Charging for web content
 

Not sure where this goes, so I'm putting it here.

A realtor I know has asked me to write some content for her website--information about the area where we live to attract young couples etc. to live here. I took the job on, but I've never done anything like this before. I've found a little bit of information on how to actually write content for the web, but I can't seem to find any information on how to charge for it.

Obviously, I don't want to charge her professional rates--I'm a college student, not a professional. However, I don't want to lowball myself. So I have two questions: one, how is pricing on web content figured? Hourly? By the paragraph? By the word? Two, how much does the average content writer charge, and what would be a good adjustment to that fee for my purposes?

With the rise of content farms such as Demand Media, the "average" rate is quite a lowball figure.

In the end, you will just have to negotiate it between the two of you. Writing articles is a dime a dozen activity, sad to say, made even easier with services such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk. I've seen people offering a dollar (even pennies!) to do stuff in there.

It's really difficult to say, Chuck. Is she a friend? If so, give her the lowball friend rate. If she's a professional acquaintance or something, take the figure you think is appropriate, and add 50% to it; just based on what you're saying I bet you're lowballing yourself hardcore.

I can't help you with how much you should charge by (time spent versus content volume). Since it's the web, the amount of space needed to be filled isn't as rigorous, so I doubt bulk is as important here as it would be in print. Also (as you've read, no doubt) web content tends to require conciseness and brevity over length, as people always skim for the information important to them. I would charge by the hour unless all of my peers in writing think that's a terrible idea.

I'd suggest that you decide how much you want to earn per hour, work out how long it's going to take you then charge overall based on that. That's certainly what I do when I do odd jobs for people. If it's a mate I charge £10 an hour for bookkeeping or a flat £50 for a set of accounts and tax return. People who are friends of friends I charge a bit more to, depending on how wealthy they are but normally between £15-£20 an hour since that's slightly less than they'd pay on the open market.