Don’t Buy Content Online: Reasons 4-6

OK, so we’ve covered the reasons 1-3 not to buy online content last time: you’re going to get caught, you won’t get a good or even passing grade, and it’s expensive.

But that’s not all!

4. You Won’t Learn Anything

If you’re jammed up against a deadline and willing to buy a paper online, you probably aren’t thinking too hard about what you’re sacrificing in the long run by not doing the work yourself.

But this is a key reason why buying online content is dumb: you’re costing yourself the chance to learn. Not only are you not learning the topic you were assigned to work on, but you’re also costing yourself the chance to learn better writing skills, which are invaluable in the job market.

So even if you think that you’ll never get any value out of writing a paper on literary themes in Hemingway’s work, you’re losing out on the chance to gain a better understanding of paragraph structure, grammar, persuasive writing, and more, all of which would come in really handy when your boss asks you to write a board presentation two years from now.

Perhaps even more important, you have failed to learn the invaluable lesson of time management. Estimating how long a project should take and the energy and labor involved is essential in just about any job. Instead of learning it, you’ve cheated. You probably won’t be able to employ that strategy at work.

You’ll Keep Doing It Even Though It Hurts You

What if you’re not in school anymore and you’re thinking about buying prewritten online content to bulk out your website or produce an eBook for sale? There’s plenty of websites out there offering licenses for tons of content on marketing, health, cooking, and any other topic you can dream up. You don’t have time to crank out a dozen blog posts a week, so why not buy them?

It’s still a bad idea to buy prewritten online content even if you’re just working on your own website or your company’s marketing materials. (The exception, of course, is hiring people to write work to spec, in which case you’re paying them real money and expecting real content in return.)

For most available online content, hundreds, if not thousands of other people have bought the exact same content and posted it on their websites. That means that you’re not offering anything fresh or new to readers, so they have no reason to stick around and read the rest of your website, buy your product, or subscribe to your newsletter. Readers aren’t dumb, just like professors aren’t dumb. They’ll figure out fast that you’re not giving them anything new or valuable.

Furthermore, Google and other search engines penalize sites that have the exact same content as other sites, so you’ll fall further and further down the search rankings the more prewritten paid content you post. That completely wipes out the reason you probably bought the content in the first place: to rise in search rankings, get more customers, and increase your income.

The Alternative Is Excellent

Instead of buying prewritten online content, whether it’s for class or for your business, it’s best to write your own. Even if you’re still learning the principles of grammar and improving your writing skills, showing that you’re engaged and interested in learning will help you out far more in the long run than dropping a few hundred bucks on lousy prewritten content.

Try figuring out how to work ahead so that you don’t end up crunched for time with six deadlines all at once and nothing done. Check your course syllabus as soon as the professor hands it out and plan out when you’ll need to start researching, outlining, and writing in order to be done two or three days before your due date.

Then send your paper to a professional editing service (like Proofreading Pal!) to tune up your work and make sure it’s the best it can be. We won’t do the work for you, but we’ll point out ways to improve your writing, fix your spelling and punctuation, help make your references consistent and properly formatted, and offer suggestions you can use in the future to make your next paper even better.

In the workforce and need to get content up on the blog or finish a presentation? Do the same thing—work backwards from about three days before your deadline and plan your time wisely so that you can do a little each day till you’re done. Then send your blog post or presentation over to a professional editor to polish it.

As you get better at writing—and at planning out your time—you won’t feel the need to rely on crutches like online content mills anymore. You’ll learn more, manage your time better, and get better results.

Kate S.

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