Ask HN: Where do you get content?

33 点作者 nemexy大约 10 年前

Hey, HN!I searched but couldn't find any discussions about one of the most important parts of any given business - the content. Your blog content, first page content or e-mail newsletters. I am pretty sure that everyone here agrees that this is important for the success of a startup.So, how do you get that content? Do you outsource and to whom/where? Would you consider hiring non-natives to write for you? How much is, lets say a blog post of 750-1000 words worth to you?I am asking, mainly because I am facing a few challenges with my own project and I could really use some additional content, be for blog posts or marketing needs. Till now I have written every piece of content myself but it is time to rewrite some pieces and write some new ones. What is the best way to act in this case?

11 条评论

mrweasel大约 10 年前

I have question: You seem to be addressing "content" as some sort of bulk item, as in "I would like to buy five contents, please".Are you looking for content that can just pull in a lot of traffic, so you can get ad revenue? Or are you looking for someone to write technical documentation, or something in that nature?If it's the first option then I consider you a bad person. For the second kind of content, I honestly think you would be better for having the experts in your business, even if it's just yourself writing the content.

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mod大约 10 年前

There's marketplaces to hire writers.A company I worked for in the past would often hire a writer and give them a topic to research & write about. That particular writer was a highly-knowledgeable person in the industry and put out really amazing content which was primarily used for SEO purposes.We also wrote a lot of content ourselves--the vast majority of it, actually.

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taprun大约 10 年前

I keep a blog centered around a niche topic (the pricing and positioning of software applications). I created a backlog of 300+ ideas for posts, but rarely look at it.Once I got into the habit of writing something every day, my posts became easier to write. The discipline I gained by writing a book on the same topic helped immensely.It's extremely risky to go with low-bidders for blog content. You'll wind up with low quality articles that make your company appear sub par.How much is a blog post worth? As with all things, it depends. That's like asking how much a car is worth. Are you buying a Ferrari or a Toyota? Do you want to create content for SEO or to interest potential customers? How much research is required for your articles? How original do you need your content to be?A link to your site would allow us to provide more detail.

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daok大约 10 年前

The best content is about real content and if you are the owner of the product it should be you to at least draft the content. After that you may want to have someone to text proof your text.

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janpieterz大约 10 年前

I'd look for a couple of high quality writers that you can fire a couple of ideas over. Looking for them might take some time and cost you a little, but having a small group of valuable writers where you appreciate the quality is very valuable.I often use my girlfriend as well, who is a native speaker (I'm not) to do it. She has done this for a range of other companies as well, from food/beverages to legal, political and to a certain level technical. Don't shy away from paying decently for better articles. If it's just a simple thought being published that can be written quickly, pay less. The good thing about establishing a group of trusted writers is that you can look to other payment methods than per letter/word. Some blogs are very easy to write, some are very hard and require a lot of research. Paying per hour might then be a better fit, where the better writers will cost you a 100$ an hour, and paying per hour with a trusted blogger works, because if you feel they didn't deliver as expected you can talk about it, and they know they want to keep you, a trusted client, so they'll less quickly engage in dodgy practices.

dchmiel大约 10 年前

You can look at outsourcing creating content for your company. What you write about should be beneficial to your readers and users so simply just putting up posts week after week isn't as effective as well researched content that has direct benefits for your readers. Just mindlessly putting up "content" is not a great strategy.I just read about this today, Audience Ops [1],[2], and the approach to helping busy founders provide valuable content looks refreshing. It could be a good place to start thinking about how to get help with your content.(I'm not affiliated with this, but thought it was something that could help you).1. <a href="https://casjam.com/introducing-audience-ops/?__s=ihfp4xetd9k3zuprvxam" rel="nofollow">https://casjam.com/introducing-audience-ops/?__s=ihfp4xetd9k...</a>2.<a href="http://audienceops.com" rel="nofollow">http://audienceops.com</a>

andkon大约 10 年前

<a href="http://jobs.problogger.net" rel="nofollow">http://jobs.problogger.net</a> has been helpful for me. You can usually get someone pretty good for $0.10/word.

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gesman大约 10 年前

The best ever approach that worked for me is after i solved a problem - write a blog post about it.In fact I am doing this again right now.In fact I am dedicating the whole weekend to it.Why? Because my past blog posts landed me serious consulting requests and serious job interviews.Outsourcing or writing fluff and fillers never worked for me.

AlexOrtiz201大约 10 年前

Self Promo:: but <a href="https://www.rallyverse.com/showcase.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.rallyverse.com/showcase.html</a> you auth twitter and then we see what you like and recommend content around your three top topics.

touchingwood大约 10 年前

A trick I often use is to get cheap content written by a topic expert whose first language is NOT English. Then I get a cheap native speaking editor to go over it before it gets to me. This can work out very cheaply if you're lucky.

diminoten大约 10 年前

Surprised no one's mentioned this yet -- ideas are very common on HN or Reddit, but not from the submissions.So very often I find people posting very long, well-cited articles as comments on Reddit, and I wonder why they're just giving that content over to a very small subset of folks who might be interested. The entire concept of /r/bestof, for example, is in an effort to highlight well-written comments.Find a topic related to your business, visit the subreddit, read the discussion in the comments of an interesting submission, form an opinion on either the submission itself, or the ensuing conversational topic, and post that as an article on your blog.An example might be the "unlearning helplessness" submission currently on the HN front page. The discussion in the comments section has a few opinions about what is missing from the posted article. Perhaps you could write an article on that topic, providing some of the missing practical examples folks seem to be looking for. Also mentioned is the concept's relationship to stoicism. If that interests you, instead of commenting, write a blog post about it.Another example might be this very comment! If I were to expand more, provide additional examples, and punch up the language a bit, we could see ourselves at 750 words in no time flat.It took me ~3 minutes to get to 250 words, we could say it'd take me ~30 minutes to come up with a passable 750 words with a few citations -- I'm sure you can do about that (if not better), too.