Ask HN: Where do you get content?

33 points by nemexy 11 years ago | 22 comments

Hey, HN!

I searched but couldn't find any discussions about one of the most important parts of any given business - the content. Your blog content, first page content or e-mail newsletters. I am pretty sure that everyone here agrees that this is important for the success of a startup.

So, how do you get that content? Do you outsource and to whom/where? Would you consider hiring non-natives to write for you? How much is, lets say a blog post of 750-1000 words worth to you?

I am asking, mainly because I am facing a few challenges with my own project and I could really use some additional content, be for blog posts or marketing needs. Till now I have written every piece of content myself but it is time to rewrite some pieces and write some new ones. What is the best way to act in this case?

mrweasel 11 years ago |

I have question: You seem to be addressing "content" as some sort of bulk item, as in "I would like to buy five contents, please".

Are you looking for content that can just pull in a lot of traffic, so you can get ad revenue? Or are you looking for someone to write technical documentation, or something in that nature?

If it's the first option then I consider you a bad person. For the second kind of content, I honestly think you would be better for having the experts in your business, even if it's just yourself writing the content.

nemexy 11 years ago | |

My definiton of content is pretty simple, actually. 5 blog posts per month, which are posted on our website in the Article Sections/pretty similiar as a blog, but my customers perfer having it like that/. Also I need like 5 additional pieces like these ones for guest posts/articles in magazines/newsletter.

My goal with the articles is to keep building a brand and potentially attract new clients.

Right now these 10 pieces take over 40 hours from me, research/write and collobration with an editor as English is my third language. This is insanely huge amount of time, which I have to do instead of working on the product.

mod 11 years ago |

There's marketplaces to hire writers.

A company I worked for in the past would often hire a writer and give them a topic to research & write about. That particular writer was a highly-knowledgeable person in the industry and put out really amazing content which was primarily used for SEO purposes.

We also wrote a lot of content ourselves--the vast majority of it, actually.

nemexy 11 years ago | |

This is pretty much what I am looking for, though I am afraid of hiring in the big marketplaces like oDesk, afraid of not having any way to make sure these are good writers with a good knowledge in the niche that I work.

I tried once in oDesk and was flooded with offers for half a cent per word despite my budget, which was way higher. Once I talked a bit with the people who offered me my price range /40-50$ per 750-850 words and I am really not sure that this is the right price range/, it was very obvious that they were not native speakers and made random mistakes.

hluska 11 years ago | | |

Unless I walk into a writing project knowing an immense amount about a topic, banging out 750 words looks like this:

- Primary research:> I can't just bang out 750 words and have it mean anything, or even be remotely useful. I need some knowledge, I need to form opinions, and I need to read what that particular field's experts have to say. The alternative is a Wikipedia-esque survey, which is okay sometimes, but won't drive much more than kids who will use you in their homework.

- Finding/researching citations:> Assuming that you aren't a complete dickbag, I'll want to make sure that your finished piece has some actual intellectual merit. So, I'll need to find good quality citations. This is more than Googling the topic and linking to the entire first page of results. It involves reading important, useful works and making sure that I understand what the writer is saying enough that I can use it to back up my points. If I don't understand a writer, maybe she is mistaken, or maybe I don't understand the nuances enough to use that point.

- Outline:> My process usually starts with an outliner now (fargo.io is quite good), but I used to write outlines in notebooks. I like to make a list of my points, include citations (or carefully note if this is just my opinion) and start to figure out what the narrative will look like. You'd be surprised how often this stage shows me that I have absolutely nothing to say.

- First draft:> Hopefully this explains itself.

- First edit:> You meet lots of writers who send their clients first drafts. These are either superhuman writers or they never get paid. I have an editor who I send EVERYTHING to. In exchange, she sends me her stuff and we absolutely rip each other apart.

- Second/third/+ draft:> Sometimes I can nail it with one round of feedback. Other times, I'll struggle with one paragraph for an entire afternoon.

- Your feedback:> What you think is a first draft should really be a second or third draft...:)

- Finalize the article, publish and promote:> Some people like my writing and tend to get excited when I email them to let them know about something new.

Long story short, writing 750 words that actually mean something would take me a minimum of eight hours to really polish. For me, $6.25 an hour ends in homelessness...:)

taprun 11 years ago |

I keep a blog centered around a niche topic (the pricing and positioning of software applications). I created a backlog of 300+ ideas for posts, but rarely look at it.

Once I got into the habit of writing something every day, my posts became easier to write. The discipline I gained by writing a book on the same topic helped immensely.

It's extremely risky to go with low-bidders for blog content. You'll wind up with low quality articles that make your company appear sub par.

How much is a blog post worth? As with all things, it depends. That's like asking how much a car is worth. Are you buying a Ferrari or a Toyota? Do you want to create content for SEO or to interest potential customers? How much research is required for your articles? How original do you need your content to be?

A link to your site would allow us to provide more detail.

nemexy 11 years ago | |

I offer web sites and different web/desktop systems for hotels and restaurants and I have reached 2,000$ monthly revenue/most of it is profit/. This includes web sites, booking systems, some legal documents, specific SMS services. Also I partner with a marketing company, so there are additional commisions, which is what I use to pay the bills, so everything that I make through the main startup gets into a fund, that I want to use to grow the product.

I am looking for good content with useful information, that could attract clients. Posts that will be published in high traffic blogs or magazines. I tried with 40-50$ for 750-850 words in oDesk, but didn't work out that great as I received only offers from people, who were clearly not native English speakers.

Is it worth hiring people, where English is the second language/it actually is my third language/ and get a editor, who would polish the content for me. This is what I used to do for the last 4-5 months.

I like writing, I really do. But I reached a point, when I am not sure it is worth doing that, instead I could focus at sales/programming, which is what I do right now.

daok 11 years ago |

The best content is about real content and if you are the owner of the product it should be you to at least draft the content. After that you may want to have someone to text proof your text.

nemexy 11 years ago | |

This is how I worked till now, but it doesn't seem feasible to keep doing as I feel my time and attention will be more useful building additional features/fixing bugs, aka programming /which is the thing I prefer to do anyways/.

implicit_none 11 years ago | | |

on this - the best thing you can do with your time is talking to your customers and writing down what they say about your product. Then, use those exact words in your content; in essence have your customers write your content for you. If you are really pressed for time, just pay a copywriter to write your content but definitely give them a copy of your customer's words.

janpieterz 11 years ago |

I'd look for a couple of high quality writers that you can fire a couple of ideas over. Looking for them might take some time and cost you a little, but having a small group of valuable writers where you appreciate the quality is very valuable.

I often use my girlfriend as well, who is a native speaker (I'm not) to do it. She has done this for a range of other companies as well, from food/beverages to legal, political and to a certain level technical. Don't shy away from paying decently for better articles. If it's just a simple thought being published that can be written quickly, pay less. The good thing about establishing a group of trusted writers is that you can look to other payment methods than per letter/word. Some blogs are very easy to write, some are very hard and require a lot of research. Paying per hour might then be a better fit, where the better writers will cost you a 100$ an hour, and paying per hour with a trusted blogger works, because if you feel they didn't deliver as expected you can talk about it, and they know they want to keep you, a trusted client, so they'll less quickly engage in dodgy practices.

dchmiel 11 years ago |

You can look at outsourcing creating content for your company. What you write about should be beneficial to your readers and users so simply just putting up posts week after week isn't as effective as well researched content that has direct benefits for your readers. Just mindlessly putting up "content" is not a great strategy.

I just read about this today, Audience Ops [1],[2], and the approach to helping busy founders provide valuable content looks refreshing. It could be a good place to start thinking about how to get help with your content.

(I'm not affiliated with this, but thought it was something that could help you).

1. https://casjam.com/introducing-audience-ops/?__s=ihfp4xetd9k...

2.http://audienceops.com

andkon 11 years ago |

http://jobs.problogger.net has been helpful for me. You can usually get someone pretty good for $0.10/word.

nemexy 11 years ago | |

That seems pretty interesting, will probably give it a try.

gesman 11 years ago |

The best ever approach that worked for me is after i solved a problem - write a blog post about it.

In fact I am doing this again right now.

In fact I am dedicating the whole weekend to it.

Why? Because my past blog posts landed me serious consulting requests and serious job interviews.

Outsourcing or writing fluff and fillers never worked for me.

AlexOrtiz201 11 years ago |

Self Promo:: but https://www.rallyverse.com/showcase.html you auth twitter and then we see what you like and recommend content around your three top topics.

touchingwood 11 years ago |

A trick I often use is to get cheap content written by a topic expert whose first language is NOT English. Then I get a cheap native speaking editor to go over it before it gets to me. This can work out very cheaply if you're lucky.

diminoten 11 years ago |

Surprised no one's mentioned this yet -- ideas are very common on HN or Reddit, but not from the submissions.

So very often I find people posting very long, well-cited articles as comments on Reddit, and I wonder why they're just giving that content over to a very small subset of folks who might be interested. The entire concept of /r/bestof, for example, is in an effort to highlight well-written comments.

Find a topic related to your business, visit the subreddit, read the discussion in the comments of an interesting submission, form an opinion on either the submission itself, or the ensuing conversational topic, and post that as an article on your blog.

An example might be the "unlearning helplessness" submission currently on the HN front page. The discussion in the comments section has a few opinions about what is missing from the posted article. Perhaps you could write an article on that topic, providing some of the missing practical examples folks seem to be looking for. Also mentioned is the concept's relationship to stoicism. If that interests you, instead of commenting, write a blog post about it.

Another example might be this very comment! If I were to expand more, provide additional examples, and punch up the language a bit, we could see ourselves at 750 words in no time flat.

It took me ~3 minutes to get to 250 words, we could say it'd take me ~30 minutes to come up with a passable 750 words with a few citations -- I'm sure you can do about that (if not better), too.