I outsourced article writng my first time...I am disgusted...

Second that, I've had great experiences with Warriors.

I agree with this.

And about your project, that writer needs to be held accountable for the work, getting you revised content within a set time frame you agree upon, like 48 business hours, for one final review before payment. If it's still not up to par, offer a percentage, if you can use the work, or proceed to cancel the project or seek intervention there from the bid board operator(s).

Note a few things:

1) Be on target with your expectations. You know what you paid and what the samples were like. If the samples were indeed great, hold the writer responsible and have him/her live up to that or cancel the project, if there’s an acceptable reason why it cannot be fulfilled (like maybe the writer is too busy for more work, and mistakenly took on too much of a workload).

2) Sometimes teams have a leader, and the leader can overlook a lazy writer or one in a hurry, using a scraping tool, for instance, on a weekend, to write fast, then go out partying or something. So have the team leader be accountable and get what you ordered your way in a prompt, timely manner, deducting a fee for extra handling or a late fee, if you need to.

3) In the future when you order, have more specific guidelines to follow, like which voice to use, you (second person) or he/she/they (third person), and tell the writer to be consistent.

4) In a nutshell, you may find that once you lay down guidelines and follow up with your initial orders, you can "train" your writers. Let them know you will not accept junk, and they may work with you long term. Not all will, but some will.

5) Also place smaller orders - -like 1 or 2 articles first as a test. Ask if that's an option, where it's not spelled out.

Heh... that's pretty good!

I've had clients on elance tell me they carefully looked through "samples" and had similar experiences.

Their conclusion was that non-English as first language writers hire others to write their samples. That looks like such an article or a spun article.

I would probably just learn from the experience and let it go. You can force a cat to do dog tricks - so rewriting probably won't help.

Be very specific in your next job offer - specify "no spinners" and what level of English use/grammar you require. Another possibility is the person you hired outsources work himself to cheaper writers - that happens a lot. Team writers are fine if all are good writers - that isn't always the case.

Be specific about your expectations and buy on a site where funds are escrowed until YOU release them or pay only when satisfied (and mention that in the job).

It's possible to find a writer who will meet your exact needs - and once you find that person, stick with them and develop a good working relationship. Sometimes it takes sorting through a few people to find that good writer.

kay

I second this one. ;-)

Now it depends on what you're gonna use the article for (and how many eyeballs you're anticipating being on the article), but another option is to just purchase PLR articles (which can be had for damn near nothing on tradebit), and then either find somebody to spin/rewrite said PLR articles for you (using the same recommendations above re finding somebody good to do the work) or just do it yourself.

Either way, given that your PLR articles are decent in the first place (which shouldn't be too tough to find), at least then you know you're at a good starting point, which is further ahead of where you are when you're starting from zero.

Just a thought.

Thanks for the quick reply warriors.

I will definitely speak with him about the articles written or even refute it, but I am wasting so much time already. He didn't deliver the first article till day 9, when I specified that I will need a set amount of articles a day. Money for me isn't the issue here, its the time he wasted and how I feel ripped off.

It makes me wonder how he can get so many positive reviews.

Although that's quite a fair thing to do, it is often viewed by a writer as the client trying to get their content for free. My friend was recently asked to do this and she declined.

I'd also refuse such a request. I have samples, I have testimonials, and I'm happy to go through a site which uses escrow. If a client doesn't like my work, they don't pay until they're happy. I have enough work to do without trying to find the time to write a freebie.

I have experienced the same thing a few times...but you just have to keep going. There ARE awesome writers out there. I usually don't bother to ask them to rewrite it because they didn't write it RIGHT in the first place. So I suck it up and move on until I find a good writer.

As most replies indicate - it does sadly seem to take quite a bit of trial and error to find yourself good writers you can trust and relyh on.

As for those articles you've received - you'll probably waste more time, effort and energy in trying to get them corrected than is actually worth it. I'd suggest you pay the price you think they are worth (starting at $0!) and if you have paid already - ask for a refund of x amount.

Good writers are out there - I use three happily but had to go through the painful and costly process of finding them first! If you'd like a good name, PM me and I'll send you details of one guy ( a fellow warrior) I use who is working on batch 19 of article topics sent to him in the last 6 months!! Writes well, carefully and charges a good price too!

Regards

Rufus

...yeah, and by an alcoholic!

I watch people go through this all the time.

yaotfeng,

You did not say how many a "few articles" were, but let's say 20 for this conversation.

Post a job for 5 articles. If you're happy with the results, they will be happy for the additional work.

Samples are worthless! It's just to easy to cut-n-paste from the Internet. Or retype something out of a book to avoid dupe-checking. More importantly, it's a HUGE waste of your time.

"Do 1 and stop." Have them stop after the first article for your review. I usually put something in the instructions like;

"Stop after the first article and send it to me for review. We can tweak as needed and go from there."

Going on from there may mean moving on to another outsourcer. I pay them for the one article and move on.

Oh, and 24 hours. I want the first article the next day. Or sooner.

If you like what you see, have them do 2 more articles. Have them stop-and-review. If you still like what you see, you could mention that you have additional articles to be written. Would they be interested in another project of 15 articles?

Keep checking. Even when you find a good article writer, check every few (whatever you are comfortable with) articles.

These few points will save you time, money, and frustration.

I hope this helps.


Joe

Hi DrewClement, Thanks a lot for your sentiments, but I must regretably refuse, simply because it's a mistake I personally need to correct myself.

My general rule of thumb is to calculate how much content (whether it's articles, design, whatever) a person could credibly do for 20$ an hour.

If someone is selling articles for 2$, then it means they will need to write 10 per hour to get a decent income. No good writer in the world is going to do that.

Sean Mize, who has 23k articles on EZA (he wrote a lot himself at the beginning) wrote that on his best days he was writing at most 15-20, and that after FIVE (5) he was getting jaded. And he himself wrote that they weren't super high quality, they're straight to the point.

So, can you imagine the quality of articles paid for 2$?

Note, I don't know how much the OP paid for his articles. But even at 5$, it's borderline.

Tim is it possible you could pm the names of the writers you've had good experiences with. I can't pm as my post count is low.

thanks
Robyn

<humor>
I thinks that the article submitted content really good it is. The time after next, you clearer will make it so alls understands how you must want the article.

Use experience for this like you clean spilled milk and learn from your mistakes.

I hopes you did not use lesson to be costly.
</humor>

Sorry it did not work out. Keep looking for someone that meets your standards (and the standards of anyone else who speaks English).

Good Luck.
Paul.

It's not the site's fault. Why would you blame the website where he found the writer? That would be like blaming Monster if you hired a bad employee.

What if the article writer is from another country where $2 is a lot of money?

That's 100% true. I have seen many posts on freelance sites where people demand articles with "100% perfect grammar and spelling" and which demand a copious amount of research... only to say that they will pay $2 for a 500 word article.

Honestly, if you pay $2 per article in that case, you will either get a foreign writer that has English as a 2nd or 3rd or 4th language... or a native English speaker who will simply rush to write the article in 5 minutes without even bothering to reread what he wrote. After all, who (in "Western" countries, at least) would want to work 30 minutes for $2?

I would certainly refute the payment.

I'm sorry to hear about your issues. Contrary to what some warriors have said I would NOT ask them to rewrite it. Chances are you will not get back something that is to your standard. If their first article is like this then I doubt they will be able to rectify it.

It's taken me almost 2 years to find a solid team of writers who I am more than happy with.

From my personal experience you need to take into account the following factors which will hopefully help to find that perfect team.

1. Your Budget

It really depends on what you are willing to pay. When I first started out I saw these big adverts on Digitalpoint forums for $2.50 for 500 word articles. I tried these companies and I knew I wasn't going to get something amazing but it was mostly Indian based writers. In essence, unless you are willing to pay that little extra, you will only get rubbish. What I got back was just pure waffle with no research carried out and in fact most of the content is still sitting in folders because it was unusable.

A lot of people complain but you only get what you pay for.

2. Specify English Native Writers Only

If like me, you are a perfectionist then be prepared to pay that little extra. I've tried many places, including oDesk and the many places mentioned above. You HAVE to be specific and say that you want English native speakers only, others need not bother applying. This will limit this to the USA, UK, Australia and South Africa in most cases. When you put out an ad, do NOT specify a budget but ASK them what their fees are and also ask for some examples. In some cases, you may get a fee per hour or x number of articles per hour at an hourly rate. It all varies. Just go with your gut feeling on this. If it's too cheap, try to avoid it. I've had writers that want $15 per hour for one 500 word article but for me that is way too much. On the flip side some that are prepared work for $1 per hour. Hell no!

I've had writers that replied that were clearly not English natives, i.e. from the Philippines, South Asian etc. To be honest, some of the Philippines writers weren't too bad but if you're selling products or selling something that requires a 'salesy' approach then try and avoid these type of writers. Because they are not natives, they do not have that 'local' knowledge about certain local cultures which can definitely help in trying to sell a product. I though that maybe some 'sub standard' content might be ok for AdSense but I found that with the right copy, your click through rate can improve too. Think about it, if you're reading rubbish, you're more likely to click on the 'Back' button more than anything else.

For me, content which I can read, enjoy and more importantly DON'T need to edit is good enough for me. 99% of articles I have had from non natives has required intervention which is not a good use of my valuable time. This is not a personal attack on non native English speakers but rather the level of quality you require for your projects. I just don't have the time to amend copy. Everyone has to eat and earn their crust but it's all really depends on your own personal requirements and whether anything but 'perfect grammar' is acceptable.

3. Avoid Individuals

Even if you find someone who is in the States or in the UK and has a relatively good grasp if writing content, I tend to find that they are very unreliable. One guy told me he fell ill and didn't get back to me for a week, one guy in the UK tried to sell me duplicate PLR articles and one guy was a student desperate for money. He charged decent money but the content was a pile of drivel, the list goes on.

Although, a little pricier, a small team of article writers for me have worked better. I used to have some excellent writers but sometimes you do not hear from people for ages and you cannot let your online business have such a loose foundation. When I say a little pricier, I'm referring to in comparison to eastern rates. The companies I use actually charge about the same as individuals in the Western world so its great. They are out there, you just need to know where to look.

Currently, the team I use consist of the boss who I deal with on a day to day basis, who has now employed a project manager and a further team of 14 writers (and growing). This way, there is some accountability for the work and I know that articles are proof-read and go through a process before they get delivered to me. Again, it's slightly higher rates but def worth the money. In fact its just a touch higher than a non English native writer.

4. Give Articles Writers Bait

I've often made the mistake before of giving writers too much work prior to checking out their skills (if they have any). What I do is I give them only 1 article to write with a specific brief and tell them that if this is good enough for me then I have an article brief with x number of articles ready to be sent to them. This with a bit of luck then motivates them with the knowledge of potential work in the pipeline. I always have the briefs ready for them and never really lie to the writers just for the sake of it....its all about building up trust and relationships and it's a two way thing just like most businesses.

5. Be specific in your Article Briefs

Don't assume that your articles writers are on the ball with SEO. Most of the people who will write my articles from the US and UK will tend to be retired people or mothers that are looking to want some extra income from home. I would avoid students at all costs as from experience I've got back complete utter waffle and nonsense. With the former two types of writers I have found passion in their writing which is exactly what you need as a publisher. I also ask my team if they have writers in specific niches as nothing beats product and industry knowledge.

Specify the keywords you want, so for example the keyword 'blue small widgets' mentioned a total of 3 times, a maximum of once in the first and last paragraph and anywhere else.

Also, give them some other keywords you want to mention such as LSI terms. I often tell them to use the Google Wonder Wheel for ideas on other terms they may want to mention. If you can try and also give them the tone of the writing and your target reader then this will help the writer envisage a scene in their mind so it makes writing easier. Be specific but still give them enough freedom to let their creative juices flow.

6. Check the work for plagiarism.

Once you are happy with a writer and you think that they seem ok, do NOT let your foot off the gas just yet, ensure you check the work for plagiarism or any duplication since this is going to be one of the core parts of your business. If you're paying for duplicate content then not only will your site not get ranked, this will cost you money in the long run as a result of no rankings. You can literally just copy and paste in a section of the content into Google and see what comes back. If a large portion of the content comes back EXACTLY as you typed it (in bold on the results page) then go back and tell them. Even 1 result with the exact match returned is not good. If you have access to other tools like CopyScape and DupeCop then use these too. Ideally a company who can check and pass these then send to you would be ideal.

You can see that its not an easy process trying to find a reliable article writing team but hopefully if you try and follow some of the examples above, it may help to mitigate some of the initial problems. I've had my fingers burnt MANY MANY times and I don't want others to go through the same thing. It took me over 18 months to find a good team and now that I have, we have a fantastic working relationship even though Im in the UK and they are in the US. I've been with them for over 6 months now! Just ensure you run a tight ship and stay on top of everything. Although I still read every bit of content that comes through, I have enough confidence to just upload it without even checking if I wanted to.

It does takes time so don't despair/

Hope some of what I said helps.

Zaheer :-)

Obviously I agree but...

It again depends on what you want. I had an email recently where someone was asking me about cheap SEO articles for backlinks, and I said get a cheaper writer.

If you need a literate professional then hire one...but if you are just looking for pure backlink fodder then don't bother. After all, real writers are more expensive for a reason, and if you don't need one then don't hire one.

Obviously I come down on the other side of the fence, but thought this argument deserved to be represented, because not many people were willing to say why they hire awful writers and were contented.

There is little worse as a writer than be hired to turn out plop, so I recommend everybody decide on exactly what you are looking for before hand.

I've used a couple of content writers, one I found on here, not fantastic as I had to spend a couple of hours redoing them. The other company I used was better, ordered 5 pages for website content from seoarticlewritingpros.com (I'm not affiliated with this company BTW).

Anyone else willing to reveal the good content writing services out there?

Unfortunately, the sad truth is you can spend $200 and still get a bad job. No matter who you try, take what you've learned and apply it the next time around. In fact, it's not a bad idea to assume you may have to try 2 or 3 people before you get someone you like. It's part of the process and you will end up finding people that end up working really well. Just don't stop moving your business forward.

Does anyone have experience with 99centarticles.com | Providing Quality Article Writing and Web Content For The Lowest Price?

The $.99 part actually turned me off as I'm acutely aware that you get what you pay for. I'm not necessarily looking for the lowest prices, but I saw Maria Gudelis mention this somewhere and I was curious if they were any good?

I thought I saw a reference to "native English speakers" somewhere on the site but I can't find it now.

Thanks for your input!

Michelle

I've recently gone through the process of getting additional writers for my business.

I'm paying around $2/article (400-500words) and the quality is always excellent.

Here's my process:

STEP 1: Post a small job for 5 articles (@$2-$3 each) and put in the job description that you require them to complete a short piece to be selected. Give them the topic but keep it open ended.

ie/ While starting an online business has never been easier - very few people are successful.

This lets you see where they take the article it and forces them to deliver something original. I've found that any past examples are useless - how do you know they wrote them???

This will let you test their language comprehension as well as spelling/grammar & punctuation skills. You can also make note of the length they consider to be adequate to get your attention. This tells you a lot about them in terms of their commitment and NOT just their skill level.

You then have a common element to access and select the best freelancers -

STEP 2: Take the best 2-3 and give them 5 articles each to write and request a specific deadline. Select only those from the Philippines - their English tends to be far better and for what we are willing to pay - they consider this to be a decent wage if employed full time.
(Total Cost: $30 - $45)

STEP 3: From the articles you receive back take note of:
delivery time, originality (test using copyscape), punctuation, spelling and grammar. Also take note of how well researched they appear.

STEP 4: Repeat 1-3 as many times as it takes to find a writer that you can't find any faults with their work and it seems written by a native English speaker.

Like others have said - getting work that you have to go over is pointless - you want to COMPLETELY outsource this part of your business so you can focus entirely on the important/fun things.

STEP 4: Offer additional articles to the best writer DIRECTLY via email - small jobs initially and build up $/volume as you begin to trust them. Always pay via PayPal in case something goes wrong - you can file a dispute.


TOP 3 TIPS:

1. Don't expect your first hire to be your only hire.

2. Learn from your mistakes and improve your hiring process - don't blame the workers - focus on improving yourself.

3. Once you find a great writer - treat them well & ALWAYS pay on time - you'll be surprised what efforts they'll go to for you.

Ah, the care and feeding of outsourcers. Since I'm on the other side of this thing, here are some tips for getting the right writer.

1. You mostly do get what you pay for. Yeah, it's possible to get a mediocre writer who makes good money, and it's possible that you'll get a great one for no money. But good, cheap writers are going to find themselves swamped with orders, and will usually start raising prices until they reach equilibrium with their workload.

And frankly, and I realize that given what I do, I am certainly someone who is biased, a lot of people who say they get great writers for a buck or two an article don't actually have a clear view of what good writing is, let alone great. It's not enough to have reasonable grammar (which is in itself kind of rare at that price point), there are a host of other factors that are also important, like entertainment and enticement and appropriate voice.

So you have to manage your expectations, and be prepared to spend reasonable money to get some who is at least good.

2. Always start with a sample article (and don't ask for a freebie) - I actually suggest this to my clients when we first start out. This mutually beneficial. You get a sense of whether they can actually write, how they are to work with, and how good they are at hitting their deadlines. They get to see what you're like to work with, and most importantly, whether or not you'll pay.

3. Keep in mind if you're hiring someone to write content for you, them having a dull as dishwater ad or proposal is probably a bad sign. It is possible for someone to be a great article writer and a crappy ad writer, but it is something to look out for.

4. Referrals are your friend. If you're looking for a writer, ask around for recommendations. If possible, make sure you have some idea of the standards of the person make the recommendation, so you know if their idea of good is your idea of good.

5. Always be clear in what you want from an article. I'm pretty good at understanding what people need based on their keywords and products, but the more information on how the articles are going to used and what you want to them to be about that you can give your writer, the better.

It does not make you look very good to advocate leaving out outsourcing and only hiring "English persons" when you have bad grammar and spelling errors in your post

I'm sure you meant "native English speakers" rather than "English persons." Because you advocating we should only hire "English persons" that would leave out us Americans!

If that's the experience you've had, I feel very bad for you. Outsourcing is NOT supposed to be anything like that. It's supposed to reduce your workload, not add to it!!

When you outsource work, you should have the same expectations as if you were hiring a full-time employee. They need to be professional. After all, their work is representing you and your business.

When it comes to writing articles, there should be no excuses. There should be no babysitting. There should be no missed deadlines. Period. After all, you're paying them to do a job.

There are quality people out there that you can outsource to. Not everyone acts the way you're describing. Unfortunately, the bad apples ruin it for everyone.

I can tell you from personal experience... and I have spent days looking for good writers. If you find one, do what you can to keep them. I have about a 40 to 1 ratio. I go through about 40 writers, interviews and all and somewhere along the line they fail miserably.

Just be aware that just because the first few times the work comes back great doesn't mean that they wont give the job to someone else in order to get them to make some money. You article quality will go from good to wait... I need a intergalactic translator to understand this.

On the bright side I have started writing more of my own stuff and even though it's not the most fun thing in the world, what took me 45 mins before is now taking my about 25 mins. So that helps me out allot.

All I can say is keep looking and do what you can till then. You may find out that right now, writing them yourself is your best option.

Dee, In my experience, Indians who speak English well speak it better than most Americans. Everything from grammar to idiom is spot on and precise.

That said, it's a percentage game, and the odds are against your finding someone who writes English that well and is willing to work for the proverbial peanuts. If you do, there's a really good chance their English will be stilted and too formal for most American audiences. That can be as bad.

Excellent suggestions, by the way.

I'd also suggest that people who are considering outsourcing keep in mind the relevant factors. For example, if you give a Filipino or Indian programmer a clear and precise spec, you're going to get better code for the money than from most American programmers. It's a matter of the written language, not the intelligence of the people doing the work.

I had some software done years ago, for a Windows 98 platform, by a Russian coder. He adjusted the workflow, added several features that turned out to be critical, changed it to a wizard format, and delivered a piece of software that I still use every week, without bugs or a single issue, on a Windows 7 system. For less than 1/5 of what an American programmer wanted for the same spec.

The only problem: When you shut it down, the text box that comes up says, "Are you sure to exit ListRX?" He forgot "you want." I was so happy with the work that I couldn't bring myself to ask him to mess with it.

Next project, guess who I hired. Paying him was a pain, as I had to wire the money to the company, which was in Latvia. That required sitting in the bank and explaining why I was sending it to eastern Europe and filling out forms and the like, but man... Dude was well worth it.

But his English language skills sucked.

Jody, Oh, man, ain't that the truth?!

Once upon a time, I got a note from a former client, asking me for a critique of a salesletter. I told her it was a crappy first draft, but could be fixed with some serious work. That's when she told me who had written it, and that she'd paid this world famous copywriter 5 figures for it, and that it was the final revision. I forget the exact numbers, but I rewrote the thing overnight for her as a favor, and bumped the conversion up by some multiple like 3 or 5 times what it had been doing.

I met the guy at a conference a few years later. Nice guy. I couldn't help wondering, though, what the people fawning over him for his "legendary skill" would have said if they knew what he'd turned in as a final product. I'd have been ashamed to call that a working draft.

Sometimes the cheaper contractor ends up being better, by a lot. But usually, they're not.


Paul