You know, running an Affiliate Marketing Business can be a bit like running an ocean liner.
On an ocean liner you need help to keep things running properly, as Captain of the cruise liner you cannot serve the food, work the bars, run the engines, navigate etc etc.
On a ship, you get help by hiring a crew.
In Affiliate Marketing, you get help by outsourcing.
Just as a cruise liner needs a pilot to get the ship out of the harbour and tugs to help her start moving, so your affiliate business needs to find someone to offer advice to guide you through the muddy waters of “get rich quick” schemes and hints and tips to get you pointed in the right direction to get your business moving.
The similarities do not end there though. A cruise liner, just like your internet business, takes time to get up to full pace. It will gain speed slowly, moving faster as it gains momentum.
During the period that it is leaving port, the captain of the cruise liner hands over control of his ship to the pilot and can therefore turn his hand to other things that need to be watched as the ship leaves port. But once the pilot has got the ship underway, he heads off to help someone else.
Your affiliate business is the same. In the early stages you will get help from a mentor or advisor on how to proceed and they will control the direction.
However, once you are underway, they may well move on to the next person needing help and you will need to start taking control of everything that is happening around you.
Once this pressure starts to build, you will probably do what every other person does. It is human nature. That is, do the things you enjoy doing and leave the things you do not. So let me ask you now, what part of affiliate marketing are you NOT doing because you don’t enjoy it?
Writing Content, Writing articles and building backlinks are just a few of the areas that get forgotten, especially as time gets more precious.
Many of you will be balancing a full-time job with trying to get the business started and after sleep; trying to schedule the work to be done is really difficult.
Look, it really doesn’t matter which area you are letting go, they will all hurt you if they are not done and there are people out there who can take on some of the work for you for a lot less than you think it will cost.
It is called outsourcing and just like the captain of the cruise liner, it will give you a ‘crew’ to help keep the ship moving.
Now there is of course a very good reason for doing all the work yourself in the early stages and learning what is needed for success. Simply stated, if you do not know how to do the job yourself, how can you firstly tell someone else what you require and secondly, know they have completed good work for you when they have finished.
Let us assume for the moment that we are looking for help with writing content for your web pages. The more sites that you start up, the more content you need and the less time you will have to write it. If the content becomes sloppy you will not make money with it so outsourcing is an excellent option.
However, before you start to outsource, you need to plan carefully to get the best results. Here are my 10 tips on how to get good outsourcing.
- When looking to outsource work, make sure that you ask for samples of the work that the prospective employee has done to ensure that they at least appear to have the qualities you are searching for.
- Many of the agencies that you use to outsource will have a ‘feedback’ rating on the applicants. Check out the people that are applying to so your work. If they are getting poor feedback, avoid them.
- Provide clear and specific instructions on what you require.
- Stipulate very clearly that you want original content, not something that has been plagiarized or even just copied and pasted from the internet and will therefore be duplicate copy*
- Request a definite time-frame for completion of the work.
- Remember that the cheapest bid may not always be the best one.
- Tell the worker that you want good grammar, spelling and sentence construction for the language you want the article written in, but personally I would take care of Keyword optimization myself.
- If you have a little bit of time on your hands, you may be able to further reduce the cost of the project by taking responsibility for checking the articles and realising that you may have to re-write them in parts. However you could then use writers that have only average language skills. This does work to keep costs down but honestly, I figure if you have time to rewrite the article you probably had time to write it yourself in the first place.
- Provide good feedback to your writer. If they are not up to scratch, tell them why and maybe they will improve for you. If they are really good, tell them so, they will appreciate the kind words and will work harder.
- When you find a good writer look after them! The really good ones are like gold dust.
*You should note for this point that there are websites like http://www.copyscape.com/ where you can check the originality of your copy against what is already on the web.
Where do you find outsourcing
There are a number of agencies on the net that can help you here. For my money I would look at the following sites first.
Craiglist also have sites like Craigslist Manila and will help you find workers from areas like the Philippines.
To give you some idea of the sort of information you will need to provide, a job on Elance will look something like this:
10 Articles About Ovarian Cysts
Job Description Client: (11 projects posted, 6 Awarded)
Credit Card confirmed
Provider can contact client More info Client Location:
Budget:Less than $500
Proposals Received: 43 Proposals (Average Bid: Sealed)
Posted:06/28/2010 03:26 EST
Proposals Accepted Until: 6 h, 13 m+ (Ends: 07/12/2010 03:26 EST)
Job Description:
This project you are bidding on is for the creation of 10 articles in the Ovarian Cysts niche.
I am looking for someone who is fast, efficient, has English as their primary language, delivers on time, provides value for their work, has very clear communication and has experience writing articles.
Project details:
10 articles
minimum 400 words
Each article should be well researched and accurate in its information
All articles are checked through Copyscape for plagiarism, please do not post if you copy from the internet.
I will provide 10 keywords for the articles.
For example : cure for ovarian cyst, ovarian cysts symptoms etc.
I will be promoting a product about natural cures for ovarian cysts so this is the angle to be used when writing the articles.
I am very prompt with payment, and clear with communication and detailed in what I expect.
When posting to this bid, please provide:
A sample of written work you have done of a similar nature
Attached Files: Job Details Job ID:20387642 Category: Writing & Translation > Article Writing Desired Skills: Ghostwriting, Web Content, Article Writing, Content Writing, Creative Writing Preferred Group(s): Job Type: Fixed Price Preferred Job Location: Provider can be located anywhere Work View: Not Required Use Escrow?: Yes Status Reports: Required More Info Job Start Date: Start immediately Job Posting Visibility: Public—Visible to the Elance community and search engines. Seal Proposals: Proposals can only be viewed by the client. More Info W9 Required: Client does not require W-9 submission. More Info
As far as cost goes you can often pick up articles for less than $5.00 each and I am sure that your time to complete other tasks is worth at least that. Quality work however may be a little more expensive. It all depends what you need from the outsourcing.
It really is reasonably straightforward to apply and companies like elance give a lot of assistance to you. They also help with controlling payments so that both sides get paid properly and receive their work as required.
So as your Affiliate Marketing business picks up pace and looks like it is about to sail off into the future, consider outsourcing as a highly recommended way for you, as captain, to keep the whole thing on course.
