How do I compensate a freelance blogger that I want to hire?

Question

For our eCommerce business, I'm writing a series of cosmetics tips & trends blog posts that tie into our products. Once I have a few up (about 8), I want to hire a freelancer online, ideally a girl/lady who's passionate about cosmetics, writes interestingly and can take decent photos (mobile is ok with me). She would then report to me and write certain number of blog articles weekly.

This would be my first time hiring a freelance blogger/writer, so I have questions:

• How do I compensate this person? Per article? Per word count? Hours? What is the decent market rate for this work? What is the market rate for foreign outsourced workers?
• Actually I'd love to compensate based on effectiveness per article (likes, shares). Is that sensible?

Answer 1

The question is a tad old, but hasn't been answered properly and I got linked here through the first page.

Compensation method

A solid option is a fixed (monthly) rate for a fixed (minimum) amount of posts. This will provide you with a steady source of content and will also be a reliably source of income for the blogger.

Per word and per article give a chance to bloat your blog. When working with a professional it probably is better, but a pure financial trigger to write something not as good is a tricky thing.

Either way, a trial period would be a great thing. Then you can see if the system works for both parties and then continue or adjust based on that. It would also be a good way to see whether you're getting value for your money.
Downside with either way is that you might get forced writing, which might lead to a lower content quality. It depends on the prime motivator of the blogger. Anyhow, the quality of the content is their responsibility.

Effectiveness compensation

It's bad to compensate on a reception basis, as sometimes the weirdest articles get a good rating. The best way (subjective) is to assign a bonus based on certain tiers of effectiveness. Combine this with a steady income and you'll have another incentive to create better posts.
This might be slow in the beginning, because you're not starting on an established blog (if I understood it right) and then it relies more on social media than blog content.

Answer 2

It would be a good idea to compensate based on effectiveness and how well the article was received, likes, shares and positive comments/starting up of discussion should all be paid for

You could pay at a percentage per unit system i.e. for every 100 likes they get 10% of an agreed deadline amount (say the most you will pay them for one article is £100 and if the article gets 100 likes you pay them for 10% of that. and so on and so forth, coming up with your own boundaries for shared and comments.)