Many of my clients are hiring a blogger for the very first time and are not sure what to expect, how it works, or even if a blogger for hire is worth the cost. These are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions I receive.
How much do you charge?
This is probably your most burning question, but one that I can’t answer without specific details about the project. Every client is different, so it makes sense to tailor a quote to your individual needs.
Do you need just blogging services or do you require a wider range of social media services? Do you need me to analyze your Web site and suggest title tags and SEO copy edits? Are you going to purchase a package, or pay for individual blog posts? Does the topic require a lot of research, or is it a topic I can write about using my own knowledge and expertise?
Do you need me to create an editorial calendar for the blog and a list of keywords, or can you provide me with those? Does your Web site have a blog or do I need to install one for you? Would you like me to act as your social media evangelist, visiting other related blogs and forums and posting to them on your behalf?
Would you like me to monitor mentions of your company via Google Alerts and Twitter Search and respond to those mentions? Do you need me to manage an SEM campaign for you (via Google Adwords) in addition to SEO?
The answers to all of these questions will determine the scope of the project and affect the final quote.
Budget is tight. I’d like to pay $10 per article. Are you cool with that?
Not really, because earning what basically amounts to Minimum Wage would force me to lower the quality of my work. I pride myself on providing real value for my clients. I don’t just write blog posts. I work with my clients to identify their business goals, then use social media tools, including blogging, to help them achieve those goals.
I have helped many satisfied clients to greatly improve their search engine rankings and build a devoted social media following. In fact, several of my clients have turned to me after trying a “cheap” blogger and finding that they were unhappy with the quality of the work they had received.
No one can provide high quality work for low pay. It just doesn’t work that way. If your budget is tight, consider publishing less frequently. As a long-term strategy, it’s always better to choose quality over quantity.
Are you sure you’re going to bring value to my company?
Yes. I will optimize your site using the best keywords for your business to let search engine bots know exactly what it’s about; I will write an intelligent, articulate blog that further helps with SEO efforts and shows clients and customers how good you are at what you do; I will create and develop a vibrant Twitter account with relevant followers.
In other words, I will work hard for you and do everything that SHOULD work in terms of SEO and social media. Can I promise you that if you are now on page X in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for your main keyword, you’ll get to page Y after six months? Of course not. SEO is a long-term effort that requires ongoing maintenance, monitoring and tweaking. There are many factors involved in determining your position in the SERPs, some of which are out of my control. If anyone promises that they can get you to the first Google page in an X amount of time, you should probably stay away from them!
So, you’re basically a glorified article writer?
No. I do much more than write articles for your website. I am the person that can get you from nowhere on the search engine results pages to a prominent spot – maybe even to the first page. No promises! But reaching the first page of results for at least one major keyword is my ultimate goal with each of my clients.
Getting found in search engines is a crucial first step for getting qualified leads that can be turned into customers. For business to business (B2B) buyers, for example, search engines are the primary research source, and one of the top influencers on purchasing decisions.
In other words, my blogging and social media services can have a real impact on your company’s bottom line. Sure, when you start a social media marketing campaign you’re making an investment – just like you would invest in any other form of marketing. Social media is a long-term process, but it works – and you can certainly measure its ROI.
Your blog discusses parenting, women’s issues and recipes. Are you sure you can blog about other topics?
Of course. MomGrind is my personal blog. This is the space where I write about my life and my own personal interests. I also write a social media blog which is quite different in its tone than this blog, and of course many blogs on many different topics for my clients. I can write about anything, except for maybe the most technical topics which would require a technical writer – and even then I can bring value via optimizing blog posts, SEO-ing the main site and of course Twittering.
How soon will I see results?
Unlike SEM – paid search engine marketing via Google Adwords which I also offer, SEO results are not immediate and take time to become apparent – at least six months and sometimes longer. For this reason, I usually recommend that my clients purchase a 6-month package of weekly blog posts, although if your budget is very tight, biweekly blog posts work too.
Sometimes simply tweaking your main site’s title tags and doing some basic copy edits on your site can produce significant improvement in rankings. A recent client saw an almost immediate jump from nowhere in the SERPs for their main keyword to page 3 after we did SEO edits on the main site. A regularly updated blog should bring that client to the first page over the course of a few months. But for most clients, SEO is a fairly long process.
I want my corporate blog to have lots of traffic and lots of comments. Can you do that for me?
I wouldn’t worry about traffic and comments. Both are not good indicators of a corporate blog’s success. “Lots of traffic” is only important if your revenue model is ad-based, which is a difficult model to begin with and requires huge amounts of traffic to make real money. Even large online publications are struggling with that these days.
As for comments, the vast majority of online readers (anywhere from 90% to 99%, depending on the source) read, but do not comment. This doesn’t mean they are not engaged or that they are not reading. As a small business or an enterprise, you do want the people who land on your site to take action – but that action isn’t necessarily commenting on your blog posts.
Instead of traffic or comments, measure your company blog’s success by the long-term impact it has on your search engine rankings, by its contribution to brand recognition and to building your name in your space, and by the number of qualified, high-quality leads (as opposed to random traffic) it brings you.
What are some of the services you do NOT provide?
I don’t provide web design services. If you need me to create a blog for you, I will use a free WordPress theme that has a look and feel that resembles your main website as much as possible, but if you’d like to make changes to the free design, such as replacing the header with your main site’s header or changing colors and fonts, I’ll recommend a web designer that can do that for you.
I also don’t provide link-building services in the sense of posting for you in hundreds of low-page-rank, low-quality blogs with the goal of creating backlinks to your site. Instead, I focus on building high-quality links via your blog, and via getting your name out there in social media.
Social media works for SEO because people become aware of your company and of your content and will sometimes link back to you. For example, I recently started following someone on Twitter on behalf of a client. They followed back, and a few weeks later wrote a blog post titled “Great Marketing Blogs,” which featured my client’s blog among other blogs, and linked to it.
This is organic, natural link-building and it works beautifully because it often comes from high-quality, high-pagerank sources and those links are far more valuable than low-quality links. You need just a few high-quality links to get the same effect you would get from hundreds of low-quality links.
But I really want you to get me links. I heard that on-page optimization is not as important as off-page optimization via link building.
Both are important. I actually had a client who jumped from nowhere on the SERPs to page 3 after on-page adjustments to their site and no other efforts whatsoever, so I can’t agree that on-page optimization is not important.
As for links, yes they are important, and if you really insist I can build Squidoo Lenses and write Ezine Articles and Hub Pages for you and link them back to your site, but in my experience, the combination of on-page SEO on your main site, a high-quality company blog and an active yet selective Twitter account (as in, account only follows relevant people) is very effective in improving your search engine rankings over time and getting qualified traffic to your site.
In other words, I much prefer getting you natural links through creating awesome content for you and spreading it in social media, than chasing after links artificially.
How soon can you start?
It depends on how big your project is and on my current workload. I won’t take on new work if it interferes with my work for existing clients. I can usually arrange to get the first deliverable to you, whether keyword analysis, SEO edits to your main site, or your first blog post, within seven business days after you hire me.
Can we talk on the phone?
Of course. All my clients receive my mobile phone number. I’m available between 10am and 5pm PST, from Monday to Friday, except for weekends and holidays.
How do I pay you?
I get paid via Paypal. Once we agree on the project’s scope and on the price, I usually split that into a few payments and request that you make the first payment before I start working on the first deliverable.
Will you feature my company in your online portfolio?
I can’t showcase everyone, but I do reserve the right to showcase all clients in my portfolio, unless they request specifically and in writing that I serve as a ghostwriter.
How do I contact you?
Email me: vered at momgrind dot com.
