Tips for hiring writers for 700 word articles with some research

For "above average" content, $7 won't touch it. No doubt you can find someone to write your articles for $7 but in my opinion it will not be above average quality. Unless we have a different definition of above average.

You should check out the Warriors for Hire section. Many of the writers here have a link to their sites with prices and writing samples.

Always make sure to ask for a sample of their work before you hire them so you could see their style and way of writing. You can hire a lot of writers that give you content for a very good price especially on freelancing sites.

I have paid $10 for very good quality 400 word content before, so based on that I would imagine you would need to be spending at least $15 - $20 each. But it really depends where you go to. You may be able to get a reduced rate if you can promise future work to a writer if you are happy with his or her work.

IMO you should take the long term view with both your websites and content you add to them. I will happily pay $15-$20 for the right review article. Once you have the articles onto your site and earning for you it becomes a no brainer ...

I will give you an example

I bought articles for one of my review sites and built the site around 5 months ago. The site has only 7 reviews (currently) and so far this one sites earnings are $1404, that's an average of $280 per month!! The site earned around $500 last month alone!

If I paid up to $20 per article and even included the informational articles (Which I wrote) it would amount to $180. Still giving me $1220 profit to date

Bear in mind the site was only brand new and took a little time to get established. Also consider that the site will take some other hard work in the form of your SEO.

Current strucuture of my site is: 7 review articles and 2 informational articles

Why am I telling you this? - Because I have returned to the exact same writer and ordered a further 14 articles for the same site. I intend to keep expanding this site out as I would like to see it break the 1k/month soon.

Always consider that the articles are not going to create the income themselves. You will need to do the correct on-page and Off-page SEO. You also need to think long term and build an asset, rather than narrow short term thinking.

Now I have my articles and site established I can drip in my new content and keep up the pressure within my niche. Very soon I will be all over that niche. I have my writer to thank for my wonderful content and very well researched articles.

I got a pretty nice tip if you are wondering about outsourcing. It's allways hard to know if the writer is any good before you "tested them". Even if your mate says that one guy is an awesome writer he might not be a good writer for your niche.

So check this out, I've posted it somewhere else before. Great Stuff:
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Hi Guys.

I been lurking the forum a little now and I've seen a lot of people are asking about outsourcing so I thaught I share one of my best tips to make outsourcing worth while.

First of all it might be a good idea to mention some outsourcing sites, many of you probably allready know about this allready but anyways...(the list is not a rank, just picking the ones I like)

- Freelancer.com - The best in my opinion. Posting a project is easy and you will get lots of bids on your project!

- Fiverr.com - You can fins a lot of different things here. Not as specialized as Freelancer though but cheap.

- Elance.com - I have not used elance myself so I can't really say anything but from what I heard Freelancer is one step ahead.

There are many more but this are the main ones n my opinion!

Now to the Tip. This is best to at Freelancer or at least a site where people bid on your project.

1. Post your project. For example: Awesome SEO writer for my cool boat site.
2. This depends how many articles you want done. If you want 30 articles on 500 words. You are going to write in your post that you want 10 articles on 500 words.
If you want 15 total you write that you want 5. You know what I mean?
The thing is to split your total number in three an write that.
3. The bids often start coming almost right away but wait like 2-3 days. Then what you want to do is to pick 3 freelancers that sounds best. In combination with the price offcource. Don't fall for the guy that says like: I'm the best and so special and I got SEO specialists and bla bla bla and he bids the minimum price. That stuff just don't ad up right?

4. Now you have picked 3 freelancers that will write 10 articles each on 500 words, a total of 30.

So why bother with this?

You bother with this because now you can compare these with each other, you have splittested them. Maybe all are crap, there are a lot of ****ty writers, that's why you do this. On the first or maybe second splittest you will find that person that is really good at what he or her does.

5. When you have found this person that you think did a great job it's time to take he/her of freelancer. (if you want offcourse) You just mail and ask like: Hi, I think you did a great job with my last project. Do you want to work with me on my next?

Then if that person wants you can work outside freelancer and talk on skype or aim about what you want done and pay with paypal or something.

You know have your 'Own' writer. You see what I'm getting at?

As your business expands you can do this more and more. Before you know it you might have a guy working fulltime writing content on your site and another doing SEO.

Anyways I know you think: 'what da f**k Tim, this splittesting thing cost more money man!'

Yes it might seem like that but think about it this way. What if you ordered the 30 articles right away from a dude that didn't know **** so you can't use the articles. This means you have to spend the same amount again and again until you find your guy. This costs more money and most importantly it takes TIME!

Offcourse you might get lucky and hit the jackpot with the first dude but this is most unlikely.

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Hope this is useful for you guys thinking about outsourcing.

If you have any questions do not hesitate, reply or PM.


Keep Rockin' it!
Tim Lundin

That's essentially a penny per word. For an average article, that might be okay, but if you're not providing the specifics, and the writer's going to need to spend some time looking to see what you want, then that's low.

For pretty decent content with the necessary research, you're going to look at paying more than a penny per word. $15-20 an article or more, if you want well written, researched content to your specifications.

Hire me! I'm a writer. LOLzzz

To be honest, if I were you, I would have happily paid $15-$20 per article. For me, the word count never mattered because sometimes, it gets problematic, when you are supposed to finish an article within a word limit (You have so much to tell and the word count is so low). On the other hand, sometimes you don't get good enough information to write 700 words. What most of the writers do in that case? They just fill the article with fluffy content and hence it becomes of no use. I am a writer and believe me, it becomes very hard when your client wants exactly 800 words of content and you just don't find enough information to write more than 500 words even after researching a lot.

My personal suggestion would be find a writer, ask them to write on the topics of your choice, see a few samples of the writer, verify that the samples were indeed written by the writer (Easy to check if the writer maintains a blog, the niche generally doesn't matter, it only helps to give you an idea of the writing style) and hire if you are satisfied. In most of the cases, you will get what you want, however, sometimes, you may be unlucky, but that's rare anyway.

You can probably pick up articles at fiverr and get mediocre articles. I'll tell you my general rates which are comparable to an above average writer, trying to build a client base - about 10 bucks for a 350 to 450 word article, if I am given keywords and a title. for a 700 word, I'd probably look at 15 to 20 per, depending if I wanted to build a relationship with a client. I'm not really soliciting for work here, as I think Bumba was saying, we are trying to give a general idea of pricing.

Kind of like I was saying with Fiverr, you can also go to Elance or GURU, but be sure to see some samples, because a few of those folks don't do their own work and/or are ESL writers. English here in the US is different than India or England..

you do get what you pay for, generally speaking.

You're huge help guys, thank you! Just getting into this outsourcing stuff. Finding a good writer/team of writers will take time I guess...

Hello Afteradream - I do not have a set price for content. The rate depends on several factors.

I talk with potential clients first about the project/job. If we are a good fit, make a good team, then we discuss specifics, rates, etc. If we are not a good fit, then I suggest they interview other writers.

I saw a post on here where someone suggested to ask for samples. I have samples on my site and I would expect most writers have samples on their sites as well. I do not write new samples.

Very good information here about establishing a relationship with a writer.

I am currently writing blog posts for a few clients. I spent a lot of time talking with them, emailing, etc. to understand their lifestyles. It is important for me to be able to "get inside their body" so to speak. It is not good for me, and more importantly, it is not good for the client if the writing style does not match their personalities.

There is also some really good information here about outsourcing. I do not know how to do SEO and it is not in my best interest to learn. I don't want to learn how to do it and my time is best spent doing what I know best, writing.

How long do you think it would take a writer to do the work? Between researching, writing, and proofreading, it will take at least 2 or 3 hours (and that's assuming your writer can work pretty quickly). At that rate, your writer will make $2.33-$3.50 per hour.

Would you be willing do work for that rate? I doubt it!


At rates like that, your writer's focus goes from creating something of quality to churning something out in order to turn a profit. And, unfortunately, content that has been "churned out" usually looks like it's been churned out - and that's not a good thing.

It's a completely tangential point, but I read the thread, so, "while I'm here" ...

Two of those are bad titles. (In fact even the first one isn't great ...).

You should start the title of your articles with the major keyword for which you want the article to rank. "How to" and "Where to" and "3 ways to" and "Everything you ever wanted to know about" are not so good.

The excellent example often given by Chris Knight (owner of Ezine Articles - he knows a little bit about this subject, as you can appreciate!), which I hope he won't mind my mentioning here, is that if you're writing an article about fractional jet ownership, then "9 Ways to Acquire Fractional Jet Ownership" is an example of a BAD title. A GOOD title would be "Fractional Jet Ownership - 9 Strategies to Help You Acquire Your Private Jet".

Like many other article marketers, I've found this one little tip from Chris enormously valuable. I'm "just saying", because if you're proposing to pay writers $7 (), they may not know that and you'll need to tell them.

I spend 5 cents per word and you will get good quality articles

Check out Odesk for best article writters

It's very true. Quality content cannot be obtained from cheap sources

Hi,

For a $7, what you get is just an average article. My experiences with article writers who writes very good article for 700 words will be $10 to 15.00.

Thanks.

I am a writer and my rates also vary. I have clients that have been with me for 2 years and I get consistent work from them. I usually charge $20 for an article around 500-600 words and you do get good quality.
You can find people who will work for less on the bidding sites but you generally won't get the same good quality. If you find a writer you work well with, then stick with them for all your work because you know the standard will be high and the writer is reliable.

Great stuff guys. I've bookmarked a few of your services to check out later. I have a question about "pre sale" articles. Some call it money post some call it sales copy. I have a hard time telling my writers what I want and when I look for copywriters, some charge thousands based on there sales page.

Hopefully I'm not hijacking this thread as part of my question pertains to pricing.

Let's say I need article to Target how to get rid of acne as keyword and selling a certain product. No ethical issues involved. Legitimate product with results.

First off, what kind of article is this called?

Second, how much can I expect to pay?

500 or so words..

That is considered a standard article.
How much you can expect to pay can vary from $1 to $20 depending on what quality you want. I would charge $20 but you would get a good quality article.
You can check out my website to get a feel for my style of writing.

If you use one of the bidding sites, you'll pay less but the quality may be questionable too so you risk the reputation of your site. Is that worth it?
I would not pay someone a lower price just to get low quality work because in the end you have to get it redone and it will cost you more in the long run.
You also never know how much bad material costs you in lost clients and traffic.

I have no problem paying good prices, I'm just not familiar with exactly the type of articles I need. I can spot a good seo article or product review article, but I always have trouble finding good sales copy targeting keyword and product.