I've been meaning to do a quick update with my thoughts on www.TextBroker.com.  I started using this service a couple of weeks back for some of my content creation on a few affiliate sites I have.  And I have to say, I found their service a breeze to use and in the end, I wound up with some super quality content in minimal time with minimal cost.  Here are the details.

Finding a Writer

TextBroker allows you to choose writers two different ways…(1) choose an individual writer or (2) simply offer your writing project to the masses of writers that are members of the site (around 23,000 in the USA, according to them).  I went with option #2 since I was brand new to the site and didn't know any writers.  But even when you choose that option, you can select what level of writing quality you want.  I chose pretty high quality, which affected the price, but it was well worth it.

Turnaround Time

Of course your mileage may vary, but I got my articles back in about a day or so.  Actually a little bit less, but I didn't have time to review them until the next day.  Bottom line is that you can expect a pretty quick turnaround.  In fact, in a recent email, they said they've put a lot of effort into attracting more and more writers to their service – hence the 23,000 that they have on board right now.  And of course, you can request a rewrite if an article just isn't up to par with what you were expecting.

I had two orders initially…a smaller order to test the writer(s) and then a larger order that would take care of what I needed for the site in question.  I say "writers(s)" because you never know how many people are going to respond to your articles.  As I understand it, multiple writers can choose to write your articles.  So for a pack of 10 articles, you may have 2, 3, or more writers.  In my case, they were all done by the same guy.  Depending on how it works when you place your order, that could affect your turnaround time and your cost.  Speaking of which…

Cost

The pricing was a little different between the fist order (a writing request to the entire list of writers) and the second order (a writing request sent directly to the person who wrote the first batch of articles).

The cost?

$4.65 and $4.84 per article.  Yeah…NICE!

Like I said, the price varied for each order…I think the higher price was for the order sent directly to the writer)

Final Thoughts

I'll keep it short and sweet.  From my experience, I found TextBroker to be a great service, with fast turnaround and killer prices.  If you need affordable, well-written content for your sites and want a great service to outsource to, give Textbroker a shot and see for yourself.

I'm working on a new website project that's basically an affiliate content site.  More on that a little later after some testing.  In the meantime, I needed to get some good content created quickly and decided to test out a new service I heard about called TextBroker (direct link).

How it Works:

You can sign up for an account for free, but you'll need to deposit at least $25 to submit a writing project.  You can deposit funds via credit card or Paypal.  You can request multiple articles written by multiple writers or select your favorite writer(s).  Pricing depends on the quality of article you want, the number of words and of course, the number of articles.

Step 1: Create a Project:

Once you have your account set up and funded, you can create a "project".  Their system uses "projects" as a way to group writing assignments that are related to each other (like assignments for articles that are all for the same site).

Step 2: Select a Category, Quality Level, Timeframe and Word Count

Then you just select the category your assignment best fits in, the quality level of the writing you need, the turnaround time and the number of words.  More on each of these things:

• Category: Pretty simple…just select the top-level category that best matches the topic for your article(s)
• Quality: This affects your overall cost and quality is graded from 2 to 5 stars.  The pricing for each quality type ranges from 1 cent/word for 2-star quality up to 6.7 cents/word for 5-star quality.
• Processing Time: How fast do you need the articles back?  Pretty simple, huh?
• Word Count: This also affects the overall cost but you can request any range for your word count.

The other thing that affects your pricing is the number of articles you want written, so let's talk about that next.

Step 3: Add Your Article Title(s) / Topic(s):

You can request a single article or multiple articles by just entering the titles/topics for each article, one per line.  Keep in mind that different writers may end up writing your articles, so you'll want to also have a good description of what you're expecting from your articles in general.  But TextBroker has you covered there too.

Step 4: Add a Project Description

You can give potential writers a description of what your articles should include, what they shouldn't include, the writing style you're looking for, etc.

One cool thing is that they do though is they allow you to use a placeholder by just inserting [PLH] wherever you need to within your description.  That way, if you're requesting several articles all about designer watches, you can have titles like:

• Rolex Watches
• Omega Watches
• Breitling Watches
• etc.

And then you can have a description that reads something like this:

"I'd like to have a short, informative article written about [PLH].  The article should be written for people interested in buying [PLH] and should include information on where to find them, price ranges, features and how they differ from other designer watches."

And of course, the [PLH] is replaced with one of the titles shown above.  So…

Writer 1 sees "Rolex Watches" and writes that article.

Writer 2 sees "Omega Watches" and writes that one.

And so on…with each article specific to that particular type of watch.

Step 5: Order Your Articles

Once you're done, you click the "Calculate Order" button and it shows you the estimated cost (based on your max number of words).  And you can review your orders, move them, change them or delete them from within your account page.

Pretty cool little site.  I'll add another blog post once I get the articles back.

P.S. – I didn't select an individual author so I'll be getting articles written by multiple writers.  But once you find a good one, you can select them individually instead of taking whoever comes your way.  Nice!

This is a great video I found while randomly working on something else online.  It's a bit long, but worth it.

The video shows several website reviews by Google's Matt Cutts at a recent conference (May 2009).  Great info for any web marketer, webmaster, SEO, etc.

What's covered (without ruining the whole thing):

• Some old SEO myths dispelled (and some stuff that still applies)
• The truth about using flash on your website
• Some good, common sense usability tips any webmaster can take advantage of
• And more…

Check it out…learn it…use it. 

I'm working with a client who is in the process of creating and selling an ebook online as a way to transition her business from a purely offline model to a mix of online and offline.  At the same time, I'm also working on a few little side projects of mine, also focused on ebooks and other digital products.  What's interesting is that it's made me realize how much we really know (and take for granted) as Internet marketers.  Here's a quick list of things that will seem like no-brainers to most of you.  But to your average person unfamiliar with direct response marketing, online marketing or nose-to-nose sales, it seems like a mountain of information to get through (and it is).

• Finding a topic
• Testing whether the topic will be profitable
• Creating the product
• Creating bonuses for the product (and why you'd want to)
• Getting a domain name, web hosting, how to FTP and other techie stuff
• Creating a sales page
• Adding audio to the sales page (and should it auto-play or not)
• Testing (what to test, how to do it, why to do it, impact it could have)
• Tracking (how to track, what to track, why to track, impact)
• Writing good sales copy
• Creating terms of use, privacy policy, contact pages
• Finding royalty free images (why you need these vs. any old pic from the web)
• Getting traffic to the site
• Autoresponders (what they are, why use them, etc)
• List building (why bother, how to do it, etc)
• Upsells, downsells, cross-sells, backend offers, etc. (why this is important)
• Pricing your product
• Affiliate programs, JVs
• Accepting credit card payments online
• Web audio, video
• Outsourcing
• Blogging
• Social media

The good thing is that the client I'm working with is a real go-getter so it's been pretty easy getting through these concepts without getting caught up in minutia.

Also, there's probably more to this list than what's listed above, but these are the things that came to mind off the top of my head.  Like I said, this is probably super basic stuff for most of you reading this.  But think about your parents, neighbors, the lady you sat next to at church last weekend or whoever.  How much of this would sound like complete gibberish to them?

Yet sometimes, it seems like some of us think that because we haven't hit the big time or become some sort of "guru", that we still have a mountain of stuff to learn.  But not so.  I say that if the above list looks like "just the basics" to you, then you're probably 90% of the way there already.  It's more of a matter of "implementation" vs. "education".

Just something I was thinking about as I close out the week.

So I just got back from a great conference in Atlanta and one of the first things that was said was that we'd probably hear or learn something during the next few days that caused us to call a "do over" in our business.  What's cool is that since we're all business owners, we can call a do over anytime we want.  I think it's time to call a do over with this site.

I've been meaning to update this site for awhile, but towards the end of last year, I started a new business that I've been totally focused on.  You know all that stuff you've probably been hearing about "offline marketing" or "offline gold"?  Well that's basically what I've been doing…working with local businesses on their Internet marketing campaigns.

But I still want to keep this site alive and have a lot more to say about IM in general, product creation, entrepreneurship, inner game stuff and a few other things.   So over the next few days, I'll be revamping things around here, including a different look.  Just a heads-up in case things look weird if you visit the site while things are being tweaked.

P.S. - If the idea of working with business owners in your local area sounds like something you'd be interested in, then you might want to check out the free offline gold audio that talks about this business model in more detail.  Be advised, you'll be presented with a couple of offers on that page, but don't jump the gun just yet.  Just listen to the audio and see if it sounds like something you may be interested in.

Here's a quick video showing at least one way to use a tip I found out about over at the AWeber blog.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating…if you're looking for great tips on email marketing, you should head over to AWeber and sign up for their email list (whether you use their service or not). They give some awesome tips on getting the most out of your email marketing campaigns, like the tip that prompted me to do this video.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to make a backup of any files you edit before following the steps covered in the video. Probably not necessary, but always a good practice.

Anyway, leave a comment below and let me know what you think and if you'd like to see more videos like this.