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How can your business elevate its blog content strategy? Outsourcing blog writing can provide your company with expert-driven content that aligns effectively with your goals.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) provides access to qualified blog professionals who deliver high-quality, consistent posts, allowing you to implement campaigns while saving resources. Keep reading to learn how outsourcing blog writing can boost your digital marketing efforts and help you reach your objectives!
Defining content goals and identifying the target audience
Content Marketing Institute notes that 76% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers use blogs for content distribution, emphasizing their impact on customer engagement. What is BPO’s role in this strategy? Assigning blog writing to freelance writers, agencies, or service providers can enhance content quality and consistency.
But where do you start? The first step is to define your goals for outsourcing blog writing effectively. Begin by clarifying the aim of your blog content. Is it to start enhancing visibility and driving organic traffic, making your brand a game changer in your industry, or supporting lead generation?
Aligning goals helps writers produce high-quality content tailored to your company objectives, such as:
- Brand awareness: Focus on informative and authoritative types of content.
- Lead generation: Use content optimized for search engines, including compelling calls to action (CTAs).
- Thought leadership: Prioritize creating engaging long-form blogs that dive deep into topics.
Additionally, to achieve your digital marketing goals, correctly identify your target audience. Analyze their demographics, preferences, and needs. Develop audience personas to produce high-quality content that resonates with readers and audiences.
Choosing freelancers, agencies, or BPO providers for blog writing
Outsourcing blog writing effectively taps into external support types, each with unique pros and cons. It offers different levels of adaptability, competence, and capacity. Your decision depends on content requirements, budget, and objectives.
Freelancers
Freelance content writers are cost–effective for smaller projects or startups with limited budgets. They typically offer flexibility and personalized attention, making them suitable for one-off blog posts or modest content volumes. However, handling multiple freelancers or scaling content production can be more challenging as they likely lack consistency and reliable availability.
Agencies
Agencies provide a more robust solution with a team of experienced writers, which is helpful for larger projects requiring greater coordination and resources. They often offer higher professionalism and support and implement more comprehensive content creation, editing, and optimization strategies. However, they are more expensive than for freelancers.
BPO providers
BPO providers combine the advantages of freelancers and agencies, They offer flexible services with scalability and quality control. They provide the benefits of outsourcing content writing, such as saving significant time and effort, decreasing labor costs by up to 70%, and efficiently scaling content production.
Establishing clear communication and workflow processes
Collaboration when outsourcing blog writing can be implemented effectively through clear communication and efficient workflows. However, remote and hybrid work can cause expectation and communication gaps. A Fishbowl survey says only 50.8% of workers grasp their company’s hybrid work plan, highlighting risks that might disrupt teamwork.
Follow these best practices to establish clear communication:
- Regularly schedule feedback sessions to align expectations and project goals.
- Provide comprehensive guidelines to help writers create relevant content tailored to your brand’s voice.
- Use project management platforms (e.g., Trello or Asana) to centralize communication and track task progress.
- When you outsource blog posts, specify your preferred workflow to reduce misunderstandings with the third-party BPO team or external experts.
- Assign a single point of contact to address questions, share updates, and streamline responses.
To streamline the workflow processes, consider these strategies:
- Use standard operating procedures to simplify creating content for different niches.
- Collaborate with a mix of third-party and in-house writers to balance quality.
- Implement intelligent tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to automate content assignment, keyword research, and progress tracking.
- Choose scalable services to meet content demands while maintaining consistency.
Preparing effective briefs and style guidelines for writers
Outsourcing blog writing effectively becomes more manageable when third-party writers know what to expect. Providing clear, detailed briefs and style guidelines helps streamline the process. With the right direction, they can produce blog posts that reflect your brand’s message and values.
Consider these pointers to help prepare your briefs:
- Include search engine optimization (SEO) requirements. Provide keyword guidelines and structure preferences to boost SEO performance. Conductor reports that organic search drives 33% of website traffic across industries, underscoring the significance of SEO for boosting traffic and engagement.
- Offer detailed guidelines. Outline writing style, preferred tone, and any specific terminology. Include details on sentence structure, voice (active or passive), formatting, grammar rules, punctuation usage, and any industry-specific jargon or terms for consistency across all content.
- Supply content materials. Highlight any relevant research sources, references, or case studies to include in the blog posts so that writers can support their claims with credible, up-to-date information.
- Clarify word count and structure. Specify the desired blog post length and provide an outline or breakdown of sections, headings, and subheadings to maintain organization and avoid excessive or insufficient content.
Managing timelines and delivery schedules efficiently
Keeping blog production on pace necessitates detailed preparation and coordination. Missing deadlines hampers workflow and publishing consistency. When outsourcing blog writing, you must manage timelines effectively.
Achieve this goal with these tips:
- Set clear deadlines for each stage. Specify dates for drafts, revisions, and final approval to avoid confusion and keep everyone aligned.
- Give realistic turnaround times. Consider complexity, research needs, and writer availability when determining deadlines.
- Communicate regularly with writers. Weekly or biweekly check-ins can resolve potential delays and sustain momentum.
- Organize content calendars. To improve coordination, map out publishing schedules in advance, detailing deadlines, topics, and assigned writers.
- Prioritize urgent tasks. Determine high-priority content and schedule it first to avoid delays in time-sensitive projects while balancing the workload for other assignments.
- Establish contingency plans. Anticipate disruptions or issues and prepare backup timelines or alternative resources to maintain steady progress.
- Automate reminders and updates. Utilize scheduling tools to send automated alerts for coming deadlines or pending approvals, minimizing missed timelines.
- Incorporate buffer time. Add extra time between stages for revisions, input, or unexpected challenges, helping to reduce last-minute delays.
Reviewing blog content and providing constructive feedback
Elevating the quality of outsourced blogs requires an organized review process coupled with thoughtful, actionable input. A smooth evaluation method enables your third-party team to improve current content and the writer’s future output.
Conduct review and feedback efficiently by:
- Content alignment: Check if the blog fulfills the brief, matches with objectives, and targets the right audience so topics and keywords correspond with your brand strategy.
- Clarity and tone: Verify the writing reflects your brand’s voice and style. Suggest specific adjustments to improve readability and engagement.
- Fact-checking and accuracy: Assess the credibility of data, sources, and claims within the content. Recommend verified resources or correct discrepancies to strengthen the blog’s reliability.
- SEO: Analyze the integration of keywords, metadata, and internal links for proper SEO. Outsourcing blog writing effectively involves harnessing SEO best practices to drive organic traffic.
- Structure and flow: Scrutinize the blog’s organization, maintaining smooth transitions and a logical arrangement of ideas. Propose edits or revisions for sections that seem disconnected or complex.
- Constructive feedback: Focus on actionable, positive criticism. Instead of general comments, such as “improve readability,” suggest simplifying specific sentences or adding subheadings.
Optimizing outsourced blog content for search
When outsourcing blog writing effectively, you can increase traffic and enhance your website’s visibility by collaborating with third-party writers, editors, and SEO specialists.
Explore the key elements that can enhance SEO performance:
- Keyword optimization: Identify target keywords with research tools (e.g., Google Keyword Planner) and integrate them naturally in headings, subheadings, and content body.
- Meta titles and descriptions: To improve online visibility, develop concise and relevant meta titles and descriptions, including primary keywords.
- Engaging multimedia: Use images, videos, and infographics to increase user experience and engagement.
- Content structure: Break down content into short paragraphs, bullet points, and clear subheadings to improve readability for readers and search engines.
- Internal and external links: Add internal links to guide readers through your site and external links to authoritative sources for credibility and better SEO.
- Mobile optimization: As mobile traffic increases, create more responsive content to improve user experience and search rankings. Examples include using collapsible sections, opting for lazy loading, or minimizing unnecessary scripts or macros.
- Voice search optimization: Optimize content for voice search by targeting natural language and question-based inquiries to grab the expanding speech-powered market.
Measuring the performance of outsourced blog content
Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to see whether your outsourced blog content aligns with your company objectives. Comparing multiple data lets you assess the content’s influence on your marketing strategy. Outsourcing blog writing effectively entails employing performance measurement tools to determine if you get the best outcomes.
Essential KPIs to measure include:
- Traffic: Use appropriate technologies to track website visitors and blog readers to know whether your site’s content attracts ideal viewers.
- Engagement: Measure user engagement using bounce rate, time on page, and social shares to see whether the content resonates with the audience.
- Conversions: Examine how blog content affects conversions by tracking lead forms, sign-ups, and purchases from blog visits.
- Backlinks: Check the quantity and quality of backlinks generated by your blog content. More backlinks mean higher content authority and better SEO.
To precisely gauge these metrics, you can use the following tools:
- Google Analytics and Matomo allow you to track website traffic and conversions.
- Ahrefs and Moz track backlinks and keyword performance.
- Semrush and Google Search Console provide data on keyword rankings, traffic, and content effectiveness.
Avoiding common pitfalls in blog writing outsourcing
Outsourcing blog writing effectively can add significant value to your content strategy. However, you might encounter some hurdles that can affect the process.
Below are the common obstacles to look out for and their solutions to attain the desired results:
- Poor communication: Misunderstandings between you and the BPO vendor, agency, or freelancers can result in mismatched content. To avoid this, establish precise rules and maintain constant interaction online and in-person (if necessary) so that the content meets your criteria.
- Lack of consistency and quality: Without control and guidance, the quality of posts can vary. Establishing a standardized review procedure and providing feedback might assist the writer in retaining consistency.
- SEO optimization gaps: If your blog entries lack adequate search engine optimization, they will become less visible. Collaborate with your third-party team to implement SEO best practices, including keyword utilization and meta descriptions.
- Failed deadlines: Content delays can disrupt your publishing schedule and adversely affect marketing performance. Adopt achievable targets and use project management tools to stay on schedule.
The bottom line
Outsourcing blog writing effectively can improve your content strategy, website traffic, and audience engagement. You can benefit from a skilled thirty-party team of writers who can deliver quality content tailored to your goals. They can produce meaningful results with their creativity, SEO knowledge, and effective project management.
Ready to take your blog content to the next level? Let’s connect and discuss how we can help you quickly achieve your objectives.
