Copywriters, how long does it take to write an excellent article?

Cristian Level X³

November 4, 2017, 6:27 am

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Copywriters, how long does it take to write an excellent article?

Content writing is not an easy task, this I know for sure. It takes time and a lot of practice to end up writing decent content worth reading. Also, depending on the subject, some niches may be more complicated than others.

But overall, I'm wondering, what is the average time it takes you to write a 1000 words piece of content on a medium complexity niche?

I don't consider myself a good writer, I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm far away from being talented. But I've written content in most niches out there, even NSFW type copywriting for adult websites.

The worst for me are technical subjects, and even though I have an Engineering degree, it takes me about 8 hours to write 1000 words of highly specialized content.

On everything else, I probably average around 2-3 hours per 1k words, from which half I spend on research. I consider myself pretty fast giving the fact that I'm really an SEO specialist at heart and that content writing comes second.

I think we've reached a stage on the Internet today where everything was already said hundreds of time if not thousands. Writing fast small articles is a thing of the past. To stand out from the crowd, you now need complete articles that are fundamentally at a whole different level compared to your competitors.

Here is a study made by Orbit Media’s:

As you can see people started to spend a lot more time writing content than they did in previous years. This tells me one thing: everyone makes an effort to better themselves, and you should do the same!

Even though SEO is my first digital love, I've decided to transition more and more in the following years and become a more concentrate on developing my copywriting skills.

I already started to improve myself by buying tools like Grammarly premium and started reading more about advance English grammar rules.

How fast do I need to become to turn a profit around? And what are the best ways to gain long-term copywriting clients?

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TimothyAlex

TimothyAlex

Excellent is a little subjective. So, it really is going to depend on what the goal is. A comprehensive, long-form article can take me 4-6 hours to right. However, if I am writing content for a local company, writing content that has them stand out typically does not require (and should not include) very in-depth and technical information and jargon. so, I can write those in an hour or less.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I can say that you are a veteran writer to come up with an article in a matter of 4 hours. It’s not really being a comparison with myself but when I write an article I usually spend some time in writing the outline and checking the details of what I have to write. The normal time I spend for that chore is one day and I would be writing the article on the second day when my mind is already overflowing with information.

6 years ago

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kgord

kgord

I think it depends on your familiarity with the content, also how fast you write. Another thing is your familiarity with the topic. If you are familiar with the topic you can write a lot faster then if you are a total newbie to the topic. All of these make sense and why it is hard to give a general time as to how long it takes to write an article.

7 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Being familiar with the topic is one aspect that every writer should really have a look at before embarking on writing a particular content. It's not always easy to know every topic out there, but for the topics we are familiar with, things can get better.

7 years ago

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augusta

augusta

I take less time trying to get content for my blog because I don't like copying content and with this it faster for me,because I will be typing at a go and as I do this the content will be flowing,because more ideas will be emanating and it will help me write the required amount without stopping.So for me, I don't take much time.

7 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Just like me, I don't spend much time reading what others have written about the same topic. All I always do is to research on top blogs and see some of the ideas I can borrow from there and that's how I build my contents as well.

7 years ago

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GGGRRR

GGGRRR

Does that strategy make your content unique and click-worthy? I would rather read to find new information and ideas. While I haven't read your writing I know I don't want to read something borrowed or unoriginal. Sorry to crap on your post but, Quality > Quantity.

7 years ago

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TimothyAlex

TimothyAlex

That is the best thing. Generally, people don't want to see the same information that is written on ever other sites. They want either something completely new or a unique perspective. The idea of quality content is subjective. However, users tend to be attracted to uncommon and original.

7 years ago

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Barida

Barida

I fall into the 1-2 hours categories of writers. I don't spend much time on writing some contents and that is how I've developed the habit of thinking on my feet and doing all I could to do smart researching before I embark on writing any topic. Content writing can be tiresome for those starting out new, but with time, everything falls into place.

7 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

Good and interesting question.

It depends a lot on the subject that I'm writing at the moment, but I usually don't take (as long as I really know the subject I'm writing about) more than 1 hour to get the result I want.

My brain works very fast and my hands / fingers - to my luck, haha - follow the rhythm satisfactorily.

7 years ago

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DarthHazard

DarthHazard

It depends on a lot of factors, to be honest. If you know that industry or niche well then obviously you will be able to write an excellent article much faster. But if you are required to do research beforehand and it is not exactly a topic that you know well then you may have trouble which may result in you taking a lot longer than usual to write that article. I tend to stick with topics I know so it takes me about 20 minutes to an hour at max.

7 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

I would get a job as a copywriter. That way I gain experience and earn and build my reputation. You can Google jobs for copywriters and find lots of work opportunities. That would be my starting point.

7 years ago

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overcast

overcast

I think there seems to be a lot of demand for the copywriters. And there are some really good article writers working on this type of stuff. So yes it can earn one good enough amount of money if worked properly. I think in that context it'd be surely a good earning point for those who are into article writing. And they can also do the copywriting for emails, products, description writing etc. So that is something worth learning.

7 years ago

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potentialwriter

potentialwriter

It doesn't matter how long it takes to write quality articles on your blog or website, but how actively you can build your niche with time. Making money online does not depend on how fast you can write, but how well you can grow your audience. Though content is king when it comes to making your website or blog search engine friendly, there are still other parameters Google and other search engines would consider before your site can be indexed.

7 years ago

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Baburra

Baburra

I write very quickly if I don't have to do research for it. I usually just write my thoughts and my opinions for my blog so I don't really have to research much of it at all so I don't really take that long to finish an article. I think my readers appreciate my honesty a lot more than my accuracy, as I don't really ever claim to be completely on point 100% of the time but instead if I am unsure about a certain topic, I would just state it so it won't be misunderstood or it won't seem like I am speaking out of turn.

7 years ago

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JonathanS98

JonathanS98

Personally, I hate it when I have to rush my articles. I'm one of those writers where every fact and/or statement expressed in the article, must be back checked and verified before publishing. Which is why I do a lot of research on the topic I'm writing about prior to beginning my article, altogether. My goal on my site is to give the most accurate, reliable, and up to date content possible. Therefore, I give myself little to no room for errors.

Judging by your post, the readers of your articles seem to appreciate the friendly, informal aspect of your writings. I respect this because it takes the pressure of you (the writer) to provide 100% accuracy. While still providing enough engaging details in the article itself for people to read!

7 years ago

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DarthHazard

DarthHazard

You're the exact same as me really. I can type quite quickly especially for topics that I am pretty good and don't really need to do a lot of research for, so I can usually complete writing an article very quickly for that. It's great to hear that your readers appreciate honesty more than accuracy, it means that they truly appreciate your work and like you as a content creator.

7 years ago

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mildredtabitha

mildredtabitha

If I am very aware of the topic due to past experience, It will take me 5 hours to sketch the points, write the content, rereading and editing. It might take me up to two days if I am completely not familiar with the topic and if I will have to depend on research to come up with something to write. But instead of putting myself in this position, I would rather not take the complex topic. I will instead focus on the topics I can manage to write without risking my work being rejected.

7 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

So many factors go into this query. I do think this chart is is interesting, but like someone else mentioned, it is a bit subjective. The person paying for the article is the one determining its excellence, even though we could come up with a criteria of what an article should do to be excellent across the board. In any case, the time factor always depends on the basic work ethic and expertise of the writer and also how much research (which can be relative in its variables of time consumption) needs to be done to write an informed peace and one which will fulfill the needs of the person hiring the writer.

7 years ago

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JonathanS98

JonathanS98

Like everyone else is suggesting, I really don't think there's a straightforward answer to this. Things like your own physical typing speed play a factor. But also how quick you are at turning your thoughts into creative, engaging content worth reading needs to be considered too! No matter how long it takes you to write a single article, I always suggest taking as much time as you need. Personally, I'd much rather crank out 1 quality worded article daily, than to publish 10 average/below-average articles every day.

How long does it take for me to write an excellent article? This mainly depends on what my word count goal is. As well as what subject I'm writing about, along with how much detailed content is involved in that subject worth writing about.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

How much time I take to write an article depends on the type of article am writing and the length of the article. Recently I wrote two 35000 word articles: indoor seedling guide and soil microbes. The first topic was well known to me, I wrote the article in two days (did not write all day long), it took me over a week to write the second article because the topic was very new. If the article I am writing requires an in-depth research, I take more time to write an article.

7 years ago

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Scribble

Scribble

A 35,000 word article within two days means you've been firing at a rate of 220 keystrokes per minute for eight hours straight, on two consecutive days. Pretty nifty. To put that into perspective, it's 14 times faster than the industry standard for translation, with the content already being at hand. A 2015 poll revealed that only 2.3% of the respondents claimed to translate more than 6,000 words per day.

I've been a copywriter for more than twenty years now, and I've come across some blazingly fast colleagues over the years, but I hardly ever saw anyone crank out more than 6,000 words a day, on a topic they knew everything about.

My typical workload would be 1,500 to 3,000 words per day (in my native language, German). The work consists of reading the marketing brief, doing the required research and preparation, collecting and structuring the content, coming up with decent headlines, subheaders, copy, image suggestions and metadescriptions, as well as reviewing, editing and proofreading as needed. There is at least one second pair of eyes involved as a general rule, and you have to read, understand and evaluate their comments, too.

4 years ago

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jaymish2

jaymish2

I tend to think that copywriting is a different ball game to normal content writing. Copywriting is like sales and apart from your writing skills requires your marketing skills. I've done a copywriting article for 500 words for 6 hours.These types of articles require your writing to be engaging, funny, innovative and persuasive. Copywriting looks easy, but I believe it's not.

Out of all the categories of writing, I believe you need training and practice. In big companies, they are departments that concentrate strictly on copy. I also believe it can't be measured in terms of time as we do other types of writing. Of course, if you want to be paid a few dollars for your articles for the rest of your life you can try to do it in 2 hours.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I have a friend who is a good copywriter. Although I haven’t asked him point blank on the time it takes to finish an article, my idea is one day per article. He would be concentrating on his article for the whole day before he can come up with a good one. I think the reviewing and rewriting can be up to 50 times depending on the gravity of the article’s requirements. Maybe he can write 5 or more articles in a day but he prefers to have focus to maintain the quality of his writing.

7 years ago

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JohnMcLendon

JohnMcLendon

I'm not a professional copywriter yet. but I also write a lot of different papers pretty often. And it always takes a different amount of time to finish. It depends on the topic I write about, how my words should the paper have, and so on.Somethimes, when I write academic papers, it can take me a few days to finish them, and sometimes I can't write a paper without help.
Everything depends on many different factors

3 years ago

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KatherineMoore

KatherineMoore

I agree with John. Different factors affect writing time. I'm a student and also a freelance content writer, and I can say that it's harder for me to write academic papers. Usually, it takes me 3-4 days to write a quality paper. And I always use a lot of different resources to write a paper because otherwise, it would have taken me weeks to finish it. And some time ago, I started reading essay examples on website, which made the writing process faster. Such examples are a great source of inspiration and ideas. I believe that success in writing relies on reading. The more you read, the better are your skills. And for content writers reading is very important because it's not the easiest task to write an exciting and catchy article.

3 years ago

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Uppeathe197

Uppeathe197

if you have 5-7 good sources at hand and an understanding of the topic, then 3-4 hours are enough for me to work perfectly, this is an average

3 years ago

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