eBookers.ch has a travel blog. However, blogging – including writing and editing is outsourced to BlogWerk AG and the authors it has hired – mostly freelancers that write besides another job they might have.

But why would you do this when you want to build a brand? In this post I show you the ropes to skip when outsourcing the blogging side of your business.

Some people blog under their own domain which I recommend as the best way to build one’s own brand.

Some companies also outsource blogging to a company that does two or three things:

a) it finds the writers for the subject the blog is supposed to deal with,

b) provides editorial control -sometimes this means each post has to be pre-approved by an editor before it can go online, AND

c) hosts the blogs or runs the technical backup

eBookers.ch tries out the blogosphere

eBookers.ch is eBookers’ Swiss branch located in Geneva. Its main travel blog can be found under blog.eBookers.ch. The page also offers you an RSS feed.

So we tried to see what kind of footprint it has. Hence, we went over to My.ComMetrics.com and got the following screenshot (we did not even log in – just to get this basic info quick we entered the URL only).

As the above shows, while the Google PageRank is great, Technorati Authority is zero and the Technorati Ranking or Info does not look that great either.

As pointed out above, numerous writers post regularly if not frequently on this blog. Every day of the week the blog has at least one post.

As with other multi-author blogs, the quality of postings does, of course, differ greatly across writers. Not just the type of material they write about but also depth, seriousness and length of post.

So I clicked on one author’s name to get a list of his posts only:

Udo Habermann

After reading his posts I decided that I wanted to subscribe to his posts only – author RSS feed. This was because I simply was not interested to get the overall RSS feed from ebookers.ch – that would provide me with each single post. This meant probably 10 – 20 posts each week coming my way.

But this was not my lucky day. I found out that the site does not offer me to restrict the RSS feed to a particular author.

You either take everything or nothing. Not very customer friendly is it?

This makes the feed unattractive for some readers. As well, current clients or possible prospects may not want to subscribe either because of the limited choice. An unfortunate and costly mistake for eBookers.ch that should not happen.

What does this case tell us?

If you outsource your blog and the outsourcer gets the writers that write and post the content for you – see blog.eBookers.ch that outsourced blogging to Blogwerk AG – it is difficult to assure that your blog will have a personal voice. As a corporation you will have limited control over the focus and quality of content. The topics covered are wide, how much beef each post has varies greatly across authors.

However, if this is all not an issue for you, at least offer an RSS feed for each author’s postings only. This will allow subscribers to choose better what they want to read – namely what they are really interested in. As well, it will save them the time to have to go through many posts that might be irrelevant to them.

Too many irrelevant posts mean fewer subscribers. Unfortunately, better targeting of content (who is supposed to get this and how will it affect your bottom line) means getting the subscribers that could ring your cash register. So go ahead and improve your footprint in the blogosphere by following the tips and suggestions we made above.

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