In-House vs. Outsourced Blogging: What’s Right for Your Business?

Volume Nine

• Content Marketing

If your business is just hopping on the blogging bandwagon, or even if you’ve been blogging for years, you may be struggling with the management part of it all. And at the top of that management mountain; figuring out who will be doing all this blogging???

In the SEO biz, blogging is considered just one piece of the “content marketing” pie. And we at Volume Nine (or SEO experts, if you will…) are happy to announce our Content Marketing Webinar coming up Friday April 30, at 1pm MST. We will help you figure out the answers to all sorts of mysteries like who to write for, how to measure results, and all sorts of other fun content secrets!

But until then, you might just have a case of the blogging blues. So let’s get back to the original question: who in the heck should be writing all your content?

It appears that there are 2 simple solutions; either do it yourself, or pay someone else.

But as always, the answers aren’t as clear as we’d all like, so before you hit the “easy” button; consider weighing the benefits of in-house vs. outsourced blogging:

In-House Blogging Benefits

Keeps Costs Low
Hiring a freelance writer or setting up a blog management platform costs money. While there is no norm for blog post expenses, expect to shell out at least $45 per post at the minimum if you want to avoid spending your own time making edits.

On top of money, there is also time to take into consideration.

Finding a writer, interviewing them, assigning them pieces, coaching, etc. takes substantial time and effort. If you’re on a tight turnaround, in-house blogging might be better a better option.

Deliver Higher Quality Posts
Keeping blogging in-house tends to produce higher quality posts. This is because people take more pride in their work when they have an immediate connection. If a blog post comes back sub-par, the in-house writer will hear about it and make better attempts in the future.

Give Employees a Voice and Authority
Trusting an employee to write or create something for your company will engage and empower them. They will appreciate the opportunity to become a voice for your company and grow their personal writing portfolio.

Now, before you decide to keep your blogging in-house, hear the benefits of outsourced blog writing: (in corner 2!)

Outsourced Blogging Benefits

Save Time In-House
Writing a blog post can take anywhere from 1-3 hours depending on research and need for supportive links. If you’re posting the recommended 8 times per month (depending on who you ask), this can quickly eat away at time spent doing other work. Assigning posts and making simple edits takes significantly less time and energy.

Take Advantage of Authors’ Authority
Finding an authoritative writer is invaluable. Writers with pronounced Google + profiles, Klout and personal blogs of their own will give your blogs more authority simply by association. While you’ll probably pay more for authority, it could be well worth it.

Optimize for SEO Ranking
Freelancers in 2014 are not only talented writers. They have a deep knowledge of SEO best practices and will deliver writing pieces that are optimized and polished.

If you’re interested in outsourcing writers for your blog, read our tips on how to find quality content writers online.

The Final Verdict

Depending on the size of your business, we recommend a combination of both in-house and outsourced blog production. For posts like case studies, current events and extremely industry-specific topics, in-house work will most likely be more timely and relevant to your specific company.

Use outsourcing for top of funnel content that may not need to be overly technical. If you can find a third party writer with a lot of industry experience, expect to pay more.  And remember, there is a lot more to learn about the blogging process and /content-marketing/content marketing as a whole.