Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Would You Outsource This Blog Service?

Posted by caraimperato on 7/1/2019 at 10:16 PM ET 125 Points
Hello, I'm a freelance blog writer, but I'd love to re-focus my business on optimizing blogs for better ROI. Like an audit/clean-up service. I would take what they already have and strategically make it better from a number of angles. For example:

- Reorganizing blog posts for better user experience and SEO (combining weak content, creating a topic cluster structure, updating information)
- Revising content for better readability and shares
- Applying consistent SEO best practices
- Repurposing blogs into ebooks, checklists, emails, etc.

Ideally, the client would already have clarity on their target audience(s) and have conducted keyword research. However, I could assist with a refresh on these, especially if they think the lack of alignment is causing the blog's poor performance.

My question is: What size or type of organization would be interested in (and could afford) this kind of service?

I'm thinking it might be a business with a single marketing director (or very small team). Or perhaps someone with a large blog designed to build income through affiliate marketing.

Would you agree? As a marketer, is this something you'd outsource? If so, what size/type organization are you?

(Note - this isn't meant to be a sales pitch. I'd love to make this my sole focus, but need to see if there's a viable market out there!)

Thank you for your help!



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RESPONSES

  • Posted by mgoodman on 7/2/2019 at 10:10 AM Moderator
    It would help if you can focus on the core benefit for the client instead of all the things YOU would/could do. As a prospective client, why should I hire you? How will my life (and bottom line) be better? Is there a demonstrable ROI on the fee I would pay for you to work your magic?
  • Posted by caraimperato on 7/2/2019 at 10:26 AM Author
    Thanks for your feedback. I believe the core benefit is taking what they already have (and have invested a lot of time & money into) and making it do more - by improving SEO, increasing conversions, and repurposing content.

    I believe I'd be targeting a customer who's already developed a great deal of content, but isn't seeing the ROI they'd like or have seen their traffic decrease over time with more competition and changes to Google algorithms.

    Here's how I briefly summarized some of the benefits in a recent LinkedIn post.

    You can get a significant #SEO boost simply by reorganizing or refreshing your existing content. Here's how it works.

    ✔️ By deindexing pages with thin content and low page views, your website's overall quality score will increase. (Deindexing means removing from Google's index. Telling them they don't have to include your page in search results.)

    ✔️ By revising old content that uses outdated SEO techniques (such as keyword stuffing), you can avoid Google penalties.

    ✔️ By adding more internal links between posts, you can keep your visitors on the site longer, which sends positive signals to Google.

    ✔️ By merging short posts together, you can create higher quality content for better user experience. Quality over quantity is the new SEO mantra.

    ✔️ By updating old posts with new stats or recommendations, you can reshare for fresh traffic.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 7/2/2019 at 11:56 AM Accepted
    "I believe the core benefit is taking what they already have (and have invested a lot of time & money into) and making it do more - by improving SEO, increasing conversions, and repurposing content."

    With all respect, "do more" is not a core benefit. Neither are "improving SEO, increasing conversions, [or] repurposing content." A core benefit might be "generating incremental new profit from work you've already done," or something like that. Or it might be "recognition by senior management as a creative, results-oriented marketing thinker."

    In a nutshell, you need to peel back the onion to identify the ultimate payoff for your target audience -- not just a short-term metric that you can address.

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 7/2/2019 at 12:13 PM Accepted
    A small to medium business with 1 marketing person (or someone whose title is marketing plus something else, like Director of Marketing and Sales) seems like a good target. They have someone who has way too much work to do but is hopefully handling the overall marketing management and strategy well. They would look to outsource parts of their work, which either they don't have time for or don't have the expertise for.

    Smaller companies generally need the basics done (and are often underfunded for work like this), where what you are offering likely wouldn't be considered a priority (though maybe it should). Larger companies may already have people inside who have the expertise.

    This SMB with single marketing person is the area I target also.

    Some of the challenges you likely will find:
    - my spam folders are filled with people who claim they can SRO optimize sites for us - your potential clients will be flooded with these also. Lots of competition for what you are considering, many overseas competing on price.
    - optimal as a consultant is if you could say "spend $10k on my service and your sales will go up $100k". This is hard to predict. Especially with something that is more art than science like SEO optimization is. They know improving SEO is good, but don"t know that paying you x will give them X+ in value.
    - clients are great at putting stuff on the web and then coming to me and say "now SEO this thing". They are thinking of the old SEO activities you mentioned, like keyword stuffing, instead of thinking of SEO as part of the content production process.

    This all said, have you considered changing your current business to a content producer with SEO expertise? That may be an easier sell than as an SEO optimizer. And could be a step in to clients who then may hire you for SEO optimization.
  • Posted by caraimperato on 7/2/2019 at 12:21 PM Author
    Thanks, Peter. You hit on some of the concerns I had.

    First, that a small business may need this but not have the budget. And second, that a larger organization might use internal resources.

    I'm trying to carve out a niche for myself that would reduce the amount of new content creation. I've found that I'm a slow writer, so it's hard to come out with a profitable effective hourly rate. I'm a librarian at heart, so I thought perhaps I could use my knowledge of SEO (and the new concepts of topic clusters) to help companies get their content in order.

    But you raise very valid points, including how to show ROI and how to differentiate from the sea of "optimization experts."

    One other potential audience I thought about - digital marketing agencies. Would they find value in outsourcing a blog audit/clean-up as part of their website redesign or perhaps as an initial strategy for new clients?

    Thanks again for your thoughtful comments!
  • Posted by caraimperato on 7/2/2019 at 12:24 PM Author
    MGoodman - This is exactly what I needed. So glad to have found this resource. Time for me to peel back that onion. I'm at the beginning stages of fleshing this out, so your comments are very helpful.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/2/2019 at 9:09 PM Accepted
    Can you develop some case studies proving that companies would indeed see the benefits you cite? If so, then you can provide some ROI. If not, then there's little proof that rearranging things on a website would provide the company a clear benefit. In fact, it may make the user experience worse.
  • Posted by caraimperato on 7/9/2019 at 10:32 AM Author
    Hi Jay, Yes that would be my plan. I'm working with a current client now, and hope to have some quantitative data to prove the effectiveness of this approach.
  • Posted by Shelley Ryan on 7/23/2019 at 4:07 PM Moderator
    Hi Everyone,

    I am closing this question since there hasn't been much recent activity.

    Thanks for participating!

    Shelley
    MarketingProfs
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