Article Writing Service Lessons Learned

Tweet

If links and tweets are the  currency of the web, original content would be the durable goods.  You need unique content updated frequently which will in turn get linked to in order to get and retain top ranking for keywords.

Aside from frequently coming up with topics to write about, it is a lot of work writing content and doing it daily proves to be even more challenging. But as always there are services which will come to the rescue to take the labor out of writing articles.

Article Writing Services

I recently tried out an article writing service called TextBroker.com. Which offers fixed-cost payment for articles written to your needs.  I have a few sites where I thought this could perhaps come in handy, so I gave it a shot and ponied up the very reasonable $25 minimum payment to get my account started.

After submitting a few keywords along with my article topic, I waited patiently but anxiously wondering what an $8 article could possibly look like.  It’s at this point the job request goes out to a pool of writers who will take it, write it up and submit back a draft for your review.  You can either approve it or kick it back for revisions.

They say it can take several days for it to swim around in the TBD pool, but I got both my articles back in about a day, which may have been due to my request for a very short article, an easy topic or some other factor.

The Good

While I was reviewing the author’s draft it felt strange to be reading an article that I didn’t write, but to which I would shortly be claiming authorship.  I have never been a manager or a boss, but suddenly I found myself having to judge someone else’s work as my own and hold their output to my standards.

You can request different levels of quality of your article (2-5 stars), presumably based upon the experience and skill of the author.  I opted for the cheapest 2 and 3 stars just as an initial sample.

Another thing that I realized is that I would have to give up some editorial control and trust someone else’s judgment on what was important for a topic I was writing about. This is not easy for an OCD control freak, but it would have to do or I’d be spending as much time editing the article as you would have writing it myself. *Slaps hand off keyboard*

The first article I received was quite well written and organized. (I assume many of these authors are non-US residents, but I really couldn’t tell based upon the writing.) I basically accepted it as-is and saved it off to later be published it on a article site. Good enough so far.

The Bad and Slightly Ugly

Alright, ugly may be overstating things and really it’s not the author’s fault, but article number 2 was a disaster for a couple of reasons.

First off, it was written from the perspective of the wrong sex. Something I never even considered when requesting an article.  This was definitely my fault, and I sent it back with a request to change the authors voice and references to male.

Next, it was just not a well written article, but what did I expect for the 2-star bracket? The language was a bit like something off engrish.com.

After I received the revised article, it was fixed but barely passable quality, but I figured, what the hey, it was just a test. I wasn’t going to submit it to the New York Times or anything.

Save Time and Outsource Article Writing

What can I say, I have had a pretty positive experience overall with what I’ve seen from TextBroker, why not give them or another of the myriad array of other services that are only a Google search away.  If you are starting a new website and just need content, then this might be a cost-effective way to get your content creation done for cheap. Just don’t expect a Pulitzer prize novel.

Some Tips On Getting A Quality Article Written

• Be as specific as you can in your request, consider that anyone male or female, US or non-US citizens may be getting these requests and may not be culturally aware of things in your world.
• The authors may also not be as much of a domain expert on your topic as you are.
• If you want perfection, write it yourself. [Assuming you are perfect like me. ]
• Unless you are just going for volume over quality, I wouldn’t recommend 2 stars. Your chances for getting quality results are very low, and appropriately so. You get what you pay for.
• Be nice. Remember the authors are humans working for a very small fee. Don’t expect them to read your mind.

Tagged as: article marketing, textbroker