Electric Blogging: The Dilemna: Writing Your Own Content Vs Outsourcing

I just went through one of the busiest weeks of my life. I have a couple of niche sites that I’ve just launched and I’m trying to rank on Google. My plan is to get them to page one in 2 months. I know it’s going to be a challenge for such a short time frame but I like such challenges. They keep me motivated and make sure I don’t waste any valuable time. After all, “time is money.” Okay, a bit cliché I admit. :)

My plan for monetization is of course promoting affiliate products. I’m not going to go for Adsense because I realized (with a bit of help) that it actually distracts readers and sends traffic to competitors for only cents. So that’s a big NO to Adsense for now.

While preparing to launch the sites, I had to write a lot of content for both the sites as well as keep Electric Blogging alive. Admittedly, The Best Spinner streamlined this process and helped me create a lot more high quality and unique versions of content for off-site and article marketing purposes.

QUICK TIP: If you are already using The Best Spinner then you should spin your article to more than 50% unique to avoid Google dupe issues. :)

For on-site content, spinning wouldn’t cut it. I had to write pages of super quality content to provide value to my readers once they reached my site.

This is the point when I considered outsourcing content creation so that I could focus more on design and SEO. I ultimately decided not to outsource because I felt it would be sort of cheating and I want to be able to write a post in future about how you can do this all on your own.

Though I didn’t outsource my whole experience inspired this post on whether you should write your own content or outsource. After you read this, you can decide which is better for you.

So let’s get down to business.

Outsourcing: This is basically hiring someone temporarily to do a job for you, in this case writing content for your site.

Writing Your Own Content

I’m not going to talk a lot about this but I am going to give you some advantages I have found personally about writing your own content.

Advantages

It’s free. Since you write your own posts, it costs nothing. This is great for someone just starting out or someone wanting to spend as little money as possible.
Improved writing skills. The more you write, the better you get. When I just started out a few years back I wasn’t exactly amazing. I struggled to land some guest posts on even small blogs. Now I’m published on even the popular ones like Problogger and BloggingTips.
More personality. When you write your own posts you can add your own personality them. This helps you connect with your readers and build good relationships with them.

Disadvantages

Time Consuming. Very time consuming especially if you have a lot of other projects on your plate.
Lack of Knowledge. Sometimes you’re not exactly an expert in the niche you’re targeting and it’s hard to write content.
Lack of Ideas. Everyone runs out of ideas at points in their life.

Outsourcing

These are some advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing.

Advantages

Focus. Like I mentioned earlier, it gives you the luxury of focusing on other areas of your blog like promotion, design, business strategy, SEO and product production.
Consistent Quality. Most of the time, the people you hire will be experts in their chosen fields. So you would expect high standards for what you’re paying them.

Disadvantages

Added expenses. Sometimes getting someone to do the work can be expensive especially if you need top notch stuff.

Determining Whether you Need to Hire a Writer

Identify your content needs

When you’re starting to build your blog, you should first identify what type of content you would need to write. A good promotion strategy is one where you are everywhere your audience is. This means you have to consider whether you’ll be writing eBooks, making presentations or distributing reports. Each of these requires different skill sets which you may not have. You can cut costs by learning how to do these things yourself but it can get time consuming and other parts of your blog may suffer.

Do you have the time?

Sometimes you could have all the skills you need but do you necessarily have the time to manage every aspect of your blog? Ask yourself this question. If you are like me with so many projects on your plate then you might want to consider. You don’t want any of your projects to suffer and hiring a writer really lessens the workload (… trust me)

Can you afford it?

Sometimes it all comes down to whether you are financially able to hire someone or not. It can be tempting to go for the writers that offer cheaper rates. The problem with hiring cheaper writers is:

They might not be too familiar with the niche.
English might not be their first language and may not be that good.
Quality might not be that good. (After all, you get what you pay for…. Right?)

Again, don’t go hiring expensive ones for no better reason than… “They’re expensive, they have to be good.”

Look at samples of their previous work. Have they written for your niche before? Is their English good? Ask yourself all these questions to ensure you get the upmost quality in your work.

Where to Hire Writers

There are a quite a number of services where you can hire freelance writers and some of them have sites of their own. Most of them add their resumes, writing experience and rates. They usually charge according to your budgets so they are actually quite flexible.

Below I’ve compiled a list of services and individual writers you should consider if you want to hire someone to create content for your blog.

Freelance Writing Services

All these are great services and offer great support too. A lot of writers are registered so you definitely have the advantage of variety.

UPDATE: Check out this cool video on outsourcing http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/video-why-outsourcing-is-bad-for-business

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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