The Difference Between Content and Content Mills

Before you flog me for entering back into the content mill debate, know that I’m not. Nope. Told you, promised you, and I’m sticking with that. But one fallacy that’s floating around must be addressed – the use of “Web content” and “content mill content” interchangably. If you do this, stop it right now.

There’s a massive difference between the two. For instance, Web content I’ve written includes e-newsletters posted on a client site; website copy for an entire client site; weblog posts; online brochures; online white papers; and articles that were placed – you guessed it – online. Conversely, content mill content is housed in one place for one purpose – to populate a site and generate more keywords to increase the Google rankings of that site owner. This doesn’t include e-newsletters, online brochures, website copy, or online white papers. Articles? Yes. The difference, however, is one has a very specific audience. The other, not.

Then we come to the issue of payment. At no time was I paid $5, $10, or even $20 for my Web content. I was paid hundreds and even thousands for my content. Big difference. And what the client ordered was very specific to an industry, an audience, or a marketing need (beyond driving up Google traffic).

Web content writing may encompass content mill writing, but it isn’t by definition the same thing. No way.