As a freelancer or small business owner, it’s important to know when to delegate tasks to other professionals. Managing a blog can be overwhelming, and it’s not always about writing great content or working long hours. In fact, one of the most effective moves you can make as a blog owner is to outsource your work. Although it may not be a seamless transition, it’s always better late than never.
Blog owners know that running a WordPress blog requires wearing several hats. When you launch a blog, you become its accountant, marketing manager, writer, and designer. However, once your blog starts to gain traction, it becomes impossible to manage everything by yourself. Therefore, having a solid outsourcing plan can help you save time and run your business more efficiently.
Outsource Hosting
Most small businesses and blogs start with inexpensive shared hosting. Sometimes that’s all you need, but other times you’ll find that upgrades are necessary. Even if you don’t need to move to a VPS or private server, you should consider whether you want to manage your WordPress hosting or have someone else do it for you.
Managed WordPress hosting is a relatively new concept, but it’s a wonderful one. Not only do you never have to worry about backups, downtime, updates, or website speed, but the WordPress installation is often done for you.
Some of the hosts that offer this kind of premium managed WordPress hosting include:
– Kinsta
– WP Engine
– Flywheel
You have two options for finding someone else to maintain your hosting. The first is sticking with your current website host and seeing if it offers managed hosting. If so, all you need to do is call up the sales or support team and ask them to upgrade you. Keep in mind that most managed hosting is more expensive than non-managed hosting. The good news about going with your current host is that you don’t have to transfer over site files and relaunch your website on a completely different host. The downside is that some hosting companies don’t have the greatest managed WordPress services.
The second option is to find a hosting company with WordPress-specific hosting. These companies have expertise in WordPress and WordPress only, meaning your blog is in good hands. Not only that, but each of these hosting companies provides WordPress managed hosting services. If you’re not with a host like Kinsta, you’ll have to transfer your site. This is a headache, but necessary.
Outsourcing your hosting is worth it because you don’t have to spend any time on hosting. If your site goes down (which is unlikely under managed hosting), the host gets it back up and running without you having to call in. Backups are completed for you, while everything from caching to plugin updates is handled by the host. Outsourcing your hosting takes some stress off your desk, especially if your business or blog is making money and you’re struggling to keep up with website tasks and your day-to-day activities.
Outsource Blog Maintenance
Blog maintenance is somewhat like managed hosting except blog maintenance specialists cover far more than hosting. This includes regular theme and plugin updates, security checks, cloud backups, a wide variety of premium plugins to improve your site, and 24/7 uptime monitoring. The services depend on which freelancer or company you go with, but in general, you should receive full coverage and protection of your website.
Some of the best companies for outsourcing your blog maintenance include:
– WP Buffs
– WP Site Care
– Maintainn
Or you can learn about more options in our roundup of the best WordPress maintenance services. In any case, hiring a qualified professional to maintain your WordPress website is a huge time saver, freeing up more of your own hours each week to focus on content or social media.
Outsource Accounting
Whether or not you outsource your accounting depends on how big your operation is. For instance, a small blog with affiliate income can most likely cover most accounting tasks by grabbing all of the affiliates reports from each month. As for a company with a WordPress website but no eCommerce functionality, it might make sense to outsource the accounting for your retail store, but the WordPress site is only going to be a small part of that.
Outsourcing truly comes into play when you start running an eCommerce store. The same goes for medium to large blogs with multiple revenue streams. The whole point of outsourcing your accounting is to free up time and make sure your books are in order. This way, when tax time comes around, you’ll be prepared and organized. In addition, you’re less likely to get in trouble with the IRS (or other local governments).
You have several options for outsourcing your accounting when you start a WordPress business. The first would be to locate an accountant through a friend or family member. This takes more time, but you have a chance of landing an accountant for life.
We also like services like Bench, which offers a collection of accountants and bookkeepers for small businesses. This service manages your books for a monthly fee and delivers year-end financial packages for you to understand and pay your taxes.
Bookly works in a similar way, where a monthly fee is paid, then small business owners are connected with a dedicated accounting team. This team offers things like unlimited tax consulting, monthly bookkeeping, tax preparation, annual tax planning, and payroll.
Outsource Marketing and Design
Your design outsourcing often starts from your blog’s inception. For example, you may need a logo, marketing materials, or a Facebook header image. If you’re not a designer, it’s best to avoid making your own graphics. You’re only hurting your business.
If you have a little bit of cash to spend and want to almost guarantee a decent design, 99Designs is your best bet. It lets you partner with designers and even run contests where designs are sent in from quality designers who want to win the big prize.
Upwork also has some respectable freelancers for design work, but it’s less of a curated selection.
In terms of marketing help, you might need this in the first few months of launching your blog. After all, finding customers and blog readers is the only way to get the word out about your brand.
Landing on a good person or team to work with might take some time. You’ll want someone with experience in your niche. I recommend asking for direct referrals from friends and colleagues, though Upwork also has some excellent marketing professionals.
Are You Ready to Outsource?
Sometimes all you need to do is outsource some design work. Other times bloggers need everything from accounting to managed hosting, and design work to site maintenance. Regardless of what you require, plenty of workers are waiting online to make your business run smoothly. There’s no reason to pull your hair out with email marketing if you hate every moment of it. Go find an email marketer who likes the process and knows how to do it. Same goes for creating YouTube videos, guest blogging or any other task.
Have you tried outsourcing? Or are you on the fence? We’d love to know your thoughts.
