How much do you pay your writers?

This morning I was pitched to work as a writer for $0.01, I think the poor sod hadn’t done his research.

If you researched, wrote and edited the copy in an hour you would not reach minimum wage if you are in the UK.

Of course, the business model which this works for is churn and burn, blackhat, SEO driven sites which take advantages of weaknesses in the Google algo.

I know because I tried that system out for a while and let's just say it opened a hyperloop straight to hell for me.

CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT WHAT A GOOD WRITER ACTUALLY DOES

If you are looking for content that is going to build your brand then the writer will:

• Read and understand your brief
• Research the topic
• Analyse content that has succeeded in the past
• Prepare an outline
• Start sketching out possible headlines
• Write the copy
• Source legally publishable images
• Source links to underline the thesis of the content
• Edit the content to tighten and punch up the copy
• Check fo rytpos
• Bolden and italicise key points in the copy
• Break up copy into bite-sized pieces that scan well
• Write out headline options and decide on the best one
• Send to client

These are just some of the things that a process led writer would have to do.

High-quality writing should be defined on the basis of if other people want to read it, not on whether some SEO thinks it meets the required parameters for the Google algo.

I have built sites that rank highly and got all their traffic from search engines and come to the belief that content that ranks highly is also content that is well written.

You can find writers for this price that will write good stuff

The problem is there are people in regions of the world where the cost of living is cheap, who are able to work for this level of cash and be happy.

But, at some point, they realise their market value and move on or burn out.

If you have great personal management skills and are likeable it is possible to run a group of writers such as these as long as they are not aware of how much their work is actually worth.

A lot of digital agencies I have coached in the past had some or most of their content created by writers in the developing world who would work for very low wages and they would resell this work at a much higher rate to clients.

When you see SEO agencies offering low-cost content this is what they are doing.

It can be argued it’s a good thing for those in the developing nations as it offers them work that would not otherwise be given.

And with a good SEO and social media promotion strategy this can be profitable if you have the skills to run a stable of writers who are willing to work for such money.

The Philippines is a great place to source writer such as this and at one point I had ten writers from the nation creating content for my SEO copy clients.

But I found it was much more profitable to have expensive content created (infographics for £1,500 for example) than a churn of copy from low paid writers.

THIS CONTINUES TO BE A HOT TOPIC IN THE DIGITAL MARKETING WORLD

I can see both sides at the argument, but have come down firmly on the side of “You get what you pay for”.

From a business point of view, it would be better not to bring this up as a lot of people who operate this strategy.

But the reality is I am a writer and not a business person and have to be true to who I am.

Previously published on Content Creative Sketchpad

Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash