I received a mixed response when I posted on this blog and couple of online forums that we are looking to hire some freelance bloggers. The main point of contention was the rate we should pay for blogging. My post mentioned that our starting rate is $15 per post. Some people applied right away. Others mentioned that rate was too low. Some even thought it was insulting. Since I continue to receive emails about this until now, I wanted to clarify a couple of things.
How much a blogger gets paid depends on the value he/she brings to the client
The bottom line is what matters to every business. So let’s start talking about financial value a blog brings to a business. Most marketing activities are evaluated with a simple question: What is the return on investment for that particular activity. The same applies to blogging. Of course that is very challenging. It is difficult to draw a clear correlation between blogging activity and actual money coming to a business. That is the main reasons clients are hesitant to pay higher rates for bloggers. Yes, there are some sites that can evaluate ad-sense revenue generated on a particular day when a freelancer is blogging. But the clients I am talking about are regular businesses that do not run any type of advertising on their site. One of the things I spend a bit of time working out with clients is performance measurements. Many clients do not have a good way to measure the performance of the blog in the first place.
The real value to blogging is increasing brand awareness and establishing online community. They are extremely valuable, but it is difficult to put a real monetary value for them. Many clients do not see a value in blogging until a couple of months passed and the blog is generating repeat traffic. After the client gets a feel of how the blog can help his business in building an online community, then we sit again to talk about rates.
That is one of the main reasons most of our blogging contracts do not run more than 2 months. In this model, as the client sees real benefits from the blog and starts to experience an up word swing in readership, our fees and the rates we pay our bloggers start to increase accordingly. I believe that model works to everyones benefit.
How much a blogger should get paid depends on experience
Just like any other type of work. An established blogger can demand a lot more than someone who is just starting out. That does not mean that the new blogger does not write as well. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think a new blogger can produce better content than an established blogger. But in case of experience, the client is also paying for the name recognition of the blogger. He is also hoping to attract some of the loyal following of that blogger to his own blog. Chris Garrett or Muhammad Saleem can both demand and both deserve as much as they like per post.
Social media is a new element in the mix
 This is something that we just added recently to the way we charge our clients for blogging as well as how much we pay our writers. Everyone understands the value of making it on the first page of digg or Netscape. Some clients received close to 50k visitors in one week after getting on the first page of digg. The also had close to 200 link backs. That is a great value from a single blog entry. We invest a lot of time helping our writers improve their skills to attract readership from social media sites. That does not mean that every piece we produce is written for social media.
With social media, it is an easy argument for me to make to the client. You can see the value of visitors. You can see the value from link backs. As a result, we try to pay our bloggers between $50 - $100 if their piece gets on the first page of a social media site. I must admit that many clients have been resisting that. They want to pay for the post and do whatever they like with it. Â
Technical vs. non-technical topic.
This is another major factor in determining the rate for a blog. Writing a post about c++ code, or medical post involves a lot more research, time and effort. It is only fair that technical writing gets paid more than regular blogs.
But I can write it myself…for free!
Please go ahead! Maybe I should not be saying that to a client. But if someone does not a real value in hiring an expert blogger, then the best way is show them the value to tell them try it out themselves. Some will actually be good at it. Most, frankly, will stink and come back to us to talk.
The marketplace
The truth is that there are too many bloggers who are happy to offer their services for so little that it affects everyone else. That will always be the case. Let me use my software background for example. You can find a Java programmer for $15 an hour. If you want to talk to me, you have to be ready to pay more than $80 per hour. I guess the moral of the story is that you need to establish your name and your experience and let the market take care of itself.
Now, if you do want to freelance blogging, then I definitely recommend reading Chris’s piece on the secrets of freelance blogging.
 So tell me what do you think.
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