Outsourcing Your Online Content
Many larger companies employ dedicated staff to manage their online presence but this isn’t always practical for smaller businesses. The importance of having a corporate website to promote any business now means that many small businesspeople will have to find a way to do the work themselves or else look for a cost effective alternative. More people have become computer literate in recent years as web design software has become more user friendly and so it is possible for almost anyone with a bit of PC confidence to set up their own website. The real difficulty that most businesses have to overcome is finding the time to create and maintain their website as it usually takes critical personnel away from the core activities of the business. Fortunately it is reasonably easy to outsource web design and content writing and depending upon the level of involvement that you want to have with your website there are several ways that you can approach the task.
IT and web design companies have all inclusive packages that will see you web page designed by professionals who can also supply well written content to match your expectations from the site. The obvious advantage of this is that it requires a minimum of time and produces a comprehensive website that is guaranteed to stay online and which is continually updated with new material but it is also the most expensive option. This doesn’t mean that it is less cost effective as web design services are now more affordable than they have ever been. It may be that it costs more in time lost from your core activities than it costs in set up and maintenance fees in which case outsourcing the whole of your web presence would make perfect sense. When you take into account that internet marketing services will often do all of your social media marketing in support of the website that they are running for you it can be a very cost effective way to spend you IT budget.
Most businesses will outsource a part of their online marketing but spend time doing much of the maintenance of their website themselves. The most common part of a company’s online presence that is outsourced will be the website design that they use which they will then be able to update themselves along the way. Often the staff in charge of marketing will be the ones that contribute the content for the site that keeps it fresh and contemporary for its niche. This can work well if these people can write well enough to consistently produce a standard of quality in the content that they produce but more often it is the case that it would be better to use a professional to write a lot of the central content for a website like the sales pages and product descriptions. Most businesses include a corporate blog on their websites to keep their customers up to date with the products and offers that are available. For the most part the simpler sorts of blog posts might be written by the marketing staff but to maintain the overall quality of the website’s content it may be useful to outsource more detailed articles to professional writers.
Finding the right people to outsource your online content to can be difficult and often the best people can be found by asking your friends and colleagues about who they have used. There are also a number of sites online where web design, graphics and web copy can be outsourced to freelancers who will also often have the cheapest rates. However involved you want, or need to be with your company’s website there is an outsourcing solution to suit your needs.
