Businesses love blogging because it drives new traffic to their sites and it gets their customers to spend more time there. Even e-commerce entrepreneurs, who sometimes think they’re just selling products, do better when they sell a lifestyle or when they answer customer questions on their blog. Take for example the men’s clothing site, Huckberry. Readers get sucked into stories about adventuring and creating, and next thing you know, they’re inspired to buy the gear to do it in style.
The business-expanding benefits of content marketing are undeniable. Also undeniable? The sweat equity needed to launch and maintain a blog. But the good new is you don’t have to do all that work yourself. Check out our tips and tap the pros from Fiverr for a seamless blog outsourcing process.
1. Keep it punchy and fresh
Major magazines have always outsourced “ideation,” by calling for pitches because they get more ideas that way. You’ll receive better stories if you invest time in creating specific pitch requests and agreeing on the assignment before it starts. Tell your writer what your blog’s mission is, what kind of stories you’re looking for, who your customer is, and how you talk to them. For example, if you’re a restaurant, let your customers know if you serve your patrons with a respectful distance, or if you bring ’em in like they’re family.
The same goes for assigning writing to a freelancer. A good assignment includes the word count, the goal of the piece, the target audience, the keywords, and even a few reference pieces. And, of course, don’t forget to be upfront about the payment and the due date.
2. Everyone needs an editor
Don’t underestimate how unprofessional grammar and spelling mistakes make your site look. This is especially true if you’re offering marketing or consulting services claiming to help others with their content. Often when you’re writing, something that makes sense in your head is missing the context that others need. Your editor can point out these gaps as well as any grammar or style issues.
3. Leave the plugins to the pros
Whether you’re getting set up on WordPress or another CMS, a good blog designer can help you implement and customize a template you love and install any plugins. You’ll want to optimize your blog content with Yoast SEO and make sure it’s shareable with a plugin like Social Icons, no matter what industry you’re in. But you can get more specific. For instance, if you run a restaurant, add plugins like Restaurant Reservations to help your customers book online, or Food and Drink Menu, to show them what you’ve got. Trust us, a knowledgable blog designer can save you hours of headaches and technical problems that even the best plugins can cause, if you run the wrong ones together.
4. Opt to optimize
Remember that your ultimate goal is to get new traffic to your site, so don’t forget to optimize your content for search engines. From a workflow perspective, it makes sense to use the same person to upload your content to your CMS and optimize it with Yoast, and to add meta descriptions and alt tags as final touches.
5. Reach out for outreach
You thought you were done! But post-publication work includes reading, moderating, and responding to comments, creating and posting social media posts, and doing influencer outreach. Those social tasks are as critical to your success as writing a good post. Don’t throw away your hard work. Instead, hire a Fiverr freelancer to take the work off your hands.
Working with freelancers across the entire blogging workflow can help the leanest of entrepreneurs drive traffic to their sites, grow their businesses, and save time and money. Invest in creating the onboarding materials you need to do it right. It’ll pay off quickly and clear up time for you to focus on your core activities.
Have you used freelancers to blog for your company? How did it go? Tell us your story in the comments!
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