The prices of the UK based freelance writer can vary dramatically from £15 (I’m not joking) to £300 for around 500 words but what can you expect when you hire these writers?  Obviously the quality of the text will vary greatly but not in my experience as greatly as one might suppose, the real factor in terms of the quality is down to the amount of research required to write a piece.  For highly technical pieces the text will not flow as freely, sources will need to be researched and correctly cited and some writers (even the more expensive ones) will avoid this work like the plague.  Other writers gravitate towards writing a string of keyword stuffed meandering sentences in a misguided attempt to cynically manipulate the search engines or their clients.

Now don’t get me wrong there are copyrighters that produce great work for £25 per 500 words but these writers tend to choose subjects that they are familiar with.  This article for instance comes easily to me I am hardly pausing between paragraphs and actually quite enjoying the process consequently it’s taken me about 45 minutes to write the above text, which is not a great deal of time and therefore more cost effective.

Guidelines for hiring a SEO Copywriter or Copywriting Service
So after some thought I have prepared the following guidelines for hiring an SEO Copywriter or Copywriting Service:

Write a Brief or Specification
Write a detailed Brief or Specification communicate what type of written work you require, the easier you make the process for the writer the better the price and the value that you will get back.

Get a Recommendation & View their previous work
Source your writer via a recommendation if possible and make sure that you have seen their previous work, is it similar to the content that you require, is it of a high enough standard?  If you can’t get a recommendation source a number of potential writers send them a full brief or specification and start the process of eliminating the unsuitable candidates.

Match the Subject to the Writer
Given the choice it is always best to match the subject to the writer not push an unfamiliar subject on to a reluctant copywriter or service provider.  If I wanted to write about Gloucester or Cheltenham I would hire a writer from these areas, if I wanted an article about cars I would talk to writers who are car enthusiasts.

Get the writer to suggest titles
Send the writer a selection of keywords and ask them to come up with titles and section headers so that you can then evaluate the potential before seeing the final written piece.

With SEO Copywriting Best Value is often the Key
You don’t need a battleship to sink a bathtub, and you don’t need an expensive writer to write about familiar everyday objects or services, the key is to source a writer who can offer you the Best Value for each project.

Quality over Quantity
One thing is for sure when writing online there are rules and the main rule is that it’s quality over quantity every time.   Rank chasing is not what good SEO is about, if your site ranks high up on the first page for a given search phrase so what if people click through to read the gibberish, will these people trust your site or end up buying from you?

This article is about 600 words long and took me around 2 hours to complete including the all important title tags and description some previous research was required.