If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to consider outsourcing your blog.  Many successful businesses outsource all or part of their blog writing. They receive the full marketing benefit of a blog, but skip the hassle of having to produce new blog posts every week.

Outsourcing a blog can be done a couple different ways. 

1. Outsource setup. Some of you don’t have a problem writing articles, but you don’t want to learn how to install Wordpress, customize a theme and choose the right widgets and plugins.   Setting up a Wordpress blog isn’t difficult, but it does take some time.  Outsourcing setup is a good investment into your business

2. Outsource editing.  If you would like to write posts but aren’t confident in your spelling and grammar, an editor is a great way to ensure that the content you’ve created comes across as professional and accurate.  You write the article. Your editor will worry about rewriting awkward sentences, or correcting spelling and grammar, and scheduling posts to appear two or three times a week.

3. Outsource the writing. If you’re not a confident writer, but know what kind of posts you want to see on your blog, you can find a writer who will provide all of the written content for your blog. If you have time to write a few posts, but not all of them, a freelance blog writer can write posts the weeks you just don’t have the time.

4. Outsource it all. A blog is such a good marketing tool for small business, you don’t want to miss this opportunity to reach more customers just because you don’t have the writing skills or the time.  A blog writer will spend the time to become familiar with your business and your industry.  Your writer can set up the blog, write the articles, post articles and handle ongoing maintenance of the blog. 

I perform each of these services for various clients.  Some need just a little help from time to time. Others need me to handle the entire blog.  No matter what level of service they receive, all have been very happy with the feedback they get about their blog from customers and potential customers. It feels really good when a new customer says, “I read your blog and knew I needed to call you.”

Don’t miss out on the benefits of a blog just because you don’t have the time or the skills.  Outsourcing your blogging is a great way to invest in your business. You will reach customers you never could with just a website.

Are you outsourcing your blog?

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I often work with clients who want me to get them started in social media. Some of my clients want me to set up only one social network, such as only Facebook or only LinkedIn.  But because of the huge SEO value, I always recommend that they set up a Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube accounts, even if they don’t intend to be active on all four networks. If they decide they don’t want to put as much time on all four acccounts, and only want to update Facebook every week, their other profiles are still going to turn up in search engine results. 

To gain the most value with your social media profiles and make them findable, there are a few basics you want to be sure to include in your profile.

1. Link to your website.  Always include the URL to your website or blog.  If I search for you on Google, and I find your Facebook profile in search results, I know I can go to your Facebook profile and find more information about you. If your URL is in that information, I can easily click on it, come to your website, read more about you, and contact you with the contact information you provide on the site.  This uses social media to drive traffic to your website and ultimately to you.

2. Place keywords in key places on your profile. You probably have keywords you use in your blog or with your website to generate search engine traffic. These same keywords should appear in your profile in areas such as titles, headlines, biographical paragraph, descriptions of your business. Using keywords allows you to control what searches find you and your profiles.

Social media profiles offer more ways for potential customers to find you.  By implementing these basic optimization techniques, you will maximize our impact on search engines and become more visible to searchers.

Do you have your URL on every social media profile you own?

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I recently received the following question from a reader about Facebook profile pages and fan pages.

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Watching them, it occurs to me that some day these teenagers will be in positions of authority. They will be the bosses, managers, business owners. And when they are, they will expect us to multi-task and be as comfortable with electronics and technology as they are. When that time comes, I don’t want to be considered an old dinausour who can’t text and talk at the same time. I don’t want to be seen as slow and dumb because I can’t update Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn from my mobile phone. You know what I’m talking about. You surely have the father who isn’t good at picking up voicemail, the grandmother who thinks your cell phone is a calculator, the great uncle who refuses to learn how to turn on a computer because he just doesn’t do that kind of stuff. 

So how do you avoid becoming the Old Dinausour?

1. Read blogs

Find blogs about technology. There are blogs written at all knowledge levels. Find one that talks about technology in a way that you understand and makes you comfortable. Look around until you have a handful to follow, then read them regularly.  I use Google Reader to track a couple dozen blogs. When I have a few minutes, I can read some of the latest posts.

2. Try out new websites

When you hear people talking about a website you’re not familiar with, go check it out. How many times did you hear people mention Twitter before you checked it out?  If someone tells me about a site they visit, whether it’s a tool or information site, I go check it out.  If it’s not something I will use, that’s okay. At least now I know what it is the next time someone mentions it. 

3. Find out what the younger people are doing.

Look over their shoulder, ask them what they’re up to online, what new toys do they have that they love.  I don’t have an iPad, but I have a friend who bought one.  This is the latest toy everyone is talking about so I’m watching and talking to him to find out how he’s using it. Did you now you can find videos on YouTube of dogs and cats using iPads?  Don’t believe me?  Go search for it on YouTube. I did.

4. Listen to podcasts.

Portable audio files can be listened to on iPods or any Mp3 player.  There are hundreds of people creating regular podcasts on all sorts of topics.  Much like the blogs, find one that is about technology and talks about it at a level that makes you comfortable.  Download them to your Mp3 player and take them with you in the car, on a walk, anywhere.

5. Get comfortable with change.

My mother always says she doesn’t like change. She’s been saying it for at least 20 years now . That type of thinking is a luxury I can’t afford. We all need to decide we will constantly be learning new things.  It’s the only way to keep up with technology, especially now when it is moving faster than ever.  New websites and technologies can become outdated in a matter of months. Looking for what’s new is a habit that will allow you to keep up with technology and how our society is using it.

Are you becoming a Dinausour?  What are you going to do about it?

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Facebook Friends                            135

Twitter Followers                             1502

LinkedIn Connections                    228

Email List Members                         627

Inbound links                                   330

This month was not a typical month.  My website traffic is down a bit. This is because this month I drove a lot of my traffic to our Social Media Giveaway event.  In fact, I thought the traffic dip would be larger than it is, so I’m not upset with this number being lower than last month.

Twitter is growing organically.  This is not traffic I’ve driven from anywhere, just new followers that are probably following me because I’m on someone else’s list.

My email list has grown quit a bit.  I participated in the Social Media Giveaway this month.  It gained me about 150 new community members.  The event was definitely a success when you consider how little work I had to do on my part to participate.

Inbound links have not moved. I am going to focus on those and web traffic this month.

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