How much do/would you pay for content?

[Darren Mc]

Depends what you are needing done

 

[fabionafashion]

go to fiverr .. there are many people with 100% good rating and reviews and 100s of job done and u get refund if u dont like

 

[fisicx]

go to fiverr and get poor quality spun junk like this:

"Note:Colors May Slightly Vary Or May Not, From What You See On Your Monitor With The Actual Piece. This May Be Because Of Monitor Resolution Or Picture Tube Variances. The Image Shown Is Shot From The Master Piece And We Always Ensure We Send You The Exact Shown Colored Product With The Same Workmanship And Prints. The image used is for reference purpose only. Jewelry & Other Accessories in Picture Is Only for Photo shoot Purpose. Wash Care: Dry Wash Only."

 

[ADNattan]

That's a thing of beauty.

 

[ADNattan]

go to fiverr .. there are many people with 100% good rating and reviews and 100s of job done and u get refund if u dont like

Straight away that relies on you knowing what makes good copy. Oh, and being able to spot any spelling and grammar mistakes. It puts all the onus on making sure the content is good on YOU. And if it's not, you get a refund. Fine. But you've wasted time.

When you outsource to a low quality, cheap provider, you're basically paying someone to type. There's little to no research, there's no time or inclination to take a proper brief, there's no quality control and there's no pride in the work.

Pay someone on Fiverr and you get £5 of words that are probably, in all fairness, going to be awful, Unless you strike lucky, you ain't getting copy that will drive sales.

Pay a professional, and you're paying ten times as much. You're also paying for years of experience of writing copy that converts, full research and quality control, and someone who wants your business to do well so they can put it in their own portfolio.

Why do you think huge companies pay agencies millions for content? They didn't get millions to spend by paying thousands and thousands of pounds for something you can get for a fiver.

 

[TODonnell]

I think the days when you could get semi-decent work, which required more than a button press, for $5, ended in about 2009.

There's fun stuff on Fiverr if you don't make work for the provider.

 

[Audrey Wright]

Generally that's going to cost you around £25-£30 per page (if your writing copy for a website), a higher amount for optimised content (writing for SEO aint' easy!)

Of course it is. You write like you usually do. Then do an edit pass and you insert keywords from the big sheet you exported from keyword planner, IF and WHEN they fit. This also helps to diversify your language, something every writer would do while editing anyway. You just also target specific words and their variants.
I'd say it should cost a no more than 5 pounds to enrich a text for maximum SEO. More if the writer has to do the keyword research themselves.

PHD's and poets are knocking out SEO focussed blog posts which no one reads in order to keep Google happy

Posts which no one reads are not making Google happy.

 

[longnhvietnam]

It depends on:
- The topic that you want to write articles.
- Contactors that you hire for doing content writing
- Level of complexity of your requirements.

 

[websensejim]

If I was paying for content, I'd expect a great writer, so I'd be looking for a journalist, professional writer, or talented blogger/influencer. For that I'd expect to pay a premium. Writing is the same as most things in life - you get what you pay for. I wouldn't go near anyone who mentioned writing for SEO, SEO-friendly, etc.

 

[kezzahayles]

The answer to what you would pay has to be heavily dependent on what you want done.

The problem is that when it comes to content, there is a race to the bottom. Many people truly believe that you can get content that will engaging convert or three dollars per 500 words.

The truth is those people are throwing money down the drain.

I would say the answer has to be as much as you can afford to pay, and then add 50% to that.

 

[primrose]

I only did this once many years ago and managed $10 an article of 500 words aprox for 10 articles. The writer (US) then started charging 3x the amount so I started writing my own - actually loved doing it as I had forgotten about researching topics and found some new loves in areas I didnt previously know about.

 

[uk22]

I pay between $3 and $30 for 5 hundred word's depending on where I am posting it but one thing I always do is check in grammarly (dot) com to check for grammar and copyscape to ensure i'm getting original content.

 

[ADNattan]

Seems to be a recurring theme here. "I pay peanuts for entirely disposable content, then have to waste my time making sure it's written properly and not ripped off."

It's like paying the kid down the street 50p to clean your car, then spending the afternoon cleaning all the parts he missed anyway.

 

[uk22]

Seems to be a recurring theme here. "I pay peanuts for entirely disposable content, then have to waste my time making sure it's written properly and not ripped off."

It's like paying the kid down the street 50p to clean your car, then spending the afternoon cleaning all the parts he missed anyway.

I have never used your services so can not comment. To be fair, the business you are in you will disagree, but I have had to do the same with UK writers.

 

[DH Marketing]

I wouldn't want to pay anything for blog content produced with minimal research. My personal view is that blogs are only valuable when written by the people who run the organisation (at any level).

 

[ADNattan]

www.procopywriters.co.uk is a good place to start, Vesna. It's an independent copywriter's network with quite a comprehensive directory in place.

Otherwise, you can't beat asking around. Most of my work comes from referrals and repeat customers, with the odd few people who've found me through Google, etc.

 

[Carl Mintern]

Have you considered that your goal is to make a pumpkin pie, but instead you're shopping for aubergines?

How often do you read 300 words and think it's remarkable? How about 500 words?
[People remember OMG the depth of content is amazing, regularly]

On average, how many words per page do most of the top 10 results have, across a wide selection of keywords?
[2000 to 2500]

If you want the page to convert better, should you use long form or short form (more or less content on the page)?
[Long form outperforms short form, generally]

If social media is going to be used to promote the content, then you'll be hoping for likes, shares, thumbs up...
[Yes, again, more in-depth, lengthy content gets social love as compared to their brief content brethren]

*Quicksprout and KissMetrics usually share goodies like the above*

----------------------------------------------------------

Keep in mind that 300 words of mediocre content isn't necessary perform better when it's fluffed up to 2000 words of barely mediocre content.

Everyone probably knows one or more people who have ecommerce online shopping carts where they're trying to make as much money as possible by listing as many items as possible, even if the product descriptions are one liners. In many cases, they don't rank anywhere that can be found by potential buyers, and sell an equally dismal '0' units of them each month.

Yet, there are millions being earned by owners of single-product online stores. Personally, I'd rather have one big seller than 10,000 products that stay on the store shelves forever.

So, rather than looking to buy as many wee pages of barely acceptable content as the budget will handle, why not spend the time and money to develop substantially less, significantly higher quality, pages that will impress? Your rankings, sales and public opinion will thank you.

Or, as the post began... Why buy a bushel of aubergine when you're needing just one pumpkin pie?

Tl;dr

 

[MASSEY]

Fiverr shouldn't even be brought up in these topics, been there and got the t-shirt, they're all shite.

Freelancer.... hmmm... had some decent stuff come from there for £25 but they were in USA so were getting more like $40 and i wasn't blown away.. but it was ok.

I am going to be investing in a new project once i get FCA approved and i am not looking forward to it because i can't write anything worth reading and it seems the people you pay, hoping that they can, can't really do it either.

Which is why quality articles should be, theoretically, worth in the region of £100 a piece in order to get something stellar, and the writer getting paid that should be producing far more than 500 words and researching so extensively that they become an industry expert. But can many small businesses afford to spend that? Not really.

 

[boring-friday]

Fiverr shouldn't even be brought up in these topics, been there and got the t-shirt, they're all shite.

Freelancer.... hmmm... had some decent stuff come from there for £25 but they were in USA so were getting more like $40 and i wasn't blown away.. but it was ok.

I am going to be investing in a new project once i get FCA approved and i am not looking forward to it because i can't write anything worth reading and it seems the people you pay, hoping that they can, can't really do it either.

Which is why quality articles should be, theoretically, worth in the region of £100 a piece in order to get something stellar, and the writer getting paid that should be producing far more than 500 words and researching so extensively that they become an industry expert. But can many small businesses afford to spend that? Not really.

I have a english uni student working part time for me now as I have quite a few sites that need content, she gets £7 a hour, writes around 500 words per hour. These 'high quality' article writers like to exaggerate on how much time they need to 'research', the girl working for me just finds 3-4 similar articles, basically just rewrites them and I normally end up with something better than any of the 3-4 'originals'. Plus shes 19 and fit lol

I find it bizarre how so many writers/seo's etc with no relevant qualifications and none of their own sites making any money decide to value their time at £50+ per hour. They all seem to repeat the same message of how important content is to google, why don't they start some affiliate sites and immediately rank for payday loans or insurance comparison.

 

[ADNattan]

You're welcome. Hope it works out for you!

 

[ADNattan]

That's about the going rate for people who'd like something professional.

No doubt someone will be along in a second to explain why their cousin's daughter with a GCSE in English Lit can do it for a Pot Noodle and that's a far better choice.

 

[David Trounce]

I think a better measure than cost per word is the intent of the article. If I am wanting content that is going I hope to rank, I am happy to pay for it since the RIO will be good. Most of the people who complain about the cost of writing are only after fillers - and I agree - who wants to pay big money for a filler? But if one quality article drives 1000 targeted visitors to your website - Bingo!

 

[Mike Marquardt]

Depends on what you are using it for. I pay $5 - $10 USD per 500 word article. If you are using it for onpage content, pay a little more, you can get away with paying less for backlinking content as it does not have to be quite as high of quality.

 

[David Trounce]

@StevePoster, That would be my measuring stick. It depends on what you want to use the content for. If it is just filler, then you don't need to hire an expensive copywriter. If you want valuable and shareable content that others find genuinely useful, you should not be surprised to pay much more.

 

[Sarah_BlueFox]

Procopywriters is a good place to start, Vesna. It's an independent copywriter's network with quite a comprehensive directory in place.

Otherwise, you can't beat asking around. Most of my work comes from referrals and repeat customers, with the odd few people who've found me through Google, etc.

As Andrew says, Procopywriters is a great place to find rates (and also a directory of copywriters). I'd also recommend the NUJ - they show going rates (via londonfreelance org, sorry I can't post links yet!). A lot of my work comes from referrals too.

It's a shame that people are still willing to pay so little for well-researched, well-written content. Yes anyone can write, but not everyone can write well or convey the message in a compelling way. That should be the specialist skill you're paying for. Unless you just want standard filler. In which case, visit People Per Hour or Fiverr.

I avoid charging per word as this doesn't do anyone any good (writer or client).