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Outsourcing is the current buzz around the net.

I’ll start you off with some pointers in how and what I do - just get some details down and add some meat to the bones…

Lets be clear about the fact that I am no expert in outsourcing. But simply running my daily live I outsource a lot of tasks, sometimes without noticing. You do too. Buy a pizza or take away chicken and you have outsourced COOKING.

Here is a list of a few outsourcing routes I have tried:

www.Need-An-Article.com - I use them for article writing when I don’t feel like writing it myself from scratch. Using the service is pretty straightforward - you get reasonable quality and can ask for one revision. I had one writer that was not up to par but most are ok and I found one that was very good. It is important to get your own voice into the article and make minor adjustments. The cost is a little over $5 for each article as well as a monthly fee of $10.

Example:
http://www.digital-photo-web.com/madame-tussauds-museum-london.html
(took the photos myself)

www.AbsoluteCovers.com - Ovi Dogar is a very capable and quick graphics designer. I used his service for the graphics for creating my eBook cover. The result was very professional. In addition to the cover he made the graphics for the sales page from a photo I sent and some text. Can’t recall the cost but it was less than $200 for the whole package.

Example:
http://www.4×4offroads.com/book.html

www.SubmitEdge.com - I recently started using their services. For $15 I can get 100 one way links from directories. Pretty hard to do that by hand for less. I also am trying out the “Basic link building package” for $79. So far so good - except the first article I just got back is not acceptable. I am just now asking for a rewrite on that.

Photo Journalists hired - I currently have one guy who is writing articles for me on a regular basis. I asked for submissions in my newsletter and got a few responses. The cost per article is fixed and is of course way higher than NAA but the quality and relevancy is also much higher. This way I can have original and interesting articles from places where I can’t be. I am looking for more photo journalists (of both sexes) to take the website even further.

Example:
http://www.4×4offroads.com/off-road-adventure-romania-easter.html

Hope that this list gets someone inspired to try some tasks. Like most webmasters I am sometimes a little too convinced that I am personally the best man for each job. However I think outsourcing is vital for healthy growth to increase profits and safe time.

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