How to Go about Getting Content for Lots of Sites

By
– Posted on November 9, 2008Posted in: Web Development

As I wrote previously, I will be attempting to start a network of city guide sites and will be looking for people to write for me. It seems to me like there are three ways to go about getting content, each with their own advantages and disadvantages for both myself and the contributor.

The three ways to get content that I’m considering are to pay writers for their work, to offer a permanent link on each contributed article to a site of the writer’s choice, or to put the writer’s Adsense code on each page they write for me. In an effort to find some people to write for me and to get some feedback on what you think the best method would be, I’ve made a little list the with pros and cons.

Pay Writers

This would see me paying US$15 per article or area guide of around 1000 words. I’m not sure what the going rate is so don’t know if this price is too high or too low.

Pros

  • Me – Once I pay the writer I will own the content and can do whatever I want with it.
  • Writer – The writer sees cash up front so gets rewarded immediately for their work.

Cons

  • Me – I need a lot of content and will only be able to afford to get a couple of sites done with the money I have.
  • Writer – The amount paid isn’t huge and once the article is sold they won’t have any chance of earning more money from it.

Put a Link of the Writer’s Choice on Each Article

This would see me adding a link at the top of each article to a site (or even a page within a site) of the writer’s choice. The link would be at the top of the page under the article’s title and would be limited to one.

Pros

  • Me – Doesn’t cost me anything so I can add as many articles as I can get written.
  • Me – Takes two seconds to add a link to a page so not a lot of extra work needed by me.
  • Writer – The writer can get traffic and link juice from my site for as long as the article is there.
  • Writer – The site will benefit from being link to from many of my other, already established sites which would make a link from it a good thing to have.

Cons

  • Me – I would have no real ownership of the content since it will only belong to my site as long as the link is there.
  • Me – My site will lose link juice and possibly PR because of outbound links to other sites.
  • Writer – They have no control over SEO or what else I put onto the site so they have to trust that I will look after the site.
  • Writer – They probably won’t see the benefits of the link for many months.

Put the Writers Adsense Code on Each Page They Write

Add three of the writer’s Adsense units to each article they write.

Pros

  • Me – Doesn’t cost me anything so I can add as many articles as I can get written.
  • Writer – I know a bit about SEO so the writer will benefit from this and their articles should do pretty well in the SERPs.
  • Writer – Once the article is written it can be forgotten about and still keep on earning.

Cons

  • Me – Adsense is a large part of the revenue model for these sites so losing out on Adsense units isn’t ideal.
  • Me – No really ownership of the content since it will only belong to my site as long as the Adsense units are there.
  • Me – Adding Adsense code to each article would be a bit more time consuming than the other options.
  • Me – If the writer doesn’t already have Adsense I would have to explain it to them and getting their code may be difficult.
  • Me – Have t otrust that the writer won’t click on their own ads which might get my sites into trouble (not sure on this though).
  • Writer – New sites will not see substantial traffic for some time so the Adsense units could take awhile to produce.
  • Writer – The writer would need to set up an Adsense account if they haven’t already got one.

I would be really interested in hearing which of these options would appeal to you most. Or if you have other ideas or suggestions on how to compensate writers that would be great too. Do any of these options appeal to you? Can you think of any other pros and cons for each for both parties?

Finally… are there any people out there in internetland who would like to contribute articles or area guides for sites similar to my moving to London site? I have a list of 45 cities, mainly international (the only US cities I’m looking for would be LA and New York) so if you’ve lived in a major city worldwide and know your stuff, I’d love to hear from you!

About Kirsty