A web content writer is a valuable asset for those who have many websites and can't write all the articles themselves and for those who don't want to do the writing work.
Web and SEO content writers are available at low prices and it does make sense to let the ghostwriters do the writing while you spend your valuable time on tasks that require your personal attention.
Now let us take a look at some of the alternatives available for buying good articles at sensible rates.
There are two popular methods of hiring workers on the web.
One is through freelancing sites like oDesk and the other is through crowdsourcing sites like Mechanical Turk and iWriter.
Let us examine both these options.
Option 1: Use freelancing websites At sites like Freelancer and oDesk, you can get many types of work done, but their procedures could be too tedious for a content writing or transcription job.
You have to put out an ad spelling your requirements and the rate that you are willing to pay.
You then wait for interested workers to apply and make offers.
After this, you have to shortlist candidates, interview them and hire the best people you can get.
There are many problems with this model when it comes to simple jobs like getting articles written.

1. It is time-consuming.
   All this process of finding the right people and hiring takes a lot of time for a small job like getting some articles written.
   
2. Most of these places have complicated rules about how time spent by the worker is measured and there is an arbitration process if you have a dispute about what you get.
   
3. You have to keep giving a steady stream of work or you will lose your team, as they are likely to move on to other clients.
   
4. You may end up paying a much higher rate than what you would like to pay.
   
5. This method is not easily scalable and you will have a tough time if you have a sudden spike in requirements.
   
6. You have to worry about members of your team leaving the project in between.
   

Freelancing sites are ideal for large complicated projects of short durations or for ongoing work.
Interviewing and hiring people in this manner is best when the work that you need to get done requires a very high degree of skill that is not easily available and the suitability of the workers has to be ascertained before you actually give out the work.
This is especially true if you need all the work to be done by the same person or the same team.
Here are a few examples - customer support jobs, installation jobs, software development and developing mobile applications.
Option 2: Use crowdsourcing websites Crowdsourcing websites allow you to post any kind of job to a large group of workers.
There are quite a few of these sites which specialize in providing content creation services.
One example is iWriter.
The jobs you post are open to all qualified workers and usually there are plenty of people available 24x7.
Once a worker picks up your job, they complete the article and submit it to you for review.
You are under no obligation to buy the article.
If you like it, you pay for it or else you can send it for rework or put it back in the queue for someone else to do the job.
Crowdsourcing sites give you an instantly scalable and readily available workforce.
You don't have to worry about turnover, interviewing people and other associated problems.
The writers are usually graded and most of these sites allow you to decide to which level of writers the job should be sent to.
Most of the good sites allow you to maintain a list of writers you like so that you can have a team of writers to send your work to.
You also have the option of sending the work to an individual writer.
Finding the best writers for your budget and putting together a team does take some trial and error, but once that is done, you get high quality content without wasting time on rewrites and rework.