According to a survey of business-to-business content marketers by the Content Marketing Institute, more than 90% of businesses use blog posts for content marketing. Keeping up with that competition can take a lot of work, though, including posting blog posts once a week or more consistently.

HubSpot has some recommendations on how often you should post given different audience sizes and marketing goals:

Source: HubSpot Blog Frequency Benchmarks

It can take up to 6 hours to research, write, edit and publish a single blog post of around 1,000, so maintaining a competitive publishing pace can take a lot of work. Choosing to outsource blog writing is a great way to balance the time-management scales for your in-house marketing team.

Hiring a freelancer or otherwise outsourcing content marketing has many benefits, but one of the most important is cost savings. Instead of searching for a full-time employee, offering a salary and benefits, paying extra overhead costs and having to keep up with additional payroll tax obligations, you can hire a freelancer for an hourly fee or a flat rate per project, saving your business a lot of money.

If you’ve never hired a freelancer before, the process can seem a bit daunting. This guide explains how to outsource blog writing and offers tips for working with freelancers and content services.

Preparing to Outsource Content Writing

Before you create a content schedule and start hiring freelancers, there are a few things you should know about outsourcing writing work. The first is that not all writers are the same. Someone who’s extremely talented at writing technical manuals or fast-paced novels may not be as skilled at writing blog posts for the purpose of promoting a business. If you want to hire someone to write a blog post for marketing purposes, make it clear that you’re looking for someone with blog-writing and content-marketing experience.

Should You Outsource Your Blog Content?

Outsourcing can be a great option for many businesses, but obviously, it’s not a one-size-fits all solution. To understand whether it might be right for your business, consider the following questions:

• Is your blog inactive because you don’t have enough time to write new posts?
• Would you rather pay per hour, per word or per post than hire a full-time or part-time employee?
• Do you have a busy marketing team that doesn’t have the capacity for writing blog posts?
• Are you losing search engine rankings to competitors with more or better content?
• Do you want to scale up blog content marketing efforts without increasing your in-house team?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, outsourcing may be a good option for your team.

When Should You Start Outsourcing Blog Content?

There’s no wrong time to start outsourcing. Sometimes it’s definitely a good time to consider outsourcing content writing for blogs are:

• You’re preparing to launch a blog for your site or business and don’t have in-house copywriters
• You have an established blog but in-house staff don’t have enough time to write the number of new posts required to reach content marketing goals
• You want to reach a new audience or branch out into a new service or sector but don’t have someone on staff who can write compelling blog posts for that niche
• Analysis indicates your SEO is suffering and you need to bulk up your blog or conduct a campaign to refresh older posts quickly

Any of these situations, or scenarios similar to them, are great times to try outsourcing blog content creation. To better understand when outsourcing content for your blog might be a good idea, let’s dig into some specific benefits of outsourcing blog writing.

Benefits of Outsourcing Content

One of the biggest benefits businesses experience when they outsource content writing is cost savings. It can cost $64,000 on average for an in-house content writer who can write around 240,000 words per year. When you outsource, you may be able to get as much as half a million words for the same amount.

Other benefits include:

• The ability to scale up to meet more robust blog publishing demands
• A diversified writer base that lets you address more topics with greater expertise
• Increases support for quality — when content outsourcing is managed correctly, it can actually improve the overall quality of your content

Of course, preparing well with the right steps to outsource blog writing lets you manage the process well to make high-quality content more likeley.

Preparation Steps When You Want to Outsource Blog Writing

If you’ve decided that outsourcing is right for you, it’s important to hire the right people and set clear expectations. Follow these five tips on how to outsource blog writing for your business.

1. Find the Right Writers

One of the most common pitfalls of outsourcing a blog is working with the wrong people. To outsource content writing effectively, you must take time to find talented writers who understand your needs and have experience working with business owners. When you’re ready to hire someone, be sure to include the following information in the ad:

• The length of each blog post
• Keyword usage requirements (if any)
• Linking requirements
• Desired tone/style
• Amount of experience required
• Blog topic
• Payment method (direct deposit, business check, etc.)
• Hourly rate or payment per post

Desired tone refers to how you want each blog post to come across. Some companies are formal and use a lot of jargon in their marketing materials, while others prefer a more conversational style. It’s important to mention the topic of your blog so that writers who don’t feel comfortable writing about that topic can remove themselves from consideration.

The more information you provide up front, the more likely you are to get applicants who are knowledgeable about your blog’s topic, willing to accept your proposed payment amount and capable of achieving your desired tone.

Making a Decision

Once you receive a batch of applications, you may want to have a staff member screen them and eliminate the ones that don’t match the requirements outlined in your advertisement. The initial screening takes a little time, but it can help narrow down your options considerably. After the initial screening, you should have several applicants left in the mix. Make a decision by reviewing their writing samples and choosing the top two or three candidates for a telephone or video interview.

Or, you can skip the entire process of recruiting and vetting blog writing freelancers by working with a company like Crowd Content, which ensures you have immediate access to hundreds of writers.

2. Manage Writers Effectively

Even if you hire someone with a decade of writing experience, remember that they’re new to your business. They may have writing talent, but they don’t know much about your products or services, your target audience or your marketing goals. Before you assign a blog post, take some time to get the writer up to speed. Explain what your business does, what kind of customers you serve and what results you expect to get from your blog.

3. Communicate Standards Clearly

Writers aren’t mind readers, so make sure you communicate standards clearly when you outsource blog content creation. If each post must be a certain length, tell the writer when you give the assignment. Make sure the writer has a copy of your company’s brand guidelines or internal style sheet. If there are any words or phrases you don’t want the writer to use, let them know before they begin writing.

The more information you provide in the beginning, the less time you’ll have to spend asking the writer for revisions or making edits to ensure each blog post fits your vision.

4. Tackle Problems Right Away

The vast majority of freelancers want you to be impressed with the quality of their work, but everyone misses the mark on occasion. If there’s something you don’t like about a blog post, tell the writer. They won’t be able to fix it unless you let them know right away. If the writer starts missing deadlines or taking a long time to respond to your emails, have a conversation about your expectations. You can work together to find a solution that works for everyone — but only if you acknowledge there’s a problem and make a good-faith effort to communicate effectively.

5. Prepare Order Briefs

If you decide to outsource blog writing on a consistent basis, get into the habit of writing an order brief for each assignment. An order brief outlines your expectations for the order, making it easier for the writer to meet those expectations on the first try. Your order brief should include the following:

• Length: How long do you want the blog post to be? Give the writer a maximum word count or a desired range (e.g. 1,200 to 1,500 words).
• Formatting requirements: Do you require HTML headers, italics, short paragraphs, bulleted lists or other formatting elements? Describe them.
• Style and tone: Do you want the writer to use a conversational tone, or do you want them to use a “just-the-facts” style of writing? Should the writer speak directly to the reader?
• Target audience: Who will be reading the blog post? Can you provide any information about their age, income level, geographic location or other characteristics? The more information you provide, the easier it is for the writer to meet the needs of your audience.
• SEO guidelines: If you want the writer to include a certain number of links or use a keyword a minimum number of times, spell out the requirements in your order brief.
• Images: Do you need images? If so, can you provide access to a paid photo service, or should the writer look for free stock photos?
• Content: Do you have any specific points you want the writer to cover, such as the pros and cons of the topic or the costs associated with using a service?

Grow Your Business with Blogging

If you outsource blog writing, you’ll be able to publish high-quality content without taking on a full-time employee or having to write your own blog posts. Outsourcing can even help you improve your SEO results and increase your credibility, giving your business a competitive edge.If you don’t have time to vet your own freelancers, consider working with an agency. Partnering with an agency gives you access to all the benefits of outsourcing without the hassles of managing your own writers. Crowd Content can help you hire freelance writers with years of blogging experience.

The post 5 Things to Plan for When You Outsource Blog Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Building a brand to attract leads online requires content—and then more content.

Search engines want fresh, relevant, high-quality content to serve users. Consumers want up-to-date content that speaks to their needs and answers their queries.

But executing a content strategy on your own can quickly drain resources because of the high quality standards it takes for content to stand out.

Ever feel like you never have time to write the kind of content that dominates Google and generates more leads? Yeah, we know the feeling….

For instance, research about content production shows it takes an average of over four hours to complete a blog post—a 67% increase from previous years.

With in-house production, you might be able to better control processes if you can stomach higher costs. Is it worth it? Should you outsource content writing or use in-house writers?

In this post, you’ll learn everything about outsourcing content writing vs. using in-house writers and how content outsourcing enables you to optimize efficiency & quality.

Balance Outsourced Content Creation and In-House Writing

Using in-house writers creates limitations you don’t face when working with outsourced content writing services.

With in-house talent, you’re limited to the skills, knowledge and time of each person. When you outsource, you can draw on diverse resources to expand the type and scale of your content.

However, every content creation project has its own requirements and goals.

There are places for both in-house and outsourced content teams. For example, companies in regulated industries may want in-house writers trained to write within compliance requirements.

Even in these cases, though, you can often pair outsourcing with in-house resources to scale up.

Outsourcing Content Writing: What You Need to Know

When you work with the right partner, outsourcing content writing helps you boost your bottom line, increase how often you publish and provide higher-quality content.

What Is Content Outsourcing?

Content outsourcing occurs when you have anyone outside your organization write or otherwise create content for you. This can include:

• Having someone come up with ideas and create outlines and plans for content
• Having people write and/or edit content for you
• Having designers create infographics or other visuals

Why Should You Outsource Content Creation?

A main reason companies outsource content creation is to save money.

Outsourcing involves paying freelancers or content services only when you need content. You’re not having to pay an all-the-time salary (plus benefits) for an in-house writer.

Consider this breakdown to help you understand how much you can save:

• If an in-house writer creates 1,000 words a day, that’s 5,000 words a week.
• Working a total of 48 weeks a year (to account for vacations, holidays and sick time), the in-house writer creates 240,000 words in a year.
• The average salary of a skilled U.S.-based content writer, including benefits and bonuses, is around $64,000 according to Glassdoor.
• With an in-house content writer, you’re paying around 26 cents per word for the content you publish.

For the same $64,000 per year, you could get more than 460,000 words of content—almost double what you’d get with an in-house writer—when you outsource content writing.

Benefits of Content Outsourcing

The benefits of outsourcing content writing go beyond the basic bottom line, though.

What are the reasons to reach outside of your organization for content writing resources?

1. Cost Efficiency
2. Scale Up Quickly
3. Increase Content Diversity
4. Support Better Quality
5. Connect With Industry Specialists

Cost Efficiency

As we already touched on, improving cost efficiency is probably the biggest benefit you get when you outsource your content creation.

In-house writers would need to speed through and really scale their output to match the cost-per-article, lest they have other content-management responsibilities.

Even then, you want your content managers to, well, manage content strategy. Generally, the more you outsource content production, the more money you save in your marketing budget.

Scale Up Quickly

When you’re outsourcing, you’re not limited to a single writer or even a few. The right content writing service opens the door to dozens or even hundreds of qualified freelancers.

You can quickly scale up content efforts without putting your business through a major recruiting push and onboarding dozens of in-house writers you may not even need all the time.

That lets companies of any size compete with larger competitors online.

Increase Content Diversity

To create quality content for SEO (the kind most likely to rank well in search results), your content needs to be useful and engaging.

That means your content is interesting and helpful to your audience.

Yet it’s easy for a single writer or small writing teams to get stuck on the same topics, rehashing them repeatedly without providing something new and interesting for the reader.

When you outsource, you increase your writing team’s diversity and their overall point of view.

That can lead to more interesting posts that people will engage with, so your content is more likely to drive leads and conversions.

Support Better Quality

Outsourcing content to freelance writers is sometimes associated with a reputation of lower quality. This can be true when trying to find freelancers on your own without a system in place.

The right outsource content writing services can offer processes for editing and quality control to ensure topic expertise, internal linking strategies and your brand voice shine through.

For optimal quality with content outsourcing, consider engaging with managed services that provide pre-vetted writers and logistics to communicate & apply your writing guidelines. 

Connect with Industry Specialists

An in-house writing team may know your brand, but their expertise is limited.

Outsourcing lets you bring subject-matter experts on board who can write or review content for accuracy and authority, ensuring your pages meet Google EAT guidelines.

Does Outsourcing Content Hurt Your SEO?

Many businesses wonder if outsourced content would hurt their search rankings and thus their ability to attract more organic leads online.

Well, outsourcing content doesn’t hurt your SEO. Google is on record saying there is no SEO penalty for having different writers as long as the quality is good.

In fact, working with external teams that know how to optimize content for SEO often improves your search-engine optimization efforts.

Freelance writers with experience in creating content tend to keep up with keyword best practices and understand how to write for a variety of audiences.

You can leverage those skills to help your pages land higher on search-engine results pages (SERPs) and generate more leads.

Using In-House Content Writers: What You Need to Know

In-house content writers also offer some benefits, such as a greater level of control over the content creation process.

Businesses keeping an eye on regulatory concerns or specific branding needs may turn to in-house talent as a first option.

But you can easily avoid quality issues and ensure branding & compliance with the right content outsourcing processes and partners.

What Is In-House Content Creation?

In-house content creation occurs when you use resources on your payroll to write or otherwise create content.

You can use people you hired for this specific purpose or people who do other jobs but may be able to write content too.

Why Do Businesses Choose In-House Content Creation?

Control is typically the main reason companies opt for in-house content writers. They can train writers to create content within specific brand guidelines, voice and compliance parameters.

The idea is that in-house content will be more publish-ready than outsourced content.

It’s true that you do have a bit more control with in-house writers. But you don’t have to sacrifice scale or savings to get the quality you want.

In many cases, the right process is a hybrid approach that leverages an in-house content manager to help maintain brand voice and freelancers to scale up to meet competitive needs.

How to Outsource Content Writing

You have two overall options when outsourcing content: working with individual freelancers or working with content writing outsource companies.

When working directly with individual freelancers, you first have to recruit them. That can involve placing ads for content writers, reviewing applications & samples and onboarding writers.

It’s a lot of work that can create delays in scaling content. Even after finding freelancers, you’re on the hook for all the communication, management and quality assurance.

Working with a content writing outsource company, you can access hundreds of qualified writers immediately to scale up quickly without the need to go through recruiting processes.

You can opt for self-serve marketplaces to work directly with pre-vetted freelancers at multiple quality levels or choose managed services to benefit from a dedicated content manager.

Whether you’re looking for bloggers, copywriters or subject-matter experts, Crowd Content has the freelance writers for hire you need to scale up, save money and improve your SEO.

The post Outsource Content Writing vs. In-House Writers: Complete Guide appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Although content marketing has many benefits, it can be difficult to find the time to create as much content as you need to meet your goals. Content outsourcing is a great way to overcome this challenge. Outsourcing refers to hiring a team of freelancers to produce articles, blog posts, landing pages, case studies and other types of content.

We created this guide to help you understand the challenges that can arise when you hire freelancers without having a plan in place for monitoring their output and making sure they understand your brand’s approach to connecting with customers. The guide also includes tips for outsourcing your content production without sacrificing quality.

Benefits of Content Outsourcing

Before we dive into the challenges of outsourcing, it’s important to understand the benefits. Working with a team of freelancers can help your business in the following ways:

Time Savings

Creating your own content takes time away from developing new products, connecting with customers and managing your company’s finances. A team of freelancers can take research and writing tasks off your plate, giving you more time to focus on business growth.

Consistency

As a business owner, you’re responsible for supervising employees, resolving customer service issues and overseeing daily operations, among many other activities. Even if you plan to spend a few hours writing and editing content, you may have to change your schedule at the last minute based on what’s happening in your business.

As a result, it’s difficult to maintain a high level of consistency. You may publish a blog post one week and then not publish anything else for two or three weeks, making your content marketing strategy less effective than it could be if you published on a consistent basis. When you partner with a team of freelance professionals, they can work on your content no matter how busy you are.

Flexibility

You could hire a full-time writer to execute your content marketing strategy, but that isn’t always the best course of action. Not only does adding a team member increase your monthly payroll expenses, it also makes it more difficult to be flexible when needed. If you want to scale up your content production, a full-time writer might not be able to handle the increased workload. Conversely, if you want to slow down a little, your full-time writer won’t have enough work to do.

Working with freelancers solves this problem because you only have to pay for the content you receive. If you want to scale up, you can add another freelancer to your team; if you want to reduce your output, you can give fewer assignments.

Expertise

Working with freelancers exposes you to different points of view, which may help you create content that’s more relevant to the people in your target audience. If everyone on your team has the same life experiences, it’s easy to miss out on opportunities to connect with customers from different backgrounds. For example, if your employees all come from the same region of the country, they may not understand the pain points of customers in different regions. They may also lack an understanding of important cultural traditions, making it more difficult to connect with certain market segments.

Outsourcing Content Production: Common Problems

It’s clear that outsourcing your content production has many benefits. Unfortunately, many business owners jump into outsourcing without understanding what they need to do to make sure their freelancers produce high-quality content. These are just a few of the issues that can arise when you outsource your content production without planning ahead.

Difficulty Explaining Products and Services

Nobody knows your product or service better than you do, but you must be able to explain key features and benefits to freelancers. If you can’t explain your products effectively, your freelance team won’t have enough information to write in-depth content that’s relevant and useful to your audience. This can severely affect the overall quality of the content, making your content strategy much less effective.

Management Problems

Content marketing is about more than writing content and publishing it on your website. You need to create a content plan, monitor content quality and provide actionable feedback to ensure each writer has enough information to write in-depth content. You may think it’s easier to do everything in-house, but if you don’t have the time to oversee each project, the quality of your content is likely to suffer.

Fortunately, you can take advantage of the benefits of outsourcing without spending a lot of time managing a freelance team. At Crowd Content, clients have access to expert project managers who are responsible for monitoring content quality, updating project instructions and ensuring only the most talented writers are assigned to each project.

Lack of Investment in Brand Story

Storytelling isn’t just for fiction books; it’s also an important aspect of your marketing strategy as it can help you build trust and increase customer loyalty. Many business owners are concerned that freelance writers won’t be able to tell their story effectively. If you don’t take the time to find a writer who can communicate effectively with your prospects and customers, the quality of your content won’t be as good as it should be.

How to Outsource Effectively

Most of the challenges described above come up when a business owner rushes into working with a team of freelancers. If you don’t take the time to find the right people, set reasonable expectations and provide ongoing feedback, the quality of your content is likely to decline. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to prevent these problems and maintain a high level of quality without developing every piece of content by yourself.

Project Selection

If you’re concerned that a freelance writer won’t be able to tell your story as well as you could, reserve storytelling projects for staff members and outsource other types of content to trusted freelancers. Product descriptions, SEO city pages and educational articles don’t require as much storytelling, so you can hand them off to a freelancer without losing out on an opportunity to get customers interested in the story of your business.

Alternatively, you could spend a few hours educating freelancers on your products and services, giving them the information they need to tell your brand’s story effectively. If you decide to take this route, you may need to pay each freelancer an hourly rate for their time, even if you’ve already agreed on a per-word or per-piece rate for your content.

Content Metrics

Before you start a new project, have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. If you don’t set goals early on, you won’t be able to determine if your content marketing efforts are successful. Metrics can also help you assess the quality of the content developed by your freelance team. Here are some of the metrics you can use:

• Social shares: Determine how many times your posts have been shared on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The more shares you have, the more opportunities you have to attract new customers.
• Visitors: Track how many visitors land on your pages each month and then compare that number to how many monthly visitors you had before you published the new content.
• Search engine rankings: Google rewards website owners who focus on quality. If your page rankings improve after you start working with a team of freelancers, that’s a good sign they’re producing quality content.
• Backlinks: When Website A links to Website B, that link is known as a backlink. Google sees each backlink as a sign of quality; after all, you wouldn’t want to send your audience members to a site with irrelevant or low-quality content. Before you start working with a team of freelancers, determine how many backlinks you already have. If you have many more backlinks after publishing the new content, that’s another sign your freelancers are focusing on quality and relevance.
• Bounce rate: Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your site immediately after landing on one of your pages. A high bounce rate may indicate the content doesn’t meet the visitor’s needs. If your bounce rate decreases after you start outsourcing, it could indicate that visitors like the new content better than the older content.

Style and Branding Guidelines

If you plan to work with multiple freelancers, make sure you provide detailed style and branding guidelines. A style guide explains how your content should be written and formatted, ensuring consistency across all platforms. Branding guidelines are standards for representing your company; they may include logos, colour palettes and design elements specific to your business. Having every writer follow the same guidelines ensures your visitors won’t be confused when they read your content.

Clear Instructions

Eliminate confusion by providing clear instructions for each project. Detailed instructions make it easier for freelancers to meet your expectations, and they can also prevent delays caused by misunderstandings. When you launch a new project, consider including the following in your creative brief:

• Minimum/maximum word counts
• Guidelines for sentence and paragraph length (e.g. “Write short paragraphs” or “No more than four sentences per paragraph”)
• Formatting requirements (bold, italics, HTML tags, bulleted lists, etc.)
• Terms to avoid
• Keywords to include in the content
• Description of where the content will be published or how it will be used
• Demographic information about your target audience
• Reference requirements
• Linking requirements (internal and external links)

Project Workflow

Before you start a project, set clear expectations regarding your delivery requirements. Some business owners prefer to receive each piece of content as it’s completed, while others prefer to receive batches of content each week or each month. If you want the content to go through several rounds of editing and quality assurance review, account for these extra stages when setting your expectations.

If possible, create a buffer between each deadline and the date you plan to publish the final content. For example, if you want to publish a blog post on March 10, you might want to set the deadline for March 1 so you have time to review it and request any needed changes.

Content Samples

One of the best ways to prevent misunderstandings is to give your freelancers at least one example to follow when they’re writing. If you find a blog post that does a great job of telling a brand’s story, include a link in your order brief. You can also provide samples of your past content and tell freelancers what you want them to repeat and what you want them to avoid.

Start Outsourcing Today

Crowd Content has a team of freelancers available to provide a wide range of writing services. We even offer managed content services, connecting you with an expert project manager who can oversee your entire project from beginning to end and helping you reap the benefits of outsourcing without having to do your own editing and content review.

The post Content Outsourcing: Ways to Avoid Common Quality Problems appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.