A lot of people set up blogs with the best of intentions but after a while, it just becomes far too hard.

It becomes too hard to write consistent quality posts and also too hard to maintain a regular writing schedule (especially if you have a day job). But if they are relying on the blog’s advertising to bring in some money, they may be reluctant to close down the site. That may be where a quality writing service comes in handy.

A writing service is someone who offers you articles for a fee. They will listen to your requests and them come up with an article that closely resembles what you asked for. There are many of these services all over the net, many credible but many not, but you have to check off certain criteria before parting with your hard earned cash.

As the editor of a well established blog, and someone who hires and fires writers on a regular basis, here are four things that I would look for when considering whether or not to employ a writer.

1. Make sure you hold exclusive copyright – A lot of these writing services rely on getting articles out quickly to maximise their profit. This means that if two parties ask for the same subject, the writing service may just be tempted to sell the exact same article to both parties. This is bad because a) both sites will end up publishing duplicate content which affects your reputation as readers realise you didn’t write the post yourself and b) you end up losing any search engine benefits for your post because of duplicate content issues. So try and get a promise out of the writing service that you and only you will have that article and at no point will the article be sold to someone else. Of course there is nothing you can do if they break their word. If they do, don’t ever use them again and make sure others know about your experiences.
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