I come here once a day to browse the content section. It's more or less the same thing. Someone wants this unicorn to write content that will generate a lot of money out of nowhere for next to free. So buyers, when you order content from a writer, this is a good idea of how it's handled. Cheap - The writer (myself included) is probably going to look up an article on the niche they're supposed to be writing about and paste it into the document. From there, I'm going to re-write what's on the document and make it unique. I can do that because I'm an extremely fast typist and I'm going to get it done as quickly as possible. With a bulk load of cheap content, I can write at $30 an hour. A lot of people just flat out copy content hoping you won't notice or check it. I've been in the same boat, trying to hire cheap writers years ago and believe me, this happens far more often than you think. I would get so much content that was literally copied from Wikipedia or the first link they found in the search results based on the keyword or niche I gave them. Adequate - I hate the word "expensive". Expensive is such a relative term to different budgets but I cannot stand when someone says that your rate is "too expensive." So, here's how I handle an adequately charged article or content piece. First, I'm going to go over your website, find out where visitors are coming from, find out what they want to see when they first land on the page, look up the juicy keywords that keep them coming back and that'll be my base of operations. From there, I can cross-reference actual researched content from university papers done and find accurate information to include in the material. The structure and the flow of the content needs to be decided based on what a user wants to read. If I give them section W before I give them section Q, are they going to keep reading? Have I given too much information prematurely? It really depends on the scope of your content and what it's supposed to do but this is a general idea. The writing process will take a long time. There's going to be drafts, revisions, edits, etc. The client and I will go over specific sections to make sure it's up to standard and that it's in the client's best interests. Do you think any of that happens with cheap content? Hell no... I simply write up something that sounds coherent and send it off. If you think people here that charge $15 to $30 an article is expensive, there are companies that pay out $100 to $500 for a single article. Some select advertising agencies pay out in the quadruple digits for a single piece of content. Do you know why they do this? They want results. I just don't get the argument about being on a tight budget. If you're on a tight budget, your priorities are messed up and you're actually just throwing money into the trash can. Congratulations, you're another site with $5 to $10 content on the internet among the other billions of websites that don't care about the quality of what they're publishing. That's all for my Sunday rant. I had some free time because someone wants a 1 gigabyte site transferred and this is probably going to take a while on the upload end. On another note, I hate people who use their hosting as a storage space for movies/pdfs and refuse to move to cloud storage for a small fee.
I completely agree with everything you've written. I've only been a member here for about a week, but Just browsing around and noticing the extremely low fee's people are charging to write content is a little disturbing. I understand charging less if you are a new writer and looking to cut your teeth and get some experience, but for people BUYING content... they shouldn't expect world class copy that will bring in sales for years to come. PS. I'm trying to "like" this post as I've noticed another member above has "liked" it... but I'm super new here and can't seem to find the button that does that...
You need to become an established member first. You acquire established status by securing 3 likes by 3 different members. When that happens a *like*button will appear on the bottom right hand of your page.
It's pointless even trying to rationalize with cheap content buyers. You don't need their business and they won't change their ways. So you're just wasting your time.
As someone who is just starting to write for a living again, I almost forgot how bad the market can be. I was offered a job at a rate of $4/1,000 words. I'm sure there are worse offers out there, but even at this rate I would have to write a lot - and I do mean A LOT - of articles to break even. I love the word 'adequate' and I agree that it sounds better than expensive. That said, I think there will always be writers who are willing to do the job for dirt-cheap prices (let's not talk about quality for a second) because, quite simply, that's the way the market works.
I have found places to get cheap articles - and as you say, they are just that - cheap. Better to pay a higher price to get the quality that I need.
Great post! I have no idea why I can't give it a like because I have definitely met the qualifications here. But anyways, you have made a lot of great points and potential buyers need to respect the art of writing because everything starts with content. Great content can skyrocket your business and on the flip side, bad or mundane copy can stagnate your business or worse yet, destroy it!
Yesterday i bought a set of 10 articles, and i was surprised to see that all of those were just a copy-paste and change-words thing. I could find the original articles in the internet, this guy has just copied it and rewritten the same. Really disappointed. DigitalPoint marketplace should have a dispute system to handle issues like this.
This is so important to spread the word about. I've been freelancing for about 7 years now (I started losing track), and it's the same story with cheap content. I am an experienced writer, particularly on niche topics of interest. I adore doing it, too. When someone offers me a few bucks for an article, I am not going to put my heart and soul into it. Period. I will do it as quickly as possible, though I never copy. I was recently paid $200 for a relatively short article, and that certainly boosted my writer morale. Now, I don't mind doing menial writing for cheap. I'll write basic descriptions for products all day at a minimum rate of 1 cent/word because that takes very little creative effort anyway.
If your planning to write said article in English, I doubt that you'll find any clientele here after reading your post.
Makes a lot of sense. My approach to getting the best web content is identifying a team of 3-5 'adequate' writers on a given platform, then giving them as much background details, and a sense of what I wish to achieve with the final content. With cheap, random writers, all that happens is rearranging listed items in paragraphs and replacing words with as many synonyms as possible from Googled content (to escape plagiarism checkers), then throwing in a few keywords that you supplied. Results? A 'unique' article to plagiarism checking tools, and hopefully Google, and an identical article with duplicate ideas to a human eye (..that actually reads the content)
I think there are plenty of companies that pay $500 per article. Any brand and it would be straight to an individual (agencies charge more). I think this is about average for 1000 words so you could charge more if you create real value for them (maybe offering to add social blurbs, captions, or SEO).
I have been writing for around 6 years now, and I tend to think myself as experienced, yet I don't really know where my skills lie. (Perhaps you may critique it as well). The worst thing i have done in my 6 years as a writer is to work for content mills that pay peanuts and fire you by the snap. Now to me, people charge cheap price for articles depending on how much effort they have put in to crafting them. So i think its a matter of preference and knowing what it takes to write premium content. Lets say for instance, I write premium articles without researching. Naturally, I will charge higher prices because I know the I am giving high value content. On the other hand, assume a writer in some corner of the world copies & spins articles for a living, what do you expect? After all its a free society. Cheap is always expensive. By the way, while working for the content mills, I used to encounter this client who would tell me to write in poor grammar (hilarious). Well, I can't dispute that such kind of requests made my work easier, but they also led me to believe that in a market so wide, every writer good or bad has their own clientele. So its up to you, if you want cheap articles there is a writer for you out there & vice versa. It the same case with cheap & expensive cars, in the end, they are all bought by different buyers depending on preference.
You have really 2 choices: *** Get cheap copy and risk your conversion rate **** Pay good money for a high quality copy and skyrocket your profits in the long run!
For me whether if it is cheap or high quality content from the writers, it is important that the clients are aware and understand those content in the process for them to know what's going on.
Many of the copywriters who hang out at the Warrior Forum are paid four figures for a single sales letter. At least two people there commands five figures.