quite a bit if you decide to sell the business down the road. If she's a partner, instead of getting paid 2k per month... that's what, an extra 60k if you sell the site for 30x?

I like @JamaicanMoose's idea, too, if that's a possibility.
 
JamaicanMoose said:
Can you purchase her site and hire her so there's no conflict of interest?
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Damn. This is the dead simple solution I was looking for. Fuck, what was I thinking. I can afford this shit now (not that it was expensive). Just bought the site. Hired the writer.

Potatoe said:
I'd probably offer her equity tied to certain milestones, I've had this work well in the past. This assumes you can work effectively together, this assumes she's committed to the project, and this assumes a lot of other variables line up nicely.
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I would never fuck with equity for a writer. That’s the least expensive, easily replaceable part of the puzzle in my opinion. My model works because the writers are cheap. I will be hiring more and more writers as the project progresses.

Thank you everybody!
 
Haha fair enough, sure, I assumed there was something special about this particular writer to warrant a thread. For the record, I wouldn't offer equity to someone who is easily replaceable and a dime a dozen, either.
 
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