Category: Web Beats

I first stumbled upon Need an Article in June of 2009. At that time I joined their website and initiated a request for 10 articles to be written. The following review details the results of my experience in obtaining those articles, and the value of the writing service being provided.

The site boasts itself as “a market area for customized website content that you request.” Indeed they do appear to be transitioning to that, but in June of 2009 they were primarily an article writing service. Scott Foster is the owner of the website, and he, his staff and writers attempt to hold down the fort of what can often be a daunting task. Especially when the requests for writing come in fast and furious.

My initial usage of this service was to request 10 articles. What subject I chose is immaterial, unless you’re merely trying to copy me instead of create for yourself. Let’s just say, I did my homework before I requested the articles and looked at the possible keywords.

The actual process of requesting the articles was quite simple:

1. I joined their program.
   Probably the only downfall for most users will be getting past the $9.95 a month fee for the writing service. I believe however that you sometimes have to pay for a better and easier service. I imagine, but don’t have any proof, that the $9.95 is paid out to Scott, while the writing costs is primarily (if not all) paid out to the writers. Whatever the split, it’s a justifiable expense in my eyes, if the concept works.
2. I watched a video on submitting an article writing request.
   Scott has placed on the website several videos which can provide you a better understanding of how to use their service properly and easily.
3. I purchased credits to use for the purchase of the articles.
   The site is set up on credit usage. Basically, in addition to the $9.95 charge you will also need to purchase credits in order to use the credits to purchase the articles. The $$$ cost of the articles are extremely in-expensive. I’ve seen similar websites selling 300-400 word articles at $15 each. My 10 articles would end up costing me $125.00. The cost of the articles at Need an Article is based upon the length of the articles: 550 words – $ 5.52 ; 750 words – $ 9.03 ; 1000 words – $ 12.50.
4. I gathered up my research and wrote out a lengthy request.
   One of the requirements of the website is that you don’t simply give out a keyword to the writers and request articles back. They also want you to conduct some initial research online as to where the writer can gather material from. My request contained an idea of the style of writing I was looking for (scholarly but simple) as well as the specific keyword phrase for each article, and then a series of URLS for each article to provide resources for the writer to research the subject. Note: This is not meant for you to give one URL to the writer and say rewrite that article…
5. I input all of the information into their online form.
   My submission requested 10 articles to be an average of 1,000 words, with none less then 750 and none more then 1250. By doing this I gave some leeway to the writer to provide a shorter article if there was limited material (I’m not one for filler words). I did not request any long-tail keywords to be included in the articles, feeling I would rather input them if I chose that path, knowing that I would read over and for SEO purposes, even if they were the best written articles.

A couple of hours later I received a reply by mail stating that my articles had been applied, which basically meant that one of the writers had applied for the job of writing my articles. This writer immediately contacted me via IM on their site to request some further information, and to let me know that she actually had experience in the field I was looking for articles on… that was an extra bonus I didn’t expect, since the subject matter was more scientific then my usual stuff.

Probably the only hiccup in the whole process was that it took the writer longer then she had anticipated it would to write the articles. However, I told her from the start I was not in a rush, and would rather have quality over speed. Instead of getting them a week later, it took her two weeks to complete the task. But the articles I finally got were superb!

My first step was to run them through Copyscape to insure that I wasn’t being misled since these were my first articles I’d purchased from the service. They were clean. The highest match was 25 of 856 words similar… very acceptable for an article. The articles were authoritative without being complex… exactly what I had asked for!

Its now 18 months later, my initial $125 purchase, plus the $9.95 a month, turned into an earnings of $2,590.18 via Google AdSense alone, not including other sources I also derived income from but did not track separately… And I did it using only 1/2 of the original 10 articles I received. One major caveat, I placed these articles on a highly trafficked website. Together these 5 articles plus an index page received about 72,000 page impressions over the 18 months… very little of those page views came from search engines, but rather through my own site.

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NOTE: The links in this article are not affiliate links. I gain nothing from them. This is not a paid review!