The clients often tell me, “We are a small business, we have a tight budget, so we cannot spend much. But we need good content that is well researched.”

Just imagine, saying the same thing in a restaurant or when you are buying a fridge or a TV.

Anyway, I’m writing this to quickly explain why one shouldn’t hesitate from paying a good writer, especially when you want someone hard-working writer creating content for your website or blog.

Let’s first lay it on the table what you want and what you don’t want.

You want

• Well-written content to impress, influence and engage your visitors.
• You want your visitors to get convinced after reading your content so that they become your paying customers and clients.
• You want authoritative information and data from trusted sources with the links to those sources.
• You want completely unique content – no copying from other websites and blogs.
• You want your content to boost your search engine rankings so that your traffic increases and consequently, your business.
• Delivery based on a schedule.

You don’t want

• Content written in a sloppy manner.
• Unoriginal content that is simply a rehashing of content existing on other blogs and websites.
• Big claims not backed up by authoritative sources.
• Writing that is full of spelling and grammar mistakes.
• Google penalizing you for overusing the keywords.

I’m not saying these are unjustified expectations, but just to make it clear, you should know that what you want, what you are paying for, and what you don’t want when you are hiring a content writer.

Now, to get some perspective, kindly perform the following activities:

1. Start a timer.
2. Open your email and go to the message/messages where you have explained your content writing requirement.
3. If there have been multiple communications between you and your content writer, go through the thread.
4. Open a Word document or go to Google Docs and open a Google Docs document.
5. Go to Google and do a search on the first search term that comes to your mind in order to find information about what needs to be written.
6. Open the links in a few tabs.
7. Start going through the links and make note of things you can use and things you can ignore.
8. Remember that even to find out what is useful and what is not useful, you must read the whole thing.
9. Based on all the information you have compiled, start preparing the outline.
10. Stop the timer.

Please keep in mind that you are in this industry.

For example, if you want me to write content on real estate, you are from real estate and it can be safely assumed that for you, researching information related to your field must be easier.

Also, you can make out what is useful and what is not useful faster compared to a content writer who is not into real estate.

How much time does it take going through email messages, opening a blank document, beginning to research, going to individual links, finding out what to use and what to ignore, compiling the information and creating an outline?

This is assuming you want well-written professional content for your website or blog.

20 minutes? 30 minutes? Even more?

If it has taken you 20 minutes to just go through email messages and preparing the outline based on the links you can quickly find on Google, you can multiply the time by at 3 to get an idea of how much time it is going to take to prepare the first draft of roughly 1000 words.

80 minutes. And this is the minimum amount of time I’m assuming.

So, even if I work very fast, without factoring in revisions and exchanges with the client, on an average, 1000 words take 80 minutes to write.

I’m not factoring in the inherent value that a talented and experienced content writer delivers. It is conveniently assumed to be present. Try working with different writers.

For good writing you need a flow. You cannot be watching the clock all the time. To write well, you must get into the zone.

Clients who have burned their fingers with other writers, who know the value of good content, can understand what I’m saying. Those who haven’t worked with many content writers, won’t understand easily.

As a professional content writer, when I’m delivering you 1000 words, it is not just those 1000 words.

A lot goes into those 1000 words.

If it was just about those 1000 words, any content writer would have delivered them. Many can even deliver them for free.

What is included in these 1000 words?

1. Years of experience writing for the web as well as search engines.
2. The talent of a writer who knows how to express and communicate with words.
3. The ability to write flawlessly.
4. The ability to organize thoughts in a logical flow – from a beginning to a conclusion.
5. The ability to write 100% unique content that is optimized for search engines.
6. Overall, written content your business deserves and you can use to get more business.

Whether you want to accept it or not, it is your written content that gives you a noticeable presence on the web.

Your written content is your voice. It represents you when people visit your website or blog. It convinces people. It tells them why it is worth doing business with you.

They are not just 1000 words.

They are not a mere commodity.

They are the foundation of your business.

This is what you are paying for.

Do you really want me to do a patch-up job?