Compose.ly Review

Composely Review

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?

compose

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.

Read More

Crowd Content vs. TextBroker

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

crowdcontent

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

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!

Read More

HireWriters.com Review & Complaints

HireWriters Review-Complaints

In this article, we’re checking out another popular content writing service – HireWriters.com. HireWriters is one of the older content writing services on the Internet. It has developed a, well, shaky reputation from writers and clients. While it advertises itself as a premium service for content marketing and article writing, some claim it does not deliver the high quality content it promises. Today, we’ll see whether this reputation is justified, and whether you should consider HireWriters for your next writing project.

What is HireWriters.com?

hirewriters

HireWriters.com is a basic content writing service. They advertise unique content writing in a variety of areas (article writing, transcription, rewriting, eBooks, etc.). The main difference you’ll notice is that HireWriters boasts prices much lower than competing writing services. For example, clients can get a 700-1000 word article written for $5! But, as you might suspect with a service this cheap, its reputation is not so stellar.

What is the Reputation?

The saying “you get what you pay for” tends to be a pretty reliable indicator of what you can expect from rock-bottom pricing. As such, HireWriters has developed a reputation for sub-par quality, and a less-than-happy writing staff. Writing jobs at this website are underpaid and don’t offer a freelance writer the chance to offer high quality content because of this. That being said, we know that reputations can be misleading, and we want to offer a fair critique. So let’s break it down and see whether HireWriters has earned this reputation. Here are the positive and negative aspects of the service.

Pros

Cheap Content

You aren’t going to find content writing much cheaper than HireWriters.com. In fact, unless you get it for free, you’ll struggle to find prices even close to HireWriters. So if you’re willing to roll the dice and buy some content, then you’re not going to find a place where you can spend less than here. HireWriters also offers rewrites for even cheaper rates.

Varied Content

HireWriters works with a lot of writers, so they’re capable of producing quite a bit of different content types and varieties. HireWriters offers new articles and rewrites of articles, eBooks, poetry, blogs, and much more. Once again, if you’re willing to give it a shot, you might get what you’re after.

Fast Turnaround and Fair Approval Process

HireWriters advertises turnaround times of 1 day (or shorter upon request). This is very fast. Once again, we don’t think these short deadlines are conducive to high-quality writing, but at least you’ll know quickly whether you are satisfied with your work. HireWriters also states that they rarely miss these deadlines, and will penalize their writers in this case. HireWriters also gives you 72 hours to review the work before you accept it, and you are free to reject it if you are unhappy. HireWriters does require you to put the money into escrow upon ordering an article, so you have to contact them directly to reject a piece, in which case they will send the money back to you.

Cons

Low Pay for Writers

If we were really to boil down the problems with HireWriters, it basically comes down to this: Because HireWriters charge such exorbitantly low prices for content, there’s not a lot of money left over to pay their writers. In fact, some writers report making less than $3 per content piece. HireWriters does utilize a ranking scale, where writers earn more if they are more experienced, but it still doesn’t cap out at very much.

Basically, it’s next to impossible to attract top-quality writers while paying rock-bottom rates. They might occasionally luck out and hire a talented writer who is looking to build their portfolio, but they are unlikely to last long. As a client of HireWriters, you can’t reasonably expect top-quality content without being willing to pay for it. Quality content writing should (and does) cost hundreds of dollars, while HireWriters is charging under $10. Something doesn’t add up, and the business model simply isn’t conducive to quality work.

Variable Quality

As we examined above, it’s difficult to expect quality content writing at rock bottom prices. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that that’s what HireWriters produces. While there are certainly reports of satisfied clients, it hasn’t been our experience. Essentially, unless you luck out and are paired with a talented writer, the quality will be about as you expect. Then again, perhaps the quality is pretty on-par with what we paid for it, so it’s hard to say that HireWriters is overly misleading.

Shady Reputation

Our experience with HireWriters has been, unfortunately, far from unique. HireWriters has a reputation in the writing community as a less-than-reputable content writing service. Once again, we think it all stems back to the rock-bottom pricing model, but the end result is the same. There are reports of many writers who are unhappy with the employer, and many clients who didn’t receive what they asked for. Of course, we can’t personally verify all of these stories. But at a certain point, if your reputation precedes you, then it’s hard to argue against.

Complaints from Writers

We also can’t verify these claims, but there have been numerous complaints from writers claiming that HireWriters has locked their writing account, cutting off communication. On certain occasions, writers claim to have not been paid for work. Once again, we can’t verify these claims, but they seem numerous enough at least to raise skepticism.

Critique

If something seems too good to be true it probably is, and that’s the case with HireWriters. If you aren’t willing to pay for quality content, then it’s difficult to expect quality content. HireWriters’ prices are low, and their writers get paid even less than that. If you’re wondering how they manage to attract talent by offering these rates, then you probably already know the answer. It’s hard to say good things about a company which doesn’t pay their employees a fair wage. On the other hand, if you really want to risk it, at least your commitment is low. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your work will be assigned to a fantastic writer who gives you exactly what you were looking for. And if not, at least you’re not too far out of pocket. You can also reject the work and get a refund if you are truly unhappy.

Read More

TextBroker VS Constant Content- Which Is a Better Content Writing Platform

Content is the key ingredient to successful marketing. Any business organization requires content creation to inform people about its offerings, products, and services.

Online businesses need much more content to describe their products and services in detail as their customers are mostly visiting them on the other side of a screen.

Content development for a business website requires a certain level of expertise. The content has to be well optimized for popular search engines and, of course, well-written. 

For most small and medium-sized businesses, hiring a full-time professional writer is not an option. However, they can always assign their projects to freelance writers with a reasonable budget.

You can find thousands of skilled writers at various content development platforms. In this article, we compare two websites where you can easily connect to a freelance writer.

Constant Content

Constant Content is a website where people search for content developers to find a suitable candidate for the job.

It is one of the most expensive content development platforms as its writers set the price for each project. On top of that, Constant Content charges 35% of the cost, so the writers include that in their selling price.

There are three categories of writers on this platform. Some freelancers upload their articles into a catalog and wait for interested buyers to contact them. You might find a helpful blog in these catalogs, but it’s not a safe bet.

You may also post your projects on this site and wait for a suitable freelance writer to respond, but they will decide the fees.

Finally, there is a pool of writers where you can choose a skilled candidate based on the content you want. Here, the writers can demand high compensation, but at least you get several candidates to choose from.

What makes this site a formidable competitor in the industry is each of its writers has impeccable grammar. You can be sure that you are getting a piece that is well-written. 

Pros

  • You can get content on just about any topic.
  • This site offers you a pool of writers capable of developing concise content.
  • You can place an order in multiple ways.
  • You can get grammatically perfect content from this site

Cons

  • The writers get to decide the price of a project.
  • It has a very lengthy review process.

TextBroker 

TextBroker is a unique content development platform where you can connect to the best writers as this site offers more than 100,000 professionals.

Although TextBroker does not categorize its writers, you can check their deliverability to some extent through the client ratings.

Most importantly, this content broker offers its services in 10 different languages. TextBroker ensures that each writer on its platforms is from the respective country.

This site also offers management services at $25.00 per project.

You can have your content created at a much lower price than Constant Content. The highest-tier writers charge up to 25 cents per word.

Pros

  • You get to choose the perfect candidate from a pool of more than 100,00 writers.
  • It offers 10 different platforms. Each dedicated to a specific language.
  • The best writers do not charge more than 25 cents per word on this platform.
  • It allows you to place an open order and hire a suitable writer among those who are interested.

Cons

  • It has a higher commission rate compared to its competitors.
  • The project management services are priced too high.
  • Very little information is available about the writers.

Conclusion

Everybody wants the best value for their money. When paying for your business content, you expect it to be exceptionally well-written. The last thing you want as a business owner is to hire an incompetent and inexperienced writer.

Hopefully, this article will help you decide which of these sites is a better choice.

After comparing their pricing and offerings, it’s clear that TextBroker is way cheaper than Constant Content. But, with the second option, you can get better quality content.

If either of these sites does not seem right for you, don’t worry. There are plenty of other content development platforms where you can find the right candidate.

Content Refined– A Better Alternative

Despite providing grammatically correct and well-structured content, there are several disadvantages of hiring a writer on Constant Content. On the other hand, you may choose TextBroker as it suits your budget, but you will likely need to compromise quality.

You must check out our Content Refined Review to learn more about this better alternative to TextBroker and Constant Content. Besides providing complete development and management services, Content Refined is an expert in marketing your article and blogs.

Read More

Content Writing vs Content Marketing – Case Study

Content writing is one of the steps that has to happen within content marketing. Content marketing consists of a series of steps, including business strategy, keyword research, content writing, publishing, and marketing the created content. Too often, the process of content writing gets mistaken for a business doing content marketing.

Read More