What do presidents, candidates for political office, political debaters and Internet Marketers have in common? Writers. They all need original content.

The political leader outsources to a speech writer; the Internet Marketer hires a freelance article writer. Both entities are ghostwriters who take no credit for his work. The speaker or webmaster takes all the glory.

Ghost/speech writers have been hired by our political leaders for 100's of years. It has been reported that Alexander Hamilton was the speech writer for George Washington. If that is factual, then Alexander Hamilton is probably the most famous ghostwriter of all times.

A ghost writer is a writer who works for hire and upon culmination of the project relinquishes all rights to the project. Nearly all politicians use ghost writers to write their memoirs, correspondence and speeches. Webmasters use ghost writers to write their articles because they either don't have the time or talent to keep their website updated with original, tailored content.

We will explore and explain the process of hiring a ghostwriter to write those original articles for your website. Following are a few points to help with the process:

Be prepared. Do not talk with a ghostwriter without knowing what you want. Do you require technical data? Will the articles demand in-depth research? How many words do you want? What subject matter do you wish the article to express?

Don't tell the ghostwriter to "write me an article on obesity" - a subject that has numerous subtopics and methods. If you don't understand what you require I can promise you the ghostwriter will not satisfy you, no matter how much they charge or how seasoned they are. They are writers, not wizards.

Be professional. If you wish to engage a freelance writer but you don't have a clue as to what they charge or how they work you could end up losing your shirt. Hop over to Google and search for "custom articles", "freelance writers" and "ghost writers" and see what the going rates are. Some will publish their fees on their web page.

Some will publish their rates on the Internet. When you find what the "going rate" for ghosted articles is you can develop your budget for the expense. Or, after the research you may determine you can't afford a ghost writer.

Ask for a quotation. Many times web sites will post their fees so you can easily determine what the project will cost. At other times you may need to ask for a quotation.

Or, perhaps you are advertising on one of the freelance sites such as elance.com or getafreelaner.com. As indicated in Item #1, Be Prepared. Cover the following points in your query or posting: a) the length of the Article (i.e. how many words); b) topic (or title) for each article; c) your Deadline; d) how much you will be able to pay; and, e) how you plan to pay them (paypal, google, etc.).



Be Very Specific. What do you require? Believe it or not there is a difference in "content articles" for your website visitors to read and "keyword articles" written to improve your SEO (search engine optimization).

Maybe you want both. If so, does the ghostwriter have skill in creating people-pleasing content that will also delight the search engines and boost your search engine position?

Keep your bottom line in view. Don't overpay for your articles. Always keep accurate records of income vs. expenditures and remember that the reason you are employing a freelancer to write those unique custom articles for your website is to increase the traffic, thus the earnings, to your website.