Outsourcing Content VS Writing your Own

Over the past year, I have outsourced close to 400 articles by hiring/training my own writers.

However, I have mixed feelings about the whole process...

Sure the promise of someone writing content for you sounds great...However, no one tells you the huge amount of time it takes to find the writers, teach them all the stuff, then weed out 85% of them with time. Then dealing with hiring new ones once your current ones start to become unresponsive/decide to quit.

+You can't just give out a keyword to someone and expect them to write Quality Stuff just the way you need it...I create full outlines/do the topic research for every single article so they just have to fill in the blanks..that's the only way I have found that you can get quality content. Takes 15-25mins for each article... By the time I'm done with that I have already done 1/3 of the work needed to write the whole article!

Then of course after you get the article, you have to go through it/edit it & do your own magic to it to finish it off, that's another half an hour per article minimum...

That's a full-time job on its own if you have several writers.


Essentially You need extra 2 Full-time workers an Editor and a Content Planner if you want to run it more hands-free, still How much do you trust your Editor and Content Planner that they will do the best job possible?

So by the time you calculate how much time/effort you spend just dealing with your writers+ the whole hiring/replacing process, making outlines/research for them, editing the stuff I'm not even sure If you really save any time?

If you actually calculate how much time you save compared if you were to just write the articles yourself & and count how much you spend on the writers.. The numbers make very little sense...

I have recently just started knocking out the first 20 articles for new websites myself to get things rolling.
I can get 2 decent 2000word articles out per day If I know the topic, for most of my writers it takes a week to do the same+ I have to spend time editing after them anyway...

Those who have experience in hiring & Managing your own writers -What are your thoughts on this?

Content Planner - Depends on the tools they're using and the overall outline for a brief.

Editor - Needs to have an excellent grasp and understanding of the English language.

People often make the mistake of thinking someone speaks good English, therefore they must also have the ability to write good English.

I used to work for a company that would create online learning programs for major US University's.

I handled the SEO side of things. One of my main jobs was finding places to guest post and then if accepted I would have to do the same thing OP said.

I would find the topic, create an outline and give them 5 or so sources to reference. The quality was very good as many of the content writers were either English/Journalism teachers or Students majoring in English or Journalism.

Then after the article was written it would go to an editing team. I can write intelligently and fluently in English as it is my first language and I was born in NY. Problem is, my actually grammar when I write. Sentence structure, punctuation, etc...

The Editors were former Newspaper editors.

After that process was complete I would submit the piece to the Website that wanted the post.
Usually took about a week to compete the process. Articles were between 500-1000 words back then. This must have been around 10+ years ago.

So yeah, finding a service here that would succeed is probably going to be tough. There are a lot of people either just starting out or have started but are not generating enough income to spend $100+ on a well written, original post/article that has few if any grammar or punctuation mistakes.

I think you need to have your hands on the wheel if you wanna be sure that mistakes are not being made.

It's hard to write it all yourself, but it's expensive also to outsource it all.

I'm in the same ship like you, I have about 400 articles to outsource, and I have a debate within myself if I should go for it or no..

How much did you pay for those 400 articles?
Did the investment return? or is any return is in the horizon?

I actually came here to BHW to ask this. I'm sick of shit content writers, and I don't have the time to write content myself. I can't find anywhere where I can find really good writers that write a first-page deserving article. Most of the time I end up spending my own time doing research and adding things/removing errors.

What's a solution for that, does anyone know where I can find actual content writers?

Nasus said:

I actually came here to BHW to ask this. I'm sick of shit content writers, and I don't have the time to write content myself. I can't find anywhere where I can find really good writers that write a first-page deserving article. Most of the time I end up spending my own time doing research and adding things/removing errors.

What's a solution for that, does anyone know where I can find actual content writers?

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If you read my comment just a few posts above you might be better served to hire a freelancer that has a background in journalism or an English major/minor. Even then, you will have to do some legwork because they can't be expected to know your niche like you know your niche. If you expect them to spend hours on research on top of writing, the price will be insane.

Getwhatchuwant said:

If you read my comment just a few posts above you might be better served to hire a freelancer that has a background in journalism or an English major/minor. Even then, you will have to do some legwork because they can't be expected to know your niche like you know your niche. If you expect them to spend hours on research on top of writing, the price will be insane.

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How then do you find one? lurking around for months until hitting the lottery?

FlyFlay said:

How then do you find one? lurking around for months until hitting the lottery?

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You throw shit at the wall and see what sticks
Seriously...There is no other way to find decent writers other than giving a few pieces to ALL of them and see which ones are the best...
For every 10 writers, you will maybe get 1 or 2 decent ones if you are lucky!

I have had the most success hiring Totally fresh writers with almost no prior experience- but ones who have experience within the niche and know their stuff...
You have almost 0 chance to find a very knowledgeable person in some random niche that is also A VERY GOOD Writer!

Then simply train them up & weed out the flaky ones or those who find it too hard to do after the first few articles...

Most of the time I even go a step further, If I see the person is a decent writer and knows his stuff I especially ask them what they enjoy writing the most about, their hobbies, and stuff that actually interests them!
Then...assign them articles closest to what they are passionate about... or even see If I can come up with content that especially matches their extremely niche skill-set.

Btw... Good Content Does not mean 100% grammatically Correct Content!
Good content is content that provides immense value to the reader, answers their every question, helps them accomplish whatever they are after, properly tells the story, and most importantly leads to a sale!
I'm not a Native writer myself and make plenty of grammar mistakes...However, in the grand scheme of things..100% accurate Grammar/punctuation barely matters.

There are some writers who think their articles are excellent just because Grammarly tells them they have 0 mistakes....Doh...
It's the actual content that matters not the cover of the book or how fancy it looks...

For me the main issue is with Topic /Title creation. Recently I am trying a service that actually suggests topics. Will see how it goes.

I used to write my own articles but now I don't have the inclination to write them.. I would do the occasional updates on my blog about new software releases and maybe write the help guide with all screenshots but that's about it.

Sugirl said:

Over the past year, I have outsourced close to 400 articles by hiring/training my own writers.

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Any content writing service you care to recommend?

Roger Marquez said:

ANy

Any content writing service you care to recommend?

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That stuff is mostly for suckers ( questionable quality content, from people who have no experience in your specific niche- all at extremely expensive prices...)
If you need good content... Find someone who knows about the Niche & Is Passionate about it- Then train them up to be a writer!

It doesn't even matter how much you pay after you pass a certain level, it's all about finding the right person that has good work Ethic and Qualities to become a good writer.
Took me a lot of time, trial& error to understand & learn this...

You will weed out 85-90% of the writers, Stick with those good ones and treasure them!


I'm considering testing out placing ads on my own websites that I'm hiring writers, chance is, if they are searching for the very specific stuff they already have decent knowledge about the field & are genuinely interested in the topic...

Sugirl said:

That stuff is mostly for suckers ( questionable quality content, from people who have no experience in your specific niche- all at extremely expensive prices...)
If you need good content... Find someone who knows about the Niche & Is Passionate about it- Then train them up to be a writer!

Click to expand...

Sugirl said:

I'm considering testing out placing ads on my own websites that I'm hiring writers, chance is, if they are searching for the very specific stuff they already have decent knowledge about the field & are genuinely interested in the topic...

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Sorry but I am getting mixed signals here.

Roger Marquez said:

Sorry but I am getting mixed signals here.

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He definitely is no writer himself with this form of expression in writing.
Anyway he said all those content services are shit because the you don't get a writer or a person which knows.your niche we'll...

My mixed reaction like yours! It is becoming difficult to bring out the quality even after 6 months of training!

Nice share op.
Question:
Does it matter if the content is original or not?

While you are debating about quality content, there is people building spamdexing sites with thousands of pages with content automation in a few days, targeting the same keywords as yours, and most likely being indexed and ranking much faster than you.

GenesisOne said:

While you are debating about quality content, there is people building spamdexing sites with thousands of pages with content automation in a few days, targeting the same keywords as yours, and most likely being indexed and ranking much faster than you.

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And their websites will eventually be penalized. I'm looking for content for my long term website which I want to stick with me for many years to come.

I think that it worth to hire.
There are a lot of freelancer site on which you can check portfolio, rating , etc of exact writer.
You can hire them and check the quality.