Thoughts On Outsourcing

I couldn't find a sub-forum for content writing so I'm opening this topic here. What are your thoughts on outsourcing articles? What are your experiences good and bad? What do you think of offshore outsourcing?

Is it always low rates = low quality?

If you outsource, are visitors aware of it or does it go unnoticed?

Do you see any credibility issue with webmsaters who outsource offshore (or locally)?

What do you outsource and what do you not outsource?

 

If you can't write them well enough yourself (or if you'd get a better ROI putting your own time into something else like marketing), then it's best to outsource your articles.

I don't generally outsource content to overseas writers (or at least ones who aren't native English speakers). It's partly for legal reasons (I want to make sure they're in countries where similar copyright laws and such apply), but mostly due to the quality of the bulk of the writing. While there are some exceptions, I find most outsourced articles of the variety you're talking about are complete crap. They do little to add real value to a site.

You'd have to be extremely lucky to find non-native English speakers who can write content that appeals to an audience of native English speakers. Then again, those writers are also often smart enough to charge similar rates to those native-English writers, so I'd choose the ones closer to being local (again, partly for legal reasons).

In nearly every case I've seen, yes (by low rates I'm thinking of the $.01-.02 per word or less writers all over places like DP and freelance bidding sites). I'm actually hired by more than a handful of clients to proofread and clean up writing from non-native English speakers, and in every one of those cases it's much more difficult to edit the work of a non-native English speaker than a native English speaker. At the same time, I'm sure you can find plenty of native English writers who can't write to save their lives too, and they're generally the ones with bottom of the barrel rates, so the rule would still apply. Again, there are exceptions, but they're few and far between. If you're looking for one, you might end up spending more time looking for and dealing with the writer than it would have taken you to just do it yourself (defeating the purpose).

That can depend on whether or not someone else is editing the work first. Without editing, it's pretty much always obvious.

That depends on what you mean. If they're hiring offshore writers to churn out crap SEO content that's barely readable just so they can rank well for some search terms, it's a huge credibility issue. If they're outsourcing to a competent writer who is an authority in their specialty area, it can add more credibility to the site or company.

I outsource some writing on two of my blogs, but only to people I know can write coherently and intelligently for an English-speaking audience. I'd love to eventually add a writer from India or somewhere similar as well to appeal more to that segment of my audience, but it would be incredibly difficult to find someone whose posts I wouldn't have to spend time cleaning up or who could talk about writing for much more than the low rates typically associated with offshore writers (since the purpose of that blog is helping writers earn more; not settle). Most of the offshore work I've outsourced has been coding / programming, but even now I've been working more with people in the US and UK to cut down on language barrier and payment option issues.

 

Thanks jhmattern. Those are very valuable insights. A lot of it I've thought of as well since I know I may need to outsource at some point. As my web sites and blogs grow (hopefully), I'll probably need help since I just don't have all the time and energy in the world.

I agree that payment options, language barriers and the legal aspect are major factors. Also even if a foreign writer could communicate perfectly in English, the cultural differences can still prevent connection with readers. On the other hand, I know there are offshore writers who can make quality content. Like you say, they figure out sooner or later what they are really worth and quit their low-paying jobs.

It seems to me that serious webmasters and bloggers would either do the work themselves or outsource domestically only. I wonder if this the case?

By the way, I like the way your blog is laid out. Did you use WordPress.Org for that? I've been experimenting with ways to organize my blog entries. I want to categorize my entries while also providing a list of the latest posts. I'm not happy with the labels/tags/categories alone. I am using Blogger right now since I can't afford to host all my blogs and sites in private hosting for now. So far I've used the custom script/HTML code widget to make my own set of links. I haven't figured out how to make a list of say, 10 newest posts.

I used to know how to code in CSS and HTML. Now it's been so long I can't code worth a damn.

 

If you mean the blog in my latest blog link, then yes, it's Wordpress.org. Actually, I believe all of my blogs are WP nowadays. That one's a custom design I did myself, and custom coding I outsourced. It's pretty simple to put up a latest posts link list in Wordpress, but I'm not sure how you'd do it in Blogger. On mine I actually removed the latest post list in favor of a hand-picked list of featured posts instead (to highlight some of the better older content).

 

I've outsourced a lot of articles when I was just starting out in the online business, but I've had very few positive experiences. I think its better to get good at writing articles yourself and only outsource if you know those articles will make you more than you invest in them.

 

Thanks jhmattern. Found a Blogger widget just earlier though it's very basic.

scribecraft, I take it is was more trouble than it would've been had you done the writing yourself? More editing, untimely delivery, or low quality work?

 

I do quite a bit of outsourcing and find that the key thing is patience in weeding out the subpar writers. I use Elance for the most part and have had good experiences with it. You will get writers that aren't native English speakers, but like I said, if you take the time to weed them out you can find some real gems.

 

So would you say that offshore outsourciing is worth the time and effort? But what about the time it takes to "weed out" the applicants as you say. How much of your time does it take up and doesn't it take away from other things you could do? It seems a lot of people frown on hiring offshore writers because although there are good ones, it takes so much work to find them... making outsourcing pointless since it's supposed to save time!

In what ways have you found outsourcing rewarding? Is it a time-saver? Do you get better return of investment? Better articles? More free time to do other things? Diversity? What are the benefits?

 

The benefit of outsourcing is only one and that is, it saves cost without compromising much on quality. For example, you can hire native English speaking writers from countries like Philippines, India, etc who write content for as cheap as $5/300-500 word article.

 

Hmmmm. In at least 95% of cases I've seen you do sacrifice on quality -- a lot in fact. If what you're saying is true, then everyone would outsource. But they don't. Since those "quality" folks elsewhere are often very difficult to find (unless you're the type of client who really doesn't know the difference, and there are a lot of those), it requires a larger time investment to find them and therefore negatively impacts the company's ROI in other ways (less time spent on better income-generating activities).

 

Outsourcing your content writing is okay if you cant write, dont have the time, dont want to do it yourself. Other than that there is no reason to cut into your bottom line by hiring someone to do it for you.

The thing to remember is to find someone who is reliable and able to perform to your demands. Just remember to know what you want and dont settle for less.

 

Outsourcing is fine, as long as you select USA/UK writers.
As I've said before, I use a site like Elance, and only select native english speakers. Even though people from other countries may be cheaper.

 

If I didn't believe outsourcing was a good thing, then I wouldn't have any business whatsoever. I will say, though, that cheap, eventually, does kill quality.

I started here writing at a penny a word, just to get started and to see what the market was like, and realized relatively quickly that, living in New York, that just wasn't going to get it done. Since I'd like to believe I was giving quality (I certainly was putting in the research time), that I was able to be "bought", if you will, pretty cheaply initially. But that kind of thing won't last once someone realizes that they might be being taken advantage of.

 

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. Having been an offshore writer myself at one time, this is interesting to me. I agree that finding a quality content writer from a country where English is not the primary language is a tough call. And for some it's just not worth their time. From what I've seen, not all have the same experience since their needs and respective situations differ. Some have more work to do than others (more sites, more blogs as opposed to just one or two), some have more time at hand and so on.

It's true that an able writer won't settle for low pay for very long. The better offshore writers figure out soon enough that there are more lucrative opportunities for them. But some are happy with that in exchange for a more relaxed work routine.

I'm developing an outsourcing web site right now, drawing on my experiences as a writer and now web site owner and blogger. I've also worked with subcontractors. But I wanted to read of your opinions as well because my knowledge is still limited. Hopefully my experience as an offshore writer at one time will provide useful insights to webmasters and fellow writers as well.

 

@digicam -- It sounds like you're one of the exceptions, based just on what I can see in your post. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located? Also would you say that you're one of the writers who realized they could earn more and started to charge more than some of the offshore competition, or have you kept your rates on the very low end?

 

Oh, I'm based in the West now. I was fine with the low pay back then if the employer was fair; that is, if they treated us writers like human beings and not mindless labor machines. Also I was able to get direct hiring where I was paid more than what I got from subcontractors. (Still low by US/UK standards but better than $1 per 500 words.) But I quit for a while just to give myself a break from writing and do other things. By the time I was ready to go back to it, I'd gained more experience and found better opportunities. Besides, I just didn't like the idea of working for someone else again ALL THE TIME for very low wages. That gets burdensome especially now that I have less time on my hands.

Most revealing of all was when it hit me that the clients who buy articles from offshore writers just use them for a site "built for Adsense." What the...? I might as well do this for myself than someone else! Why get paid $1 one-time when the same article will pay you over and over for as long as it's online?

So for now I'm just making these web sites and blogs as a hobby. And if I do it right, it can also return some nice income. No matter what, at least I get to write only about topics I care about.

I'm still open to getting hired as a content writer. But I'd rather charge more than I used to. And even then my blogs and sites are my priority now. It'd be better for me to get them published first and let the potential clients/buyers see them for themselves before they think of hiring me.

As for low-pay offshore writing: It's okay depending on the situation. There's more to it that US-based clients don't realize. Some of us do feel taken advantage of especially when we work hard to make the articles accurate and original. Others are happy just to find supplemental income, noting that cost of living is cheaper in a typical offshoring destination than in the US.

 

Outsourcing is always good as it reduces the workload and gets the work done in cheap. I have myself outsourced a lot of articles for my sites and Ezine. It really works and you can than concentrate on other things.

 

Glad to hear it works for you, pro.seods

 

outsourcing is a great solution.

let me also say that most users don't care about great quality

 

I've been struggling for a couple of months trying to find the right author/s to outsource articles and niche site content. I found a bunch on craigslist but none turned out. Most never answered my inquiry, several wanted crazy high rates and the one I hired cheated. This guy sent me some great articles and I was amazed at the quality and the research he must have done. I used them as content on an AdSense site. Being new to article outsourcing I didn't think to check for duplicates using copyscape. Once I did I found every article - word for word - was copied from Government websites. (It was a govt. related niche).

I finally found a good author that writes well and his rates are reasonable. The only drawback is I usually have to wait a week for the articles. I'm going to keep looking until I get two or three good authors I can work with.

I'm still new at this so if anyone feels like answering a few questions...​

Questions:

1. What is a reasonable rate for a 500 word article?
2. Are you paying before you get the content?
3. What's the best keyword density (percentage) to ask for?