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.

From experience I know that most UK based users are redirected to Google.co.uk by default, but I also know of other UK based users who have been using Google.com.

Finally my question in the Google Support Forums has lead to an answer supplied by Hitwise.

And the answer is:

Source: Hitwise

Bing Local Listings are similar to Google Local (or Google Maps) in that they can come up above the algorithmic (organic) search engine results when a searcher includes local place names in a search query, for example: “SEO Company Cheltenham” rather than just “SEO Company”.

Up until now I had assumed that Bing Local listing submissions could only be completed by US based companies, with the few UK based local search engine results being cobbled together from the listings on third party business directories.

All that changed after I read Matthew Elshaws’ Blog on ineedhits.com entitled “How to Setup a UK Bing Local Listing” where he talks about Daniel Dutton who has identified where Microsoft gets UK local business listings from, in his blog post entitled “Get Listed in Microsoft UK’s Bing/MSN/Live Business Directory”.

Anyway long story short if you are based in the UK and want to see if it works go to http://www.marketlocation.com/changereq/ and enter your company details.

Please note that this is rather speculative and it will probably take some time for results to be seen, so please no e-mails.  I have submitted my own site and put the word out about this and will let you know the outcome.

Justin March offers this set of instructions as ‘Guidance Only’. Therefore, Justin cannot be held responsible for any work carried out by YOU and/or ANY third party using the instructions.

Google Webmaster Guidelines
The Google Webmaster Guidelines are a good place to start to ascertain Googles’ position on SEO and what to look for when hiring an SEO consultant.

Google Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide
If you want to obey all of the rules this is an excellent overview of the basics.

The SeoMoz Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimisation
The SeoMoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO is again an excellent overview of some of the processes used by SEOMoz a well respected company.

High Rankings Forum
Run by the famous Jill Whalen this is a great place to ask your SEO related questions.

Digital Point Forum
Another great Forum although unlike High Rankings I feel that often some of the less likely theories go unchallenged.

So there it is my first official post, more to come over the next couple of days whan I have a chance to think about some meatier topics.