I was recently contacted for writing content by a website design company who were working on a large web portal. Upon further discussion, it was revealed that they wanted about 30 pages of quality SEO oriented content written for their websites. We discussed everything from the keyword phrases to the length of the articles to the niche audience that the website catered to. And then, ladies and gentlemen, I quoted my price (which happens to be quite reasonable as compared to market standards). The reaction though unexpected, wasn’t completely new to me. The guy sitting opposite me showed signs of amazement and then shock at the rates quoted by me. Then, he entered the next phase which usually follows shock. Questionnaires! Boy, do I love them!
Don’t you think that the price quoted by you is too steep?
Not really, unless you believe that words are meant to be cheaper than peanuts. Look around you. Professional content writers usually charge about $10 a page of original plagiarism free copy. And if his/her work has been published in magazines or newspapers, then the price almost doubles. Hiring a good quality experienced content writer is definitely going to cost you more than what hiring a college student looking for pocket money or beer money will cost you. Yes, there are writers who will work for $1 every 500 words they write. But you get what you pay for. If that’s your budget then be prepared to get copy that is loaded with grammatical errors, is scrapped off other articles on the internet and has little or no relevance whatsoever to your product. Better forget your SEO goals.
Is it worth the price? Why?
Yes. It is totally worth it because search engines love good content and so do users. Search Engines are smart creations. They have silently evolved faster than any Operating System has in the past decade or so. I don’t know the duration of time that you have been accessing the internet for. But if you compare the search results of today with the results a few years back, then you would notice a marked improvement in the quality of websites that come up now. Search engines today are constantly monitoring and modifying their algorithms to ensure that each website that turns up in the search results is ‘closest’ (in terms of relevancy) to the term searched for by the user. In simpler words, quality informative and keyword rich content takes you one step closer to that elusive top spot in search results pages. If that isn’t worth a few dollars more, then I don’t know what is.
The price almost equals the price quoted for website design
Yeah, so what? The success of a website on the internet today depends on several equally effective factors. The website design, the content and the marketing strategies go hand in hand. Not one can be considered inferior to the other. Why look down upon content as something that should cost only a fraction of the actual cost of the website when it can very well make a significant difference to the final outcome? Even the most attractive and sophisticatedly designed website cannot survive without content. And it’s not mere words to fill up the spaces that we are talking about over here. It is good quality original copy that can inform, inspire and initiate.
Pricey, but nicey! 
That was my reply to the website design company rep.