Content Writers and Pay: How do you know if you need a pro?

The trend seems to be that more and more companies understand that they need quality content on their sites, they want blogs, they want ads and they want articles.....but, they do not want to pay.

Of course that is incorrect, how much writers are paid is based on what the market supports. For example, you are not going to pay $5 for a donut when the bakery across the street sells the same type of donut for 50 cents. That is just simple mathematics.

But when it comes to writers, it may not be that simple, because all writers are different. Some writers are working for as little as $3 per blog post or less, 15 cents per forum post and (at least in Utah) for as little as $10/hr for full-time web site content writing. The other thing to consider is that most writers have been trained through universities, who do little content development education. Graduates have been taught to write essays and prose, and if you are lucky they have have been taught to write magazine articles. Even those who graduate in journalism are not taught SEO extensively. Whereas, trained SEO writers and content development professionals make 35K to about 65K per year, so in summary, you get what you pay for.

So how do you know if you need a pro SEO writer?
If you have or want to have a profitable and busy online business, then you should consult a pro. However, the pro may not be doing all of your writing, it may make more sense to hire less expensive writers to write things like product descriptions, Google ads and so on, under the direction of the pro content development or SEO guru. You may be tempted to skimp on your blog writer, but according to the latest studies, blogs are read, subscribed to and shared, when they are well written, above all other criterion, so you may want to invest in a good writer. In addition, in my recent experiences, I have a client who receives more traffic to their corporate site from their blog than from any other source...so put some thought and some cash into your blog.

What is the difference between a writer and an SEO specialist?
Writers, to put it simply are trained to write interesting and compelling copy. Nowadays, they may also know a little about keyword selection, keyword density and keyword rich titles.

SEO specialists, are often also writers (or started out as writers), but they know more about the technical and marketing side of producing content for the web, for example they understand search engine friendly code, keyword campaigns (Google, Yahoo and so on), article promotion techniques, network marketing, traffic analytics, pay-per-click campaigns, link sharing, link promotion and much, much more.

So when is it not worth the money to hire an SEO specialist?
If your site is just going up because you think you should have a web site, but you don't expect to get business from it, for example a tire shop in a small town really only needs to be able to be found if someone wants to know where the shop is, what their business hours are and other simple details, but it is not a web business. In a case like that, it should cost very little and the site should require few changes once it is live.

However, if you want to have an internet based business and expect to receive all or most of your business from the web, you should hire an SEO consultant. In addition, if you are launching a high profile site, such as a university site or a hospital or other large organization, you will need a content specialist as well as a team of great web programmers and writers. Another reason to hire an SEO pro or at least a really good writer is when you want unique content that reflects your personality or the personality of your company. This type of writing is more complex than simply writing a product description for a ream of paper.

Ok, so in summary...hire a pro for web content development, for leading a team of writers and for high profile or internet based businesses. Hire a writer for simple writing, product descriptions and the like, hire a really good writer for blogs, articles and high profile pages.

If you are confused, not quite sure what kind of writer you need or need helping hiring a writer, email SEOjive for a consultation, seojive@comcast.net.