If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Here are some of the most popular posts:

Open Ads - Open Source Ad Inventory Management
The Big List of Affiliate Marketing Events
Secret To Get On The First Page Of Google

I realized that I haven’t posted for quite some time. Well, aside from taking some time off to enjoy the summer (we’ve been to the beach a few times, Texas, Boston, PA), I have also been working with my web developer to do a complete redesign for one of my sites. During this time, I have also been keeping up with the blogs I normally read.

For those of you who are looking to outsource web development to freelancers, here are a few tips that you will find useful. These days, you can find a freelancer to do pretty much anything that you need to run your business. Need a website designed? Outsource it. Need articles and web content? Outsource it. Need someone to create a customized Wordpress theme? You’ve got it - outsource it.

Having said that, there is still great value in doing something yourself. If it’s something that’s new to you, as you learn to do it you’ll end up adding to your knowledge and skillset. You don’t have to be an expert but it’s still good to have some knowledge about the project that you are looking to outsource.

Let’s say you want to outsource PHP programming. If you know a little bit about PHP, then you’ll be able to better screen out potential freelancers. So as a caution to people who advice you to outsource everything, I’d say do it but learn as much as you can about the particular skill as well.

First off, here are a few sites where freelancers gather. They are a good place to shop around for someone to outsource your work to:

  1. Elance
  2. iFreelance
  3. Rentacoder
  4. Guru.com

If you are new to posting a project, the first thing you should do is to familiarize yourself with the particular site. Check out the rules for posting projects, managing projects, payment, etc. It’s also a good idea to browse around and look for similar projects that others have successfully outsourced.

Use the search function and type in keywords for your project. Read the description of the posted projects and get an idea of how it should be written. It’s very important for your description to be as detailed as possible so that you screen out people who won’t be able to do the job. You don’t want to have a lot of unqualified bidders.

Check the ratings of the providers.
Read all the feedback and check out the portfolio of the providers. Take note of any particular providers that catch your attention. Later when you post your project, you can invite them to bid.

How much to bid?
Find out by looking at the posted projects that are similar to what you have in mind. Don’t overpay but at the same time, don’t be too cheap. If you’re trying to place a lowball bid, chances are you’ll get what you pay for.

Interview the prospects
Once the bids come in, interview the prospects. Do it the way you’re most comfortable with. You can get their phone number and call them up. Or you can chat over IM and go over the project details to see if they are a good fit. Ask them what, if any, past projects they have worked on that are similar to what you need. The most important thing is to go with your gut. Make sure that you feel comfortable working with them and trust them with your project.

Crowdsourcing
Another concept that I like is the idea of crowdsourcing over at SitePoint. These are actually design contests where you specify an amount of loot (a.k.a. prize money) and designers can submit their entries. You get to choose the winner of the contest. The benefit of going this route is that you get a variety of designs to choose from. I heard of this from Amit Mehta who used it for coming up with his site logo. I’ve used Sitepoint and found a very talented designer who made a logo for one of my sites. The tip here is that the higher your prize money, the more entries you will attract. You can read all about the details of holding the contests here.

Good luck with your next outsourced project!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Popularity: 1% [?]

Other Posts Of Interest

    Traffic Secrets 2.0 Coming July 15th

    Nice videos, John. But you seem a bit more formal than the presentations in the original Traffic Secrets. If you haven't seen the new Traffic Secrets 2.0 videos, you should take a look at them. This is the third video but you will also find the links to the first

    Landing Page Tips

    This is a list of landing page tips that I want to look at in more detail. It links to 100 different resources. Looks like a nice resource to have the next time I need to design a landing page. [tags]landing pages, landing page tips[/tags]

    Profit Pulling AdWords Strategies

    This is a report that I have been compiling the last few days. It started with a post I had written earlier on a brain dump of AdWords tips. The Profit Pulling AdWords Strategies include these and more. So how do you get your hands on a copy? Simple, just

    NichePD - Public Domain Content for Niche Markets

    There is a new membership site just released called NichePD by David Hooper and Kelli Smith. This is great for my strategic plan for 2005 which is building more niche websites. I just joined and took a look inside the membership site. So far, I like what I see. What

    The Nuts And Bolts of Webmastering

    Need advice about PHP? MySQL? As a webmaster, the more well-versed you are about the technical side of things, the more effective your online enterprise will be. Of course, you can outsource all the technical stuff but it's still good to know what you're outsourcing. You can check out Stephane's