I took a 2 week break from writing on this blog in order to concentrate my Joomla based sites. Since I knew that the importance of having your blog updated regularly, I decided to go into the field of hiring freelance article writers to cover my back.It was an experience that made me realize that professional article writers are not as professional as they might claim.

I decided to choose a simple topic which with little research, the professional freelance writer would not have a problem and that was the beginning of my problems. What I got in return for all my problems are articles that I am afraid to even look at in case I get eye sores. I can now say that the money I spent was meant to pay for experience and not an article writing service.

Let us see what I did wrong or right.

1. Hiring Article Writers too Fast

I went to one of the famous article writing forums online and posted that I needed someone to write for me 10 articles on Joomla based web sites. In about 10 minutes I had 10 replies. I knew it was my lucky day and since I needed to do the work quickly, so I chose my freelance writers faster than the 10 minutes.

In all of 5 minutes, I had chosen 3 freelance writers. My only criterion was that I liked how fast they replied to my queries, and I liked them. That was not too clever was it?

Rule of thumb : Take the time to find the right article writer.

Taking the time to choose a writer is just as important as choosing your mate. I had forgotten that the writer would need to reflect my blog. My blog would forever be associated with terrible writing and that is worse than not posting on your blog. A freelance blog writer reflects directly on you.

2. Cheap Blog Article Services

I love bargains. I just forget that something cheap is not necessarily a bargain. I went for a service that was charging $15 for 5 500 word articles. Oh boy, was I not excited ? That came to about 0.006 dollars per word. I just felt that I was the best negotiator in the world.

The results of my negotiations were the following.

………… now trademarked by Miro International Pty. Ltd. The development team launched the first Joomla, Version 1.0.0, on September 16, 2005. Bugs and security problems were fixed and three years later, Version 1.5 was released on January 22, 2008. For two consecutive years (2006 and 2007), Joomla! was the Open Source Content Management System Awardee. This award is given by Packt Publishing. In 2005, Joomla! was recognized for U…..The system’s logo consists of four J’s that are joined to create one shape, which emphasizes unity. The logo is copyrighted but is able for use under specific guidelines…….

I am not joking.I have actually edited the paragraph. The first paragraph on an article that was supposed to be about the best Joomla components, was about the history of Joomla.

If I thought that was the end, the next 5 articles were just the same. Somehow these guys figured out a way to get some 200 words straight from the Joomla site.

Rule of Thumb : Cheap Article Writing Services may not be good for your sanity

3. Geographical Article Services

I fell for the outsourcing trap. Whoever came up with the idea that the geographical location of an article writer is important is not being honest. I tried 3 writers from 3 continents and the writing was still horrible.

For each of the writers, their location was a selling point. ” I am in India so can afford to give my services cheaper” , ” I am in the USA so you will get a good quality product”, ” I am in England so you know that my English will be good”.

You will discover that it does not really matter where your freelancer is , if he’s bad, no mountains or rivers will mask that.

Rule of Thumb : I do not need to know where my article writer lives, I just need good articles.

4. Know Your Article Writers

Next time you hire someone, make sure you know their real names.Forum names and yahoo names will not do. If you do not know who you are dealing with, how can you know what they can do ? It is common etiquette to say “hi, my name is….” when you meet someone new. Somehow on the Internet, I thought that was not necessary until I was given my articles back.

The USA based article writer sent me my articles and I just Googled the headline and found the same articles. He had just copied and pasted various article paragraphs and said they were original article content. I found his name from my PayPal account and ……He sells those article writing software in every forum. If there is one thing I hate, it’s article re-writing software. When I went to get my refund from PayPal, they just informed me that his account had been closed.

Do not believe those excellent reports you see on forums. Some of these guys have 10 names on a forum and 10 other hired hands to post favorably about them.

Rule of thumb: Do more research on anyone you wish to hire online

I have learnt a great deal in the last 2 weeks about hiring online but unfortunately even with all these rules, you will never really know until you have tried out a few fake article freelancers. So now I just follow the above rules and also

1. I do not need to see sample articles, I need to see real articles. If one is a freelancer online, I do expect to see at least a blog. If I need to write on this blog, I had better get a guest blogger who’s name is on the line.
2. Knowledge of a topic is important. Or at least show that one can research on a topic.
3. Before you go into any long term or expensive article writing ventures, give small jobs first. Also be aware that some article writing services give great articles in the beginning then go into mediocre articles after signing a contract.
4. Keep away for any mass producing article writers. If you hear someone saying they can write about any topic on this earth and are a “team of experienced writers” , run.They are using an article writing software.

Other than that, it was great looking for article writers. I think after I have done one more month of this, I shall start my own.

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