Writing blog posts for my business is not easy. In fact, I am so close to it that I have a very difficult time coming up with topics. This blog, The Vendor Life, however, is super easy to write. I just write what I want to and if you read it, great. If not, I have an outlet for my successes and more often, frustrations. I also have zero budget for The Vendor Life so I can’t outsource any of it.

Writing articles for our website is much more difficult than I imagined. I like to spend all my time in the shop or getting ready for shows so I don’t really think about business related articles, but how much fun it is to make something and then sell it as a vendor.

What does this mean? Do I like being a vendor more than the actual business? Do I like making more than selling? I don’t know. I’ll save those questions for my therapist.

Anyway, since coming up with blog posts and articles is so difficult for my business website, I turned to a service that I had heard about recently. This service is called Fiverr.com. Their tag line is that you can get anything starting at $5.

It piqued my curiosity so I signed up. I figured that I would be the guinea pig for my readers. On Fiverr.com, they will do all kinds of digital asset related things from logo design, to videos and voice overs, photo editing, Shopify administration and even blog posts and articles. The blog posts was what I was looking for so I started browsing around.

To test the quality of the service, I chose the category of “articles and blog posts” and began to peruse some of what they call “creatives”. Creatives are the people on the other side of the internet that actually fulfill the work. Each creative can provide a listing for each of the things that they are willing to do for you.

The prices vary depending on what it is that you want.  While you can get a blog post for $5, the quality may not be what you want. While I am writing this, I found a creative that will write a 2500 word travel-related blog or article for you after she has a 1 hour phone consultation with you. The price for this is $625. That is a bit beyond our budget (and not looking for a travel article), but it is probably a great deal to the right company for the right topic.

Test 1 – $12

Looking at gigs that were more in my price range, I placed an online order for someone to write an “About Us” page for our business. The advertised cost was $10. For $10, I thought it would be worth the risk. I ordered this gig, Fiverr.com added a $2 service fee that I thought was reasonable, and placed the order. Once placed, I was asked to fill out the requirements for the order. For this gig, I was asked to provide a little bit of information about us, our website, and keywords that I wanted to use that would improve our search engine results.

The order was started on a Tuesday and was completed four days later.

The results that I got were not bad. I wasn’t blown away, but they weren’t bad. It really helped to get another perspective view on our business from someone we don’t know. I haven’t used the results from this gig yet, but I probably will.

I rated this one a partial success.

Test 2 – $22

For my second order, I went cheap to find a blog writer to write an article titled “Why Women are Attracted to Facial Hair”.  I wanted an original article that would help with our search results. Using the right keywords would improve our ranking in the search engines. I splurged and spent an extra $10 for a stock photo to use as well as the article text.

Well, I got what I asked for. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something that I could use. The article looked like a list of facts perused from the Internet regarding female biological urges for men with beards. It even referenced the menstrual cycle. Not kidding.

I don’t know where this person was from, but even I know that in today’s politically correct environment, posting something like this might get you hurt. Even Monica wanted to hurt me when I showed it to her and I didn’t even write it!

This was a total failure and a waste of $22.

Test 3 – $50

For my third test, I posted a request. On Fiverr, a request is a listing of specification and people who believe they can fulfill those specification will bid on the gig.

I posted on the Fiverr.com site a request for someone to write a blog post geared toward men regarding the benefits of natural grooming products. I posted the request and overnight, I had dozens of offers from people to write the article for me.

I logged in the next day and was overwhelmed by all the offers. They ranged in price from $5 to over $50. I started going through them and, after being burned by the previous test, I was a lot more cautious about choosing someone to write an article for me.

The first thing that I noticed is that the offers came from all over the world. Offers came from Europe, Africa, Middle East, America, and anywhere else you can think of.

I had three major concerns. Language, culture, and abilities were my big concerns. First, I needed to make sure that what was written could be read easily by my target audience. This one was relatively simple to resolve because I could read their descriptions and look for grammar errors and language use.

The second issue, culture, was tricky. I didn’t want to reject someone just because of where they were from, but I also wanted someone who could get into the mind of my target audience and write to them. I’m not a terribly well-traveled or even highly sociable person, so my knowledge of cultures around the world is extremely limited. (Translated: I have no clue what goes on in the mind of millennials in the United States, not to mention around the world).

Lastly, I was concerned about their abilities. Maybe they could write in the language that I wanted and maybe they were deep in the mind of American Millennials. How would I know if they had the abilities to write something that would connect with my target audience?

Between all three of these issues, the choice was difficult. It was like picking a number on the roulette wheel in Vegas. I logged off as more offers were coming in.

Finally, I logged back in and the choice was obvious. There it was. A new offer.

What made this offer different was that it wasn’t a boilerplate response. This person actually took time to look at my web site and state exactly what they could do. The cost would be $50. It was more than the majority of the other offers, but they already seemed engaged. I agreed. With the $2.50 service fee, I was in for a grand total of $52.50.

The result was spectacular. This person was listed as a man in Canada according to the bio, but that could be fake. I didn’t really care as long as they could write the article. He totally blew away our expectations and did a remarkable job.

This was such a great result that I have it posted on our website already and am working with him to write another article.

This is the end of Part 1 of “My Experience with Fiverr.com“. Look for Part 2 in the next few days as I will describe another experience and offer important tips for working with Fiverr.

Until then, see you at market!

 

 

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