1. You will need a specialist
Does this mean you run out and hire an SEO company to write your content? Not quite. Website content is so much more than SEO. Your website needs to look, sound and read “human”. Your audience is what matters and we are flesh and bones! Of course i’m not recommending you ignore SEO completely. It is still very important but it comes second to quality content. A good specialist will understand this and put your audience’s experience with your website content first, before the search engine’s experience with your website.
2. You will need to educate
If you want your website content to have the depth it deserves you are going to have to invest some time in educating your outsourcing partner. The odds of you finding someone with a degree in biology, with previous history in the laboratory, who has now turned writer with extensive knowledge about SEO and content marketing who can create content for your laboratory equipment business’s website are slim (that was a mouthful).
Specialists understand what you need and they can get you EXACTLY what you want if you meet them halfway. The more information and resources you share with your outsourcing partner the more they will become knowledgeable about your field and your audience. No need for a cold relationship, make it warm and fuzzy by keeping communication lines open and accessible.
3. You will need to set clear expectations.
“Management”- if you want your outsourced content to meet your expectations, you should manage those expectations. From the beginning of your relationship set the tone with resources and information. This goes past educational industry information, I’m talking about resources of websites you like, blog articles, whitepapers etc. If you like a certain style, tone, language used in your content then be clear about that from the get go.
Perhaps you will find it’s not a good fit. For example what if your outsourcing partner can’t quite grasp the concept of a “casual tone”, and all your content comes off as being extremely professional, which is something your audience would be put off by. Better off to find out in the beginning of the relationship than the end. So lay it all out on the table. Define what you can up front and continue to define more as you move along throughout the project together.
These three content management tips will help you along your outsourced web content projects. At the end of the day you just want to be sure that your website content aligns with your overall business messaging. Since you're driving the train, only you can make sure the train gets into the station.
Photo Credit: Sean MacEntee via Flickr
Outsourcing website content for your business is a common practice that I can get behind. Lets face it we all aren’t experts at writing, SEO or content marketing. As a business owner, you can’t always do it all. So you outsource. When you outsource, you don’t give up all responsibility for your website content though. You should engage in some content management, stay involved throughout the entire outsourcing process. You want to be sure the content is up to par in multiple areas across a few mediums.
Here are 3 content management tips for outsourcing website content:
