Content writing recommendations

You seem to want 50 to 100 articles a month. You're willing to pay 3 peanuts per article. You don't mention who provides the content (information).
Sounds to me like you're telling them, Boston mortgage broker, works with FHA and conventional loans. Go, write.

The amount you're paying is too low to attract good writers who view what they do as a business.

The amount of articles you want maybe too much for one writer to produce and not get burned out/bored out of his/her mind.

So, you need a writing service. So, they can deal with the flow by using more than 1 writer, some will be more conscientious than others. The money part, though, is worsened (i.e., the writer gets less), so good writers will be harder to find or they'll be from countries where the dollar goes farther than it does in the US or Britain.

I was thinking about putting myself out there to help as a fun side project because I like to write. I also have my own service business and enjoy learning about other facets of the industry. I wondered how long it would take me to conceptualize and type out 500 words on a subject that I'm familiar with so I went to a word counter and cut loose. I quickly realized that $10 per article would be ludicrous, and $20 isn't exactly great either.

I can also see myself needing to take time to study other copy to learn about other services enough to write something intelligible. There's just no way to write something of quality at those rates. Then again, as previously stated, content writing isn't something that I'm greatly experienced with. In the end, like most things, you likely get what you pay for.

I was also wondering how much information you provide your writers with. They will have to know something about the service, the particular business that is providing it, and the benefits to the target market. I just can't see cranking out quality in a matter of a few minutes.

Just for contrast, when I wrote content it was $100 for 600 words. The buyer set that price and had plenty of work. This was for an Inc. Top 500 company and I was their only technical writer. The product sales easily supported that figure. Now I was being paid for my technical understanding as well as writing ability: I knew what I was talking about when it came to electronics, HVAC, testing equipment and so on.

After a couple years it became not worth my time; I could crank out a good article in about 3 hours of intense effort, so it was worth around $33/hr for me to do it. When I could just talk for $100/hr+, why bother?

Food for thought.

Jennifer Hutson is really, really good.

Full disclosure: She has worked for me onsite for the last 5 or 6 years.
She also branched out on her own a few years ago and is NOT cheap.
btw: I have never witnessed anyone better at research then her.

also; not that long ago, we started dating.

Aren't you in my skype group?
You can find her in there, most days.

@Ken, I am in the group but I can't tell you the last time I logged on to Skype. Thank you for the recommendation.

@Everyone else...

I understand you get what you pay for, I really do. The problem is I can't afford to pay more than 10-15/500 words without cutting deeply into my profit. Currently the content I order amounts to 7-10% of the upfront revenue from the project, on average, and almost 30% of the total monthly revenue. That's at $15/500 words.

The case can be made that I'm charging too little, and I wouldn't necessarily argue. I could double my prices across the board and still be providing at outstanding ROI for my clients. But my current pricing is very competitive and I'm more interested in volume than anything else right now. I have plans to raise my price but that likely won't be until next year.

The content I need is by no means technical. I work mostly with the construction niche and it's literally just descriptions of services for SEO purposes. So for a builder I would need articles for custom home building, remodeling, bathroom remodeling, new additions, etc... simply explaining the service, using keywords, and why readers should use my client. If any in-depth research was needed or if I were asking for technical explanations, it would be reasonable to expect higher rates, but I think I'm in the middle of the market for the content requirements I have.

If you are intent on staying with human writers, than for the amount of articles you're churning out, it'll be very hard to have it all go through just one writer. It's just not practical or feasible.

There are some technological tools you can use, which can drastically cut down on the article writing time, and then, you can hire just one person to proofread/edit the articles, cutting down on the time they'll need to spend on each article, and the money you'll spend on hiring a professional.

I've mentioned the service I use in several of my previous posts, but I don't want to be seen as being a spammer or something, so either check my recent posts, or drop me a private message and I'll tell you the website I use.

Sometimes you can find decent writers on fiverr.com, but you have to really look at their reviews and ratings. Also, even though they offer a lot of things for $5, the really quality offers they have are addons.