Should You Outsource Content Writing At The Beginning?

Posted on August 24, 2008
Filed Under Work From Home

Here’s a Q&A with one of my friends about content outsourcing:

Q: Hi Tomaz,

I’m in the middle of day 2 progress with SBI.

I’m an avid reader of your blog. About developing a site concept, learning from SBI, one need brain and motivation to make things work. What keeps me wondering is, I read from your blog about how you built your vacuum site, when you have no deep knowledge about vacuum cleaner, but you hired article writing services to develop your content, and it now works like a charm.

I’ve bought one of Dr Andy’s niche package, a couple of months ago. The niche is about ‘”…..’. I have no knowledge at all about this niche. Do you think it may work well for me if I hire someone else to develop content, as you did with your niche on vacuum cleaner?

In other words, I have no brain nor motivation in developing an ……-niched site, but to think of I can outsource the content to third party, while it seems simple enough with less work in writing my own content, developing this site may cost substantially higher than budgeted.

A: My vacuum site was first an experiment to make a little bit more money. That was my motivation.

But it turned out to be a great earner. Eventually I saw the light at the end of the tunnel – I could see that I can become free from a job if I make the vacuum site dominate the niche.

So my motivation is freedom and there’s nothing stronger than that for me. Money is just the tool…

Yes, the price for outsourcing is quite high and I did it when I earned enough money with my tennis site. And that’s also my suggestion; stay in the + (positive).

Earn money and invest part of that money in content writing or something else. Don’t go into – (negative) because then you become anxious and impatient and make mistakes or look for shortcuts where there aren’t any.

If you upload 3 articles per week, that’s 12 per month and each costs $8 your cost will be $100 per month. If your first site makes that much, then you can outsource 12 articles per month…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

Comments

9 Responses to “Should You Outsource Content Writing At The Beginning?”

Ryan on August 25th, 2008 11:45 am

Tomaz,

I’ve used getafreelancer a few times. Can you recommend any other sites that do copywriting or is getafreelancer the best? Have a great week!

Ryan

[Reply]
Tomaz on August 25th, 2008 1:56 pm

Hey Ryan,

I’ve tried Elance but getafreelancer seems to have the most writers bidding for content writing. So far I am sticking with GAF…

[Reply]
Chris on August 26th, 2008 6:07 am

Tomaz,

Thanks for more great information. In the Aug 4th post comments you said : “I have almost the same amount of impressions, Chitika has leveled again and one more thing which I’ll show in my next post” Curious about that one more thing Thanks!

Chris

[Reply]
Tomaz on August 26th, 2008 6:52 am

You’re right, Chris! Ok, let me type this post now…

[Reply]
Andy on August 27th, 2008 2:35 pm

Hi Tomaz,

I had posted a Craigslist add for freelance writers and got some that seemed to be pricing alright. The problem was that I didn’t think any of the writers could write the content I wanted for my technology website techsack.com.

Have you had any trouble finding writers to write relevant content for your particular niche?

Andy

[Reply]
Tomaz on August 27th, 2008 11:27 pm

Hey Andy,

Yes, I got the same question / complaint from one of my friends when we were chatting recently. Let’s put it this way – if you were importing mango from Thailand to Europe, there would surely be some rotten mangos and the end of the trip.

Or some mangos that would get damaged during transportation. That’s a certain percentage of lost revenue.

I look at content writers in the same way. I test a writer (with 10 articles) and if it’s not good, I work on those articles to make them good enough for article submissions. And then I test another writer.

Eventually you get the right person but you need to accept some losses along the way. That’s the price of quality…

[Reply]
Matt on September 20th, 2010 9:41 am

Hi Tomaz,

Wonderful sites and articles sir, super helpful.

A couple of Qs if I may re: article outsourcing.

1. When you say you ‘test’ a writer with 10 articles. Do you mean it’s a paid trial (pay full price, with you just seeing what you think), or something else – lower price/free starter etc…

2. I’ve read you mention 3 outsourcing routes on here: http://www.needanarticle.com, Elance and getafreelancer.com

Did you end up sticking with one of these and do you different writers each time (or have faves)?

3. And thirdly, when you talk about outsourcing articles, are we discussing this in terms of link building ezine type articles, or pages for your site?

Thanks very much. I’m planning my 2nd site at present and it’s likely to be a product review type site, so I’m reading everything you’ve ever written if feels like

All the best and thanks for any further tips!

Matt

[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 12:13 am
Hi Matt,

Thanks for the kind words!

1. When I test writers, I pay full price. I just set a project for 5 articles and select 3 providers or so. Each writes 5 articles (on different topics) – so in case all are really good I can use them on my site. If some are not that good, I use them for article submissions.

2. I use mostly freelancer.com – but sometimes needanarticle.com for a quick article if I need it.

3. I outsource for both – but mainly for the articles for my site. Again, if the quality is not that good, I use that article for article submission.

[Reply]
Matt on September 21st, 2010 2:44 pm

Thanks Tomaz, really appreciate these thoughts. Onwards and upwards sir, you have another new fan

[Reply]