So why would you even consider outsourcing your blog? It’s meant to be you, right? But in real life, things are a bit more complicated. Maybe, just maybe
- You want to save time
- You don’t know what to write about
- You don’t like writing
So let’s look at those one by one and see whether outsourcing will help.
Can outsourcing your blog save you time?
Most definitely you can save time by outsourcing blog posts.
In the most extreme scenario, you can actually have somebody write a post which you don’t even see. That’s certainly an option, but it’s a highly risky one.
- You won’t know what’s appearing on your blog.
- You have no idea about the quality.
- You don’t know whether the topics are right.
Worst of all, you’ve actually disconnected yourself from a blog which is designed to help you communicate and build relationships with your audience.
If you outsource to save time, remember you’ll still need to invest some time.
As a minimum, stay involved in the content decisions (what topics to write about) and the approval process.
You may also want to work on content outlines for each post, review and editing. It depends on your level of interest and how much you trust your supplier.
Maybe you don’t know what to write about?
Once again, you can delegate topic selection to somebody else, but it’s not always wise. How does a content agency decides on topics and create blogs? Here’s a common process:
- Research keywords for your target market, especially those with high search volume and low competition
- Research your competitors, especially their most popular posts
- Use that research to come up with a list of target topics
- For each topic, research existing content and use it to create a blog post for your site
Depending on the quality of your content agency, you may get a recycled mess of thoughts, or you may get a good, solid blog post. What you’re unlikely to get is an original idea.
Agency content writers may have industry experience, but they’re not working in the industry every day.
Compare that to your day. As you go about your business, customers will ask you questions about how things work. You’ll experience issues specific to various jobs and projects. All of this will help you think of stories, points and examples.
The original, engaging ‘real life’ stories in your daily work will make your blog fresh and exciting – but only if they get to the blog. If you want the most out of your blog and someone else is coming up with ideas, make sure you spend some time sharing your experiences and opinions so the content is fresh and original.
What about people who just hate writing?
- Are you scared of grammar and punctuation mistakes?
- Or you don’t understand SEO and how to optimise a post?
You are not alone!
In most professions, you don’t need to be a great writer. Tradies, accountants, massage therapists, designers…
Or maybe you’re a great writer, but it’s a different kind of writing? Think lawyers – writing a contract or legal document is nothing like writing for the web.
There are many, many people out there who can explain what they do when speaking, but not turn that same knowlege into SEO-ready text. If you’re one of them, find a partner to do the ‘turn it into a blog’ part of the job. Then you’ll get the double winner of your own original content and perspective, PLUS the web and SEO friendly text.
Choose what aspects of blogging you want to outsource.
The most important thing is to realise that you can outsource some parts and keep others in-house. And for some, the ideal solution may be a partnership approach. Your industry knowledge plus experience in content writing, blogging and SEO can be a real winner. Consider outsourcing:
- The process of converting your ideas into well edited and SEO optimised copy
- Images – finding and licensing (or creating!), then formatting, sizing and optimising
- The operational process – uploading, scheduling and publishing
- Research. It depends on your industry and topic, but as an example, we created a list of sites where you can publish infographics. And we analysed readability on a whole slew of legal websites. If you have a project like that, get someone else to do the grunt work. You as a business owner have other priorities.
Never outsource thought leadership. If you want to be a leader, you have to be involved. You can of course get someone to tidy up your ideas, but they have to be your ideas!
Our voice to blog service covers numbers 1, 2 and 3 on this list. It’s especially good for point 1, since we actually interview you. We capture your thoughts and words.
Additional blog outsourcing tips:
Not everyone who wants to outsource their blog will use us. That’s OK. (For now anyway. World domination comes later!)
Here are a few tips if you’re looking at other options
- An established agency is lower risk than hiring freelancers on Upwork. You can spend a lot of money finding someone with the right fit for your business. And lots more time and money correcting things which aren’t right. If you use a specialist content agency, any problems are for them to sort out, not you. (And expect some problems when you start out.)
- Make sure you are working with a native English speaker. (Assuming you have an English language blog! More generally, work with someone who’s a native speaker in the language you blog in.)
- Check that your contractual agreement gives you complete ownership of the content that’s written. Whoever wrote it, you want it to be your intellectual property, not somebody else’s.
To sum up – outsourcing a blog is like any other outsourcing. Work out what you need done, find a quality provider and then manage to make sure you stay in control. That’s how you get a quality blog without all the time and stress of doing it in-house.
