Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog.
Top 5 Tasks a Blogger Should Outsource: If you’ve only recently begun blogging, you could be feeling overburdened by all the tasks ahead of you: The list includes content creation, keyword study, guest blogging, web design, link building, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and more.
Prioritizing activities and even knowing where to start can be challenging, especially if you’re developing your blog in addition to your day job.
I was putting nearly fifty hours per week at an Austin-based software firm when I initially launched my blog in 2019. The work was challenging
I recall one evening soon after I started my blog, I was stuck in rush-hour traffic on my way home from work. When I came home, I collapsed onto the couch. The last thing I wanted to do after switching to Netflix was get back on my computer and work on my blog.
It seemed impossible to start a profitable blog, much less one that brings in more than $80,000 per month.
Buy a domain and everything else you need to start a blog here
Then, it made sense.
Why don’t I outsource some of this so that I can work on it all day long instead of just after work?
Instead of just creating blog entries when I get home, I could then genuinely run my site like a business and exercise the greatest levers.
I therefore had to outsource some portions of my blog in order to utilize my limited time in the most purposeful ways while maintaining my sanity while developing a side business.
- Express Your Love This Valentine’s Day with 2 Dozen Fresh Roses Plus an Elegant Vase
The value of your time
Let’s assume that in addition to your 40 hours a week at your full-time job, you also want to spend 20 hours a week working on your blog.
How much can you get done in twenty hours?
500 words usually require 1-2 hours to write
As a result, if you write for 20 hours per week, you could publish between 5,000 and 10,000 words. That’s a respectable amount and would translate to two to three lengthy blog entries per week, which would be more than plenty for your own site.
But that leaves no other time for business-related activities. There is no time for link building, guest posting, establishing connections with other bloggers, including affiliate links, or expanding your email list.
The actions you must take in order to succeed, at whatever costs.
Keep in mind that you are a business owner as well as a writer. The most important thing you might be doing might not always be creating content.
You Might Like: 4 Easy Steps to Pick the Best Niche for Your Blog
How can you start a blog quickly and quit your job in six months rather than six years?
I discuss the top 5 things a blogger should outsource in this tutorial (and the best ways to do it). You can hasten the process of becoming financially independent by making the most of your time and concentrating on the proper things.
Let’s get going.
What Should You Outsource as a Blogger?
Looking at my blog processes today, the five items I spend the most time on are as follows:
- Link building and guest blogging
- Publishing fresh blog content
- Monetization and affiliate marketing agreements
- Updating and reviving previous material
- Constructing my community (email list and Facebook Group)
I could try to accomplish all of these tasks on my own, but I wouldn’t be very successful. I can expand the growth of my blog and my impact in my niche by outsourcing some of these chores.
What do you then outsource first?
1. Writing content.
This is a major issue. I can’t write every word myself, even though I don’t outsource every blog article on my website.
For instance, I have two choices if I need to publish a 5,000 word post:
Option A: Write the post myself for 5–10 hours.
Option B: Take an hour to revise and publish a post that was ghostwritten.
Option B allows me to organize my content and conduct keyword research without having to write the entire post. I only need to open the completed Google Doc, make my own edits, import it into WordPress, and then publish it.
How to contract out:
To compose the initial drafts for your blog, hire one writer. To import Google Docs into WordPress, use the Mammoth.docx Converter plugin.
How to work with a writer
Many bloggers hire writers through websites like Fiverr or Upwork, but I don’t suggest this as a long-term solution. On these sites, writers frequently juggle several clients and struggle to deliver regular work.
Hire a writer who is committed to your blog and can produce a steady volume in its place.
I posted a job position on the ProBlogger employment board when I hired my first writer. On this website, a ton of excellent writers are looking for employment, and you may post special job openings that exactly fit what you’re looking for.
Examine examples of existing job postings when crafting your job opportunity, and be sure to include:
- Your identity
- What your website’s focus is and your market
- How many words or articles each week are you anticipating?
- Request their pricing and a few writing samples from them.
Within two days of posting a job on ProBlogger (and promoting it), I had received over 50 applications.
The (not so enjoyable) phase comes next: focusing your search based on resumes and writing samples.
Hire the writer who ultimately produces the highest-quality work and delivers the content on schedule. This is important. Speed is crucial, so it’s a warning indication if the writer takes longer than anticipated to complete your first draft.
Once you’ve decided, get in touch with your new writer via email or Zoom video conference. Meet with them and go through your general plans, goals, and payment options.
The procedure with my authors is as follows:
I start by doing keyword research and making a content schedule for my writers that includes at least 5–10 upcoming posts. For each post, I utilize a straightforward shared document that has the following details:
- Target keyword
- Title of the blog post
- Length of the article Several inspiring articles
- Headings
I’m done now.
You can be more specific and provide more information, such as internal links and statistics, but ultimately, how well you get along with your writer and how comfortable you are working together will determine how detailed you go.
Bonus Advice:
To estimate the word count, I Google my goal keyword and take an average of the length of the top 3–4 entries. To make this process simpler, use the Word Counter Plus Chrome addon.
You just download the extension, pick Word Counter Plus from the context menu after selecting all of the content in any given article, and then click OK. You may see the precise word count here. My goal is to extend my stuff a bit further than the opposition.
Bonus Advice #2;
Make sure to request that your writer properly credit sources for any statistics and any visuals they utilize. Your photos for Google Docs should be optimized JPEGs that are no wider than 800 pixels, and you should also include alt text for your photographs.
The alt text will be transformed into the titles of your image files during the Google Doc tIt’s time to upload the Google Doc to WordPress once your writer is finished. After downloading the file, paste the post into the WordPress editor using the Mammoth.docx Converter plugin (or another program).
The last step is to enter the category, tags, meta description, and URL slug for your blog post. Ensure that external links open in a new tab as well.
What it costs to outsource writing:
The cost of writers varies greatly depending on their writing style and market. The prices I’ve seen have ranged from $0.03 to $0.25 per word.
Many competent authors can be found for between $0.05 and $0.10 per word. This suggests that you should budget between $50 and $100 for a 1,000-word blog post.
You may spend $200–400 each month if your goal is to publish one 2,000–word blog post every week.
2. Creating links
You need to increase your off-page SEO efforts now that we’ve discussed content and how to get more words published on your own site.
In the end, outsourcing aims to increase both the amount of content and the number of links to that material.
You must engage in link building to raise your domain authority in order to attract more links to your content (DA).
In the perspective of Google, backlinks are a vote of confidence that raises the rank of all of your blog’s content. They are like the cash of the Internet.
Your DA is zero when you first start a blog, making it difficult to rank for anything. Without links, no matter how much you write, your page won’t rank. As a result, you won’t receive any traffic, which prevents you from earning any money.
The finest kinds of connections, according to many SEO gurus, are “passive links,” or links that don’t require any effort on your part—someone connects to your content because they find it valuable.
If you build it, people will come.
These links are the pinnacle of link development, and you may increase your chances of obtaining them by producing extremely high-quality content and incorporating distinctive elements into your posts, such as infographics, videos, statistics, and case studies.
Passive linkages, however, are a ridiculous myth. You might not be discovered. Because they are simpler to find, already-ranking websites attract more passive links. You must stop the loop if you want to succeed.
You must create your own connections in order to achieve that.
I increased my Ahrefs Domain Rating from 0 to 78, developed over 70k backlinks, and increased my traffic from 0 to over 500k visits per month in the 18 months following debut.
How did I manage it?
I took on one helper.
How to find a freelance helper:
I was making slightly more than $10,000 per month from my blog six months after debut (mostly from consulting services). I then made the choice to bring on my first actual employee.
I was looking for a freelancer to assist me with anything that happened outside of my blog, including partnerships, link development, and guest posting. I saw the operations of startup content teams and am aware of the effort required to complete this. I was aware that I needed assistance.
I advertised a position for a “Outreach Specialist” on Indeed.com. These were a few of the duties:
- Contacting websites to inquire about guest post opportunities.
- Topic suggestions for guest blogs and editor follow-up.
- Establishing connections with influencers and bloggers.
- Editing and releasing marketing-related blog content.
Both relationship-building and content-editing skills are essential for your assistant. Their major objective is to assist you in managing your system for guest blogging so that you can receive more guest articles (and links) with less of your direct involvement.
Today, my amazing assistant can handle the entire process, including cold email outreach, topic pitches, topic approval, sending outlines to guest post content writers (more on that shortly), receiving the content back, adding my links, and giving it to me for final review.
You may increase your link building through guest posts and blog relationships with one skilled assistance.
How to collaborate with your independent helper:
For your goals to be aligned, it’s crucial to get along well with your assistant and schedule regular meetings. To develop her own online identity, I also permitted my assistant to post links to her own website. Someone with stakes in the outcome is necessary.
Create a shared Gmail inbox that both you and your helper may access to get things going. Then tell your assistant what kinds of websites in your niche you want to guest post on.
Next, make a template for an email outreach that your assistant can use to propose guest pieces. They will collect email addresses and send emails on your behalf once they have this list.
After receiving a response from a website, your assistant can submit guest post proposals to that website for approval (you’ll need to train your assistant on this).
Your assistant emails your guest post authors the approved topic title, editorial rules, and any further notes when a guest post topic is accepted (more on this next).
A guest post usually takes 1-2 weeks to write. Your assistant can finish it, thoughtfully include your links into the text, and then give it to you for final approval.
If you think it’s good, give your approval and submit the guest post. Spend some time at this point making any necessary final revisions to the guest post and ensuring that it adheres to your writing style.
Payment for your assistant:
Paying your assistance well is important (and not use a VA for this). I advise employing a local worker who will charge $20–25 per hour for 20 hours per week of work.
3. Writing guest posts
This is equivalent to having published more than 500,000 words. In reality? Probably only 10% of it was truly written by me.
What is the best way to scale guest posts?
Don’t write every one of them.
Who will actually write the guest posts if you hire a content writer for your site and an outreach assistant, as was previously mentioned?
I hope it’s not you!
You’ll need to use a ghostwriter for your guest posts if you want to scale this approach. The hiring procedure is the same as for the content writer for your own site mentioned above, except that they will only work on your guest posts.
In this situation, focus on finding ghostwriters in your preferred industry. In contrast to financial pieces, a marketing ghostwriter might not have as much experience formatting marketing blog entries.
If they are required to write on intricate specialist subjects but lack experience in those subjects, it will be quite clear that they lack the necessary understanding.
How much to pay the ghostwriter for your guest post:
Expect to pay between $0.05 and $0.10 per word for the ghostwriter, which is the same price as having someone write for your blog.
You may anticipate paying $300–$600 per month if you are able to have 4 guest posts accepted every month (1 per week, which is a good objective).
4. Graphic Design
The most crucial employees to increase your traffic have been discussed. However, you should outsource certain other crucial parts of your blog.
Don’t undervalue the value of effective graphic design. Your conversion rates, user experience, and brand trust could all be made or broken by it.
I purchased a straightforward WordPress theme and created everything from scratch when I first started my site. This first worked, but it was unprofessional-looking.
In addition, I purchased a few Fiverr gigs for my eBooks and lead magnets. They weren’t really good either.
So, after earning some money from my site, I decided that working with BrandStrong, a graphic design firm, was the best course of action.
They can work on one to three graphic design projects at once for a set monthly price. They produce a wide range of content, including infographics, eBooks, product photos, and photographs for blog posts.
Take a look at this before and after comparison of the featured photographs from my blog post, for instance.
This is a significant difference that completely alters the appearance and feel of my website. I am given a PhotoShop PSD file for the featured photos for my blog posts, and I can quickly modify the text and background image for each blog article. For top-notch stock photos, I turn to Adobe Stock.
Additionally, my posts on how to establish a blog and the best web hosting provide several infographic examples.
The cost of hiring a web designer is as follows:
For BrandStrong, my monthly cost is roughly $286
Web development
I made a lot of rookie blunders along the way, despite the fact that my blog is profitable today. My blog was initially launched on Squarespace.
When I became aware of Squarespace’s restrictions, I made the decision to convert to WordPress. Along with changing my web hosting company and WordPress theme over time, I also made numerous other minor adjustments.
I’m fortunate to know a friend who works as a WordPress developer.
I recruited Josh, a buddy of mine who owns NuWeb Marketing, a website consulting company
I’ve come to understand how crucial it is to have a developer on my side over time. He has assisted me:
- I’m moving my web hosting.
- Create a unique WordPress theme.
- I’ve updated the core and plugin files for WordPress.
- View the performance updates each month.
- Technological problems and design modifications.
I know a little bit about HTML and CSS, but I’m no web development guru.
Consider hiring a developer for a few hours if you’re having trouble with WordPress or are unsure how to handle issues with your DNS records and hosting.
You Might Like:
How to work with a web designer:
This stage won’t be necessary, and you shouldn’t employ a developer unless you want a personalized website with continuous upkeep.
You can do everything on your own when you first start out. To begin creating everything yourself, pick a straightforward WordPress theme like Kadence with Kadence Blocks.
Depending on the size of your project, hiring a developer will cost you between $75 and $150 per hour. A straightforward web hosting move could take two hours. It could take 40 or 100 hours to create a fully customized website.
You may spend less time worrying about technological challenges and more time concentrating on expanding your business if you have a professional web designer and web developer on your side.
In conclusion
The top 5 tasks for a business-minded blogger to outsource are:
- Writing content
- Link creation
- Writing a guest post
- Web development
- Graphic design
It’s completely acceptable if the costs of these hires aren’t currently financially feasible. Being able to handle everything oneself is one of the best things about blogging. Simply put, turning your blog into a profitable business will require more time.
Start by hiring a content writer to relieve you of a few blog posts if you have the money to do so. Hire your first assistant as soon as some money starts flowing in. Everything else is up to you.
Make systems, pull the biggest levers, and maximize your effect. Blogging ultimately revolves around increasing your online impact, something you cannot accomplish by yourself.
Disclosure: I may receive affiliate compensation for some of the links below at no cost to you if you decide to purchase a paid plan. You can read our affiliate disclosure in our privacy & policy. This site is not intending to provide financial advice. This is for entertainment only.
