5 Blogging Tasks You Can Outsource Easily

I’ve been blogging for several years now, and I’ve learned one thing. In spite of the fact that I love to write, blogging is a lot of hard work. Because of that I, and many bloggers I know, struggle to blog consistently.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that I’ve found two ways to create content for my blog on a regular basis without knocking myself silly. The even better news is that I know these two tactics will make blogging easier for you, too.

The first way is to blog a book. As an author, blogging my books is a dream come true, and I have Nina to thank for that. Since I’ve started blogging my books, I’ve found it much easier to blog consistently. This strategy allows me to kill two birds with one stone.

But blogging still takes time and is a lot of work. That brings me to the second way that I’ve found to make blogging easier: outsourcing.

Before I go further, let me make one thing clear. I do not recommend outsourcing the actual writing of your blog posts. My personal opinion is that if a post has your name on it, you should be the one to write it.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way let’s dive into five blogging tasks you easily can outsource.

#1: Research

A research assistant can do research to flesh out any of the blog post ideas you have. Have an idea for a post or series of posts? Have a research assistant scour the web for articles on those topics, summarize the main points and any facts and figures, and link to them. Then, when it’s time to write the posts all you have to do is refer to the research already done for you and start writing.

A research assistant can even take the main topic of your blog, do research and come up with a whole list of blog post ideas. He can then do deeper research on the ideas that resonate the most with you.

#2: Proofreading

Even if you write professionally, you still make mistakes. We all do. Having a second set of eyes review your posts before they go live can save you from embarrassment and protect your professional image as a writer.

#3: Uploading, formatting and optimizing

Writing blog posts is one thing. Uploading, formatting and optimizing them is an entirely different thing, which, unfortunately, can be very time-consuming.

If you love to write but are intimidated by technology, and if HTML is truly a foreign language to you, hire someone to deal with uploading and formatting your blog posts. Doing so will enable you to focus on what you love most: writing.

The same person who uploads and formats your posts can also add in keywords and write a Google- friendly description of each post using the free WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

#4: Image sourcing and creation

Another time-consuming aspect of blogging that has nothing to do with writing is finding images. It’s even more time consuming if you want fancy-looking images that are ideal for social media sites such as Pinterest.

Hiring a professional graphic designer may be out of your price range, but hiring someone who is handy with tools such as PicMonkey and Canva won’t break the bank.

#5: Social media scheduling and management

In the same way that you should write your own blog posts, I also believe you personally should interact with people on social media, rather than having someone pretend to be you. Having said that, an assistant that handles scheduling your social media posts can save you a lot of time.

For best results, create some sample posts and give them to your social media manager as examples, so she’ll know what types of posts you’d like her create. (If you don’t have samples of your own, you can link to social media posts by others that appeal to you.) When starting with a new social media manager, review the posts she creates before she posts them, and give her feedback.

You also can have your social media manager deal with spammy comments on your posts and alert you to anything that needs your attention.

Outsourcing the five items listed above can free up your time to focus on what you do best—writing.

About the Author

Rebecca Livermore is the owner of Professional Content Creation and the author of Blogger’s Quick Guide to Working with a Team.