outsourcing
Outsourcing is the new big thing in online businesses. The idea is that you send your grunt work to others, usually in countries like India, Philippines, Pakistan and the like and you can simply lay on the beach, sipping fruity drinks. While it’s not quite the panacea that it sounds like, it is possible to find some great outsourcers for your website.
What to Look for In an Outsourcer
Before I get into my list of outsourcing websites, I want to just briefly point out to you that you can’t just hire the first outsourcer you find. There are a few things you need to keep in mind when doing so in order to make sure that they are going to do the job you paid them for:
First, check on feedback. Do they have any? We all need to start somewhere, so lack of feedback isn’t necessarily a reason to reject someone, but someone who is brand new in the business should be willing to take less in order to get their name out there.
Second, be clear on what you want and be realistic about what you can expect. The guy who charges $5 for an article and lives in India isn’t going to give you error free, quality writing. It just isn’t going to happen no matter what you do, unless you get insanely lucky. It might be SEO cannon fodder, but it’s not going to be something you want on your website.
Similarly, if you work with an outsourcer to write software or build your website, you will pay for quality. The guy who can make things look amazing and give you a professional look isn’t the guy who will build a complex website for $50.
There’s much more to it than that, but I did promise to show you some great outsourcing websites, so lets’ get started:
Elance
This one isn’t actually as popular with some Internet marketers as others, but it’s my personal favorite since it’s where I got my start in building a full time online writing business. There is no charge for employers to put up a job and they are one of the largest such sites on the web. If you’re interested in hiring me for a project by the way, I’m erichammer on that site.
oDesk
I see oDesk mentioned more and more in internet marketing forums as the go to place for finding freelancers. Personally, I’m not a fan of the place, but I can see why it would appeal to so many people. oDesk offers primarily hourly work rather than per piece work (Elance and some others offer both).
However, what people really seem to love is that they have a system which hourly workers must use in order to work there – it’s a piece of software which takes a screenshot of your desktop about six times per hour so that employers can see you really are working instead of slacking off.
Guru
Another very popular site which I’m on though I don’t do much business there, Guru used to be the number one site on the web for hiring freelancers of all kinds. They seem to have fallen out of favor and these days, it’s mostly oDesk or Elance that gets mentioned.
Fiverr
This one is a relative newcomer compared to the other sites, but they have quickly made a name for themselves. Every job here is pre-priced at $5. This means you can theoretically hire based on quality rather than on price. I’ve gotten some good stuff on Fiverr and I like it, but I do recommend that you carefully check feedback and that you carefully check results before you approve work.