Last Updated 7 months by Emily Standley-Allard
The benefits of outsourcing work in 2023 are substantial. Running any business, yourself, even a blog which is without a doubt a business is a mighty task. If you’re like me, you have a hundred little things that are on your to-do list that keep interfering with the larger tasks. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you throw all the marketing minutiae on top of what you already need to do to keep things running smoothly. This is where hiring a freelancer and outsourcing your work can literally save your business and help it flourish.
***Please be sure to read the interview at the bottom of this post with Laserlife who is one of the top-rated freelancer writers from Fiverr and also an accomplished musician. He has accumulated a large following and developed a great career for himself along with the ability to travel the globe working on Fiverr.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Work in 2023
Running two blogs and writing for other companies there’s literally no way I could do what I do on a daily basis without carefully outsourcing a lot of the day-to-day marketing, technical and design tasks that take up a tremendous amount of time and keep me from focusing on other priorities.
In fact, you may be surprised to learn that most businesses rely on outsourcing to get things done so they can continue to work on growing their business or blog and focus more on the core.
Your reasons may be different. If you’re just starting out you may find that you really don’t want to spend 2 hours preoccupied with which WordPress plugins you should download or which theme to import. Let’s face it this can lead to ‘shiny ball syndrome’ and take you off course big time.
Or say you’re a consultant and you have several things you have to do for a client, but you only have x amount of time in a day to handle billing and administrative tasks.
These tasks can all be outsourced to save you precious resources, most importantly your sanity as I mentioned earlier!
A lot of tasks are just plain laborious and only hold you back from focusing on more pressing matters as well as the larger picture.
Outsourcing work doesn’t mean that you have to be completely hands-off. So you control freaks out there can just relax.
When running your own business, you do have to be in the thick of it and involved in many if not all of the little decisions even if someone else is actually implementing them.
Costs of Outsourcing Work in 2023
Of course, just starting a business I’m sure one of your first concerns is the cost of outsourcing.
Undoubtedly you have to pay for quality work.
But you have to put things into perspective. Doesn’t it make sense to pay someone $20 per hour to post on social media for you when it would take you 6 hours out of your day potentially costing you a lot more for each hour of your time?
If you can be doing your work for the amount you charge, take care of your clients and get other necessary tasks done then it’s a win/win situation for all.
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Are there risks to outsourcing work?
As in life, there are risks to anything.
You can risk hiring someone who does a lousy job, and you have to wind up doing the whole thing over, who doesn’t complete the job on time or at all, or who makes your brand look less than what you expect.
But I say the benefits have outweighed the risks by far.
Most entrepreneurs and marketers are concerned they’ll get low quality work if they outsource.
What I’ve discovered and many other business owners have as well is that you can actually improve the quality of work if you outsource.
Let’s say you need to create an animated video for a new company. You can try and attempt it yourself, do all kinds of research that takes up an entire day, look up all kinds of programs and techniques and finally attempt it on your i phone.
Or you can find someone right away who specializes in just that with great reviews, tons of experience, samples and can get it done in 24 hours.
If you outsource it, the quality will be a million times better than the quality you’d get if you’d tried to do it yourself. And you won’t feel like drowning yourself in a bottle of wine at the end of the day.
Get my meaning?
I know that as entrepreneurs we can get ‘stuck’ on being perfect. But this can seriously paralyze you and keep you from the big picture of what you need to do to grow your business.
You don’t always need perfection when it comes to marketing. Sometimes you just need to get it done!
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Outsourcing Work – Hiring Virtual Assistants
A good virtual assistant can be a godsend when it comes to accomplishing things that you need to do and ensure that small but important tasks get done.
I used to spend 2-3 hours a day pinning on Pinterest even in my Tailwind auto-scheduler. Since I’ve hired a Pinterest Virtual Assistant I hands-free of that task and can move my focus into other areas of growth.
If you’re a creative entrepreneur or business owner here are some specific marketing tasks you should outsource right away.
Outsourcing Work – Blogging
Do you really have 4 hours a day to write a blog post? I know I don’t! That eats up a huge amount of time. And multiply that by 4 blog posts per month, plus uploading, adding relevant links, images, videos, affiliate links, that’s a serious amount of time!
“That’s why over 64% of marketers outsource their content writing nowadays. Blogs deliver an average of 434% more indexed webpages and 97% more in-links (SEO) Thankfully, while content is becoming increasingly important for Marketing teams – marketers now spend, on average, 25% of their total budget on content – it’s also something that can be easily outsourced to agencies and consultants”. – Oursocialtimes.com
Outsourcing a content writer or professional blogger can definitely improve your blog quality in these ways:
- Moderating and responding to blog comments
- Responding to readers
- Performing research for upcoming blog posts
- Thinking up new catchy titles for blog posts
- Scheduling and uploading blog posts
- Finding graphics, images, and videos for blog posts
- Adding meta descriptions, tags to blog posts
- Finding statistics, adding citations to incorporate into posts
- Proofreading for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and awkward phrasing
- Re-writing older blog posts
- Creating internal links to existing posts
- Linking to outside relative links
- Doing keyword research
- Looking for guest blog opportunities
- Coming up with pitches for guest posts
- Reaching out to influencers in your industry
Outsourcing Work – Social Media Marketing
In my opinion, social media is something you absolutely need to outsource!
Simply because of the enormous amount of time it takes to curate good relevant articles you want to share and that match up to your company’s vision!
Not only that, it’s timely to add visuals and comment and respond!
Outsourcing this task is an instant way to free up several hours a week!
How to Master and Monetize Social Media
Even with an auto-scheduling software like Sprout Social (what I use) it’s still a great idea to outsource this task. And there are many capable social media assistants available out there that can do this on a remote basis.
Here are some of the tasks a social media outsourcer can help with:
- Accepting friend requests
- Following appropriate connections
- Inviting followers to attend events
- Sending out personalized birthday greetings to key contacts
- Sharing your blog content across social networks
- Finding and editing images to use in posts
- Curating quality content from relevant sources
- Scheduling posts across all social platforms
- Keeping track of brand mentions
- Uploading new videos to YouTube
- Creating questionnaires and surveys
- Creating infographics
- Engaging with friends and followers
- Ensuring all profiles are updated on a consistent basis
- Sending out thank-you’s to new followers
- Commenting, retweeting, and interacting with interesting content
- Adding new social accounts
- Designing and occasionally redesigning profiles
How to Be a Social Media Manager in a Month
SEO Outsourcing
Outsourcing SEO can be a little different. You want to make sure the person you assign to this has a proven track record of managing accounts, growing their organic rankings and knows what they’re doing.
Many virtual assistants can help with basic functions of on-page SEO like creating meta tags, headers and site maps, some more complex logistics should be left to someone who knows the ins and outs of SEO well.
Become the Ultimate SEO Boss today
Here are some SEO tasks that can be outsourced:
- Performing keyword research
- Creating Google analytics reports
- Creating catchy headlines
- Setting up an XML sitemap
- Labeling alt text images
- Building and editing landing pages
- Commenting on other blogs
- Analyzing the SEO campaigns of competitors
- Tracking the position of your content in search engines
- Researching cutting edge SEO trends
- Submitting content to directories/forums
- Handling social bookmarking
- Monitoring site speed
- Performing a simple SEO audit
- Keeping up with Google algorithm updates
Outsourcing Work – Content marketing
Content marketing is focused on creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted audience online. This means the creation of ebooks, libraries of resources, email newsletters, white papers, infographics, how-to guides, question and answer articles, podcasts, photos, blogs, case studies, pdfs, swipe files, templates and more! This is done to provide valuable information to consumers in order to build trust and rapport with the audience.
It’s the opposite of a direct sales approach.
It also requires a continuous amount of delivery in large amounts and must be continuously updated.
You as an independent business owner cannot run your business adequately unless you have superhuman powers or outsource content marketing tasks.
Did you know that 72% of large organizations and 33% of small companies outsource their content creation?
And you can see why! Content marketing takes a massive amount of time and effort.
Here is what you can outsource:
- Creating offsite content that links back to your website and blog
- Interviewing sources (see my Interview below with LaserLife a Freelance Writer from Fiverr!)
- Finding statistics to add
- Blogger outreach
- Repurposing content, using a variety of mediums such as infographics, videos, slideshows and webinars
- Creating and managing your editorial calendar
- Establishing deadlines for content
- Building spreadsheets for your editorial calendar
- Backing up content
- Finding and editing photos
- Converting files
- Working on increasing post engagement
- Keeping track of your budget
- Ensuring all content is mobile-friendly
Outsourcing Work – Analytics
Are you basing your business decisions on your analytics? If not then you should be.
But before you do this you have to set up your analytics, configure the analytics, generate reports from your analytics, monitor these analytics, analyze the analytics, determine takeaways from the analytics, and then make strategic marketing decisions in light of these analytics.
Fortunately, there are several parts of the analytics labyrinth you can outsource:
- Monitoring traffic trends
- Monitoring conversions
- Spotting long-term patterns
- Generating daily, weekly, and monthly reports
- Analyzing engagement
- Determining how cost-effective your marketing techniques are
- Reputation Management
- Handling social listening across the web (there are great tools for this)
- Monitoring reviews on sites such as Yelp and Angie’s List (Birdeye Review Mgmt)
- Getting consumer feedback
- Managing internet trolls – there’s a lot of them out there!
Get the Best All in One SEO WordPress Plugin Here!
Outsourcing Work – Email marketing
Growing your email list should still be your #1 priority in growing your business and getting sales.
I had someone from an ad agency tell me once that email marketing was dead but it’s simply not the case! Email marketing is one of the best methods of attracting and retaining high-value leads for your blog or business. It crushes social media in terms of simple numbers.
There are 3x as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined which totals a whopping 2.9 Billion!
If you’re still not convinced why you need an email list read my post: Top Pro Email Marketing Tips For Beginners
But, as with any area of marketing email marketing can become a full-time gig and you’d be wise to outsource it.
It takes a lot of time to plan, create and format your email, integrate it, create updates, RSS feeds, schedule newsletters, decipher the analytics, plan for special offers and events and more.
This is why with email being an all-consuming task it is one of the first things you should consider outsourcing:
-
- Creating newsletters
- Creating email templates
- Proofreading and editing emails
- Sending out bulk emails
- Sending RSS feeds
- Responding to email questions
Outsourcing Work – WordPress
WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. – expandedramblings.com
I’ve made my life a lot simpler by outsourcing numerous tasks to a WordPress expert on Fiverr. Believe me this has saved me multiple headaches, time and money!
A WordPress professional can help you with:
- Monitoring and managing plugins
- Installing new plugins
- Troubleshooting issues
- Providing WP support
- Tweaking templates
- Migrating themes
- Installing a shopping cart or another program
- Handling coding
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In Closing
With all the many detailed technical, creative, analytical and planning aspects that go into an online business, you’d certainly be wise to utilize the experience and talent of freelance outsourcers out there.
Once you start, you’ll find it hard to imagine doing things any other way. It will make a world of difference for you in terms of cost savings, efficiency and competitive advantage.
Try looking over some profiles on Fiverr and Upwork. You can even use the filter search to find exactly what you’re looking for and have the ones who match your qualifications contact you.
Read the ratings, reviews and contact them in advance before you book a gig. to see if it’s the right fit.
10 Secrets to Becoming a Full Time Freelancer
My Interview with a Professional Freelance Writer
Below is my interview with Andrew who goes by Laser Life and is a Top-Rated writer on Fiverr. Read from his angle about how he got started freelancing on Fiverr and how it has benefited him.
1) How did you get started with Fiverr?
A few years back, I was a full-time musician, and I was looking for a part-time job to fill in the economic gaps of being in a small touring band. I have a background in branding and journalism, so I started offering copywriting services on Fiverr.
I got married a few years ago, so I decided to stop touring and Fiverr has grown into my full-time gig!
2) How long have you been on Fiverr?
I’ve been a seller since 2011, and it was interesting to be a part of the platform’s evolution.
3) What do you like best about working on Fiverr?
I love that the financial aspects of being a freelancer are easily structured. This system makes it easier for customers to understand pricing, and for sellers to lay all the cards on the table.
4) What’s the best way to succeed on Fiverr?
In my experience, many people sign up and expect to make bank overnight. If you want to succeed on Fiverr, you need to understand that it might take a while before you earn a significant amount of money. You also need to have a lot of self-discipline to manage your working schedule, and you need to maintain high standards.
5) What do you like best about working on Fiverr?
I enjoy the freedom of managing my time and working anywhere I want.
6) What’s the most successful niche for freelancers on Fiverr?
It seems that anything that has to do with coding and design is going great on the platform!
7) Any cons you’d like to mention?
Sometimes it’s a bit hard to shut it off. With no set work hours, and with a phone always by my side to check messages, I often find myself working late into the night. While it’s fantastic to be able to keep tabs on Fiverr all the time, I also think it’s healthy to set some boundaries and turn your focus to something else. Taking frequent breaks and disconnect your brain is just as valuable as a way to reinvigorate your focus.
8) What are some things you wish buyers would understand about freelancers?
I would say that 99% of my experiences with buyers are extremely positive, and this statement resonates with my stats and analytics. The problems you’ll likely to encounter with some buyers aren’t that different from what you might experience in other industry — for example, demanding retail customers or abusive call center callers.
When dealing with these people, it’s essential not to take it personally and stay as calm and collected as possible to maintain a professional attitude.
9) What are your top recommendations to a newbie just starting out on Fiverr?
Don’t get discouraged if you’re struggling to make a lot of money. It might take a couple of years before your gigs take off, and you figure out how to make the most out of your work.
10) How many different gigs should a seller create on Fiverr?
It’s really up to each seller, but I don’t like to keep too much on my plate. It’s all about the workload you can sustain.
11) How long does it take to become a Fiverr Pro, and what does that entail?
I am not a Pro member on Fiverr, so I have no idea! I’ve been named a Top Rated seller in 2013, and it’s great. You need to be very consistent in order to maintain your status, but it pays off.
Hire a Top Rated Freelancer today from Fiverr and get more done!
And if you’re interested in starting a lucrative career working as a freelance writer just read how you can get started in the next article!
How to Start Your Epic Career as a Freelance Writer
