Marketing_Guy - 11:49 am on Jan 19, 2012 (gmt 0)

You're delving into the realms of being a content provider? I assume they're SEO clients and you're providing content as part of the SEO strategy?

It's very difficult to scale - personally, I've been more inclined to push clients to produce their own content - it might not be great copy, but it's usually pretty good industry commentary.

I've used a news service to produce 50 news items a month for a website I run - they were probably one of the largest providers in the UK. The copy wasn't bad, but it lacked personality - I was never that impressed with it. Can't remember the costs but it was in the region of £750 per month for 50 * 250-300 word articles.

I've used freelancers quite a lot and generally if you can find a copywriter with a passion for a particular industry then they usually do well for you. But I still feel it lacks the personality of the client doing it inhouse.

I've also had experience with a million page website who had around 250-300 contributors all blogging individually on the site. The issues there were the lack of consistency from section to section. Actually there were other issues with the site that contributed to the problem, but it ended up producing loads of junk pages.

The reality is that unless you have a team of professional writers, an editor who can manage them and a strategist who can lead them in the right direction, content production isn't that scalable. Inevitably there are problems with quality.

If I was pressed for a solution, I'd either find a news agency to handle all the work, or hire a solid editor to work inhouse and manage freelancers (assuming hiring a team of writers to work inhouse isn't an option).

To be honest though, the idea of producing content for absolutely every SEO client worries me - it's not something I'd do - I don't think it is a solid long term strategy given the costs and difficulties re: quality. Of course, some industries / businesses it is an appropriate strategy - you know your clients better than me. :)