Outsourcing web publishing tasks

your thoughts, please

[myrrh]

I have about six websites and the income is fairly decent for a one-person operation. Because I am wanting to concentrate my time on projects other than Web publishing, I am looking for someone to work on my sites, as I am reasonably sure the revenue can be doubled with some work.

The tasks I am looking to have done are:

-- SEO
-- add content
-- updating content
-- tweaking AdSense
-- using Google Analytics
-- expanding the affiliate programs
-- link building
-- ongoing maintenance

I would also like to find someone that can take the initiative to make suggestions for improvements and research other ways to improve.

I've considered hiring a virtual assistant from overseas, but I don't know that I want to take the time to train someone and more difficult still is finding someone with initiative to go beyond just taking orders.

The other choice is hiring someone who already knows what s/he is doing. I know that's going to be a lot more expensive, but it may be worth it.

The questions:

1) Is there a service that provides most or all of the above listed criteria?

2) Can people to fit my needs be found at places like eLance, Craigslist, etc.?

3) Other thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you!

[MrHard]

Thoughts on personal experience: It's not that easy. You will find that you have to constantly watch/monitor the people you hire and that monitoring them is just as much work as doing it in house. So you keep paying more for what should be better service and find you are just paying more. Possible you could get lucky after much trial and error.

[jedz]

I suggest to hire a Staff leasing company instead of a freelancer. Staff leasing is better than freelance work because leased staff are permanent workers of a company and are easy to reach in case you need them. Freelancers do not have employers so they do as they please and sometimes cannot be contacted for various reasons. Working with a freelancer reduces the quality of your work by 50%.


For the most part, freelance work entails irregular working hours. Although a little pressure motivates the freelancer to keep up, the quality of work expected is compromised. Since freelancers are self-employed, they are naturally in the pursuit of more projects to sustain them. As this is a good motivation, it also limits the freelancer to devote all his mind and time to a project.

[documaker]

Hi, this is Nicole from vWorker (formerly known as Rentacoder). Your success at outsourcing these tasks will depend on the service you choose and how far that service goes to protect you. I therefore highly recommend that you take the time to thoroughly read Elance's terms of service and work agreement before committing to that site. Alternatives exist and for some rather compelling reasons.