I’ve outsourced a lot of my content writing for a couple of years now, having used a number of different providers, and seen a lot of variation, both in price, and in quality – and the two are invariably linked!

I’ve now settled into using the same company, who I know I can trust to produce excellent quality content at a reasonable price (though if you’re reading this guys – a discount for the plug would be much appreciated!). I thought it would be a good idea to look at the many different types of content providers that I have tried.

Before we dig into content providers in greater depth, it is worth highlighting the fact that there are an increasing number of “low cost” content providers who will claim to hand create content but will in fact use technology to rip content from other sites and re-hash it. Automated text content creation doesn’t work and never will. Although there are now a number of content generation services using this technology, it creates patterns that are recognisable to the search engine robots. It also creates dismal content. Although we are constantly encouraged as affiliates to automate and outsource, the former is therefore not an option in content production. Outsourcing, however, remains an attractive and viable option.

Diversity of Service Providers
If you’ve spent any time online looking for content writing services you’ll quickly realise that there is huge variety in the market at the moment, and that there probably always will be. Many of you will have had the experience of writing content for your own sites in the past and will realise what a truly time consuming task it can be. With every piece written, outsourcing becomes ever more attractive! However, with the variety of services on offer and the vastly different costs you’ll be asked to pay for superficially similar content, how much should you pay and what is the associated ‘quality’ of the content you should expect?

Originality and Quality
The first thing that every affiliate marketer and site owner on the planet should realise is that content is one of the most important aspects of any well designed, profitable website. Building and maintaining your place in search engine rankings and getting repeat visitors to your site on a regular basis requires you to constantly update your site or sites with interesting, original content. The emphasis here is on interesting and original. The search engines, particularly Google, are highly sensitive to duplicate content and will potentially penalise sites seen to use it.

Your content provider must therefore warrant that any content they produce for you is original. We would strongly recommend the use of Copyscape to double check this. Copyscape has access to a Google interface which allows them to cross-index text to ensure that it (or significant proportions of it) do not already occur in the search engine results. Most reputable content providers will use Copyscape internally before releasing content to a client but a spot check here and there never does any harm.

Off Shore Content
Although there are a number of expatriate Brits living and working abroad who can easily match the quality of content produced here in the UK, most off-shore providers use writers whose first language isn’t English. Whilst their work ethic is admirable, many of us will have seen the kind of content they produce on article sites and other volume content locations. Prices may seem amazingly low (the “market rate” for content on a major freelance network for example is approximately 1 cent US per word) but this is reflected in output which is at best poorly expressed and at worst contains spelling mistakes and perhaps incorrect grammar.

This matters greatly for visitors and search engines alike – Google is sensitive to grammar and spelling. Moreover, an off-shore writer will not generally understand UK culture, slang and the finer points of modern British English. Cheap content created abroad will in all likelihood be just as plagiarised as the automatically generated variety, but will also have bad grammar, spelling mistakes and poor English all round. You’ll end up having to sort out this content to make it presentable and profitable, and so all of the ’savings’ you’ve made will disappear down the drain.

More on Pricing and Sourcing Writers
If the price of the content seems too good to be true, it probably is. You may be being quoted for UK content production but the writers may in fact be foreign nationals or – worse – an automated text creation script. So what are the more costly alternatives that you should consider over the cheap, cheerful and damaging ones? There are essentially two options: you can go to a number of the well known freelance sites, add a brief and wait for bids and responses.

If you have the time to manage this process, it will invariably be at a lower cost (perhaps from around 1 pence per word) than a fully managed content service. However, once you have accepted a bid and commissioned the work, you are pretty much duty bound to stick with it. Although a freelance writer may happily commit to any re-work requests you may have, if they don’t have the ability to meet your required quality levels you may never get there and will spend a great deal of time in managing fruitless re-work requests.

Word of mouth is of course as powerful as it is in any discipline. If you are lucky enough to have friends or colleagues who have worked with a freelance writer and will recommend them, you may be onto a winner. However, individual freelance writers will have their own subject specialities and experience so you will need to be doubly lucky! You may also be surprised as to the rates commanded by more established freelance writers (the kind that people will recommend). Some will charge by the hour rather than by the brief and with their own portfolio of clients, rates may rapidly rise to £40 per hour.

Content Firms
There are a number of specialist content firms in the UK who use a wide range of writers and can therefore take on work in a broad set of themes, allocating it to the most appropriate members of their writing teams. Some will have flash offices and PAYE staff which is impressive if you are the type of person that needs to meet them before commissioning the work — but will bite when it comes to unit costs. 10p to 30p a word is not unusual in these environments. Others will have large freelance writing pools whom they “brief in bulk” to secure favourable prices, low overheads and are able to provide the same quality of content without the glossy buildings. Prices here tend to start at around 4 pence per word and decrease depending on the scale of your requirements.

Professional firms can often give coverage that is unattainable for a freelancer: some understand wider SEO (and even practise it for clients) and can create keyword rich content at the right density, with the option for HTML formatting to your requirements. Some can also provide a “curated” content service where instead of you having to conjure up the titles and briefs for each month to keep your content fresh, they will take a general brief from you together with your required keywords and handle the entire briefing process for you.

Others may also provide a news service with news items specifically written for you in your industry or sector, again to your overall brief. Finally, the larger firms can cope with fluctuations in volume; absence, holidays and illness in the writing team; and even provide content in multiple ways using their own technology: for example via XML feeds, email or even immediate on-site publishing using the relevant technology.

The net of all of this is that high quality 250 word articles can be found for under £10 each, and the more you buy the lower the cost per unit. Sign up will usually be for a set period although some of the professional firms will happily work on one-off engagements or rolling agreements. At all times you should have as much creative control as you want.

In Conclusion
When you’re weighing up the cost of content don’t forget that it is an investment rather than a drain on your funds. A piece of well written content can help to increase rankings and thus the number of visitors to your site. It also increases confidence levels which, with a well designed site should increase conversion rates resulting in more commission.

Although there is inevitably going to be a constant struggle to keep your on site content up to date, you can ease the pressure by paying professionals to do it for you, but don’t just take my word for it. On affiliate forums around the world you’ll hear the same advice.

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