Outsourcing your internet marketing requirements

Outsourcing can be a fantastic way to grow a new business or to turn a profitable business into a powerhouse. The problem is, not everyone has the budget to hire someone on for several hours per week or even per month. But there are many places you can outsource your content writing, banner/header making, your SEO efforts. Recently I have been trying out Fiverr. I have written about an introduction on Fiverr and how to make money on Fiverr. Fiverr is a great place to start outsourcing and it's a great place to get some experience before you move on to work with someone on a more permanent basis. 

There are all sorts of different tasks you can outsource for your online business. Here are just a few ideas to get you started. 

Graphics

Whether you need a new logo, a few button ads, or an ebook cover, Freelance websites are great places to find graphic designers that will create those graphics for you for next to nothing. Look for someone with a good reputation and request samples of their work. This helps make sure that their style matches what you want in your design. 

Graphics are often a little tricky to outsource until the person you are working with really knows you personally and understands the style and look you're going for. Keep this in mind when hiring and either be willing to try something new or be open to making a few attempts before you find someone who really hits on a look you want.

Also look for a designer who will do at least one or more revisions so you do have the opportunity to provide feedback and have some tweaks as needed. If you are going to use Fiverr then don't expect them to move mountains and recreate graphics for just $5 or you'll just be disappointed with the results. A good attitude to have with this sort of thing is to expect the worst and hope for the best.

Compare what you're getting to hiring the services of a professional who charges going rate and you'll really get a good idea of the kind of deal you're getting on Fiverr. If you find someone good, keep their information and hire them again because good graphics people are very hard to find!

Articles and Blog Posts

Obviously you need content for your business and it needs to be high quality stuff. Good writers are gems to be treasured. You're on the hunt for a few good ones to keep and assign lots of work to so they don't leave you.

To get started, here are a few tips:

-        Keep your initial writing assignments simple. Good first jobs are things like 7 Tips to X, 5 Ways to X or How to X. Don't get too deep and give them a structure to follow.

-        Make sure your writer shows you some samples. When you look at these samples check for grammar, spelling, proper layout (opening, body, closing), make sure each article has one main point.

-        Don't hire one writer to do a dozen articles right from the beginning. Get her to do about three and then review. If you're happy with those, then hire her for more.

One problem you’ll likely come across when working with writers is that the work won’t be turned in on time. You can read reviews left by others who've worked with this person, make sure they are positive and that there's no mention of an issue with meeting deadlines.

Another potential problem to be aware of if copyright infringement. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to simply copy and paste articles found on other sites. For that reason, it’s a good idea to use a service such as copyscape to check the originality of any articles you purchase from writers you don’t know – whether you find them on Fiverr or some other site.

Link Building

You can also find all sorts of link building gigs on the site. You’ll find everything from offers to set up profile pages to directory submissions to forum participation. Stay away from any listings that sound like a lot of hype and try out any link building gig on a smaller niche site first before risking your money making sites. Overall success and quality of work is very hit or miss in this category.

Social Media

This category has all sorts of interesting options from offers to get a certain amount of friends and followers for you to gigs of people with a large social media following who are offering to tweet or Facebook your message. 

If you can find a tweeter with a following that’s a good match for your product or service, this could be a great way to expand your brand and make some sales.

WARNING – Be careful with this one. You don't want to pay someone to spam for you. That will have a negative impact on your business and it's just not ethical. I'll tell you right now that just because it's on Fiverr or any freelance site, it doesn't mean that they're not spamming. You must do your own due diligence and figure out if the source is legit or if they're getting blocked left, right and center. You know how annoying it is to be spammed. You don't want to be the person doing it, even inadvertently.

Videos

Video is one of the most fun categories to browse through on Fiverr. People are offering to record all kinds of fun stuff from creating a Lego animation with your messages to sleep-talking your website name. One of the most useful offers is for voice-over services. You record a short video – perhaps a simple PowerPoint presentation – and have a professional voice-over artist read your script. These short videos make fantastic promotional pieces.

You’ll also find a lot of offers to record a video testimonial. This is highly not recommended! It's unethical and it's also illegal to pose fake testimonials as real ones. I know TV commercials get away with it but we all know they are actors and there is a disclosure. Trying to make a fake video testimonial look real is not cool and people can see it a mile away.

Make sure to do your research and use it for good, not evil. The tips you've found in this article are just the beginning. I'm sure with a little creativity and some time on the site you'll find many more ways to use the services offered there to grow your business. 

Further reading:

Introduction to buying services on FiverrHow to make money on FiverrFiverr scam

Introduction to buying services on Fiverr

Buying on Fiverr is a pretty easy process.  You find what you need, pay via Paypal and then wait for the other person to get back to you with questions or the finished project. All communication is done via the Fiverr interface, which makes the process simple and painless – no lost or misplaced emails to deal with.

Don't let the simplicity fool you, though. If you're not careful you can suck up a lot of valuable time on Fiverr. Between the browsing and the hiring and the decisions on details, you can easily spend hours on the site, and since you’re outsourcing to save time, not waste it, you need to be careful.

Here are some tips for making the Fiverr hiring process as smooth as possible, from sign-up to finished product.

Sign Up For a Free Account

Start by singing up for an account. All you need is a valid email address to get started. You will be asked to confirm your account before you can order a gig. The sign-up process is quick and easy, you’re just setting up a username and password for the site.

You have the option to set up a profile for your Fiverr account including a picture and some info about yourself. Unless you’re planning on offering Gigs on the site, there’s no reason to fill out all that stuff. If you do decide to fill out your profile, it won’t hurt to use keywords, but unfortunately your description cannot contain live links.

Browse Through the Categories or Use the Search Function

Next it’s time to take a look at what some of the users on Fiverr have to offer. Start by browsing through the category that most closely matches what you need done. If you’re looking for someone to create an ebook cover for you, start with the graphics section. If you’re looking for someone to proofread your latest report, look in the writing section. It’s a lot of fun to browse categories to see what others are willing to do for $5, but that can easily turn into a huge time suck. Better to go in with a plan, so you can get in and out efficiently.

If browsing the 600,000 listings on Fiverr seems a little overwhelming, you can use the search tool instead. Whether you’re looking for an ebook cover, blog post, or singing telegram, the on-site search engine is the fastest way to find it. You can also sort the results by highest-rated, newest, whether it has a video, or offers express delivery.  

Compare Providers – Look at Feedback

Once you’ve found a few providers that are offering the gigs you’re interested in, it’s time to compare them. This is actually pretty easy since the price per gig is the same. Look at how long they’ve been a member of Fiverr, how many gigs they’ve done in the past and what kind of feedback they’ve been getting. This is one of the greatest advantages to using Fiverr – you can sample multiple service providers with small projects before you start handing them over big orders.

If you’re ordering a graphic or having some articles written, you may want to ask for samples of the service provider's work before you order. This will give you a chance to look at their style and find one that’s close to what you’re looking for.

For graphics, look for people that offer to do at least one or two revisions for you in case the end result isn’t quite what you were looking for. It's great to see example of their work as well, displayed on the offer page so you can easily see their style and abilities.

Ordering a Gig – Be Prepared

Once you’ve narrowed it down to just one person, it’s time to order the gig. You’ll be sent over to paypal to make your $5 payment. Once that’s done, you’re sent back to the Fiverr site where it’s time to give some details on the gig. Be as detailed and specific as possible here. Some service providers do a great job at asking you what exactly they need to get started, while others are a bit more vague.

The more information you can give them from the start, the sooner they get the final product to you and the more likely it is to be the result you wanted. For example, if you’re ordering an ebook graphic, be specific about size, colors used, title of the ebook, author name and anything else you would like on the cover. Spending a little time here will be well worth it in the long run and make your first fiverr gig a big success.

Also, keep in mind that you will be communicating with the service provider through the Fiverr website, and will need to log in to grab your delivered product.

Buying services on Fiverr can be a very rewarding experience. A caveat is that you should expect a few flops. Not every service provider is going to be stellar and that's to be expected. The good news is that it's only going to cost you five bucks to sort through the duds and come up with some great people you can work with again and again. If you had to go through websites and randomly surf online to find these people it would likely cost you a whole lot more time and money than you'll be spending on Fiverr. Good luck and go order a gig!

How to make money on Fiverr, Fiverr Scam

How to make money on Fiverr

Fiverr is a website that allows you to offer a service called a “gig” to the world for 5 American dollars. Although it may seem trivial at first, you will be amazed to know that serious money can be made on this site. There are many professionals and non-professionals alike who are making money offering a range of services including website design to painting and singing in a peculiar fashion or simply in their underwear.

Fiverr allows you create service called gigs for people to pick from. So when a user buys something, they will pay you $5 for a service that you provide. But you will only end up with$4 that you can withdraw to your PayPal account. But before you can do that, you will have to wait 14 days before you can withdraw your funds. After you have delivered you services, users can give leave feedbacks just under your Fiverr gigs, something like an eBay feedback. This actually helps you to build customer trust and will get more orders if you have many positive feedbacks. So try to do a good job and build customer trust. Many of buyers of your gigs are return customers.

You will have to think of some ideas, ideas that are unique. Think of a talent you have, be it writing skill, singing skills, playing a musical instrument or just simply jumping up and down in a banana costume and singing happy birthday. As long as it’s unique, something out of the box; you’re in, you are can make some decent money easily with the comfort of your own home. It’s all about thinking laterally. Even if you don’t, you can utilise some of your talent and you can make money doing something for other people.

There are a range of categories to choose from; Gifts, Graphics, Video, Social Marketing, Travel, Writing, Advertising, Music & Audio, Fun & Bizarre, Tips & Advice, Business, Technology, Programming and Other. 

There are also a range of things you can do. Some of the things that are coming of my mind are;

1. Offer to make videos for about 1 to 3 minutes advertising someone's business or website.

2. Sing a song. You can sing a song you know and then record it for your buyers to dedicate to a loved one.

3. Writing services. There is a great demand for writing services. If you show case some of your previous work, you can get lots of customers.

4. Offer tips and advice on how to repair a broken relationship. I know this is strange but people do need advice.

5. Offer to teach a computer program.

6. Offer to teach a language or anything you like.

7. Offer to send someone’s website to your Facebook fans, or Tweet then on Twitter.

8. Do some fun, bizarre or weird stuff.

9. Other things include selling digital products, tips and advice, fortune telling, ridiculous things, softwares, instant backlinks from your websites, Facebook fans, making cartoons of your photos, writing articles, press releases social bookmarking, selling eBooks, etc.

10. Sending post cards from your place to buys friends/family etc.

11. Offer to be someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend for a week on Facebook.

Drawbacks of making money on Fiverr:

There are some draw backs of using Fiverr. For instance, you can only withdraw your money after 14 days, Fiverr takes a 20% cut (1$ per every 5). It does seem a little unfair to take a very high commission. Then when you withdraw your earning, PayPal will take another share of 2%. So you end up something around $3.92 per gig sold. You really have to think if you want to spend a lot of time trying to do something for that small an amount. No wonder there are hundreds of people from India trying to sell things as $3.92 converts to little more than 200 Indian rupees which is not bad. But if you are from the United States, you are not expected to work for that low an amount unless the gig takes you just minutes to do.

Another drawback is that Fiverr is full of spammers offering thousands of Facebook fans, LinkedIn connections which are defiantly not the right way to attain such things. This lowers the credibility of Fiverr as they do not do anything about it. I saw a gig offering a text link from a page rank of 7. I could clearly tell from the website that it was a faked page rank. This is cheating.

In addition, there is a huge competition, as more and more people become aware of Fiverr, more and more people are trying their luck. Sometimes gigs are never found even though you are offering something great; due to a large number of gigs offering the same thing, you will be lucky to sell your gigs.

There will be very high expectations from buyers. They will expect you to deliver one of the most professional gigs to be found on the whole world in spite offering just 5 dollars. For example, if you are offering to make logos, some buyers will expect one of the best logos ever designed and will expect you to do unlimited changes to it. Let’s face it, some buyers are going to be stupid and will not understand.

Lots of gigs are offered by inexperienced and irresponsible people who do not care about anything other than making money. After you have sold a gig and offered the best possible service, some buyers will simply leave a negative feedback hampering your gig sales. There are some reports of Fiverr banning accounts and confiscating your hard earned money. Although this has not happened to me and I have just read it on the internet, it’s difficult to verify this. But this has also been said about Adsense. The question to ask is, why would they do something like this, if you make money, they are make money too. 

Conclusion:

All in all, Fiverr offers a great and exciting way to make some money on the side. Do not expect to get rich. So I suggest you do sign for free, you have nothing to loose other than a few minutes. But remember and ask yourself the question; is $4 dollars is worth your time or not? If the gigs you have to offer takes a few minutes to do then perhaps it’s worth trying it out. Perhaps if you have a digital product then you should defiantly try it out, since all you have to do is email the product to the buyer.  If you have a talent, think about it and why not offer it. I am sure if it’s creative enough, you will bound to get some attention. If you become a top rated seller on Fiverr, you will have your gigs featured, and then you have a real chance to make money with the Fiverr programme. 

Kindly leave any feedbacks about your experiences on making money with Fiverr.

What You Need to Know About Working from Home

Whatever kind of business you do from home, you’re going to need an area where you can work and maintain your records. If you’ve never worked from home before, you might not know what you really need to have on hand and what you can afford to wait to get.

Having the right room and the equipment that you need can help you bring in more income, so it’s always best to start out on the right foot. Your main piece of equipment will be a computer with Internet access. Dealing with a temperamental machine can cut your productivity time, so if you have an older computer, you’ll want to upgrade right away.

Space for a home office doesn't mean you have to have a room solely devoted as your work area, but it’s always better to create that divide between work and home, especially if you have a family.

It can help create that boundary you’ll need. Besides a separate space, you also may need a printer and fax machine. You don’t have to break the bank to buy your supplies - and if your budget doesn't allow for any extras, you can stick to having just a computer and get your faxes sent to your email inbox through a provider that offers such a service.

If you choose to have a paperless office, make sure that you keep backup copies by using an online storage service. Many storage services are free of charge. Others charge a nominal fee.

If you’ve been searching for work at home, then you know that not all companies are legitimate. Always check out a company before agreeing to work for or with them. Make sure that you read all of the disclaimers they have on their website or in their business literature.

What testimonials do they have? If it’s a company that you have to pay to get started with, what do they offer in terms of reimbursement if you change your mind? Do a Google check on the company to see if they have a multitude of complaints against them.

You can find legitimate companies through online board postings, through marketing forums and through websites that network with and promote work at home companies. Doing your homework is crucial to ensure you don’t get taken advantage of.

You can set up a home business as a freelancer. The niche you choose to freelance in will depend on your passion and skills. The market is wide open online for a variety of interests - from writing to web design to freelance artists to life coaches.

Becoming an entrepreneur is the American dream for many and you can make that dream happen for you. One of the fastest growing ways to become an entrepreneur and work from home is to go into the field of Internet marketing. Affiliate marketing is relatively easy to break into and because of its diversity in niches, can appeal to a wide audience.

How to create an eBook for free

We are now in the era of the digital world where things happens with the click of a button. Gone are the days when had to write letters and then post them through mail. Nowadays we can chat for free, send messages for free, video chat for on Skype and engage on social networking sites for free. Similarly, people are no longer interested in buying hard copies of books as it’s difficult to carry around specially the bulky ones. People want something that is digitised where they can turn on and off with the click of a button. Kindle eBooks and eBooks online, reading through iBooks, iPads, IPhone has become more of common thing. It’s easier as people do not have to carry it around and can read on their computer screen while still at work. Perhaps it is early to say that paper books will vanish but it is sufficient to say that reading trends are changing.


If you are one of those who wants to write a book but do not want to look for a publisher or spend thousands to get it self-published, then eBooks is the best way to go. Nowadays it’s very easy to create an eBook and easy to either give it away or and even sell and make money from it.

So how do you create an eBook for free? First things first, you need to write an eBook. The hardest part is perhaps writing it. After it has been written, it can then be published in a variety of formats. It’s about getting the word out there that you have compiled something for people to read. So after having written an eBook, you will need to convert your eBook so that people can download them and read either by printing them from their computers or downloading them on electronic reading devices. People might want to read on Amazon Kindles, or a as PDF file on their computer, or as ePub file (short for electronic publication) or through apps on smart phones. Alternative option is to create a free website and then publish them as an HTML, meaning that you can easily publish them on a website or create your own website so that people do not need to download but can easily read by visiting the website.

So the options are as follows for your eBook:

Convert your eBook into a PDF file and then upload them on file sharing sites. The word format can be converted using several free PDF converters. There are some sites that will ask you to upload your file and then convert them to the required format and then send them the file to your email account. You will need to check every single detail on the converted format. The images, punctuation marks are prone to changes when being converted from world to PDF.

There are many open source tools to assist you to create your eBook and eBook editors. Some of them include; Sigil which is an wysiwyg eBook editor that allows one to create ePub files. Alternatively you can write them in word and then convert it into ePub and other formats using Calibre.

Then you will need to upload them on document sharing sites. There are many of them. Google also provides one called Google Docs. Other ones include Scribd, DocStoc, Slide Share, Slide Six, 4shared, We Papers, AuthorStream, eDocr, issuu, Calemeo, Yudu, DocShare, eSnips, SlideBoom, Empessr, MyPlick and many more. Most if not all of them are free to use. Once you have created an account with them, you can upload your converted PDF files and then share them with others. Many of them have inbuilt electronic readers while many of them allow you to charge money for them.

Another great option is to create and publish them online. Once your eBook as been written, it can easily be published online by converting them into web pages. There are many free website platforms. One such platform is Google’s Blogger. You can sign in using Google account and create a blog. Here you can publish them for free, chapter by chapter. You can allow people to read or make it private. It’s a great way to publish and show case your writing talents on the web. You can also put some advertisements such as GoogleAdsense or join affiliate to make money from your eBook online.  

If you are hoping to sell your eBook then there are many places you can easily sell. Lulu is a book place where you can join for free and create an eBook selling system. You will also need a good cover to make the book attractive. Although the saying that “you cannot judge the book by its covers”, but you can at least attract buyers to the book and convince them in buying it. Some of the online publicators have their own eBook cover making system but it’s not convincingly good. If you are serious, you can make it a cover on Photoshop or you can make one on numerous free eBook cover makers.

There are so many places where your precious eBooks can be sold over and over again without the hassle of printing. The next question to ask is “where to sell your eBooks”? Some of the best places include other than the one mentioned earlier are your free website with integrated paypal button, PayLoadz, eBay, eBookBay, Amzon, iTunes Store and many more.

So there you have it. Write an eBook or get someone else to write it for you, and then get the word out to the world that you have written a document. The best thing is to create a buzz about it on social networking sites such as FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, writer’s forums and many other places.   

If you want to learn how to create an eBook and make money from then this eBook by Tiffany Dow called “Building an eBook Empire” tells you how to create and make money online. She is an affiliate marketer and lots of things can be learnt from her. The book has been classed as the top online making money guides. I bought the book and benefited tremendously, not only I was able to understand how to create an eBook but also how to set up websites and how to market them, from creating eBook covers, what programmes to join and ultimately make money from it.