Outsource Development

So I just had my 1st experience with outsourcing a freelance job. I have outsourced before, but that was always for larger projects that spanned several months. This was the 1st time I tried sending out a small job, the kind of job a small business would have. I’ve been reading a lot about outsourcing through online services and decided this was a good opportunity to try it.  My client was happy to do so as instead of paying $120/hour for 8 hours work, they only paid $12. I actually sent the job out twice because it needed to be done quickly and well, and I figured since it was so cheap, I might as well hire 2 developers and take the best one’s work. So let me share and rank my experience with you, considering the positive and negative.

The Job

I had a great design created through Crowdsourcing an needed a developer to translate the web site design into HTML & CSS (Often the best designer do not know how to “code” their designs, and often the best web developers are weak at implementing a design, so this middle step is needed). So the job was simple enough, and easy to deliver in that it could be done by providing the developer with the Photoshop design file, and they could deliver the HTML, CSS and Image files.

Selecting the Developers

It was very easy to find developers to outsource to. I went to oDesk first, as that is the service I heard the most good things about, and looked there.  There are other services like eLance.com , GetAFreelancer.com , GetACodder.com , Guru.com and several others, but to me oDesk was the one to start off with.

Creating the Job

Creating the Job with oDesk was simple enough.  I just went to the little link “Post your Job” under the “Search for Providers” button on the homepage.  I did 1st search for providers to see the level of talent in the area of work I needed, in this case, creating CSS Style Sheets and HTML.

Specify Job Candidates

oDesk really lets you specify the type of resource you want.  They let you specify qualities that you did not even know you could specify.  You end up say, I want the person who is a “GOD” in this subject, and the cool thing is, GOD talks to you and applies for the job!

Interviewing Candidates

Once you have posted the job, you should soon receive several, if not a dozen or so, applicants who want to work for you.  Look at who has the most experience, the best reviews and a bit of their portfolios if applicable to your job.  oDesk does a great job of making review of candidates easy.  Once you see what you think is the strongest candidate, request an interview, exchange some emails and get started.

Hire (Warning , Be Patient).

Next you hire a candidate .  If you have used oDesk before, it is simple.  If it is your 1st time and you try to hire someone the same day you create an oDesk account, then be patient.  Its going to take a while.

This is the biggest draw back I had with oDesk. You have to wait 4 business days to hire someone because oDesk, as part of setting up your account, requires that you provide the amounts of two small deposits made into your credit card account as a form a verification that you are the owner of the card you are using to pay with.

Communicate

Even the after 10 years in Internet development, there is an urge to think “this guy is an expert, he knows what to do.”  WRONG.  The developer knows what you tell him, so communicate everything.  Treat the professional like a professional and not like someone who costs 1/5 as much as the person down the street who calls themselves a professional and has the local sports outfitter as their marquee client.  Just so you know, some of the people you hire will have had a lot bigger clients with a lot better known brands.

Keep Communicating

I can’t remember the last time I threw something over the fence and not have it come back a couple of times before it was done by this or that specialist.  This is true of outsourcing to a freelancer as well.  I knew this going in and know it is part of the game, but imagine a lot of people, especially those not familiar with web development expect it to go out and come back.

Here’s hint, the developers, designer etc, who come back for clarification are the good ones , be thankful for questions.  If you don’t get questions, check in, cause it likely won’t come back how you want it based on your requirements only, unless your are a Biz Analyst demi-god.

Delivery

Don’t pay till you have the goods.  Once you are happy with the work, then pay.

Rate your Hire

You will be given the chance to rate and review the freelance you outsourced to.  Be hohnest!  If you are not, others will not know what to expect, or worse, the great developer you hired will not get what they deserve, more work.  The work will end up going to the guy you gave a far too pilot review and rating to.  This is literally taking food out of one mouth and putting it in another.  The system only works with trust and honesty of the community.

Summary

I hope this helps you get an idea about outsourcing to freelancers, and how to proceed.  I suggest just checking out some of the profiles in areas you need a freelancer.  If you have issues with outsourcing to another country, let me give you some perspective; I have worked in the Internet industry for 10 years and can contest that a lot of companies can only afford to exist because of outsourcing.  Also, I too have  been ioutsourced to (while here in the USA) from another countries. If the rest of the world was worried about outsourcing expertise or technology to the US, we’d be in bigger trouble right now than having a few forclosures.

Crowdsourcing Web Design Changes Everything

It used to be that designing for a site meant selecting a web designer and being limited to the talents, ideas and inspiration of that web designer. Then came crowdsourcing . According to Wikipedia.com , crowdsourcing is taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an “open call”.

This works great for web design! You can also use it for Logos, Stationary, and even T-Shirt designs!

Before you start Crowdsourcing Web Design

1. Decide which design crowdsourcing site to use. The choices right now are 99Designs.com or CrowdSpring.com . Browse through each site, checkout the categories you will be listing in and see where you think you can get the best value for what you are looking to get.
2. Be ready to go public. This is a public process. 99Designs.com allows you to set up a private contest, but it costs more. Ask yourself if your competitors really have nothing better to do than find your contest, and if they don’t, will they actually do anything about it after they see it?
3. Have a clear vision of what you want your design to convey. You should also be clear the objective of what online presence. The key here is for you to be clear on what you what to convey through the design.
4. Make sure you have the time to write a good design brief. The design crowdsourcing site you use will walk you through this, you just need to make sure you take the time to fill it out thoroughly. Remember, designers will only give you what they think you want, so that is what you need to communicate to them. If you have a Marketing Summary already, use it!
5. Research how much you should spend. Take a look at contests similar to the one you will be creating. How much are they offering to the designer. You will notice that the greater the reward, the better the contest entries. This is already the “cheap” way to go, don’t be cheaper!
6. Know there will be additional “middle man” charges of around 20% on top of what your set the contest for. You need to factor this cost in when you set the amount the design contest winner receives.

Create a Design Contest

Now let’s walk through the design crowdsourcing process I used to get the eMarketing Matador web logo and header image you see in the header area of this site. For just over $200, I got 7 very talented designers to submit 27 designs, and compete to win the design contest.

In this case, for the logo/header contest, I used 99Designs.com . At the time, I was more impressed with the logo/header designs I saw on 99Designs.com , and they appeared to be going for about $50 cheaper.

In submitting my contest, I did not select a lot of the options available, which all cost extra. Some of these make sense, such as promoting the contest in the forum area of the site, especially if you are in a hurry and want the attention of the best talent. For me, I give the design period about 5 days, ensuring me time to work with the designers through feedback etc. You can also highlight the contest etc and make it stand out. All these things might work, but how much more than just throwing the additional costs into the contest reward is debatable. I personally would rather see the extra money go to the Designer.

Here is my Design Brief for the eMarketing Matador Web Logo/Header

In the Design Brief , there was 4 key points I wanted to make;

#1 – I gave the address of the site so they could see where the logo/header image would live.

#2 – I “sweetened” the pot by offering to recognize the designer and link to their site. You can see this in the footer of this site.

#3 – I wanted the design or part of it, to have good icon appeal. If you look at the address bar, you will see the icon for this site.

#4 – I pre-paid the prize money. This showed I was serious and that someone was going to win.

Once published, a Design Brief looks like this to prospective designers

You can see that the summary is just that. I used it to give the basic and vital information, as well as provide the incentive related information of what I was going to do above and beyond just the contest.

Below are the different entries I received.

You can see I got a lot of variety to select from. It is amazing what 7 different designers will come up. Each has their own style and interpretation of your design brief. This is where crowdsourcing design excels. With a single designer, you get one set of “vision” and “talent”. A single designer also does not have brainstorming access with other designers trying to achieve the same task. Let one talented designer see anothers work, and the clients feedback to that work, the quality and direction of their own work will end up being more targeted and what you want. This is where you win!

Tips to Getting the Best out of Design Crowdsourcing

1. Give Timely Feedback – I try to check my contests at least twice a day and provide feedback for each design. I rate the ones I don’t like and the ones I do like, I let them know. If I see something with potential, or going in a direction I like, I let the designers in the contest know so they can all go down the right path together. Design feedback is crucial.
2. Get a good start – If you don’t see at least 5 designs submitted after a couple of days, review other contests and see what the bids are there. You might need increase your bid a bit. For this contest, I raised the bid by $20 once and saw better results after.
3. Build a relationships – If you see someone with talent, keep in touch. You may want to go direct to them in the future, cutting out the competition and middle man. Going direct to the designer will easily cut costs by 2/3′s. Worse case, you can let the designers know of your next competition and have them “raise the bar” a bit.

The Winner

In the end, the winner of the contest was UaLz, a university senior taking time out of studying for finals to made some much needed money to pay rent etc. If you’d like to use him, his email address is

To visit the contest I hosted for the eMarketing Matador logo/header image, simply visit 99designs.com here.

Related Article on Landing Pages

I recently wrote a post on Landing Pages, which are perfect for Crowdsourcing. One page, simple goal. Its a good place to start!

Listen to Seth

I’m a big Seth Godin fan. He’s a great Marketing author, blogger and Entrepreneur. He wrote an article “How to live happily with a great designer” that captures the essence of working with a designer, web or not, crowdsourcing or not. I recommend reading it before working on any Web Design Brief to any Web Designer.

Remember: You can do this!

Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing

Everything you need to know about SEO is right here.

SEO Marketing is the thing I push for the most when speaking with any small business owner about their website. SEO Marketing is making sure your site appropriately comes up in the results for searches that your potential customers are making online while looking for a product or service your business offers.

Over the past few years Pay-Per-Click (PPC) got most of the attention, and most recently all people want to talk about is Social Media. For me, I have always kept my primary focus on SEO. Now, with top Internet Marketers reducing their PPC budgets, and online readers losing interest in Social Media Blogs, it appears my focus was well placed.

So, with SEO Marketing being the most powerful factor in the eMarketing (actually, User Experience is the most powerful, but SEO rules in terms of getting quality traffic to your site), I think it is key for any niche, local and/or small business to know how to properly optimize their site.

SEO Marketing Break-Down;

• Keyword Strategy – Make sure the keywords you use target the right people at the right time.
• Site Structure – Make sure the website architecture & taxonomy itself is SEO friendly and well organized
• Content – Make sure it is keyword relevant and rich.
• Incoming Links – Get as many popular and relevant sites to link to you possible.
• Analysis -  You need to know what is working and what is not.
• Fine Tuning – Learn to capitalize on your opportunities.

I decided to put the new eMarketing Search Engine on this site to the test by searching for "Start SEO", as that is what I need to do with this new site and sure enough, within the top 3 results was the best resource I have found to date.

The thing you need to remember is that, although information online is often free, and plentiful, it is not always "all the information" or is just wrong or misleading. When it comes to a topic like SEO you can search and search and search before you realize anything you need to do of value.

For my own SEO efforts, I really just use one resource. Its the one that forces me to do things right, and is one of the reasons I have been #1 on Search Engine for terms like "Belts" and "Caps" in the past (check out the volume on those keywords!).

If you are starting SEO, or want to re-optimize a current site, the only resource you really need is SEO – Fast – Start . I suggest you stop surfing around and reading Blogs for SEO tips till you’ve read this eBook.

SEO – Fast – Start offers a free eBook most would sell for around $50, and it really sets the record straight for SEO. The passion for SEO Marketing is evident and the owner, Dan Thies, is an eMarketing veteran like myself who hates the bull. You don’t even need to register to download the eBook! (Which is where I got the diagram above)  I suggest you stop whatever other eMarketing efforts you are doing, read it and do it. Seriously, in 4 months you will glad you did.

I hope this helps others as much as it has me.

REMEMBER: You can do this!

Now that you can been giving the resource you need for properly doing Search Engine Optimization, I will get busy compiling the list of Local Search Directories that any local business needs to submit to.