Here at Vision, I write a lot of blogs. I also edit a lot of blogs, and have written guides on how to write blogs for our new staff and interns. The long and the short of it is I know my way around a blog. More importantly, I know how to write blogs for my clients about their company, their products, and their services. However, it’s not always easy. These are the four things you need to get together if you want good content (and be a good client) when you outsource blogs for your company.
1. Your Target Audience
Blogs are a useful source of education and information for potential clients. But I can’t write for your audience if I don’t know what it is. Also, if you’re targeting, say, only businesses or only residential audiences, the interests of those two audiences are very different. Likewise, when it comes to writing the call to actions at the end of these articles, I need to know who I’m aiming that at.
2. Examples of Previous Blogs
If you have a specific voice, terminology, or structure you want appearing in your blog, you need to provide examples. If you don’t have any blogs in the first place, you should write some as examples. If you have no idea how to write blogs, or no desire to do so, then you’re leaving that up to your outsourcing company. This can be fine, but think about having a consistent company voice.
3. Topics and Keywords
Some days the biggest struggle for writing blogs is a relevant topic to write about. This is especially true for some of the highly-specialized, highly technical clients I write for. Even if I have their voice and style down, if I can’t think of a relevant blog that I haven’t already written into the ground, I’ll be spending a lot of (billable) time just finding and researching a subject.
Also, when you give us topics, you’re also giving us keywords: a vital part of SEO. By giving us the terminology of your company and/or your clients, you’re giving us an edge when it comes to well-ranking articles on search engines, as well as social media engagement. Just by spending a few minutes jotting down some ideas, you’re making the process faster with more return for your company.
4. Authentic Imagery
We have a love/hate relationship with stock photography. If you’re writing a blog, you need imagery – preferably more than one image. If you can add a caption for context: all the better. But stock photography can only do so much, and is only so close to the ideal photo for your content. By providing photos to your blog writers, you’re providing authenticity to your blog. This is especially important for specialty clients, as your products/services/target audience might have a much smaller selection on your average stock photography site.
On this modern internet, content is king and blogs are a great source of it. The right blogs can easily increase your organic traffic from a trickle to a steady flow of users. The right blogs can boost your search ranking in your field. But to get the right blogs, it requires you to work closely with your marketing company to produce them. Use these tips and find the right company to write your blogs (we’re available), and you can successful outsource blogs for your company.