by Esther Adeniyion April 16, 2019April 16, 20192 Comments on Outsourcing Blog Writing? 5 Tips to Keep in Mind
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Creating content consistently is one of the biggest marketing challenges bloggers and businesses face, especially if you are a one-man army blogger.
If your blog has not been updated in months because you are unable to make time for it or worse, you realized you don’t have the skills to write content that drives results, it is high time you outsourced blog writing to those who are experts in the field.
However, you need to be careful while outsourcing blog content because you are placing its reputation in the hands of another. So, how do you ensure you make the right decision? Here are 5 tips to keep in mind while outsourcing blog writing.
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Contents
- 1 Define your Strategy
- 2 Formalize Writing Style Guide
- 3 Assess Work Samples
- 4 Provide Clear Briefs
- 5 Measure Results
All this while, you were managing your blog on your own but now by outsourcing it, there will be more people involved. In such a scenario, the first step is to define a clear-cut strategy for your blog to ensure the writer/s and you are on the same page.
Your blog strategy needs to establish your content marketing goals, what you wish to achieve from the blog, your audience and the themes or topics you would be writing about.
Having a clear strategy forms the backbone of running a blog successfully and streamlines everyone’s efforts towards growing it.
People are bound to have different ways of writing. Formalizing a writing style guide for the blog ensures there is consistency across posts and builds your brand identity. Regardless of how many writers are behind your blog content, it needs to have one voice.
So, decide on what you want that voice to be and include critical elements such as the tone of voice, writing style, point of view, grammar, tense and formatting guidelines in this document.
Every writer needs to be well-versed with your blog’s editorial guidelines before drafting content.
Hiring a content writer? Their resume can wait. What you need to first ask for are their work samples. Do a background check to see their body of work and clients.
If it’s similar to what you are looking for, preview their writing samples to assess their skill. You can also ask candidates to give a short writing test in line with your requirements to decide whether they are a good fit. Don’t be in a rush to fill the position. Take your time to review a couple of candidates before making your final decision.
Always remember – the work output is as good or bad as your brief.
At a time when there are higher chances of outsourcing to a remote team, communication can go awry, and you cannot rely on long e-mails or chats to back you up.
In order to avoid this, always provide detailed and specific briefs to your writers which need to state your expectations clearly. Be as specific as possible in terms of budget, timelines, content objective and purpose of the article.
This leaves very little room for misunderstanding and results in quality work. This way, you also have everything documented – in case there are any concerns in the future.
Finally, as you are outsourcing content writing to another individual, you need to ensure if it’s working for you and your blog. Your goals can range from increasing organic traffic to generating leads and making sales.
Set timelines for every goal and assess the progress every month. This will give you time to make corrective actions and identify loopholes.
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**Author Bio – **
Adela Belin is the Head of Digital Marketing at Writers Per Hour. She writes about motivation, mental health, personal development and all things in between. She hopes to make a difference in people’s lives by sharing relevant stories inspired by her personal journey. Feel free to contact Adela on LinkedIn.
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