In this article, we’re reviewing another content writing service for you to consider – Compose.ly. Compose.ly boasts high-quality written content for your business, written by experienced writers, along with comprehensive SEO optimization. But can they back up these claims? Let’s check it out.

What is Compose.ly?

First thing’s first, what does Compose.ly offer? Compose.ly doesn’t have a service offering that is all that different from most freelance writing services. Their product description is what you’d expect from a custom writing service. Essentially, they work with a vast network of experienced writers to provide all sorts of writing services depending on your business’s needs. Everything from copywriting, to ghostwriting, to blogging, to eBooks, Content.ly can handle it. They offer competitive subscription rates, with the option to be as hands-on or hands-off as you want. They also offer dedicated SEO services, although these services cost extra.

Compose.ly Review

Now that we’ve run through the basics of Compose.ly’s platform, let’s get to the real deal. What do we think of Compose.ly?

Pros

The Writing Team: As you can imagine, the quality of the writing you’ll receive from a content writing service is dependent on the quality of the writers, or content specialists. Compose.ly offers fair rates to its writers when stacked against its competition, which helps them attract quality writers. In fact, Compose.ly boasts that they accept less than 1% of the writers who apply for their service.

They also employ writers with a wide range of specializations. They have writers who have experience in just about any topic, from sports to tech to finance and more.

SEO Focus: Unlike many competing content specialists, Compose.ly has a designated focus on delivering SEO friendly content. This was refreshing to see, as many competing content services have a noticeable lack of emphasis on the essential marketing tool. Compose.ly is vague about their SEO techniques, but they claim all their content is SEO edited, with an emphasis on keyword research and optimization. It’s not what you’d expect from a dedicated SEO agency, but it’s pretty good for the price point.

Competitive Pricing: Compared to competing content writing services, Compose.ly’s pricing is competitive. It’s not the cheapest service out there, but it’s not the most expensive either. Regardless, it’s a fair price for what you get from the service. In-House Team of Managers: Unlike many other content services which are fully remote or fully automated, Compose.ly actually has an in-house team of project managers to handle the day-to-day operations of the business. Their in-house team of “content marketing pros” are responsible for working with businesses to establish a content plan, to match projects to writers, customer service, and more. This team ensures that the workflow is smooth and consistent, so you can expect your projects to be completed on-time and up-to-standard.

Cons

SEO is Lacking Compared to An Agency: On its home page, Compose.ly brags they are 5 times cheaper than an SEO agency. We think this is an unfair comparison, because an SEO agency offers SEO services which are much more in-depth than what you can expect from Compose.ly. While Compose.ly does produce reliable, high-quality content, their SEO practices pale in comparison to an in-depth agency service.

We think Compose.ly would be better to have not made this comparison in the first place, because they are setting unrealistic expectations for what they actually offer. They do offer basic SEO optimization and keyword research for their content, but it’s not what you’d find at an agency. Writer Quality Varies:  As with any content writing service, some writers are better than others. It’s a simple fact of the industry. While Compose.ly does vet their writers extensively, you can still expect quality to vary from project to project. Luckily, Compose.ly offers free edits and re-writes for all of their content.

What Did We Think of Compose.ly?

Overall, we liked Compose.ly. It’s a pretty standard service offering in this competitive industry, but it’s definitely one of the “higher tier” content writing services. Their SEO focus, combined with their intensive vetting process for their writers, means you can expect consistent, high-quality content from each order. On top of this, their in-house team keeps everything running smoothly, and works with you to make a clear, actionable content marketing plan. Turnaround is quick and prices are competitive.

We do think that Compose.ly overplays their SEO techniques a bit, and the choice to compare themselves with SEO agencies seems extreme. Regardless, they do perform simple SEO optimizations on any piece of content they put out, which is more than you can say about a lot of competing content services. Overall, we liked Compose.ly. They’re a standardized content writing service. They didn’t necessarily blow us away in any area, but what they do, they do well, and the emphasis on quality is real.

In this article, we’re examining two popular content writing services – Crowd Content and TextBroker. Both services have developed a presence in the content marketing world, and we’ll look at the quality level of both, to help you decide what custom content works best for you as a business owner.

Crowd Content Overview

First up, we have Crowd Content. Crowd Content has a streamlined business model, allowing clients to purchase content of varying types, written by expert writers. Crowd Content specializes in blog post and article content, website content, SEO content, press releases, and other content of that nature.

Crowd Content boasts an extremely simple user interface, and clients can order content in a matter of minutes. There is a one-page order form which prods clients with a few key questions about their content requirements – making sure the content matches their branding, tone, and target audience. From there, a content brief is sent to a freelance writer with the relevant expertise, who finishes the writing assignment in a matter of days. Clients are free to message the writer with revisions, touch-ups, or anything they forgot to include in the brief. While we do appreciate Crowd Content’s simplistic approach, some clients might find it too simplistic. The one-page order form doesn’t leave a lot of room for custom content requirements, or to go fully in-depth about certain content needs. Additionally, Crowd Content’s content writing procedure is very straightforward, and lacks the SEO optimization that we’ve seen with competing services.

Quality of Content

Crowd Content’s quality assurance is impressive, but not the most stringent we’ve come across. Crowd Content claims to accept under 10% of freelance writers who apply. This guarantees a certain level of quality, but it’s also far from the 1% or 2% standard we’ve seen at content services such as Compose.ly, Scripted, and Verblio. It also costs less than most of those services, so you’ll have to balance quality expectations against the amount you want to shell out.

TextBroker Overview

TextBroker, upon first examination, appears to have a strikingly similar business model to Crowd Content. TextBroker offers content of various types, including blogs, web content, press releases, and more. Clients sign up for TextBroker, and use their intuitive platform to outline their content needs. From there, the work is shipped off to a writer that handles the content, usually delivering the content within a few days. It’s standard stuff as far as content writing services are concerned.

When you did a little deeper, you might notice one major difference about TextBroker, it’s very cheap. Content starts at 1.5 cents/word, depending on the plan you choose. Even with more “expensive” plans, it hovers around 2.5 cents/word. So even at their “high-end” pricing rate of 2.5 cents/word, 1000 words of content will cost about $25 (plus a small processing fee). Compare this to Crowd Content’s rate of $80/1000 words, and you start to see how inexpensive TextBroker is.

And while this may sound great at first, you have to consider that someone is behind the scenes, writing your content. If you’re paying so little, you can assume they are being paid even less. It’s not to say that TextBroker employs bad writers, just that it seems very difficult to maintain a motivated workforce while paying pennies on the dollar. With content services, you have to do some digging to find a service that matches your business needs. But at a certain point, you get what you pay for. You can’t expect top-quality content at rock bottom prices. You might luck out and be matched with a fantastic writer, but you can’t be surprised if the opposite occurs.

Which Do We Prefer?

For us, the choice is obvious. Quality content is a bare minimum expectation from a content writing service, and there’s only one option that meets this requirement. TextBroker costs significantly more, but there’s a much higher likelihood you’ll be satisfied with what’s delivered.

Remember that there’s an onus on you, the client, during this process as well. Before you hire a content writing service, you need to know what you want. You need to have in-depth knowledge of your business goals, target market, and brand voice. This knowledge needs to be communicated from the outset, so that content can be created which satisfies these stipulations. With this in mind, shop around and find the service that works best for you. Thanks for reading our head-to-head comparison of Crowd Content vs. TextBroker. Good luck meeting your content goals!

In this article, we’re taking a look at Textun, a content writing service with a rather straight-forward business model. We’ll outline Textun’s business model, how their freelance writers work, and provide a comprehensive review of their services. If you’re interested in content services for your business or website offered by vetted expert writers, then read on to see whether Textun is for you.

What is Textun?

Textun is a content writing service for business and website-owners looking to outsource their content creation. For things like blog writing, content marketing, social media posts, SEO content, and more, a content writer can help boost your business’s internet presence. Textun focuses on providing quality, affordable content on a wide range of focus topics, in a variety of different styles.

Textun’s content writing service offerings are relatively straight-forward and simplified. They work with you to create high quality content that suits your needs, your business, and your brand voice. Textun specializes in blog content, website content, product content/affiliate content, product reviews, and more.

Textun employs talented writers who are all native English speakers, with a wealth of expertise on various subject matters. No matter the content you are looking for, Textun will have a writer that is up to the task. All content is fully custom, unique, and ownership is 100% yours. Perhaps most notably, prices are extremely competitive, making Textun one of the cheapest content services available (with prices becoming increasingly more affordable the more you order). Below, we’ll examine the pros & cons of Textun’s service offerings. But first, let’s take a closer look at what you can expect from the process.

Textun Content Creation Process

In order to get an accurate idea of whether a service is right for you, it’s best to start with an understanding of what that service offers. Textun has a relatively standardized process for creating content. This is largely why they are able to keep prices so low.

Once you purchase a content order, Textun will work with you to pin down the type of content that matches your business’s needs. This includes your brand voice, your target market, the style of content (blog, review, newsletter, etc.), and your content goals. From there, they’ll create briefs for your content, and assign the work to a content writer who is suited to the task.

Depending on your deadlines, Textun’s freelancer will turn around the content in a few days. Textun edits all content for syntax and grammar before submitting. They also offer unlimited revisions on all content.

Like we said, it’s pretty standard stuff from a content creation service. Because of this, Textun offers one of the most affordable services around. It also offers content that is rather formulaic, but that’s not always a bad thing. Next, let’s take a deep dive into the pros & cons of Textun’s service offerings.

Pros

Quick and Cheap

As we outlined above, Textun offers relatively basic content. Because of their streamlined approach, Textun is able to turn-around projects quite quickly. Additionally, their prices are able to stay well below much of their competition. It really depends on what you prioritize in a content service. Textun provides quality content that meets your needs, but it is all rather standardized and formulaic. It’s also fast, predictable, and very affordable. If you need a lot of content fast, and you aren’t looking to pay exorbitant prices, then Textun is a decent choice.

Quality Writers

Textun vets all their writers, and they employ a team of writers that are knowledgeable on a wide range of subject matter (travel, fitness, marketing, finance, and so on). Every writer employed by Textun is a native English speaker, and we’ve found quality to be pretty consistent across different subject matter. Don’t expect creative masterpieces or in-depth technical guidebooks. But Textun’s writers provide consistent quality, which is just about all you can expect for the price.

Cons

SEO is Lacking

One significant knock on Textun is their notable lack of in-depth SEO techniques. Unlike many other content services, Textun won’t extensively “optimize” your content for search engine discoverability. They don’t make significant use of keywords, link-building, or other proven SEO techniques. That being said, Textun does write content with your brand voice and goals in mind. It’s still relevant content for your business, and generating content on its own is a big part of SEO. But if you’re looking for content that will be consistently competitive on Google, you need to be prepared to spend a little more.

Formulaic Content

As we’ve noted throughout this article, Textun has a very streamlined process for creating content. You won’t be getting anything revolutionary. Additionally, because Textun employs so many writers, it’s impossible to guarantee that all the content you buy will be of a consistent quality. But that can be said about almost any content writing service. Formulaic content isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it is often ideal web content, because it is well organized and quite readable. But if you want to separate yourself from the pack, it isn’t always the best choice. As is the case with most of the factors on this list, it really depends what you are looking for for your business.

What Do We Think? You Get What You Pay For

So, the bottom line – what do we think of Textun?

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Textun isn’t a cheap service, but it’s certainly not a “premium” service either. With Textun, you get reliable, well-written web content that will help your business generate web traffic. You also get it for a more-than-fair price. But you won’t get the extensive SEO optimization tools that you’d get from a more extensive (and pricier) content writing service.

Textun is great if content quantity is your goal. You can get lots of content on lots of different topics, and they’ll turn it around quickly. Their editors ensure an acceptable level of quality with anything that gets published, but don’t be expecting a New York Times level of writing aptitude.

Textun is what it is, and that will be more than enough for many. The important part is to have realistic expectations, and to know which content is needed for your business to succeed. If your content needs aren’t overly complex, then we would recommend Textun. If you’re looking for a content service that has SEO optimization built into its service offering, consider Content Refined.

Today, we’re examining one of the major players in the modern content marketing space – Verblio. Verblio is consistently a top choice for website owners who are looking to purchase content for their business. We’ll be examining how it works, if they truly do offer their promise of high quality content, some major features to consider, and whether we think it’s worth your time.

What is Verblio?

We’ll start with the basics. Verblio is a content marketing service that specializes in creating blog & website content. They have a wide base of writers that are capable of handling website content on varied and diverse subject matter.

The Verblio team provides a content strategy and solutions for agencies, publishers, enterprises, and more. This includes web content such as newsletters, eBooks, blog content, podcast/video summaries, etc. It’s a diverse content writing service designed to meet the needs of a wide range of clients. Due to their extensive writer base (over 3000 US-based writers), they are able to handle content on a large variety of topics.

Verblio also works to create content that matches your brand voice, and that is highly relevant/discoverable for SEO. We’ll dive into more detail about this below. Of course, this is how Verblio plugs their own service. Next, we’ll check out how the process actually works as a client. From there, we’ll jump into the pros & cons, to see whether it’s a content service that is worthy of your attention.

How Does it Work?

Our aim of this review is to provide an objective look at Verblio’s services. To do that, it’s essential to have an understanding of how the service actually works. So, as a client of Verblio, how does it all go down?

Creating Your Content Plan

Verblio has a proven service for ensuring that clients get work that matches their brand voice, and get the proper content to help them meet their goals.

First, clients must select a content plan, found here. The plans are reasonably priced, but do note that the base plans do not include back-end SEO optimization. This makes their base rate somewhat misleading. It’s difficult to recommend a content service which doesn’t include SEO optimization, so it’s important to note that this service costs extra.

Once the client has selected a plan, they work with Verblio to carve out a target audience, and to outline the best ways to reach said audience. You tell them who you want to reach, and how you want to reach them. This includes your brand voice (conversational, technical, etc.), and your brand goals. This stage is essential so Verblio can focus on creating content which matches your current branding and messaging.

After you’ve outlined your brand voice and content goals, you work with Verblio to order exactly the type of content you want. You decide how many pieces you want per month, the word limit for each piece, and what is to be covered in each piece of content. Verblio also offers an account management service if you don’t want to handle this yourself. From there, you can set specific titles, calls to action, keywords, and more. You can get quite specific about the content you request. Once you’ve ordered your content, Verblio’s writers take over. Verblio has a rather unique method of handling its writers, which we’ll explain next.

Writing Your Content

Once you’ve submitted a content brief to Verblio, their team of writers has a chance to handle your order. Unlike other content services, Verblio doesn’t specifically assign your content to a writer. Instead, writers get a chance to “compete” for your content. Content briefs are accessible by any of Verblio’s fully-vetted writing team. If they are familiar with the subject matter, they can choose to write the content.

Once your content has been written (usually takes about 2-3 days), it is uploaded to Verblio and you get a chance to review it. You can choose to either accept or decline the work. If multiple writers have handled the subject matter, you can choose the piece that best suits your needs.

This means that you don’t have to accept a piece of content unless you are happy with it. However, it also puts the onus on you to review and accept the content. You can also request tweaks and edits until the content is up to standard. Also, if you are happy with the content from specific writers, you can “bookmark” them and ensure that they write your content in the future. Make sense? It’s a rather unique approach, and we’ll examine our thoughts on it below.

Pros & Cons of Verblio

Now that we’ve conducted a comprehensive outline of the services offered by Verblio, let’s break down the pros & cons so you can decide whether their services are right for your business. Starting with the pros:

Pros

Many Content Styles/Topics

Verblio employs a large & diverse team of writers. With over 3,000 writers on the platform, they have the combined expertise to handle just about any subject matter you can throw at them. This means not only a diverse range of topics, but also a diverse range of writing styles, and content styles (blog, newsletter, etc.). During their vetting process, Verblio has writers designate subject matter that they are familiar with. This means that you’ll be able to work with writers who have a depth of knowledge that is suited to what you are looking for.

Quality Writers Produce Results

Verblio has a decently extensive vetting process for their writing team. Verblio writers need to be experienced, and have a depth of knowledge that is suited to the task. Writers must submit content before they are accepted to the platform. Additionally, because the writers are essentially “competing” for your business, you’ll often have a wealth of options to choose from for any given content brief. You choose the content you like best, and can flag writers that you want to work with for future pieces. The best writers rise to the top at Verblio.

Affordable

Verblio’s services are priced on par with competing content services. In fact, they are on the “more affordable” side of things, everything considered. But do note that Verblio has a progressive pricing plan. If you want to benefit from articles that are fully optimized for SEO, then you’ll have to opt for one of the premium plans.

Cons

Quality Varies

Because Verblio employs so many writers, there will be no avoiding the fact that quality is variable from piece to piece. With so many writers on one platform, it’s impossible to guarantee a consistent level of quality for every piece of content. Verblio has a vetting process for each writer, but this issue remains unavoidable with a writer base this large.

You’ll also find that more popular topics receive more attention. For more technical, in-depth subject matter, there will generally be a much smaller pool of writers to choose from. In fact, we wouldn’t recommend Verblio if you are looking for technical content. You should opt for a more specialized service in this case. In fact, Verblio shifts some of this onus to the customer – requiring them to review content themselves before accepting it.

SEO Costs Extra

Another downside of the Verblio platform is that SEO services are included in the “premium” content plans. SEO is practically essential to succeed in the content marketing space, and it’s hard to recommend a service without it. If you’re considering Verblio, you’ll definitely want to keep this in mind.

Reviewing the Content

Because Verblio’s writing team needs to “compete” for your content, this also puts the onus on you to decide which content you want to publish. For each brief, you might have multiple pieces which are submitted, depending on how many writers decide to take it on. On the one hand, you have multiple pieces you can decide from. On the other hand, it is time consuming to review each submission. However, this problem becomes more manageable the more you use Verblio’s platform. If there are particular pieces you are most satisfied with, you can message writers and have them take on your content in the future. There’s an opportunity to build lasting relationships with writers you trust.

What Do We Think?

Overall, Verblio is a solid content marketing service. It has its share of upsides and downsides. It’s a relatively affordable service that will net you quality content, as long as you are willing to dig for it. Because Verblio writers will all have a chance to submit content for a given brief, you might have to sift through multiple pieces to find what you’re looking for. While this does give you the opportunity to pick content that best suits your needs, it can also become time consuming to dig through each piece. That being said, Verblio does vet each writer, so any piece of content will have a certain standard of quality. If you carefully review the content that is submitted, then you’ll be able to flag quality writers that you can work with going forward. If you put in the effort from the outset, we think you’ll be very satisfied with Verblio’s platform. There are positives and negatives of this approach (which we’ve examined above), and you’ll have to decide whether their platform is right for your business. If you are looking for a more standardized content writing service, then consider Content Refined.