Where have all the article writers gone?

[gina_riley2]

Where have all the article writers gone?

The good ones raised their prices and the ones who stayed cheap all had nervous breakdowns. 🙂

I think Pro and the level structure thing will see a bit of a (budget) writer availability cull.

I now turn away pretty much anybody who doesn’t order direct. Plus, I’m upping prices considerably soon for all but 3 regulars who I am creating a special gig for. Fiverr simply isn’t worth the hassle.

I have had an amazing experience this year working a big client off Fiverr. All payments were processed via escrow (i.e. non-refundable), almost all communication has taken place via email, and the end result has been fantastic.

Now, let’s compare that to a Fiverr story: I recently took on a regular client who ordered $40 of work per day, despite me having a bit of a bad/funny feeling. Then suddenly, the buyer stops communicating and I start to do a little digging.

What I find is that them saying they are from California doesn’t fit with their Argentina profile. Neither does that fit with a time stamp on their messages which implies they are in Asia. Then we have comments on the FB page of the website I’ve been supplying content for, calling the company out for scamming them (on Fiverr) out of work using chargebacks.

So far, I haven’t had a chargeback myself. Needless to say, though, I won’t be accepting any more work or regular buyers like this again.

Yes, such events aren’t the norm. However, they are becoming an exclusive to Fiverr problem. What is more, Fiverr is basically now saying that they are going to wipe the floor with anyone who’s ratings take a hit as a result.

Given the above, the minimum any writer on Fiverr should charge should be $30. Better to have 1 x $30 chargeback, after all, rather than 3 or 6 individual canceled orders.

I do think buyers will start to miss out because of things like this. I have an old buyer at the mo who is almost begging me to agree to work on a project. The thing is, it’s not really worth my time to work with them personally or on their project.

In the past, they used to order 10+ articles at a time to which I eventually had to say, ‘hey, stop it, I can’t handle this much from you.’ They kept on ordering anyway, though and made loads of my orders late. What is more, I look at the 12 orders they want to place, calculate how much I’ll take away, and think: ‘Nah, I’d rather just spend x on a promotion here or get 2 orders worth x over here.’

Fiverr as it is set up now isn’t really worth anyone’s time who plans on selling something at $5, $10, or even $20. Too much can go wrong, too much time and hassle is usually involved. Then after even the best selling experiences, you find yourself thinking, ‘blooming hell, that’s going to be a chargeback or 20 isn’t it?’

Of course, I don’t think there will ever be a shortage of writers per se. I doubt, however, that many will stick around for very long at a time.

As it is, I wouldn’t be prepared to start on Fiverr and work up the ranks like I did, given how it has changed recently and the sheer amount of work which establishing yourself can involve. Now people would be wiser to build up their portfolio and experience off-Fiverr and simply apply to Fiverr later down the line as a Pro-Seller. More money, less effort, and far fewer, ‘we’re 5r and we’re going to murder your career in 60-days’ stresses.

the minimum any writer on Fiverr should charge should be $30.

Andy,

Not everyone has your writing skills. There are sellers here who aren’t even worth the $5 they charge. I wouldn’t pay them a $1 to write 1000 words. Their spelling is atrocious, punctuations are non existent, sentences are incomplete and I can’t understand it.

I had a $25 for 1000 word article writer, after 3 revisions, wrote this “buyers who don’t pay for commercial use license are bad people.” It’s like a 5th grader wrote it.

I was so ticked off. Yes, I get tricked too. This guy really fooled me into thinking he could write.

[topaz_muse]

No articles written here. I’ve tried specific genres before and got nothing so I went the general route and still nothing. I have written on a variety of topics including those I’m not highly knowledgeable in. Am tempted to modify gig to be more specific but afraid of doing so; too many issues with saving and placement.

[cyaxrex]

the minimum any writer on Fiverr should charge should be $30.

Andy,

Not everyone has your writing skills. There are sellers here who aren’t even worth the $5 they charge. I wouldn’t pay them a $1 to write 1000 words. Their spelling is atrocious, punctuations are non existent, sentences are incomplete and I can’t understand it.

I had a $25 for 1000 word article writer, after 3 revisions, wrote this “buyers who don’t pay for commercial use license are bad people.” It’s like a 5th grader wrote it.

I was so ticked off. Yes, I get tricked too. This guy really fooled me into thinking he could write.

I had a $25 for 1000 word article writer, after 3 revisions, wrote this “buyers who don’t pay for commercial use license are bad people.” It’s like a 5th grader wrote it.

The funny thing is, if you are looking for a great Yoast SEO score, the Flesch readability score which Yoast uses actually scores you higher the more infantile your use of language.

Maybe you got a real bargain here? Maybe you’re just not with the whole Orwellian destruction of real, worthy of a good read writing in favor of SEO newspeak?

Blame not the bad writer. Blame the world which demands they write badly.

[misscrystal]

I like to write about perfumes. I just ordered a new batch of samples to review.

[miiila]

I had a $25 for 1000 word article writer, after 3 revisions, wrote this “buyers who don’t pay for commercial use license are bad people.” It’s like a 5th grader wrote it.

The funny thing is, if you are looking for a great Yoast SEO score, the Flesch readability score which Yoast uses actually scores you higher the more infantile your use of language.

Maybe you got a real bargain here? Maybe you’re just not with the whole Orwellian destruction of real, worthy of a good read writing in favor of SEO newspeak?

Blame not the bad writer. Blame the world which demands they write badly.

Yoast OT

Yoast and German is even worse.

I´ve been translating a lot of articles in a multi-language WP installation. Invariably, any “green” Yoast readability scoring English text got “red” after translating it, so I experimented a bit (also with the English texts that had orange or red) to see how to get them to green or at least orange.

I could (well, not in all cases, because there was a lot of tech speak, Flesch doesn´t like that), and it was…fun. Example, Yoast did give me brownie points when I translated passive constructions in the English text into active ones in the German text but did not give me any points for German transition words - while it did give me points in the German text for happening to have English transition words in there (there are 2 English transition words that also are German words though with a different meaning). Very confusing. Or buggy.

Well, I guess Yoast and Flesch have data about the average IQ of people reading articles and they are good at marketing. I certainly would not blame any writer who wrote for me whose articles would not get a green from Yoast, after this experience, though.

[eoinfinnegan]

Yoast OT

Yoast and German is even worse.

I´ve been translating a lot of articles in a multi-language WP installation. Invariably, any “green” Yoast readability scoring English text got “red” after translating it, so I experimented a bit (also with the English texts that had orange or red) to see how to get them to green or at least orange.

I could (well, not in all cases, because there was a lot of tech speak, Flesch doesn´t like that), and it was…fun. Example, Yoast did give me brownie points when I translated passive constructions in the English text into active ones in the German text but did not give me any points for German transition words - while it did give me points in the German text for happening to have English transition words in there (there are 2 English transition words that also are German words though with a different meaning). Very confusing. Or buggy.

Well, I guess Yoast and Flesch have data about the average IQ of people reading articles and they are good at marketing. I certainly would not blame any writer who wrote for me whose articles would not get a green from Yoast, after this experience, though.

Further Yoast OT

Yoast is a useful tool and probably the best of that type, but it is still relatively basic in terms of actually grading what Google wants to see. For example, Yoast does not recognize synonyms or even topics, which is way behind Google at this stage. The free version of Yoast which only allows focus on one keyword per page can actually have a negative effect on SEO as it makes the text look contrived. In fact, it can be extremely bad when done very basically as it results in a text which is a bad user experience - ie people dont want to read it as it sounds like it was written by a bot. SEMRush’s 2017 report on the most important factors for SEO (image below) shows that a negative user experience is far bigger a problem than ever before.

It is also worth noting that 18% of all first page ranking sites don’t actually contain the keyword in the body of the content! Fleisch is Yoast’s attempt at gauging user experience but it is also a poor indicator. For example, if a site for PHD students is written to be readable by the average 14 year old, then the actual target audience is going to see the site as being too basic and move on, showing Google that the site is not a good match for that audience/keyword.

The image below shows that just one of the top 10 most important factors for SEO in 2017 is measured by Yoast - it is not the authority that it is believed to be. When I manually optimize a wordpress site, the pages very rarely have a green light from Yoast - and that is ok.

There is such competitive pricing for writing that I am not surprised that some have left the site. Getting a good writer is not easy, but it never was. I disagree that general writers cannot do as good a job as those who specialize - sure in some ways a specialist is better but a general writer is likely to do more research on a topic they are not familiar with and in doing so should come back with a more balanced view than someone who has already made up their mind on a topic.

[neromare]

Good writers are nervous about the Gujarat elections, and a little busy, so staying low 😑

“Good writers” are not only Indians. You have Europe you know, USA, Canada, etc.

[gina_riley2]

Further Yoast OT

Yoast is a useful tool and probably the best of that type, but it is still relatively basic in terms of actually grading what Google wants to see. For example, Yoast does not recognize synonyms or even topics, which is way behind Google at this stage. The free version of Yoast which only allows focus on one keyword per page can actually have a negative effect on SEO as it makes the text look contrived. In fact, it can be extremely bad when done very basically as it results in a text which is a bad user experience - ie people dont want to read it as it sounds like it was written by a bot. SEMRush’s 2017 report on the most important factors for SEO (image below) shows that a negative user experience is far bigger a problem than ever before.

It is also worth noting that 18% of all first page ranking sites don’t actually contain the keyword in the body of the content! Fleisch is Yoast’s attempt at gauging user experience but it is also a poor indicator. For example, if a site for PHD students is written to be readable by the average 14 year old, then the actual target audience is going to see the site as being too basic and move on, showing Google that the site is not a good match for that audience/keyword.

The image below shows that just one of the top 10 most important factors for SEO in 2017 is measured by Yoast - it is not the authority that it is believed to be. When I manually optimize a wordpress site, the pages very rarely have a green light from Yoast - and that is ok.

image.png723×606 28.5 KB

There is such competitive pricing for writing that I am not surprised that some have left the site. Getting a good writer is not easy, but it never was. I disagree that general writers cannot do as good a job as those who specialize - sure in some ways a specialist is better but a general writer is likely to do more research on a topic they are not familiar with and in doing so should come back with a more balanced view than someone who has already made up their mind on a topic.

. I disagree that general writers cannot do as good a job as those who specialize - sure in some ways a specialist is better but a general writer is likely to do more research on a topic they are not familiar with and in doing so should come back with a more balanced view than someone who has already made up their mind on a top

I agree with your disagreement.

Even though I like to hire people I think are familiar, sometimes those writer do a terrible job. I recently hired someone who doesn’t even have a writing gig. I had a feeling he’d do a great job, so I simply asked.

Happy ending, he did an amazing job! He’s such a perfectionist, he even cited references; which was above and beyond what I asked.

[fastcopywriter]

I have no idea how popular article/blog writing gigs are on 5r, but I’ve noticed a deep decline in the number of qualified sellers. I only can surmise that it’s sells are declining.

I’ve used several sellers multiple times, but unfortunately, each writer has certain style. I like to keep my pool diversified by getting multiple writers. I only have 1/4 of articles I need. I like to hire people that I think already has some knowledge of the topic.

I hired a guy living in Zimbabwe to write on Victoria Falls, a guy living in India to write about tigers, a guy who is a published author to write about authors - hum, looks like I need more gals in my pool. 👩. Just kidding, I’ve hired several gals too.

Just curious as to how your sales are going? Is this a slow area?

I have no idea how popular article/blog writing gigs are on 5r, but I’ve noticed a deep decline in the number of qualified sellers. I only can surmise that it’s sells are declining.

A friend of mine is an article writer here. She focuses on specific categories, and she’s doing really great, making lots of money. As stay-at-home mom, Fiverr has allowed her to support herself instead of relying 100% on her husband’s salary.

So there’s plenty of opportunity to article writers as long as they write within their areas of expertise. If you’re not a woman, why write about women’s issues? If you don’t love to cook, why write about food? But if you’re a passionate follower of cricket in India, maybe you can have a gig dedicated to cricket articles. As the old adage goes: write what you know.

[sydneymorgan]

Many writers are getting bumped down in search or completely removed from the website, and students have a lot to do with it.

• Sellers who take homework related orders get banned.
• Sellers who cancel homework related orders get penalized.
• Sellers who mention anything about homework in their gigs will get denied (even if you’re saying, “Don’t send me your homework”).

It’s frustrating and it’s an issue I struggled through all weekend after a sudden influx of college assignments came my way. I finally had to add another step to my requirements form and an image to my gallery to try and stop it.