You know you need to blog, but you either don't know how, or you're not any good at it.
So, you're considering outside blog writing services which facilitate the relationship between a company and an independent freelance blogger.
Making the right hire could ignite your website, grow your traffic, and bring a handsome return. Making the wrong hire could hurt your brand worse than having no blog at all.
We'll help you sort through the pros and cons quickly so that you can make a decision and start bringing in real, qualified prospects from your posts.
Blog Writing Services: What You Stand to Gain and Lose
Blogging for business can be a big step forward for your company. We love it when businesses understand the immense value blogging can bring and are ready to put resources behind it. But, how should you go about it?
Gain: Inexpensive Blog Content
There's no doubt that you can get content for your blog for next to nothing with blog writing services. Comparatively speaking, you'll pay a lot less for posts from a "content mill" than you will by hiring a part-time writer or working with an inbound marketing agency.
It's possible that you'll get a deal by forming a relationship with a great writer and paying them a lot less than they're really worth. Some quality writers go to work for blog writing services to make a little money between jobs and build their portfolios. Just keep in mind that those top-notch writers are few and far between and they won't be writing at minimum wage for long.
Lose: Strategy Expertise
One thing you'll lose by going with a blog writing service over a FTE or an agency is strategy expertise. The writing service will provide you with content which may or may not be great, but they won't be telling you what to write, how those content pieces fit in the customer journey, what your conversion rate should be, etc.
To build a true customer-centric marketing machine, you need to have an expert building the blog content strategy, providing fresh blog content ideas, optimizing each asset, and extracting key insights from the results.
RELATED READING: Blogging for Business: 3 Easy Tips to Attract More Leads
Gain: Low Commitment
When you work with a blog writing service, you're not on the hook for a long-term contract. If you're severely cash-strapped, this can be a big plus.
Although you may get a discount by purchasing more content from a blog writing service, you can certainly purchase a single post at a time. There's no up-front commitment. If you don't like it, you don't pay.
Wondering how often you should post on your business blog? Get our advice here.
Lose: Deepening Understanding of Your Business
If you go the blog writing service route, you'll miss out on the value a full-time employee (FTE) or agency can provide with a long-term relationship. The more you work with an agency, for instance, the better that group of experts gets to know the nuances of your market, how your prospects think, what psychological triggers prompt them to action, etc. Given what you'll pay a blog writing service, you can't expect them to get that deep into your individual needs.
Gain: Quick Delivery
It's hard to beat the quick delivery of a blog writing service. You can sign up for one right now and have content to post on your blog in a couple of days.
If you hire a FTE or sign on with an agency, by contrast, you're going to have to shop around to find a great one, go through some evaluation, and get them up-to-speed, which can take some time. If you're in a hurry, blog writing services are as speedy as it gets.
Also See: 6 Blogging Mistakes That Are Costing You Leads (And How to Fix It)
Lose: A Commitment to Results
Working with a blog writing service, your commitment is low and so is theirs. When you work with a blog writing service, you'll get a product, a deliverable. You pay X and get X words.
But, if you hire an employee or work with a leading agency, you're paying for a commitment to get results. At Lean Labs, we don't guarantee results, but we're darn sure pushing hard for them, and we're pissed if we don't reach them. An agency like ours will work closely with your management team to set goals, establish expectations, and form an interactive partnership where your success is paramount.
Learn more about our commitment to 10x client results here.
The Types of Companies Blog Writing Services Work Best For
Obviously, blog writing services are a good fit for companies that are looking to get content cheap and fast. To get short-term search engine traffic, all you have to do is be better than the other pages ranking for your keywords.
It's like the old story of two guys who see a lion. One slowly starts to put on his running shoes. The other guy asks, "Why are you putting on your shoes? You'll never outrun that lion." The first guy says "I don't have to outrun that lion. I just have to outrun you."
Same goes for search engines. You can get to the top by simply being better than the others. If your competitors are doing nothing, you can win with just a little effort. Get 500 words for the price of a fancy burger. You may get results. Just be aware that when someone comes along with 600 words that are slightly better, you'll lose ground quickly.
For brands that are serious about content marketing, for those in it for the long term, a blog writing service won't do. We've been building organic traffic with first-rate blog posts for companies for years and we know just how powerful it can be when it's done with excellence.
A couple of the things that you gain with an Inbound Marketing agency that you won't get with a blog writing service or FTE hire are a team of experts and refined operational systems.
When you work with our team, for instance, you're going to get multiple experts with combined decades of blogging experience looking at your situation. And, you'll get an operational system for strategy, keyword research, outlining, writing, editing, and delivery which we've honed over several years.
If you're interested in taking a more serious look at everything blogging can do for you over the long term, a great next step would be a chat with our Head of Inbound, Ryan Scott. As you can tell from this post, we know we're not the best fit for every business, so we don't push hard for sales.
We're actually kind of picky about who we work with.
So, you won't get a hard sales pitch. What you will get is advice from a seasoned veteran and creative problem-solver on which blogging solution is best suited for you.
Schedule your time with Ryan now.
