Calissa Leigh Writes

Deb mentioned a good question on her blog.

Many writers depend a lot of research, and we know the difference between what might be a good place for information and what won’t. We know that you can look up information on a website like WebMD and get useful facts about health, but a doctor will provide better answers. We know that a history website, like the one provided by the History Channel, will probably be very accurate, and we use books and experts on the topic to discover deeper answers.

Unfortunately, content hogs are producing massive amounts of pages. I don’t blame writers for taking an opportunity to write articles for cash, as it is a way to get started in a writing career faster, sort of. I’ve done it myself, and I hated every moment I spent writing words that didn’t matter to me. Now I realize I’d rather not write than write junk.

However, what content hogs don’t realize is that they could be come liable to being sued for false information if they don’t check out what writers are producing. They could also save a lot of money. A good writer can write a 500-word article for $50 or so and spend way more time with research, enough to make sure it is accurate. This article won’t be passed up because it is just junk. It will be read, which means people stick around. It could sell your products or encourage people to click on relevant advertising.

With quality content, you don’t need to spend $1000’s every month just to keep search engines happy. My main website, which I’ve experimented on, is limited to a few pages, and my website does a pretty decent job bringing in visitors, given that I don’t advertise or actively promote the site all too often. I bet that it is not even SEO optimized to full potential, and it continues to bring in traffic, and some return traffic at that.

I have a client that asks maybe a handful of writers to produce a single 500-word article once or twice a month. He pays about $40 - $50 depending on the article. He’s a tech guy, so he asks for techical content and he picks out the title and poses valuable questions he would like answered. His site does extremely well, on just a few articles a month added to it. He doesn’t need a lot of junk, nor does he need to buy that many articles.

However, if one is asking about morality, be prepared to realized that when people in a recent survey were interviewed, they said that they would commit a crime in order to get more money, if they felt they were pretty sure they would get away with it. The majority said that.

It is a sad fact that money rules the hearts of many other people out there. What can you do about it? I’m a personal fan of leading by example. Trying to tell someone else it is wrong is different than doing it right and showing the rewards you got for your efforts.

Inspire. Shine a brighter light and others will follow it.