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1. Be absolutely clear on exactly what you want done

I’m primarily visual so for this project I actually went and bought some wrapping paper, then drew on the back of it. I drew all the pages I wanted created and their design. From there I could take photos and record it using video. This helped me get clear on exactly what I wanted.
When writing the scope its best if a 9 year old could understand it. Write it as though you’re telling a 9 year old what you want. Make sure you use screen shots if possible.

If designing a site or online system it’s very beneficial to find a similar system to “model”. This saves a lot of explanation and removes a lot of room for error due to mis-communication.

To avoid mis-communication early on

2. State your expectations up front

Before they start any work it’s important they understand your expectations and terms. After talking with them and negotiating the price I then state all the terms in an email and make sure they agree to them.

One time I spent 3 hours explaining a project with someone, only to find they weren’t going to charge me $300 (like they said on the quote) they decided they were going to charge me $1600.

From then on I always spoke about terms and expectations for a project before I explained the whole scope to make sure they understand it.

In the terms email I say “so I will pay you $___ paid on completion of the project. I expect a daily report on what you do sent via email every night so I can keep track of the progress. I also require you to be on skype while working in case I need to contact you. Do you agree to do that?”

Now obviously it all depends on the situation, for example if you’re hiring a virtual assistant you don’t say “paid on completion”. You usually work out a monthly fee then decide on the payment method and whether they’re paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

Every situation is different, for all my outsourcing my preferences are they are paid weekly via paypal, they send me a daily report and they’re on skype. Also usually working from 9am to 5pm (depending on the type of work I am getting done).

IMPORTANT: If you’re using ESCROW (which is where the money is held while the project is being done) make sure you document all important changes within the ESCROW system.

The paid on completion through ESCROW is based on what has been communicated within the system.

So a good idea is to organize it on Skype then tell them you’ll send them it within the outsourcing system you’re using and get them to agree to it. That way you cover your ass for having to pay for a job that isn’t complete.

When it comes to explaining the project, it’s important that you

3. Make sure they understand

When you first explain the project to the person make sure they understand. Asking “Do you understand?” is not good enough! I like to ask “What questions do you have?”

After that I will then get them to explain it back to me. That way I am sure they actually do understand it.

I found that a lot of the time people say they understand and then they try and figure it out later. By the time I see their work, it’s obvious they didn’t understand. Communication is key – get them to explain the job back to you, it’s well worth the time to avoid major mistakes on the project.

4. In the scope use a secret word

This is a tip that has saved me lots of time, energy and money! When you post a job you will find you get different types of replies.

Most of them are automated messages that could not have possibly read through the scope.

You want to make sure that the person offering to do your project read the scope and hopefully understands it.

So how do you make sure they’ve read it?

That’s easy, at the very bottom of your scope, in big green text write the following “If you understand this scope and are ready to do this, please reply with the secret word “ready” to let me know you’ve been through the scope.”

It amazes me at how many people dont actually get to the bottom of the scope. When you get a whole heap of bids, only consider the replies that have your secret word in it.

This saves a lot of time because you can identify the people who have read the scope and you cut out all the people who didn’t read it.

5. Get a daily report

In the past I used to just trust my workers to work. I found that if I didn’t keep on top of them they would either slacken off or not do the work at all.

It’s important to check up on them daily to ensure they’re doing the work correctly and efficiently. Remember to give lots of feedback, especially early on. That way they know their work needs to be accurate and will get it right in the future.

Make sure you actually do check their work! In the past I’ve just assumed it was correct and had to go and re do a lot of it.

Outsourcing is an amazing skill to have, when you master outsourcing it means you can master implementation. When you can implement ideas and get things done, that is when you get results.

Outsourcing allows you to leverage other people to get more done and free up your own time. These outsourcing tips have been learned the hard way.

Have fun with it and be persistent!

Id love to hear about any other advice you guys have out there…

Hey Moms,

I accidentally stumbled upon an interesting technique of IMMEDIATELY determining a keyword’s profitability using Spyfu.com

Now, before I go on, you probably know about the conventional way of deciding if a keyword is profitable by spying on the PPC ads that appear for those keywords for a period of time, say a month.

Afterall, advertisers won’t be so dumb as to continue throwing money on PPC ads that don’t produce returns over time, right?

Even though that technique is quite effective, it is extremely time-consuming. I mean imagine having to wait up to a month to collect the data for your keywords, that would severely impede you from doing anything!

Well, not anymore, because I just found out a simple search on Spyfu can help determine your keyword’s profitability IMMEDIATELY. So, here’s how to do so…

Step 1: Go to SpyFu

Step 2: Type any keyword and hit the “Search” button

Step 3: Look at the 2nd table with the title “Ads”

Note: If I were to tell you those ads that appear in the table are 1 MONTH OLD, do you get the full picture of how it works now? If not, please read on…

(Sidenote: If you’re not convinced that those ads are 1 MONTH OLD, then look at the very 1st table, do you see the “View Cached Page” linnk on the right? Give it a hit and you’ll be convinced

Step 4: Go to Google and type in the same keyword as you did earlier

Step 5: Cross-check the ads that appear on Spyfu.com against those on Google.

Then ask yourself, “Do the majority of the ads on Spyfu.com and Google appear similar or different?” (To make things easier, you only want to check the 1st page of Google) If they are largely similarly, then there’s good chance the keyword IS profitable!

This is a great plugin to drip feed your blog with relevant video and written content. A must have tool for any blogger’s toolbox…

Click here to download the plugin

Click here to download the installation-instructions

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Hello everyone,

Here are some of the things I keep at the back of my mind when writing article titles.

Keep these at the back of your mind when writing, and you’ll come up with great titles. You don’t have to try to use them all at once, I fell in that trap myself … There are many more occasions to apply them. However by referring to them on a regular basis, they’ll become a part of your writing.

As you may know, the title is a very important part of your article, as it will determine how many people actually open and read the full content of your article.

No matter how powerful is your content, if the title doesn’t appeal to your target audience, your article will not be read.

In a nutshell, your titles should be: – (1) attractive, (2) accurate, (3) concise, and (4) concrete.

- To begin the process, carry out a research for the keyword/s you want to target,

- Pick one or two keywords from your list — the keywords related to the subject area.

- Write down a combination of words describing the benefit your reader will get from reading the article. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the exact keywords in line, but if you can the better.

However, if you cannot come up with anything constructive, write down the keywords first, followed by a dash and your article topic.

Example 1: Let’s take the keyword “Learn how to sing “. Here are some ideas on how to begin.

Make up some words using your keywords, anything that comes to mind.

• Learn How To Sing Like A Pro In Just 5 Days
• Learn How To Sing – Make A Hit Record In 6 hrs
• Learn How To Sing In Front Of People
• Learn How To Sing Better Than Michael Jackson
• Where To Learn How To Sing Without Spending A Fortune
• Learn How To Sing Better with Vocal Exercises

Let’s take a look at yet another example where we can quantify better, assuming your product will require this.

Example 2: Let’s assume you’re trying to target people who want to buy “Cheap Used Cars”. Here are some ideas on how I would begin.

• How to buy a $20,000 car for $5,000
• How to buy your dream car 25% cheaper than you would normally pay
• How to buy a car in perfect condition at a very cheap price
• Where to find the cheapest cars in perfect condition

In general here are my 5 Tips To Writing Effective Headlines.

TIP 1:

I would like to show you some effective ways to combine different possible titles to make an article that shows many benefits at once.

Taking the example from car titles in “Example 2″ above, I wrote down titles that tell the readers what they will find in my article.

We can combine them to make one title showing all the benefits in one place.

For example, here are some thoughts:

1: What does dream mean to the reader in the above title?

2: Although the $20,000 worth for $5,000 may be appealing, I don’t want to limit myself to a range of car prices, so I would consider using the % value instead.

3: Apart from being cheap a buyer will want to get a car that’s in good condition, not one he will end up spending a fortune to repair after the purchase.

4: I wouldn’t want to limit myself to 25% only, as you can still get good deals at 10% cheaper.

… So let’s see how we can combine all these into one sentence.

“How to buy your dream car in perfect condition, up to 25% below the normal price”

How does this look?

I can still go on refining this… But I’ll leave you to go ahead and begin yours.

Obviously, you can narrow your niche further and use the titles from the first examples above without filtering them. It all depends on what your article is about.

TIP 2:

You can combine more than one keyword inside one article, starting with the title.

So for example taking the following keywords:

• Learn How To Sing
• How To Sing Better
• Vocal Exercise

These are keywords that people actually search for, and we can take these three keywords and combine them to form a meaningful article title.

Let’s see what we can come up with -

Learn How To Sing Better with Vocal Exercises

Nice don’t you think?

TIP 3:

Assuming you run out of ideas, and cannot come up with a suitable title, you can always use the keyword as an identifier, to show what topic you’re referring to, and then next to it, write any suitable title that comes to mind.

Taking the following keywords as an example:

• Learn How To Sing
• How To Sing Better
• Vocal Exercise

You can write

• Learn How To Sing – 5 easy steps
• How To Sing Like A Pro – Don’t Follow The Crowd
• Vocal Exercise – The Biggest Mistake Is To Assume…

TIP 4:

In your article title, you can also incorporate some power words/phrases that induce the reader to investigate further.

- How To: – When someone searches the internet for information, they’re most likely looking for a solution to a problem. Even if they’re just searching for a product to purchase, an article on how to compare, or to buy that product, will surely attract people’s attention.

- Free: – May I say more? We all want something for free, and of course if you show your readers how they can save money, you’re sure to have them investigate even further by visiting your website.

- Yes: – This is a positive word and reassures the reader that whatever they’re seeking, the solution is in your article.

- You: – Speaking directly to the reader, strengthens your connection with them. The message delivered will be more targeted towards a specific person; at least that’s how it will appear to be.

- Every Time: – This is a very reassuring word, and hasn’t been used as often as it should be. It can also replace the word “Guaranteed” in many ways. Especially that the word “Guarantee” has been abused so many times that it has lost most of it’s power.

- Guaranteed: – This word has been abused so many times and it’s now mostly associated with hype, however when used properly, this word can add a significant amount of power to your title. For example: “Can it really be guaranteed?” And in your article you show how it can. Or “It has been guaranteed for 2 years” – This is a factual statement.

- Truth About: – This is a very simple yet a powerful word that raises curiosity every time; everyone wants to know the truth.

- Exclusive: – This is another powerful word to have in your article title; it’s a prestigious word that can replace the word “Limited”. – “Limited” has also been overused in many ways, that people don’t really believe it. But when you use a word like “Exclusive”, then you can receive the same response. People like to belong to a prestigious and closed group that not everyone can get into…

- Easy/Simple: – No one wants anything difficult; they want the easy way out, or a simple way of doing things. These words will surely attract attention and make your readers want to investigate further.

- Immediately/Quickly/Instantly: –These words are powerful action words on their own; no one can resist immediate, quick an instant action. Use these words wisely, so that they don’t become meaningless to the reader, only use them when relevant.

- Carefully Chosen/Handpicked: – These words signify quality, they show that the writer has taken the time to research and to provide only the best solution.

- Improve/excel: – Similar to “How to”, as mentioned above, everyone wants to improve or excel in something, and if your article can provide the improvement or a way to excel, why not use it as a hook.

- Bargains: – Bargain hunters are everywhere. This word plays right into the psychology of someone wanting to get something at a cheaper price.

- Inside:– This word really has an impact on the human psyche. Use it to get your readers curious about what’s inside your article content.

- Dirty Tricks: – Depending on what you’re writing on, this word can appeal to the little devil inside of you who wants to know about the dirty little tricks others have applied, or how these tricks impact your reader’s current situation. Use these words wisely.

- Fortune/money: – People want to make a fortune, they want to make and save money. Use these words to appeal to your users needs.

- New/Latest/Recent: – This word can change the impact of your article. Imagine someone writing on a similar topic and you come up with a new solution or even slightly new. People will definitely want to find out what’s new.

- Discover/Revealed/Uncovered/ For the first time: – These are words similar to new, people want to find out new things, they want to discover something they have always wanted to know, or even didn’t know it existed. Be careful when using these words, as they have also been associated with hype. But their impact is powerful.

- Secrets: – Now here is a word that always grabs attention, but the hype around it has made readers to question its credibility. I must admit, it still does carry weight, but only when used carefully. Use it when you’re actually going to justify the word.

- Proven/Proof: – The power of these words can never be over used in my opinion, people really want to see the proof; they want to know the truth. Use this only if you can show the proof.

- Scientific: – I think this word can stand firmly in the place proof and guarantee when used appropriately. When we hear this word scientific, it triggers in our mind that something has been thoroughly researched, and tested to work. Use this word only when it applies.

- Why : – This interrogatory word can be used to ask a question or answer an anticipated question assuming it was already asked and you are answering . For example, you can say “Why I did this, why it happened”. This can produce a very powerful title that feeds on people’s curiosity… you should use it.

- Special : – Similar to exclusive, this word can work wonders on your readers. Special is a special word… it tells the reader that they are about to uncover what is exceptional, what is rare, not common. This word is very powerful because everyone wants in on a little secret.

TIP 5:

You can also try to incorporate simple measurable solutions to make your point. Like
- 5 ways, 5 tips, 5 methods, 5 minutes, 5 steps– If you could list out specifics, it makes the solution become easier than it might actually be. People like specifics as they can measure exactly how quickly it will take them to solve a problem.

Use the power words above to break up the sentence.

For example:

5 Simple Ways To Learn How To Sing Better.