Blog writing, as many folks discover, is not for the lazy. Whether writing for business or yourself, building and sustaining a successful blog is a commitment—of time, energy, and resources.
Your blog may be a small piece of your business’s overall content marketing strategy, but it’s an important piece.
The fact that the most successful blogs contain timely content and the blogger engages with their readers regularly can be daunting; just churning out the content alone can be overwhelming. For businesses with staff members already overrun with deadlines and to-do lists, even the most well-intended blog project can easily fall by the wayside.
To prevent burnout and to keep turning out quality content, you might need to add more manpower to your blog writing team in the form of a freelance writer or content writing service.
Keep in mind that anytime you work with a contractor, both sides enter into the agreement with certain expectations, so you need to make your terms and conditions clear from the beginning.
Otherwise, you run the risk of spending time and resources on a business partnership that’s just not working.
With that said, let’s get into the expectations vs the reality of professional blog writing services.
Blog Writing Services: Your Expectations
Business owners typically have three common expectations for the expert blog writers they hire:
- Dependability
- Quality control
- Competitive pricing
Let’s take a closer look at each one, and how, without clear direction, these expectations can compare to the reality of outsourcing your blog content.
Dependability
As a business owner, you have a long list of tasks clamoring for your attention, and although maintaining a high-quality blog is on the list, there’s a good chance it ranks pretty low on that list. If you decide to work with professional content writers, you trust your project is in capable hands.
This means the posts are turned in and/or posted on or before the agreed-upon deadline and are well-written, with little to no editing required (this is vital if your own writing skills are less than stellar, which could be a reason for outsourcing the project in the first place!)
Quality Control
In a perfect arrangement, the contractor you hire will not only be responsible for the blog’s content creation, but also finding appropriate stock photos to embed in the text, identifying and including appropriate keywords as they relate to SEO optimization, and scheduling the post(s).
They will also handle any editing or proofreading tasks. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to do more than reading and approve the post prior to it going live.
Competitive Pricing
This takes a bit more due diligence than the previous two. Pricing for any freelance writing project can vary widely, so it’s important that you research the standard rates for blog posts (some contractors are willing to negotiate their price, but your initial proposed rate shouldn’t be too different from what they usually charge).
Blog Writing Services: The Reality
The truth is that working with any type of subcontractor requires a strong level of trust, open lines of communication, and a willingness to make a strategic plan, then stick to it (leaving some room to tweak what’s not working at all, of course).
The reality for many business owners is that they don’t understand each piece of the content marketing puzzle, don’t feel they need certain pieces or are unwilling or unable to provide their subcontractor with clear direction, so scope creep becomes a very real issue.
Although you can leave the actual blog content creation and much of the back-end maintenance to your outsourced writers, as the business owner and primary visionary for the blog, you still have some obligations to your writing team, namely:
Identifying your target audience:
When asked to name their ideal reader, most business owners mistakenly respond, “Everyone!” It’s admirable to set such a lofty goal for your blog. In reality, you’ll get a stronger ROI if you focus on cultivating relationships with a smaller, core of loyal readers (who could very well become loyal customers) instead of casting a wide net to see what you catch, so to speak.
Suggesting content ideas:
An effective blog is driven by effective content, and as the one who knows your product or service best, collaborating with your team of expert writers on content ideas can be a powerful strategy.
You may have the greatest team of writers in the world who may know some fundamentals about your product, service, or business, but teaming your in-depth knowledge with their expert writing and SEO keyword skills will not only increase your search engine rankings dramatically but boost your position as a thought leader and drive readers to your blog.
Agreeing to a posting schedule:
Ask a dozen content marketing experts about the most effective blog posting schedule and you’ll get a dozen different answers. Daily posting is an ambitious goal, but very difficult to maintain. Most bloggers post a minimum of once a week; 2-3 times a week is typical. Again, work with your blogging team to determine the best posting schedule for your company.
When determining “quality” or “quantity”, when it comes to blogging, the key is really “timeliness”. No matter how often you post, just keep up the schedule. Readers aren’t interested in stale content. If you haven’t posted in a few weeks, it might be time to reevaluate your schedule.
Have you ever worked with a company that offered blog writing services? What were your expectations vs. the reality of the business relationship?
