Many of my clients are hiring a blogger or a social media consultant 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. Here are my answers to some of the most frequently asked questions I receive.

What type of services do you offer, and how much do you charge for them?

My basic blogging/social media package includes 2-4 monthly blog posts, Twitter account maintenance, and Facebook fan page maintenance for B2C companies, or LinkedIn for B2B companies. It also includes reputation monitoring via Google Alerts and Twitter Search, and detailed quarterly reports on all social media activity including its impact on web traffic.

Price for this package varies depending on the specific client, because different topics/areas require different amounts of research and work. The fastest way to know how much I’ll charge in your case is to email me – vered (at) momgrind.com.

Add-ons to the basic package may include any or all of the following:

1. Website SEO analysis – title tags and copy edits.

2. Installing a blog on a sub-directory on your site and designing it.

3. Creating a Twitter account + basic design, using company logo/images provided by you.

4. Creating a Facebook fan page + developing a Welcome tab similar to this one.

5. Creating and/or managing a Pinterest account.

6. Community outreach via commenting on industry blogs.

7. A blogger outreach for B2C clients through my robust network of mom bloggers. We offer them a sample product. In return, they review it on their blogs. Sometimes we may offer them another sample to offer to their readers in a giveaway or a contest.

8. Regular Facebook and Twitter contests and promotions using the Wildfireapp or Offerpop tools.

Why should I hire you and not a social media agency?

You are welcome to hire an agency. They will provide the same value as I, but will use big words, will have shiny offices, and will make you pay through the nose.

Budget is tight. Blogging is easy, right? I’d like to pay $10 per blog post. Are you cool with that?

Not really. While I am far more affordable than an agency, I do provide high quality work and 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.

Why do I need a blog and social media accounts?

A blog can help your search engine optimization efforts by adding fresh, keyword-rich content to your website. It can also establish you as a thought-leader and an expert in your space. This post explains why every company should add a blog to its website.

Getting found in search engines is a crucial first step for getting qualified leads that can be turned into customers. For B2B buyers, for example, search engines are the primary research source, and one of the top influences on purchasing decisions.

Using social media channels such as Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter to create brand awareness also works to enhance your conversion rate. Consumers who engage with brands on social media sites show significantly higher propensity to subsequently search for those brands, and to click on their ads. When it comes to promoting your brand on the Web, search engine optimization, Search engine marketing and social media all work together to create awareness and demand, and to bring people to your website.

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.

How soon will I see results?

Unlike SEM – paid search engine marketing via Google Adwords, SEO results are not immediate and take time to become apparent – at least six months and sometimes longer.

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.

The same is true for social media. Social media is a process of slowly building brand awareness and customer loyalty. It doesn’t happen overnight – but if you give it time, it almost always works.

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. 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 it brings you.

What are some of the services you do NOT provide?

I 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, but in my experience, the combination of on-page SEO on your main site, a high-quality company blog and active social media campaigns is very effective in improving your search engine rankings over time and getting qualified traffic to your site.

If you sell a consumer product, another way to get you legitimate links is to run a blogger outreach campaign, offering bloggers a product sample (that they get to keep) in return for writing a product review. Bloggers are required to disclose that they were compensated for writing the review. Most will include a do-follow link to your site, although some will add the no-follow attribute to their link.

The bottom line: I much prefer getting you natural links through creating awesome content for you and spreading it in social media and via blogger outreach campaigns, than chasing after links artificially. If you must get those artificial links, I can recommend an SEO company to help you with that.

How do you measure results?

For B2C clients, I combine information from Google Analytics, from SocialMention.com and from SproutSocial.com to create my quarterly reports. I generally expect to see social media sites among the top external referrers to a client’s website. I also expect to see high levels of engagement and influence.

For B2B clients, focus is less on achieving a wide social reach and more on connecting with specific, hand-picked influencers in the relevant space, such as journalists, industry analysts, and decision makers.

I believe that social media marketing has benefits beyond dollars and cents, and that a strong social media presence is important for long-term brand recognition and customer loyalty. However, if this is a priority, we can use pricier tools, such as Argyle Social, to create goals, measure conversions and in general connect social activity with business metrics.

Why do I need you? Can’t I just use the info you provided here and do it by myself?

You probably could. SEO does require expertise, and blogging requires basic writing skills, in addition to an understanding of search engine optimization. But almost anyone can run a social media campaign using the tools I’ve listed above.

Most of my clients hire me for the same reason they hire other team members – they simply don’t have the time to do it all. Often, they also don’t enjoy writing, or frequent interaction with customers over social media channels. Blogs are easy to start, but difficult to maintain, and the customer service side of social media can be stressful and requires a lot pf patience.

But if you have the time, and the patience, then yes – you can absolutely run your own social media campaign.

How soon can you start?

It depends 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.

***Please note that starting in January 2011, my workload has reached a point where I am able to accept very few new clients.

Will you work for me for as long as I need you?

I typically work in calendar-quarter engagements, submitting a new proposal every three months. I always honor these engagements, no matter what. This means that even if I have the opportunity to take on a bigger client, or even if I’m unhappy with the arrangement for some reason, I will still honor it and work diligently to give you the best social media exposure possible.

Whether we renew at the end of each engagement depends on whether we were both happy with the previous engagement. I do have several long-term clients (2+ years), which is the main reason I am able to take on very few new clients each calendar quarter.

If you would like to lock me in for longer than three months I may consider six months, but with a new client, it’s best to start with a 3-month engagement until we’re both sure we’re a good fit for each other.

Can we talk on the phone?

I prefer email communication. Having said that, if you become a client, you may ask for – and receive – my phone number and my Skype ID. I do ask that you schedule all your calls with me in advance. I usually screen all non-scheduled calls and respond to all of them in batches, twice a day, but I check my email compulsively multiple times during the day, which means you’ll get a faster response from me if you simply use email.

How do I pay you?

Via Paypal, or a check. 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.

How do I contact you?

Email me: vered at momgrind dot com.