Running a company blog is a lot of work. In fact, it takes considerably more time, and effort than it often appears at the outset. If you’ve been writing a blog for a while but aren’t seeing much impact, you may be frustrated, confused, and asking what to do next. Does the blog really need to be written in-house? Should you hire freelancers or seek out blog companies to take over? Should you just forget the whole thing?
Don’t Give Up on the Blog
First thing’s first: don’t give up on your company blog!
According to a 2018 HubSpot study, over half of marketers (55%) claim that blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. Furthermore, marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are thirteen
times more likely to see a positive return on their investment.
Who wouldn’t love to see this sort of return on all their investments?
The drawback is that it sometimes takes time for a blog to see serious results. Blogs compound over time, which means that although there is only a little payoff at first, the long-term results can be enormous.
As marketing strategies go, blogging is low-cost and high-yield. You just have to figure out how to make it work for you.
Why Writing the Blog Yourself Seems Like a Good Idea (at First)
Many business owners start by writing the blog themselves, only to find it quickly goes from being a pleasure to a hassle. Writing occasionally is not so difficult, but writing regularly can become a serious chore––especially when you have a million other things to do while you run your company.
When owners become overwhelmed, the blog often becomes the responsibility of someone on staff.
Why In-House Blogs Become Ineffective
Recent research has shown that the “first page” of Google search results has posts that average 1890 words each. Accordingly, bloggers often aim to write articles that are around 2000 words.
When you turn this over to someone on your staff, it saps energy and focus from the other things that they’re doing for your company. Most office workers aren’t also professional bloggers on the side, so a single 2000 word post will often take six to eight hours to write.
The Risks of Inexperience
In addition, the lack of experience can mean that in-house blogs will lack sufficient SEO research to back them up. Keyword research is getting more specialized, as more searchers use voice searches and long-tail keywords in their queries (according to a 2019 IMPACT study, 50% of search queries are now four words or longer.)
The result can be a lot of time wasted creating a blog that is not properly optimized, and ultimately useless when it comes to attracting traffic. If you decide not to go this route, what do you do next?
Should You Hire Freelancers?
The next move that many business owners make is to seek out a freelance writer or two. They can often come cheap––but this does not necessarily mean that they will be good.
Freelancers are notoriously difficult to predict, and they often work one job at a time. Unless you have a detailed contract, they can disappear at a moment’s notice. If you turn your blog over to a freelancer who suddenly decides to find a different job, you’ll have to start your search over completely.
The time spent training a revolving door of freelancers can potentially be an even bigger time sink than producing the blog in-house. But if you don’t take either of these options, then what’s left?
The Advantages of Blog Companies
Ever since people figured out that blogs were driving traffic to their websites, blog companies have been popping up to fill the need for fast, reliable content. These content creators can be small businesses or giants, but the basic idea is the same: to use the advantage of a team to create better blogs for those who need them most.
By using multiple writers, blog companies can guarantee a degree of stability that is almost impossible to find from a freelancer. By leveraging the resources of an entire organization, they can bring a level of SEO expertise that is lacking from most in-house blogs.
The result is a blog that is both reliable and effective.
How do blog companies get this done?
#1 – They Employ a Team Approach
The best explanation is that blog companies operate like a factory, or a well-oiled machine. Each “piece” of the blogging process is handled by someone who is good at it.
Typically, a solo freelancer or in-house blogger will require one individual to shoulder the responsibility for doing the SEO research, writing, formatting, editing, and posting. If that individual is unskilled in any of those departments, the quality of the entire blog will suffer, and the company may not even realize why.
Not every great writer is familiar with SEO. Not every SEO researcher is good at editing or publishing. Content companies can divide and conquer these assorted tasks, ensuring that each piece of the process is done properly.
#2 – They Have Better Resources for SEO Research
SEO research is a tricky business. It’s constantly changing, and reliant not only on changing data but on changing methods of interpreting that data. A single change to Google’s algorithm––such as what happened with their BERT update in October of 2019––can send companies scrambling to make sure their blogs will still keep their rankings.
Keeping tabs on this ever-changing landscape requires study and accurate software. The more leverage your blogger has, the better.
If you’re producing your blog in-house, the necessary training and software is a cost that will come out of your budget. If you work with freelancers, you may pay for it there––or you may not pay for it at all, because those freelancers may not have the same leverage that a company does.
Blog companies can investigate your website at the outset of the project. SEO experts will create a detailed map of what keywords are ideal for boosting your profile, and create topics based on this data. They can accomplish all this before the actual writing part even begins.
#3 – They Can Produce Higher Volume
This one is probably not surprising, but companies have more writers on their rosters, and can produce much, much more material than a solo freelancer. Even a very good freelancer will have to work hard to produce multiple quality posts on a daily basis (and that’s assuming you’re their only client).
High volume situations will be better served with a blog company. Businesses usually need this most when they are launching a new blog, rebranding, or trying to highlight a specific product or service (thus requiring multiple posts about the same topic).
Here, there’s simply no comparison. If you need a lot of content, the company is the way to go.
#4 – They Can Exercise Better Quality Control
Most companies have editors on their staff, and their sole purpose is to make sure that their posts have met quality standards before they go “live” and start getting clicks.
There are several benefits to the client here. First off, it’s rare that a writer will edit all of their own work perfectly. A second opinion can be invaluable in spotting minor errors.
The other major benefit is more of a long-term consideration. Whether you are producing a blog with freelancers or with a company, it’s likely that, over a period of several years, you will have multiple writers creating posts for you.
With freelancers, a “change of the guard” can be very noticeable to your readers. However, with a blog company, a standardized approach and a core of editors will ensure consistency, even if some writers leave during your blog’s long lifespan.
#5 – They Are Up-Front About Pricing and Expectations
One of the biggest complaints about freelancers is that there can be surprise costs involved. Part of this is because not every freelancer does things the same way. If you need rewrites on a blog post, one freelancer may charge a significant amount for this, and another may not.
With blog companies, you are dealing with a standardized system, rather than a single person who is doing things individually. You know what you’re getting into before you sign on, and that stability means that you can turn the blog over without having to monitor it every single step of the way.
The SteadyContent Model
At SteadyContent, we have been creating blogs for companies like yours since 2010.
We use our team of over 550 writers to create superior content at a rate of 5 million words a month. The work is completely unique and contains Search Engine Optimized keywords that have been specifically chosen for your company.
Our SEO team uses the most cutting-edge data available, updated within the past few hours. We select all of our writers from the top 5% of applicants, to ensure the best quality content in every post.
If you haven’t worked with us before, we’d love to hear from you! We’re currently offering a trial package that allows for new customers to get a post risk-free, so you can try our content and see how it all works. Discover the difference that SteadyContent can make for you!
