Internet marketing is one of the easiest ways to start your own business and make money without worrying about deadlines, vacation times and other things that you would normally care about when you’re on a payroll. Of course, there are a lot of other things to worry about and you’re basically on your own when it comes to decisions and results, but the freedom to do whatever you want, when you want and from anywhere you want is worth the risk most of the times.
But you don’t necessarily have to do all the work by yourself – thanks to the Internet, you can now hire talented professionals and even full time employees from other countries (usually poorer countries from Asia and Eastern Europe) at very low rates, which are not even comparable to the usual salaries that Westerners receive. And if these people can do the same work for a fourth of the price, then why not give it to them?
There are quite a lot of so-called “crowd-sourcing” sites online, which operate on a contest/multiple applications principle. For example, you post a task you need to get done (create a script, design a site, setup your new server), and more members take on the work, but you only select or pay the one you think will do/has done the best job. This is a great way to do a task right from the first time and avoid any delays and other problems. It also motivates the workers to do better, and accomplish the task from the first try.
Here are just some of the best and most popular crowd-sourcing sites, which you can start using for your online business today:
Mturk. Amazon’s Mturk service is the most popular crowd sourcing site on the Web. It is a site for general tasks that don’t require any special skills, but you can easily post and get some pretty complex tasks done there (like writing articles, programs, etc.). But the best way to use it is to outsource time-consuming tasks like checking sites, posting forum posts and links, researching and finding information, etc. All of this can be done for very cheap prices in very short amounts of time, thanks to the thousands of active users that are always on the site.
Microworkers. Microworkers is another service similar to MTurk, and it’s also tailored for general tasks that need no specific skills from the workers. However, this site is a bit different in that it allows you to post tasks like Digg submissions (for quickly getting to the front page) and site registrations (if you want to create multiple accounts fast on one or more sites), which is pretty important for some areas of Internet Marketing.
99Designs. 99Designs is the most popular destination for everyone who wants to get a graphical design for any purpose (logos, sites, landing pages, apps, etc.) done fast. There are a lot of professional designers there, and the site has successfully created logos and other graphics for popular companies, including major banks and retail stores. The rates are pretty cheap, and you get a lot of choices to choose from, plus you can further ask the designer to customize the design to perfectly fit your liking.
NameThis. NameThis is a crowdsourcing service that specializes in creating brand names. If you’re having trouble coming up with a good name for a site, product, service, show or anything else, this is the site you should use. By the end of your contest, you will most definitely get one or more great names, which you can immediately use for yourself.
Threadless. Threadless is a great site for designing your own T-Shirt. If you want to give away T-Shirts as part of an action, for example, or even sell them, but have no idea what people in certain demographics like to wear, you can use the power of thousands of minds who know exactly what is fashionable and what is not nowadays. Using the designs created by them and voted the most popular, you can be sure your T-Shirts will be popular with their intended receivers.
There are quite a few other great sites for outsourcing anything, but the above ones have been around for a while and already have a big user base, which is simply vital for such sites (the more people you have working on your task, the better, right?). If you need to create a logo, brand name or perform any kind of task and don’t have the time or any idea where to start, the above sites are the perfect starting point.
