I am really tired of seeing people doing jobs, even the easiest ones such as data entry for 0.50$, $0.75. I mean, people will practically do anything for any amount of money. By people I mean some people, and I will not go into detail as I might be considered racist and all other things people interpret. But do you agree that the pay instead of increasing, and I am not referring only online marketing and work, people work for less and less so they are actually able to do it?
I know who you are talking about and yes, you'd be considered racist by many here if you said that out loud. I completely understand your situation. But trust me mate. I'm a content writer myself and I hardly visit the content creation section in this forum. The competition there is insane and people are willing to write articles for pennies, literally. But I know where to get reasonably-paying jobs and I'm comfortable working for my clients. So, if you are good, you can always find some takers for your skills. Thing is, you need to know the places where you can get some good gigs. Most importantly, market yourself the right way. You should know your worth. And don't hesitate to say no if someone doesn't offer that much. All the best.
It's the way the world works I'm afraid, there will always be people somewhere in the world that will be willing to undercut others - at the moment it's India, in a few years it may well be China or elsewhere. Personally, as an SEO service provider based in the UK you have to focus on what makes you unique and where you hold a competitive advantage over outsourcing overseas. We're not cheap - our services cost between $1000-$2000 pcm, but we base our services on constant client contact, face to face meetings, staff training, consultancy and lots of satisfied customers. That's simply not possible for overseas companies to compete with.
Who said 'Putting fun back into computing'? That's the only way to stay on top. MattUK, to keep this discussion alive, would you reveal the most significant factor after the money, - how large is the gap between the first mail from the client - and between the last action performed on certain campaign? -- I can say, 'no more than 15 days'. They're saying that $50 ($500,$5000, *10^16 of some local currency, who cares) per month would be enough. Being a racist upon someone's will to get his norm is a bit funny, just trick on them and do your job .
Its the differences in economies worldwide. If I offer a coding job for $150 - which works out at a decent $20 per hour - which is a good wage in the UK, there will always be someone in a poorer country offering the job for $40 or so - as they can afford to work for $4 per hour.
Sorry, got a bit tired. In short, I'm asking you to compare not the prices but the time used to complete SEO campaign. If someone thinks of reaching his goal by the shortest way, he doesn't thinks of creativity at first place, but rather starts to focus on profits - and when the $30(?)/month profit starts to seem affordable, all that racist peoples are coming out. So the society never concentrates on creativity, thereby there's no hope of having the prices raised..
There's always some issues because of this price drop, right now you pay less - but the quality of work is smaller. eg: Good content writers i have in my buddy list don't show up for ages. Australians, Uk and Can natives. Right now i ask for a article creation job over BST and theres the usual "i am a seo writer. i do it for 3 years, bla bla bla. Shit, those guys can't even write a sentence without aplaying 10 errors! I do it, but i'm not a native writer and i dont sell my services as a writer So, i'd say some good professionals left DP bst cause of this price drop and we kept the junk. Hiring someone these days in BST its a russian roulette. Need a coder? "i can do it for $5". Need a writer? "i can do it for $2 and i have experience" lol We cannot blame Indians or Chineses or French or Canadians for this, but we can blame ourselfs because we let this shit end up this way.
We don't really work on a project or campaign basis, we tend to work on retainers for clients and over the past 4 years have a 90%+ client retention so it's difficult to compare. I guess the retention rate is a pretty good indication of how successful we are. Though I'm sure there are Indian companies that are capable of doing a job as well as us, but there are also 1000's that arean't, and it's these that tend to put the bigger companies off outsourcing overseas.
I would tend to agree with that. I pretty much avoid Indian service providors nowadays as I've had such bad experiences with them in the past. I've been let down on development work, content writing and linkbuilding over the past 12 months - it's just not worth the hassle for the sake of saving a few $$$, especially when it's client work. I still use lots of Indian guys for link buying though, it's not something that requires language of specialised skills so I'm more than happy to send my money as there's no risk.
Generally - yes, there's no harm in shopping around, but if the price looks too good to be true then it almost always is.
I have a few good Indian content writers, the majority of the time though I either hire english speaking or write myself. I wouldn't use anyone who had English as a second language to write sales copy. I don't think its a matter of racism, it's like people who say calling a black man black is racist, when in fact you are just pointing out a distinguishing feature. You pay what you get for has always been a motto to live by.
That is the current state of the world, if you don't like what you see you should consider another way to earn