Outsourcing with Elance – Hire a Pro on the Cheap

On this blog and in much of the content we produce, we’re talking about marketing and the huge audience on the Internet.  We’re constantly talking about the gigantic exposure you can get if you create the right presences on the Web.  Well, something else has evolved along with these tens of millions of websites all craving content.  That’s freelancers who create the content for those who don’t want to do it or do not have time to do it themselves.

What you’re going to like about this online marketplace of freelance professional talent is that it’s also huge, with lots of worldwide competition, and this brings you professional services at low cost.  There are a number of freelance writing sites.  If you’re wanting well-written SEO focused content for a website, blog or landing page, you can hire out, or outsource.  Let’s focus on one of the largest to give you some instruction in how to outsource your need for quality Web content.  It’s Elance.com.

Elance Project

The screen shot shows one of many projects on Elance posted in relation to “sports writing.”  In this case, the buyer wants 15 articles for a weight loss website.  This isn’t the best description, and you should do better with more detail about what you want, as you don’t want misunderstandings with the people you hire.  However, it’s a decent example, as it does give a number of articles, and the word count wanted for each.  There is also the normal quality information about good grammar, spelling and the content must be unique.

It would be a better project description if the buyer put in several topic titles to give the freelance bidders more direction as to what slant they want on the site for information.  Of course this can be done once a short list of finalists is chosen, but it can help you to weed out bidders earlier.  And, you’ll want to do that, as there were 57 bidders for this project, and here’s the dollar statistics (bids are private, but averaged):

Elance Bids

The good news is that even using the average bid, this is less than $13 per article.  With this many bidders, it’s very likely that the project buyer can find someone capable for around $10 per article, or maybe even less.  Some bidders will work for a lot less because they’re in India or other countries where the dollar is worth more.  Getting writing samples is critical though, as you’ll want to make sure they are fluent in English.

Once you’ve awarded a project, Elance handles getting your up-front escrow payment to assure the writer they’ll get paid, but it’s never given to them until you’ve accepted the work.  So, both parties are protected, and you get quality work at a low price, and in a hurry.  Elance gets paid a cut of the amount paid to the writer.  So, set up an Elance account, or maybe one at Guru.com, or both.  Then sit down and:

1. Determine what you want to do.
2. Write up a thorough description that a freelancer will find fully descriptive of what you want.
3. Post the project and wait for bids.

See, it’s as easy as 1-2-3!