I’m still working on the next installment of my Journey to $9,000 series but, damn, those posts take forever! Seriously. So instead of rushing through them, I’m taking my time to try to make them really good resources with a good dose of inspiration and am working on some other projects at the same time. Here’s one of them… well, two of them…
The website I bought at the end of last year, Blighty Traveller, has been a ridiculously huge success. It’s pretty much been responsible for adding thousands of dollars to my earnings each month. Plus it does it in the most ideal way – people pay me to give me free content. Yep! I don’t really do anything except add the post and find and edit a photo to go with it. All of the content on that site these days is paid. I know… it makes me feel a bit icky to admit that but the content I’m getting is actually of a really good quality. Much better than I’d get by outsourcing through a site like Textbroker and much better than I’d write myself – mostly because I wouldn’t write anything myself. So it seems like the perfect business model. At least for now while businesses are paying for this sort of thing.
So with that in mind, I’m making an attempt to copy the format and concept of the site but with slightly different topics. I’m working on putting together a similar site focused on travel in Scotland and one on travel in London. The idea and look of the site will be the same, but instead of focusing on England (and a bit on the rest of the UK), the sites will be strictly London and Scotland traveller info. It’ll end up being a trio of related sites with the same design and similar site names but with different (but related) topics.
I know… London and Scotland, it’s been done before a million times, already. But I’m confident I can make good sites that will be strong earners for me in the future. Here’s why:
- I’m very familiar with both places (I lived in London for 5 years so know it pretty well and my family is Scottish and I’ve spent plenty of time there).
- I have a network of old, trusted, related sites to link to these new sites to help with SEO.
- I have other similar websites that draw in potential advertisers and I know that suggesting other related sites on different IP addresses usually results in extra ad sales.
- I’m willing to pay writers to help get the content built up…
…that’s where you might come in! I’m hoping to have London and Scotland-based blogger types help me build up the content for these sites, and I’m paying! Here’s the deal:
- I can pay GBP20 per article of around 700-1000 words (into a Paypal account).
- I can probably afford 10 articles per site per month.
- I’ll probably only be looking for about 50 articles per site total. So this isn’t going to be a career move for you, just a way to earn some extra cash doing (hopefully) something you enjoy.
- I’ll need original articles. If you’re a blogger whose already written about a particular subject, it’s totally fine to write about it again for my site. Just make sure to start fresh and maybe put a different spin on it to make it unique. Moving paragraphs around and changing a few sentences on something you’ve already written won’t work for me.
Here’s who I’m looking for:
- Someone living in Scotland (doesn’t matter where) and someone living in London. People who enjoy travelling around and checking tourist things out. Foreigners in these places would be good because that’s the market the site is for, but locals also works because you’ll have those local insights. Just be living there.
- Ideally I would like to work with as few people as possible per site so if you’ve got the time, eagerness and ability, I’d consider waiting longer to get the content to work with the right person.
- My price per article isn’t great so I’m not looking for professional writer types. Bloggers starting out would be ideal because you’re probably familiar with WordPress and writing for the web, I can check out your blog to see your writing style and give you a bit of exposure (I won’t be giving out links at the bottom of each post but I will add you to a contributor page with a link to your blog).
- I want someone who knows the basics of WordPress (so that the articles can be typed directly into my WordPress admin panel with a bit of formatting, choosing categories etc).
- Someone who writes in a fun way but is direct and can also take note of the boring but important details like prices, opening hours of things, etc. I’ve never been a fan of filler like describing the way the flowers smelled on the beautiful summer day etc. I don’t care. I want facts served up with a nice helping of personality.
- Someone who has the time to churn out 4 to 6 articles a month would be great. If you think you can get me the full 10 articles a month and I like your writing, then I’d be happy to work with just one person per site.
If this sounds like something you’d like to work with me on, please get in touch! Email me at travoholic@yahoo.com with this info:
- Name and which site you want to work on. So… do you live in Scotland or London, basically.
- If you have a blog, link to three posts you think highlight your writing style.
- If you don’t have a blog, send me three files to give me an idea of your writing style (preferably to do with tourism-related stuff) or links to any writing you’ve done online.
- How many articles you think you could manage in a month.
- Three suggestions for articles that you’d writer first. Come up with titles for the suggestions.
- How confident you are using WordPress.
- Any questions you have about working on this.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Has anyone else ever hired writers directly to work on a new site? This is all pretty new territory for me… I tend to outsource to Textbroker but I feel like I’ll like working with two (or a few) individuals more closely rather than the faceless people I find through Textbroker. Well, I’m sure they do have faces (I hope) but it’s all just so impersonal. I’m liking the relationships that I’m building as I work on my living in Kampala site with a team of writers (more on this in a post soon) so I’m hoping to establish the same thing with these two sites. It’s nice working with other people and it’s also nice when they get excited about the project as well… really pumps me up too.
So… we’ll see how it goes!
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