When web content gets discussed on webmaster bulletin boards, the most common question is, "how much should I pay?" That question is both perfectly logical, and perfectly stupid:

• Logical, because the biggest expense of any website, with the possible exceptions of advertising and promotion, is the content. You only have to get web development and design once, but content needs to be added regularly for your site to be successful.
• Stupid, because the real question isn't how much you are going to pay, but how much you are going to invest. Your content, if it's done right, will make you money. In fact, it can easily make back its cost within a month. So the real question you should ask a web content provider is: how much will it make me?

Calculating Your Web Content's Value

Ultimately, your web content is the one part of your site that makes you money. The code, design, and even traffic, while important, are not what ultimately get a visitor to take action. You have to tell or ask visitors to take action. Telling and asking take words.

Small changes in your web content can make big differences in the bottom line. Take a look:

Advertising/affiliate revenue

Let's say you have a web page that averages $25/day in revenue from advertising and/or affiliate links. You have a professional writer optimize the content on the page to get more clicks. Watch what happens:

1. If just 20% more visitors click on affiliate or advertising links, your revenue will increase $5/day, $150/month, and $1825/year. If your page maintains its current level of traffic for three more years, that's a $5475 increase, just for that one page.
2. But it gets better: the improvements to the page will easily increase traffic by 20%, as more visitors return, more visitors refer your site to friends, and more webmasters, bloggers and others link to your site. That brings a total of $6570 more revenue from that page over three years.
3. If you get the same results with 50 pages with similar traffic levels, that's an increase of $328500. Now multiply that by however many sites you or your company owns. Can you say, "early retirement"?

Keep in mind, that's only the additional revenue you get from the improved content compared with what you were getting already from your work. No extra work needed.

Sales/leads model

If your website is a promotional vehicle for a business, the results can be even more spectacular. If a page nets you $500/day in sales or leads, website content improvements that increase your sales or leads by 20% will pay for themselves within a month, if not a week.

In reality, if your current content is really weak, the improvement is likely to be even more spectacular. Traditionally, overhauling bad sales writing doubles or even triples the response rate.

The best part of all this is the advantage you'll gain over the competition, with so many website owners in the dark about their content. If you are earning 20% more than the competition on the same advertising or promotion expense, you will ultimately carry the day.

Making a Content Investment

Now, back to price. What would you expect to invest to see a $6570 return?

Writer's Market, the blue book of professional writer fees, says web content averages $300/page, which would mean a 2000+% return on investment.

But you can actually get away with paying only half that if you don't need research or meetings