Freelance Writing and The Race To The Bottom
If you’re a professional writer, you may expect to be able to earn a living wage from freelance writing – well, think again. Your industry is being co-opted by writers who churn content, drive down prices and make it impossible for the profession to be taken seriously.
The truth is, we all love to write – that’s what brought us to Medium in the first place, and perhaps onto my site. Writing is a subtle, creative art form that can be therapeutic, grounding, and transformative. Like you, I still get a thrill from finding that elusive phrasing that gently sheds new meaning on a point of view, or elicits a feeling that I couldn’t quite put a name to.
And yet, the content writers reading this probably fall into two camps - either nearing burnout from churning out thousands of meaningless words a day or being paid well in a profitable niche, with the luxury of limiting their volume and concentrating on quality. But those yet to find a niche, or find the right clients, sit at an uncomfortable nexus between offering quality, original content, and plunging into the froth of poor-quality, regurgitated content.
Does affiliate link-building create bad content?
Sadly, whole industries exist that thrive on the latter. Digital hustlers, in my experience based primarily in non-western countries, will start niche ‘cash-cow’ websites, focussing on trending topics like crypto news or business analysis, and then set about systematically working the SEO to inorganically force their site to the top of the rankings, using, ironically enough organic keyword techniques, like SEO-optimised blog content. To them, paying someone more than 0.01¢ per word for blog content writing services is not only anathema, it’s impossible within their shaky business model.
These are people based in the poorest parts of the world, who are looking to generate a few hundred dollars more a month from sketchy-looking sites that grab views for just long enough to generate ad revenue. They don’t care about their site’s content, or the content writers, just their bottom line. They cannot spare enough money to pay a competent writer a good rate and the result, of course, is that their sites do not rate in the quality rankings.
Any native English speaker reading their milled content can see straight away that it was written by a low-paid copywriter who is re-wording the content of other writers, avoiding detection with the help of Copyscape or similar AI writing software. The great irony is that the clients themselves are non-native speakers in many cases, so no one involved is making a meaningful, qualitative judgment on the writing – it is the blind leading the blind, and SEO-optimised writing is king, regardless of tone, phrasing, or grammar. The result is a systematic driving-down of writing quality and a bastardisation of the English language; it’s a world in which AI-written copy is sprinkled among high-profile blog posts, and all but the keenest readers just can’t detect it anymore.
High-quality content writing to generate sales
The result is a race to the bottom. Who can churn out the most content in the shortest time, pack it with staccato keywords, and do the bare minimum to satisfy the client, before moving on to the next piece? Who can outbid their fellow content writer with a well-worn, subservient sales pitch, and a portfolio linking to a ropey carousel of other superficially aesthetic, and poorly written websites?
The truth of course, although it may sound cynical, is that a lot of wealth usually lies with the educated. The people who have money to spend on your product or service will sniff out your AI writing software, and frown. It immediately rankles, because it is apparent to them that there is something just slightly off about it. Why? Because you employed a sub-quality writer to save a few cents, which is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Your site has no credibility, not just with its readership but with the search engines and advertising tools you are trying to use to make money. Many of these algorithms recognise quality, and that is hard to fake. Not only that but you will often have to employ a copywriter to rewrite the work - there is a reason that ‘AI rewriter’ as a search term has increased 900% in recent weeks, and there has been a similar increase in the popularity of Fiverr content writers specialising in AI.
The written word is precious, let’s use it
The sad truth is that even on Medium I look at the curated list of recommended articles, and the first article I read – a list-based piece bashed out about cryptocurrency – is barely readable. I cringe my way through the clumsiness of the opening paragraph and then just close the tab. Where are the gatekeepers who are maintaining editorial standards? Medium should have them. Any credible publication should have them. The latest numbers show that in 2021 we now spend over $500 billion on digital marketing, but where does the money go?
If you outsource your writing to a copywriting agency, they may use freelance copywriters, who may in turn be outsourcing to low-paid, non-native writers or even using an AI writing generator. Get control of your editorial standards if you want to run a credible website, and stop participating in this embarrassing word shuffling.
Let’s stop driving down prices and start driving up standards again. The written word can be beautiful, enchanting, and engaging. Let’s not use it solely as a functional packhorse to flog our wares.
Enjoy the post? Check out some others below. Think I’m wrong? Let me know, and we can argue about it in the comment section until one of us gets bored.
