I have quite a few content networks / sites – not content farms because I care very much about the quality of the articles. I can’t do all the content myself so I constantly use article writing services to get the jobs done. The range I pay is $10 – $50 per article, to give you an idea. I used to buy articles by words but later gave up on this approach because I found writers who charge by words isn’t quite good.

Then what makes a good article for the web?

I recently found a new writer to write about some application reviews. He sent the first review to me, it’s about BC. His writing is good but still not that much desirable. It’s rather long with tedious paragraphs and little section heading (even if there were, they were too short and non-informative). Just not the kind of article people would like to read on the web. So I replied with a brief list of requirements:

1. I’m looking for articles of real personality in it that instantly gratifies the reader in the first 10 seconds they stop on the title and first paragraph / picture. For example, an article that yells and calls names (not necessarily so, just making a point). This blog does it masterly: http://www.copyblogger.com/

2. Use short paragraphs. Use short sentences but strong words that’s heavily opinionated.

2.5. Use lists (ordered, unordered) and tables that are 10 times more readable than plain text blocks / paragraphs. People attentions are very very short on the web and they generally hate large blocks of tedious texts.

3. Don’t be afraid to offend people – like this review: http://www.kavoir.com/2011/09/seomoz-pro-review-bad-bad-bad.html

4. Section the article well and title those sections well so readers can find something very very quickly. For example, the section title ‘Features’ does nothing other than driving the readers away – why should they read what the features of BC are in here while they can easily find them on the official site? Few of them would keep on reading when they see this title because there’s nothing interesting there that they don’t know. So are ‘Flexibility’ and ‘Cost’. They practically said nothing – a waste of readers’ attention. Even “Cons” is a better title because it said something about what to expect in the following paragraphs. “Flexibility” and “Cost” are neutral words that should be used in manuals and official texts, etc.

5. It’s very very kind of you to write more than 1,000 words, I really appreciate it. But if you can do the writing the way I described above, I’d still pay you a solid $xx even if you only wrote 300 words. That’s the quality I want. Articles never have to be lengthy to be good.

Your idea?