I know this is a hot topic, but I would like to have your opinion. What’s your experience with hiring external bloggers for your blog?. I’ve seen  such different prices, from 0,5 cents per word till more than 20 times that amount. The typical answer is you get what you pay for, but I’m not sure if this is completely true nowadays…

Albert, 

There are places where you can find blog writers for $1 per post. These will not be well-written, and you’ll have just wasted a dollar. 

There are other professionals who will write blog posts for $50 – $75 apiece, and these will be excellent. My own company does blog writing, and charges $125 per post to research, write, edit, publish, and promote.

Ultimately, it all depends on what you want to have done. If you want a writer, you can find a budding writer who will do it for $25, and you’ll have to do a lot of editing. If you want a professional piece, it will be at least $50, and possibly $75. And if you want someone to handle the publication and social media promotion as well, you’ll pay for that as well.

But please don’t ever try to get anything done for less than $25. It’s cheap, dehumanizing to the writer, and will end up costing you more in all the time and effort it takes to fix the shoddy writing you’ll get in return.

I have worked on freelancer websites where writers competed with me on price alone. They would write a 500-word post for $1. People often wondered why the articles they received were barely written in English.

If you pay for a very cheap writer, they are probably whizzing through reams of articles every day. That means they are probably plagiarising, copying and pasting and barely putting any time into research.

I wouldn’t say there is a direct correlation between quality and cost, but you should certainly be wary of paying anyone less than a ‘normal’ living wage for their time.

I don’t publish my prices, but please feel free to contact me if you want to know what I charge. It’s more than $1 an hour, I’ll tell you that much! But when I surveyed our clients, they thought we were very affordable given the quality of work we provide. 

Do you want original content that generates lots of traffic? You’ll need to pay for it. That’s the balance you need to find. I still think a good blogger is better value than a PPC campaign.

HI @mahesh

You plopped down the right word: “engaging” – engagement keeps the reader going to get to the end, and that is a part of story telling.  Tell a good story along with the right momentum of copy to sell point – and you’ve got yourself a winner.

But not for cheap. Quality = $$$ <<< note the three dollar signs.

Eileen ;D 

@michaelpingree

Please clarify, whether the rates you have quoted are per article or per word? 

I have used TextBroker for dozens of blog posts. I really like the site and the average 350-425 post comes out to about $12 on average. Rather than post directly (which could be embarrassing) I go proof-read and either approve the writing or ask for corrections. Then I approve and retrieve the post and post it myself after adding a photo or other post enhancements. I’ll definitely want to retain control of the meta tags and headlines!

I tried a few different writers there and settled on one that I like. She does great work and is always appreciative. When you find a writer you like, you can send direct orders to that writer.

Final note…my best posts are always self written! (all modesty aside)