Week 1 – 30 Sites in 90 Days
30 Sites in 90 Days is off and just as I figured, in the beginning I will hit a lot of pumps along the way. The bumps are all minor and I think once they are smoothed out then things should start to flow much more smoothly.
One of the main reasons for the bump is a change in the production of these sites. As much as I love to write, it is a very time consuming task. I am a believer of providing good quality to visitors of the site. In addition good original keyword rich content will gain me organic traffic.
I decided my time is better spent building the sites, planning the strategy, and building links than researching and writing copy. I decided to try and outsource some of this work. Although I know copy writers over seas can write like the wind at a very cheap price, I love to keep things local and always try to help those around me. Boy was I wrong to do that, here is my experience with freelancers so far.
Craigslist was my choice for finding freelancers. I was surprised to receive so many replies to my posting. Then I realized half of them were from India or another foreign country. I deleted those immediately. Maybe it is wrong, but whenever I read copy in English from another country it always reads either robotic, or strange, even if all the grammar is correct.
I started to try and filter out copy writers that had too much experience. I am looking for someone I could give guidance on SEO copy writing rather than the other way around.
The field looked like 4 or 5 copy writers so I assigned them each 10 articles based on keyword research I had conducted. The specs were simple I would write a headline and tell them which keywords to include in the body, the rest was up to them.
To this day I have not received a single article, even from a copy writer I have worked with before that did fantastic work. Maybe copy writers are cursed because each one of them had a reason why the work was not delivered.
Here is a list of some of the reasons, I am sure most of them are valid, I just think it is ironic that all of them had something go wrong.
- Brother was taken to insane asylum
- Freak accident involving genitalia (I will not get into details)
- Family member passing away
- Computer crashed
- Straight up missing persons
Lesson 1: Find a local copy writer who you can meet and shake their hand, and pay them well, because professional and reliable freelance copywriters are hard to find.
Lesson 2: DO NOT put a deposit on work to be completed. Wait to receive articles before you pay.
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Comments
Thank you Mark, I really appreciate the encouragement. I am not too worried yet because I expected production to be quite slow in the beginning. I found 4 more copy writers this time screening them over the phone. Hopefully they will work out.
And some people wonder why jobs and freelance work is outsourced. At lease outsourced people are reliable.
I am sorry to hear that you have run into some trouble with writers. Has this put you very far behind schedule?
If you don’t find any local writers, you could always try one of the major webmaster forums. Sure it is a gamble, but if you choose someone with a decent iTrader you can minimise your risk.
Good luck with getting back on track!