You Get What You Pay For: Understanding the Value of Your Content

In the one month that I’ve been a freelance copywriter, my biggest frustration has been losing projects to other “writers” who’s proposals were filled with really bad grammar, horrible spelling mistakes, and even “text-speak” (you know, things like “ur”, “lol”, etc.); however, their proposed cost was 10 times less than what I was proposing. Forget the years of experience I outlined, the variety of samples I provided, the glowing feedback I presented, and the triple-proofread proposal I submitted. What the buyer wanted was cheap and fast.

This has made me wonder about the value many businesses place on their website content. I mean, if you have a website, you have to have high-quality, original, compelling, and informative content. Content that will help your site to:

• Rank high in search results
• Keep visitors longer
• Bring in new visitors
• Generate leads and/or sales

So if you want content that will do all of this (and more), and you don’t have the time/expertise/in-house staff to do this, then naturally you would want to hire the right freelancer to create high-quality content so your investment will yield a return many times over.

Let me repeat that and highlight the keywords here:  You want to hire the right freelancer to create high-quality content so your investment will yield a return many times over.

Here’s the breakdown:

Your website is one of the most, if not the most, valuable asset of your business. The content you put on that website is its centerpiece – what everyone will be reading to find out what your business does and decide if they want to purchase from you or not. By hiring a freelancer with the knowledge and creativity to write content for your site that does all of the things I listed in the bulletpoints above, you’re making an investment in your business. That investment, made wisely, will then yield a return in the way of increased sales, higher search rankings, more new visitors, etc.

Is this a cheap investment? No.

So when you’re looking for a freelancer to create this killer content for your site, think about the value you place on that content and its ability to sell your products or services and build your online brand – then decide how much you’d be willing to invest to ensure you achieve that value. Then measure the freelancers you’re considering by the quality they can deliver, not how much they can deliver for how little. Quantity does not equal quality.