Auto Blog Software Vs Outsourcing

Tommy via Twitter asked me a costing question in regards to freelancers and outsourcing article writing. So I threw in some stuff about Auto Blog Software as a comparison and decided to copy the reply to me blog as I ended up writing a half decent article.

Hi Tommy,

GetaFreelancer.com » http://budurl.com/ncj9

Is a bit chaotic, as in Not So Sexy. But once you work out how it all works I have had great success getting work done well and cheaply.

I found that:

A - I was just trying to do everything associated with building and running websites.
B - The content writing was taking me the longest.

Sure you can write an article in 15 mins, but mine always lingered on to 2+ hrs

Finally I realized that it doesn’t have to be perfect it just has to do the job, and just getting the first 30 pages of a website published, is the priority. You can tweak it later!

So whats it cost?

The first tasks I got outsourced were actually Data Entry stuff working in databases on one of my Travel Websites.. Entering locations into the taxonomy of a Drupal site. That work was done extremely cheaply.. like $3 per hour. And the guy was so good that he is now permanently given work to do each week.

Articles…

I have a Niche Blog in the Health Market and actually its just a feeder site that points to my main money site for that niche.

I tried using the Auto Blog Software for it but found that I still had to Manually adjust, add to and schedule each of those automatic blog posts. Still consuming too much of my time, better spent working ON my business and not IN it!

So the best auto blog software is actually a freelancer… Especially when you find a good one!

The idea was to get 100 short articles of around 250 words, each one targeting a specific keyword that I generated and tested for low competition via The Google Keyword Tool

When typing up the project at GAF there are a few things you will want to include in the project description:

• All articles must pass copyscape!
• Please provide meaningful articles that provide real information.
  
• Write in an engaging journalistic (non-academic) and down-to-earth style.
• I shall retain sole ownership of all the articles you submit.
• Copyright shall transfer to me upon delivery and the articles shall not be used, shared or resold by the writer.
• Please include sample of your work and writing style.
• English and grammar must be 100%
• Plenty of additional work if you can match quality work to a reasonable bid.
  

Now the bids I got back for this project ranged from $100 to $250 dollars and also ranged from (English as their second language) garbage to highly qualified and experienced people with experience in writing in my niche.

I was tempted by an Indian Team who seemed to get excellent reviews and had good examples and prices, but settled on a guy from Canada, his bid was $180 or $1.80 per article as he will probably be kept continuously busy.

Now another project was for a clients website which targets a real low competition localized keyphrase, so I only really needed about 10 themed articles - at the standard 450 word mark - to get this site ranked above the fold on page one. Then some backlink and external SEO-ing to get #1.

Now because the lowest bid range on GAF is $30-$250 I thought I may as well bump up the required number to 25 and see just how low the bids go.

And yep lowest bid was $40 highest was $200. I decided to take a gamble and go with a girl that was offering her time cheap because she needs a good review to compete against the other 30 other bidders with 300+ reviews and established reputations. So again I got this done for about $2 per article (longer articles this time).

On a final note… The longer you leave a project open the more bids you will get, and the more chance you will find a Great ongoing freelancer for your niche. Although in one case I need some real quick script adjustments done and I needed it urgently… I Posted the project and 2 hours later the work was done

Thanks for the question mate as it focused my to write one of this weeks blog posts

Regards

JD

Ps. Auto Blog Software is worth the free trial, just use it white hat wisely.

Technorati Tags: Auto-Blog-Software-outsourcing-freelancers