Most publishers start out with a single blog, it’s rare that one starts with multiple sites from day one. You usually get one to success then move onto another site and build that one to success, and so on. Some never build a second site and just grow the original site. In this article I’ll give you some tips for how to scale your blogging business from just one blog to having multiple successful sites through outsourcing content to freelance writers.
How to scale your blogging business
The follow list are some helpful tips that I’ve utilized over the years to help my publishing business grow to almost 3,000 published articles at a rate of about 200 new articles per month.
1. Use freelancer platforms
This is one of the easiest ways to get started outsourcing content for your blog. There are a number of platforms that you can sign up for as a client and hire freelancers. A few of the main ones to find writers are Upwork.com, WriterAccess.com, or even fiverr.com.
Depending on your goals and budget, one may be better for you than another. I’ve tried these three and many more, you should probably experiment with several as well.
Finding a quality freelance writer isn’t easy and lot is going to be involved in training them to a level that is up to your standards. You’re essentially hiring a new employee, you can’t expect them to know everything on day one.
You can build a huge team of quality writers using platforms like these, but it’s going to take work and depend on your SOPs, content briefs, and ability to weed through applicants and hire the best out there.
It can be costly, just be sure to negotiate your rates and stick to your guns if you feel you’re being fair. Some writers think they’re worth more than they are. Having said that, writing content is a lot of work so keep that in mind when setting a rate.
2. Use an agency
Much like Upwork or WriterAccess, content agencies have teams of content writers that you can utilize. However in this case you don’t have to build a team beforehand. You simply pass your topics off to the agency along with your content briefs and hope for the best.
In my experience this can be risky, but that’s not to say that you can’t get back good content with this method. In fact, a lot of publishers use agencies for content at scale.
Some content agencies that bloggers use are:
3. Hire a formatter
When I say formatter, I mean put someone between the writer’s raw content and yourself. Some things a formatter might do is take the content that the writer submits and add it into WordPress as a new post, format the text to your standards, or add images.
These mundane tasks that you have been doing yourself are very time consuming. If your blog or blogs are already making over $3k – $5k each month and growing rapidly then you might want to consider hiring a VA for this role.
I personally waited until my sites were bringing in well over $10k/month before I hired a formatter. Now I can’t image life without him. He does so much that I hated doing and has allowed me to focus on areas of the business that can’t be outsourced as easily.
4. Hire a full-time writer
You may be thinking that you don’t have it in the budget to have a full-time writer, or a full-time employee other than yourself at all. You might think that, but you might be wrong.
You can hire writers outside of the U.S. who speak and write near-native English. I’m not saying they’re easy to find, but they aren’t necessarily unicorns. Just like if you were hiring a writer in the U.S. you have to screen applicants and probably even do some interviews.
One place to start is onlinejobs.ph which is where I found my full-time Filipino writer. Starting out she was a little rocky, but she quickly caught on to my system. Now I often see her having better looking articles than my native English speaking writers that were born in the United States.
5. Write more articles yourself
This one seems obvious, and it is. If you don’t have a big budget yet then you may need to head back to the trenches and start writing yourself. I did all the writing for all of my sites for the first year. Even when I started outsourcing content I was still writing to maximize monthly content production.
Consider writing some articles that answer queries that can be solved quickly with a short article. Instead of trying to make every article you write be 1500-2000 words, start pumping out 800 word articles about low competition topics. It’s quite likely you’ll rank for them if you’re doing solid keyword research. After all, this business is really a numbers game depending on how you approach it.
Jesse is a web publisher that has been managing a team of freelance writers and blogging for years. He is also the founder of TeamPublisher.io.