How long does everyone else spend writing their articles?

-joe-

-joe-

Britfag
May 6, 2010
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Just outside London, UK
Out of interest, how long does everyone else spend writing their articles? Just wondering, cause, from looking at some of the prices here, most seem no different from DP prices, where the people doing them are poor indians...

I personally would usually spend at least ten minutes just thinking about the title... Actual content (including research) varies, depending on the topic, from a few hours, to (in one case) tens of hours...

This isn't a whiny thread, nor am I trying to make this a sales thread etc, I'm just interested.

Other writers: Opinions? Thoughts? etc.
 


It varies greatly, depending on the specific use of the article and amount of knowledge I have on the current subject. I rarely spend more than 45 minutes on a single, 500 word article.

I will point out one thing, though - you say you would personally spend 10 minutes on the title, a while on the research, planning, etc...

95% of the writers out there won't do that - it's churn and burn. In most cases, they couldn't care less - they just want to get paid. After a while, they get burnt out, and you are left with your balls in your hand.

I don't like to sound pessimistic, but that's just the nature of the business (based on my experience)

As always, there are exceptions, though...
 
TOTALLY feel you on this one. I feel like WF in general has been on a shitty downwards trend, and as a fellow quality content writer, I can totally relate. I usually spend a similar amount of time, but most of my time is devoted to pure research. I often find myself with 20+ tabs open in firefox, and actually reading through all of them, all for just some short 700 word article. Unfortunately, nowadays everything seems to be about quantity and cost, not quality, so I've been losing more and more business to writers who don't even know proper capitalization. It's sad; I can remember when $3.00 per 100 words used to be a completely reasonable price for quality writing, but now, when I am charging just $1.50 per 100 words for some of the highest valued writing on this site, I get people balking at my rates and asking for discounts. It's fucking ridiculous. However, I wouldn't change your ways, because my guess is that eventually this site is going to experience a shift again and people will start to value quality writing once again, making your extra work worth it.
 
I think it all depends on what kind of article one needs. If it is just a filler content for contextual backlinks, shitty spun articles will do. If the article is for the money site, people are generally willing to pay more for higher quality.
 
It varies greatly depending on what I'm writing. If I'm writing on a subject that I know absolutely nothing about, I spend about 5 minutes per 100 words (including research). If I know what I'm writing about, it's about 2.5 minutes per 100 words. Rewriting shit is easy. I typically spend 1.5 minutes per 100 words rewriting content. I type at nearly a hundred words per minute and I can actually rewrite an article decently about that quickly as well. I offered my services here at WF for a short time and handed out a review copy, but unfortunately complications came up in my life and I had to put my writing services on hold. But the quality of my writing is superb. I have many satisfied clients; most of which have me write content for the main pages of their websites.
 
Usually from 20 minutes to 1 hour depending on the type of content I am writing. If it is something I know from the heart, it takes around 20 minutes. For a researched article, usually an hour.
 
I have written thousands of articles over the last year for clients and it is a big variable.

If you give me topics I already know well and can just start writing, I can create great 500 word articles in about 15 to 20 minutes.

If you sent me a request for 20 articles on a topic I'm not familiar with I will spend an hour or two researching and reading on the topic to fill my mind with ideas before I start on the group. It then takes about 30 to 45 minutes per article.
 
I don't advertise, but because I specialise in finance I can ask for more when approached. I think the best way to think of SEO writing is from Eli's article here: Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics SEO Empire - Part 1 (in full so you don't get some prison scene).

He talks about the SEO foundations, the basement and the inhabited floors. The lower down stuff is just for linking while the higher up stuff are the money pages. If you want lots of links then you don't need to be any more than basically readable. You can automate a lot of it, and if not automated then it can be outsourced to India.

On the money pages you need to be fluent and persuasive. That's where you need a decent writer, and decent writers cost. There are some exceptions, guest blog posts despite being link related need to be well written and submitted articles (which may account for some natural traffic) tend to have lower standards.

I think few SEOs are as methodical as Eli, but the successful ones do seem to have the ability to distinguish between the churn articles for the search engine and the crafted articles for the human being with the credit card. Don't worry too much about the first type, you'll always be outbid if you have a London cost of living. The second type is where you want to be.
 
thats pretty fast in general... do you guys write essays for school to? =P
 
I've outsourced article writers before. When I first needed some written I was quite surprised on how low of price it was to get each article written. I've always wondered how fast it takes an article writer to create an article especially for so cheap. I also found that lower prices usually meant lower quality. I've paid as low as $2 per 500 words to $10 per article. It really depended on my clients budget.

It doesn't seem lucrative to spend an hour for about $3 - $10, you would make just as much working at a fast food joing, so in addition to the OP's questions: Why do you write articles?

FYI: I'm going to be creating a subscription site that will allow site owners to have content auto published each month on their Wordpress blogs for a subscription or per article fee. I'm still in the planning stages. However, I will need GREAT articles writers at reasonable prices, well probably just one at first but a list of them would be great. PM me if you're interested...
 
I have what I hope to become an authority blog, already with 60+ articles of anywhere from 500-2000 words each. I am personally writing each article, many on a post-doc level. Some I churn out what's already in my mind in about 10 minutes. Some I spend anywhere from 4 hours researching and writing. Some I spend a week reading a book, taking notes, and then writing. That is THAT site.

I haven't done this yet, but I intend to outsource articles for all my other sites. The one above is the only "pride and joy" site of mine. And I'm willing to bet in the long run that Quality will trump quantity every single time, regardless of product or niche (as long as they aren't completely stupid niche choices).
 
I've outsourced before...costed me $80 and overall I wasn't extremely impressed with the work. In order to outsource you really have to find a quality content writer...really it's just hit or miss. Back in my article writing heyday I could get a 500 word one done in 5-10 minutes if I knew what I was writing about. Also, if your hands get tired, get 'Dragon Naturally Speaking.' Shit is the bomb.
 
davidne said:
I've outsourced before...costed me $80 and overall I wasn't extremely impressed with the work. In order to outsource you really have to find a quality content writer...really it's just hit or miss. Back in my article writing heyday I could get a 500 word one done in 5-10 minutes if I knew what I was writing about. Also, if your hands get tired, get 'Dragon Naturally Speaking.' Shit is the bomb.
Click to expand...

Meaning to ask about that, does that help? I've heard mixed stories, particularly with a British accent. Great for the girls, rubbish for voice activated software.
 
TheJoshMan said:
TOTALLY feel you on this one. I feel like WF in general has been on a shitty downwards trend, and as a fellow quality content writer, I can totally relate. I usually spend a similar amount of time, but most of my time is devoted to pure research. I often find myself with 20+ tabs open in firefox, and actually reading through all of them, all for just some short 700 word article. Unfortunately, nowadays everything seems to be about quantity and cost, not quality, so I've been losing more and more business to writers who don't even know proper capitalization. It's sad; I can remember when $3.00 per 100 words used to be a completely reasonable price for quality writing, but now, when I am charging just $1.50 per 100 words for some of the highest valued writing on this site, I get people balking at my rates and asking for discounts. It's fucking ridiculous. However, I wouldn't change your ways, because my guess is that eventually this site is going to experience a shift again and people will start to value quality writing once again, making your extra work worth it.
Click to expand...
Oh my god, yes, I totally feel you on the tab thing. And I feel you on the grammar/spelling issue, for example, I saw the other day one writer who'd just set up. He had a good pitch, but I spotted several grammar and spelling errors in it! However, he still managed to generate a whole load of business, from some really respected people on here... it's that kind of thing that annoys me.

As to changing my rates, the only way I'd do that was if it was up! it's low enough already :p Hopefully that day will come though...

jgrim said:
I've outsourced article writers before. When I first needed some written I was quite surprised on how low of price it was to get each article written. I've always wondered how fast it takes an article writer to create an article especially for so cheap. I also found that lower prices usually meant lower quality. I've paid as low as $2 per 500 words to $10 per article. It really depended on my clients budget.

It doesn't seem lucrative to spend an hour for about $3 - $10, you would make just as much working at a fast food joing, so in addition to the OP's questions: Why do you write articles?

FYI: I'm going to be creating a subscription site that will allow site owners to have content auto published each month on their Wordpress blogs for a subscription or per article fee. I'm still in the planning stages. However, I will need GREAT articles writers at reasonable prices, well probably just one at first but a list of them would be great. PM me if you're interested...
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It isn't lucrative, at all. Only reason I'm spending my time doing this is so I can earn the money I need to start in affiliate marketing. For example, I have one client, who wanted me to write 6 articles on a topic I know basically nothing about. Because the area is quite small, the 6 topics overlap quite a bit, so it's really difficult writing each article without repeating yourself. I'm still working on the articles, but I'm about three quarters of the way through, after staying up whole nights, working whole days, just to finish them to get my $8 per article... At least I've learnt from that, Like what topics to take up jobs on. It's backbreaking, but the time it'd take to apply for a job at mcdonalds wouldn't be worth it. It'd be weeks before I could start, and by then, I could have earned enough to start already through article writing.

I would never do this as my permanent job, at this wage. I earn below minimum wage.

As to the subscription site, I may be interested, but it'd really depend on the topics.

davidne said:
I've outsourced before...costed me $80 and overall I wasn't extremely impressed with the work. In order to outsource you really have to find a quality content writer...really it's just hit or miss. Back in my article writing heyday I could get a 500 word one done in 5-10 minutes if I knew what I was writing about. Also, if your hands get tired, get 'Dragon Naturally Speaking.' Shit is the bomb.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I outsourced a school essay that I didn't have the time for once. It was so god-awfully written, I had to spend a quarter of an hour just correcting it, and it was only a page long...

As to DNS, yeah, I downloaded it, and with my first payment, I purchased a headset. It broke on the day I got it, so I'm currently waiting for the replacement. Hopefully though, that'll make this easier.

Joe
 
Usually I can get through generic articles with a couple of rewrites within half an hour but I've been in that same situation writing on things I don't know about and its taken hours to get decent content together. Its even more frustrating when you're working for a pitiful income but honestly even writing for content mills is a step up from my last job. I don't even know what to charge, everyone seems to be able to do more than me for a fraction of the cost.
As for why, I do get more satisfaction in writing than I would working a job outside and it wouldn't be nearly as flexible. I wish I could find some room to progress at the moment though. Even with writing articles I think I'd be happier writing for someone with quality control who had no qualms telling me when I fuck up. At least it gives me room to improve.
 
ChinaSearchAds said:
Meaning to ask about that, does that help? I've heard mixed stories, particularly with a British accent. Great for the girls, rubbish for voice activated software.
Click to expand...

You should be able to use it with the accent. They have a bunch of customization stuff on there that calibrates it to the user's voice.
 
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