Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My question is how many of you feel that the old $5 per page theory could still make us money? I am paying close to $15 per page and cannot justify it now.
Please answer assuming if you were to build it from scratch.
Thanks
I am paying close to $15 per page ...
I am not sure what you actually mean. Do you use a dedicated server? In which case the figure still sounds high. Or do you pay for site management, content writing and traffic?
the old $5 per page theory
I take it that is an earnings number, but is it per day, week, month, year?
[apparently I was asleep when this popped up as a theory]
$15.00 per page for writing seems fairly cheap.
$15.00 per page for writing seems fairly cheap.
what would be a decent rate per page? Decent for both sides, writer and webmaster? I realize this is one of those very-long sliding scales, depending on expertise, authority of the writer, topic, etc.
Oh heck, I just asked one of those questions that I always tell other people "there is no real answer". Sorry.
>That's barely above the minimum wage
Where?
A college graduate (or even a University professor) could be very happy with that rate outside the US, guys, there are other countries out there!
I am paying no more $5 per 700 words page and I can say it is GOOD stuff high quality and well researched.
sometimes I just spend about 10 min to review and do minor corrections but that's all
my epcm and CTR were both cut by 30-35% eventhough the traffic was up 60% appx
the old $5 per page theory
I don't believe it makes sense to connect the price of the writing with the amount of the earnings. It's bizarre!
There have been few discussions on earnings per page thing, it is a kind of ROI metrics to me.
anyways, thanks for the replies.
A college graduate (or even a University professor) could be very happy with that rate outside the US, guys, there are other countries out there!
I've seen some of the content written overseas for US audiences. It's obvious to me and I was not impressed. It was clear that the writer didn't fully understand what they were writing about and that things I've grown up with and are a part of my daily life are just wikopedia articles to them.
Content hacked together in this way stands out and I leave websites with content like this pretty quickly because it has no real value. Regurgitation and recapitulation by overseas writers in those "other countries out there" regardless of what they make per article is spam to me. It may sound harsh but when you begin an article and it's obvious that the writer's primary language isn't English I don't even finish the paragraph.
[edited by: Atomic at 7:15 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2007]
Yiu say that "many ppl here have even PHD's in English " but how many people seriously have a PHD IN English? And are you suggesting that with this they're churning out articles for $5? Are their articles about their area of study which you say is English?
[edited by: Atomic at 8:03 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2007]
I don't think I'm allowed to put the site url here, but if you want pm me and try it for $5 don't u think it worth a try?
some of those writers are from Europe and they do know English well.
No offense meant
I'm sure there are people all over the world that can write articles in English. Many of them are probably better at it than millions of Americans. I'm sure a lot of them need the money, too. My point is that when you come across some of the articles written for a foreign audience it's very obvious. The grammar and spelling may be perfect but it's easy to tell that the writer doesn't fully understand the material or culture they're writing for. These articles stand out and to me are of poor quality. A good writer writes for their audience and if you can't do that...
Some of these writers may get past my filters and I'll never even know it. I'm sure there are international writers well steeped in American culture. These are not the writers I complain about.
I personally would never hire such a writer. I always look for someone with a passion for the subject being written about that knows their audience inside and out. This kind of writer often needs a good editor to clean up the article but the finished product is what the intended audience is looking for. They'll tell their friends and their friends will tell more friends and so on.
And, for goodness sake, it's not ppl, no matter where in the world you come from. What the hell is a u? Got a problem with the keyboard, or are you confusing this thread with a text message? Also, and FWIW, being European doesn't automatically confer English skills.
I'm Indian and find that it's not just writers from India who turn out pathetic content. Some of the worst writers hail from the US and the UK. I cringe when I see a "your" where a "you're" should be. Bl**dy English as a first language speakers is my usual curse. ;) At least, being Indian, I've got an excuse.
To get back on topic - does anyone here really measure the quality of writing by how much it's earning (as in the OP)?
Some of the worst writers hail from the US and the UK. I cringe when I see a "your" where a "you're" should be.
Guys I'm sure your kidding right?
I am paying no more $5 per 700 words page and I can say it is GOOD stuff high quality and well researched.
I am paying $40 for 1000 words. My writer is not merely a good researcher, she is actually experienced on the topic. Well worth the cost. I can turn 1000 words into 3 to 4 pages of content, plus another page or two of supplementary material. So that's around $8-$10 per page.
To get back on topic - does anyone here really measure the quality of writing by how much it's earning (as in the OP)?
That's not really practical because the earnings depend a lot more on the level of reader interest than the quality of the writing. If a page doesn't get visited, then the grammar is irrelevant. But that's not the writer's fault, because I choose the topics, and my writer produces the content.
But all-in-all, it's definitely worthwhile. Over time, the revenue from two popular articles can pay for themselves and quite a few others.
That's not really practical because the earnings depend a lot more on the level of reader interest than the quality of the writing. If a page doesn't get visited, then the grammar is irrelevant. But that's not the writer's fault, because I choose the topics, and my writer produces the content.
Also, doesn't Google "mark down" in our ratings for poor grammar?
Also, some of my top earning pages aren't even articles. A couple are portals (with short paragraph reviews of sites) and one is a photo gallery (with one line captions and a short intro).
As for the pay...there's such a huge range of pay for Web content and in print too. I'm a writer, and I can tell you that many journalists start at small newspapers with salaries that work out to far less than $15 an hour. On the other hand, there are magazines that pay $1 or more per word. I've done both.
I put Adsense on my travel site a little over a year ago, and it's averaging $10 per page per year. I left newspaper writing to home school my son, and I work part time editing Web content. Anyway, I wouldn't judge a writer by where they live in the world. I've edited, no rewritten, some really crappy articles produced by American writers. I'd rather Americanize the punctuation and colloquialisms in a well researched and organized article than have to delete entire paragraphs of redundancy and rewrite what appears to be, as my 15-year-old put it, third grade writing. Besides research, it helps to be intelligent enough and to have enough general knowledge to recognize inaccuracies in the research. That said, many writers are producing quality, 500 word articles for $10. A few are for less. Most I've seen though that write $5 articles tend to pad them big time.
I'd be happy to discuss this further if you want to PM me.
That said, many writers are producing quality, 500 word articles for $10
What's really scary is when you see inaccuracies in articles on health topics. Many Web content writers just grab info from the first three serps and don't have enough education I guess to notice that a statement or statistic doesn't sound right and don't want to waste time double-checking. Being an editor for one of these outsourcing businesses has been a real eye opener. Someone told me the other day that the reason that writers at places like Elance are paid so low as opposed to programmers and Website designers is that "anyone can write." Guess I didn't need college after all.
The problem some of us have with freelance writing as a career is that it's generally difficult (unless we're talking about business, PR and ad writing), to bring in consistent income from decent to well paying sources, such as the Website publishers here who are paying $15 and $40 for quality or magazines. Plus writers are notorious for being lousy at marketing their own work.
I know good freelance writers, with awards from major publishing associations (myself included) who write low-end pay articles to help make ends meet between magazine checks (which typically take at least a month to arrive once an article's accepted and about just as long to produce when you count the marketing process).
Many of us write Web content because we have children, mortgages, etc. and don't have the luxury to build magazine writing careers and yet want to be home with our kids rather in a newsroom. Some of us also have our own content sites with Adsense.
Bottom line though is that a unique, informative and decently written article for a Website needn't be on the same level as a feature article for a journalistic magazine. I do know that my $15 and $20 seo articles tend to be better reads than my $7 and $10 ones, although I never sacrifice accuracy. I've spent three friggin hours on a $10 article because the topic proved more complicated
(or interesting) than I'd anticipated.
Back to the higher levels of writing though. It's kind of like being satisfied with a Website that makes you proud and you enjoy, that brings in decent income and pleases readers or not being satisfied until you have Pulitzer quality (or if you're in travel, Conde Naste, or eco and nature, Sierra) articles. Of course, some Websites do have the latter, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here or maybe we are.
It wouldn't make sense for me at this point to spend a full day on one article for my site, let alone a week. Now when I have more time (that'll be when Adsense pays my bills :-) I will write some feature length, in-depth articles for my site on issues happening in the region I cover. For now I rely on interviews here and there, my own knowledge and Internet research.
Since with the amount of hours I need to write for other's sites (especially in the last years since outsourcing's become the norm at freelance markets like elance) to pay my bills, I've not put up anything new on my own site in months, so I'm rather grumpy right now because I'm realizing that my site was off to a good start, and if only I'd done at least a little with it each day...
I started it out of a passion for my subject, and then at a friend's prompting joined Adsense. It's averaging about $11 per page per year (for last 12 months).
Thanks for getting me to think about all this. I don't mean to dispute. I'm just processing this all. It's rare that I come across a thread where Webmasters are actually suggesting paying writers more. Anything I said to the contrary, please ignore lol. Sorry for the long vent. Thanks.
[edited by: Kahina at 12:11 pm (utc) on Dec. 1, 2007]
