Let’s be honest, sometimes it feels like there is just not enough time in the day to keep up with all the necessary tasks in growing a blog. Between writing, outreach, relationship building, research, link building, site maintenance and much more it is really easy to spread yourself to thinly to do a good job.
I am here to tell you that there is hope and there are actually several very inexpensive ways to outsource a lot of the work.
Here are three tasks I always outsource:
1 –Research
Research can be a painstakingly long process if you are going at it alone. Especially if the project you are working on is very research intensive.
For example, let’s say you are trying to put together a post that explains the different options you have for setting up web hosting. You want to put together a table with the top 50 web-hosting providers that you can choose.
Rather than scouring the web looking for these data points, why not outsource this aspect? You could hire someone for $3=$5 per hour or less to do the work. As long as you make the instructions perfectly clear, international workers should have no problems finding the research you need and organizing it in a very effective way for you to go through and edit.
Before your next research project think to yourself: “is there anyway I could hire someone else to do this?”
2 – Getting Contact Info
Are you planning to release a very well-researched and overall spectacular piece of content in the next few weeks. Maybe you are considering sending a few emails to other bloggers in your niche to let them know about this content piece…
Rather than going through all of these blogs one by one to collect contact info, consider this technique:
1. Go onto Technorati and find a list of the top blogs in your niche.
2. Copy the URL of this list.
3. Send this URL to a Virtual Assistant and tell them to collect the name of the blog and contact info from each of the websites.
Then, a few days (or hours in some cases) later you will get a nice list of relevant blogs in your niche and their contact info. Total cost? Maybe $10 – $20.
Now you are really going to like what you can do with the list.
3 – Sending Template Emails
Now you certainly don’t want to spam people by sending them useless emails, but if you have to send off a same or similar email to numerous people, why not make a template and have someone else send the emails for you for a cheap price?
Piggy backing off the previous example, why not make a template email that looks something like this:
Greetings,
My name is Jason from XYZblog.com. I am releasing a killer piece of content next week called “10 Ways To Outsource Great Content.”
I was on [insert website name] and noticed you blog about the same topic so I just wanted to give you an early heads up about this piece in case you want to share with your readers.
Cheers,
Jason
Then, give this template to your VA and tell them to send it to the list they pulled in the previous example.
Just like that, you have a focused and targeted email blast out to TONS of great prospective bloggers for less than $30.00. Not bad for the amount of promotion you get.
How To Get Started
This all might make sense to you, but you may not know where to get started. It is actually much easier than you would think.
Try using services like ODesk or Elancer to get started. You can sign up for a free account and post a job in a matter of minutes. You will find that it is actually very easy to get great talent at a very low price.
Many of these workers are from the Philippines or other foreign areas where the American Dollar is worth much more. This sort of clever outsourcing can help you build quality products/blog posts/relationships at a fraction of the normal price.
If you don’t start outsourcing, your competitors will. Harness this power today and watch your blogging productivity skyrocket.
This was a guest contribution from Jason from Survey Examiner, a site devoted to providing useful reviews and info on paid survey panels online. Check it out now to learn how you can take surveys for money, whether you are a stay at home mom or looking for online jobs for 14 year olds.