Any experience of buying articles from writers?

[thepersuader]

It shows I must be new, I posted a comment in return and it was never published I must have hit the wrong button

Thank you once again I appreciate your excellent responses and I have actually done quite a few of your suggestions already.

I started a Whitby Guide WordPress website which is ranking quite well but there's not been great deals of response, I think possibly have made the mistake of self-promotion too much.

I've also written lots of articles about the area and its attractions, but I was using Go Articles because they allow you to publishimmediately so the quality of the spelling especially will probably not be extremely good. I have now moved on to more professional article directories.

I had never considered guest posting until now, but it seems a more effective product all-round so I'm going to definitely pursue that 100%

I will certainly take up the tip about writing about local businesses and attractions

At the end of the day I'm not complaining,  I am quite amazed that I'm competing with some of the larger letting agencies and my cottage as managed to get over 90% occupancy all year round for my cottage.

I'm certainly going to continue with my subscription to this website, the company, advice and tools are of a high calibre.

Recently I've been contributing to a local forum and then receiving some interest on the subject of me producing a website about the history of the area, so going to pursue that as it will be good on all levels.

Until recently I never fully appreciated how important it was to have such good quality content on the Internet, especially with your advice and examples.

[EGOL]

Just saying what I would do if I was running a site for letting cottages.  Not everyone will agree with this...

If I had a blog it would be in a folder on my own site.  That way, all traffic to the blog will have an opportunity to see my site.  And, all traffic to my site will have an opportunity to see the blog.  Plus, all links that are attracted to the blog will help power my money-making site.

For articles... I try to write highest quality in my nice and NEVER give articles away. Everything that I write goes onto my main website.   If your site is already ranking well enough to bring in some traffic I would value unique content on my domain a lot more than the low value links that you will get from article syndication. The only thing that would tempt me to give an article away is if it would be posted on a very very high traffic site and the article directed interested visitors to my website.  I turn down lots of content requests.

[thepersuader]

Okay but the one thing I'm not fully understanding is, t I've heard that on page optimisation possibly gives you 20% of your value in Google's eyes and I realise that as soon as you actually also put original content on your website it tends to get indexed. But I assumed that you had to get inbound links that were not reciprocal from a cross-section of sites to get your website positioned high for its chosen keywords..

To be perfectly honest I'm not particularly fond of the idea of asking for guest posts; only because it takes time finding good websites that are related by subject that want the material.

I actually have two websites my main business is CCTV and security alarm installation, and with the second one I'm now listing quite well for the term Yale wireless alarms and picking up work from the Internet directly.

My strategy has been for both websites

One on page optimisation.

Secondly article writing.

An also small amount of reciprocal linking, which I have for a long time and more definitely realised it needs to be relevant and useful.

Until now that's been the only three strategies, for both websites.

I have written quite a number of on board blog posts for both websites.

http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/whitby-blog.html

http://www.adalarms.co.uk/contact-form/ad-alarms-blog/

The competition for the wireless alarms is probably more savage than the one for the holiday cottages because it's in competition from big companies all over the UK, but I am ranking quite well if for some of my blog posts in that category, higher than the actual pages promoting the installation !

I have written some useful articles I hope, from my expertise point of view. Example fault finding and servicing which in the real world is what pays me the biggest money next installations.

My question at this point is, if you don't mind giving your thoughts,  is it's worth me spending a great deal of time article  writing for article directories and more recently my new project, seeking out guest posting?

Or just keep writing original content, on online blogs for both websites.

[EGOL]

is it's worth me spending a great deal of time article  writing for article directories and more recently my new project, seeking out guest posting?

I have a couple of information sites and a couple of niche retail sites.  I have never given one article away to another website and have never done a guest blog post.  I don't buy text links, trade links, submit to cheap directories, blog comment, forum comment or do any of the common linkbuilding activities.

An employee and I spend 100% of our time creating unique content for our own websites only.

Instead of giving content away we accept some really good (unique and exclusive) content from other people and pay for a very small amount.  Each page of content pulls visitors every day.  Some bring one or two visitors per day but some bring in thousands per day.

If you already have a flow of traffic and increase it steadily by adding new high quality content then links will slowly arrive without any effort from you.  You can accelerate this by promoting your content (and that's what most people do) but I'd rather spend my time making more content that will bring in more visitors.  That allows me to spend 100% of my time creating assets and zero percent of my time on promotion.

For this to work you need to make your articles some of the best on the web for their topic.  If your content is anything less people will not be motivated to like, link, tweet, post to their wall about it.

Or just keep writing original content, on online blogs for both websites.

Your choice of content is critical.  I would not be cranking out pedestrian blog posts on random topics.

Instead I would be cranking out highly informative, beautifully illustrated, carefully researched first-piece-of-information-that-a-person-should-read content about topics that are highly related to my business and very useful to my potential customers.

[ljorgens]

I have to agree with everything EGOL said. You may want to consider hiring someone off of eLance.com or oDesk.com for your freelance content writing needs. Typically if the cost seems to be too good to be true, then you'll probably be editing for grammar, spelling mistakes, and sensible content. I've used content blog writing services before and have had to request several re-writes because the blog read like an elementary school child wrote it. Bottom line - if you are happy with what this article writer delivered, then it may be worth it to pursue hiring that person for further writing jobs. See how much extra s/he would charge for a better quality article and make your decision from there.

[thepersuader]

I'm beginning to get a more encouraging and clearer picture of the approach I should be taking more prominently.

With the security installation blog I'm going to admit that I actually did that not produce its first postings for the right reasons. I wrote some of the first blog entries purely to please the search engines and this time as gone on I think the quality is increased because I naturally moved into talking about some of my expertise in this area. I've had people send me e-mails thanking me for my detailed descriptions so I realise that they must be well received sometimes. In actual fact the blog part of the website in some ways I thought was counter-productive because it was actually explaining our people can do their own repair and it is not that easy to find on the drop-down menu of the website.

I'm going to make it a more prominent part of the website and increase the quality of the articles with their technical descriptions and helpful advice

Likewise I'll build a more prominent and higher quality blog on the holiday letting website about the tourist attractions of the area and facilities.

At the end of the day it can only highlight the quality of your website and so by association the quality of service that any particular business is providing.

If I may can I ask a general question, is producing high-quality content for your own websites the only strategy you need for producing good rankings on the Internet?

I would presume you also use your own social media profiles to put the content out to people?

[thepersuader]

In actual fact that's exactly what I've done, I said to the article writer I prefer to pay him twice the price to take twice as long so he  could produce his best quality articles.

I've just received four in my inbox but I haven't got the time to read them until later today but they look quite good initially.

There is a fact that sometimes you've got to turn to your own expertise because you are one of the few people that totally understand the subject,  so I will be doing my own articles for sure.

I think you need a combination, but I'm seeing a different approach high quality is the name of the game.

[EGOL]

I think the quality is increased because I naturally moved into talking about some of my expertise in this area. I've had people send me e-mails thanking me for my detailed descriptions so I realise that they must be well received sometimes.

Nice.   You understand this perfectly.  Keep making this type of content.

In actual fact the blog part of the website in some ways I thought was counter-productive because it was actually explaining our people can do their own repair

This is simply putting your expertise on display.  I am not going to try to do that type of repair myself.  I would have to learn too much, I don't have access to parts, it would take an awful lot of my time, and I might screw it up.  I don't want to take chances with the type of installation that needs repaired.  I am going to hire YOU instead of the other guy.

[EGOL]

There is a fact that sometimes you've got to turn to your own expertise because you are one of the few people that totally understand the subject,  so I will be doing my own articles for sure.

Exactly!  This is why I reject 95% of the articles that people offer to me.  They don't know their stuff.  They are full of BS and they are not superb writers.

Let them put their crap on my competitor's site.  Then I will get his business.

[thepersuader]

Yes thank you for those links I took a quick look, there's plenty of writers to choose from and they seem to have a lot of experience. But thanks to this thread I think a lightbulb is late in my brain, I'm going to do my own writing, quality as opposed quantity will be my rule.

I received back half a dozen articles today which were all very inexpensive, but they were written by somebody who had never actually visited the tourist town they were writing about, you could tell there were certain aspects which didn't relate at all. I think there must skim Wikipedia.

I didn't realise how worthwhile good quality content was until I absorbed this thread.....

[applesofgold]

A great place to look for unique articles is elance.com - you can get quality articles for about $8 - $15 U.S. depending on whether it is regular work. I hire out about 10-20 articles per week sometimes, so I pay $8 for very talented writers.

If any writer also claims that they will give you better quality work for "a little extra" - don't use them, in my opinion. A good writer will give you high quality work whether you pay them $8 or $15 per article.

As for copyscape, it is your job to let the writers know in advance that you will be checking for originality in copyscape and that nothing else will do.

Hope this helps!