How To Outsource Article Writing
04. Jul, 2010 
16 Comments
If you want to ramp up your productivity and grow your business at a faster rate then you really should consider outsourcing as much of the day to day work as you can. One of the easiest tasks to outsource is article writing.
I’ve been outsourcing for the past few years and have had great success in doing so. I pay around US$3-5 for a 500 word article and the work I get back is a very high standard.
But if you want to outsource article writing, where do you get started and what are the things to watch out for? I’ll go on to explain the basics below.
Where To Outsource:
I use 2 main websites for all of my outsourcing needs, they are V Worker (used to be call Rent a Coder), and Elance. I have tried a range of other websites to find article writers but these are the two that have worked best for me
Which is better, Elance or V Worker?
Both services are great. I think one of the main differences is that the minimum job size at Elance is $50. At V Worker however you can have a job which is worth just $10 or less.
A couple of things to expect:
If your writer says they can deliver you the articles in 2 days, expect to get them in 4.
Many writers claim to have perfect English and the sample articles they give you may be great, but in reality in many cases the articles they give you won’t be at the level you hope for – especially when paying as little as $3 per article.
With outsourcing of articles (like anything in life), you generally get what you pay for – if someone sounds too good to be true, in most cases they are. If you pay someone in a Western country (USA, UK, New Zealand etc) $10 per article, chances are they will deliver very good articles, someone in India working for $2 per article will most likely deliver an article full of mistakes.
Alternatives to outsourcing articles at Elance and V Worker:
The only alternative I’ve personally used to outsourcing of articles via V Worker and Elance is a service called “Need an Article”. Need an Article is a professional service in which you pay a fixed amount (around $6 per article) and receive high quality articles without any errors. If you want to avoid the initial struggles people sometimes face when trying to find a quality and reliable article writer, I highly recommend this service.
What to post when creating a new project:
Below you’ll find an example of what I would post when searching to outsource articles at Elance or V Worker:
Project Title:
20 Unique 500 Word Articles About Halloween
Description:
This project involves writing 20 unique articles for various Halloween related keywords (see list below). All articles must be unique (I check for duplicate content using Copyscape) and each article must be at least 500 words long.
The topics for the articles are the following:
1. vampire costume
2. witch costumes
3. fairy costume
4. mermaid costume
5. dracula costume
6. xyz costume
7. xyz costume
8. xyz costume
9. xyz costume
10. xyz costume
11. xyz costume
12. xyz costume
13. xyz costume
14. xyz costume
15. xyz costume
16. …..
17. ….
18. …
etc
Please break the articles into a minimum of 6 paragraphs long, and include the keyword between 3-4 times in the article.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
I have plenty of ongoing work if the successful writer does a good job.
Please provide me with an accurate timeframe in which you can have the work done by and a sample of previous work you’ve done.
Cheers,
Aidan
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To help make the Elance process a little bit easier, I’ve made a YouTube video showing exactly how I set up a new project (the volume of the video may be a bit low, in that case please use earphones):
I hope you’ve found this useful – post any questions you may have below and I’ll try to answer them as soon as possible.
Great post, really informative as I am looking to start outsourcing my articles. Just a thought for some of the beginners out there, maybe you could write a post regarding what to do with your articles afterwards? I.e. do you get them to submit the articles, do you use them for content on your site? Do you use an article spinner to make multiple unique copies of the same article etc.?
Great idea David, I’ll work on something like this in the coming days/weeks…
Hi Aidan! Do you feel that 500 word articles work best or are 400 words long enough? Also, do you use the main keyword from your site as the keyword for your articles or do you use something a little different?
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Do you specify which particular costumes they are to focus on?
Hi Aidan;
Thanks for the info on outsourcing. When I out source I also provide paragraph by paragraph details on how I want the article written, and it usually helps get back quality work.
David,
Once I have a HP article this is what I do. I paste my HP article in the Best Spinner program, if you have one you like you can use it as well, then I rewrite the article, two new sentences for each original sentence. Now to make sure I don’t get an original sentence in my spun article I delete the original sentence once I have written the two new sentences. Then I spin the articles and post them on some traffic sources I use.
I also take the article and combine it into a short two paragraph 200 word blurb which I then spin using my two new sentence rule, and have for AU or blogging underground, or if I put it on a social bookmarking site etc…
That way when I need a short blur or a long article I just go into my spinner spin the content and have a highly unique blurb to post. When I do this it takes me about an hour, but I will have highly unique content for the rest of my website life.
I rather put the time in upfront to prepare the article so that in the future I can spend 5 minutes posting it out on the web.
Hope this offers some ideas to get your started.
Tracy
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Thanks Tracy, great tips! Sounds like you’ve got article writing and spinning down to a fine art!
Yes – I would give a list saying:
Write articles for:
1. Vampire costume
2. Witch costume
etc. This information isnt sensitive and we NEED them to include the keyword in that article at least a few times.
Hi Tina,
The more words the better. As a general rule I usually put 600-650 words on my homepage and then make the posts 500 words – you could even make the posts 400 words if you wanted to save a little money. When you upload a post make sure you link back to the homepage using the keyword youre trying to rank the homepage for – this link counts and is one of the reasons I think adding posts helps my rankings…not just the additional content, but the extra link as well.
Aidan
This is a good and informative article for “employers”. But from an “employee/freelancer” standpoint (which I have first hand experience in) I’ve gotten swindled and burned by a lot of employers who do not pay the “measly” $2-$5 per article. Employers demand quality and quantity – and the poor writer has no choice but to obey – After submitting X number of articles a day/week/or month… the employer will suddenly disappear and never return any email messages. The slick employer got his X number of original articles, and the poor writer gets nothing for his/her labor. So, now there’s a growing mistrust amongst writers towards employers, thus the poor quality of work – and that’s if the writer even accepts the job in the first place. There has got to be a happy medium where the employer gets quality work, and the writer is guaranteed his/her money. Some sites offer a 3rd party escrow to hold the money until the job is done, but what if the employer complains that the quality of writing was subpar? Will the 3rd party escrow still forward the money to the writer or will the employer get a refund for the “alleged” shoddy article?
Writing for a living is tough… that’s why I don’t do it anymore.
I agree with what you’re saying REIG. When I outsource articles at $5 or less I’m doing it with people in the Philippines mainly. That is actually a really good wage there. I work with a couple of writers in the Philippines and they have been with me for over 2 years now – they love their job, live a good life (earn well by Philippine standards) and I get the benefits of not having to pay through the roof for articles. I’m not saying working as a writer is an easy job but it can be lucrative if you put in the time and effort and build up a good reputation on websites such as Elance etc. Thanks for your opinion.
Hi Aiden very good information here but one quick question:
what do you put in for the terms that elance asks for?
Thanks
Sam
Hi Sam, Elance has some default terms which are designed to protect you (the person doing the outsourcing) so I just use those.
You will definitely have to expect an article full of mistakes if you pay someone like $2 per article. But maybe I’m wrong, I happen to scan some projects in Freelancer – I did found someone paying $1 every 1000 words done(laugh but it’s true). But I think Elance writers are sophisticated, one I can recommend.
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I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind.
1) For the Vampire articles, how much would you expect to pay for the 20 articles?
2) How much time do you spend on QC once you receive the articles back?
Thanks in advance!
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Hey, I can usually find good writers from the Philippines who will write for $3.50/article…Regarding QC, if I have been working with the writer for some time then no QC is necessary at all (assuming I trust the writer), if I am working with a new writer then I will read the articles and run them all through copyscape.
Hope this helps,
Aidan
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I tried both vWorker (Rentacoder) and Elance. However I’d suggest to try with small projects. There are often some providers who provider article writing services and all they do is, rewrite articles from sites like ezine and articlebase. I recently had such issue and stuck my $300 in elance escrow. It’s difficult to sortout elance escrow.
Thanks for the tips Aidan. I haven’t ever really outsourced before but my business is starting to make more money these days so its a real possibility for me now – I cant wait to give it a try!
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