The process of outsourcing has become very popular over the past few years.  A lot of people find that they have too much work going on at the same time and would like to free up their time to do more substantial things.  Some even outsource their entire work process and find that they are still earning while they are on vacation, playing golf, or doing things other than working.  Some even find that they started to earn more when they started to outsource as opposed to when they were doing all the work themselves.  Wouldn’t you want to do the same?

However, for some, they don’t know where to start.  You may have heard of outsourcing, are very interested in outsourcing, could potentially benefit from outsourcing, but don’t exactly know what to outsource.

If you find yourself wondering what to outsource, read on to find a list of things that you can easily delegate to an online freelancer.

• Data Entry – Data entry is simple copy & paste work.  Maybe you have some data you would want to organize in a spreadsheet and never found the time to; or you want to harvest some information from a website, like the yellow pages.  This kind of work is tedious and time consuming.  You can easily outsource this kind of work as it doesn’t take much to be able to perform the task successfully.  Just give your contractor instructions on what you want done and they can very well do it for you.
  Example: organizing in an excel spreadsheet the location, contact information, website, etc. of accountants in your area.
  
• Research – Have you ever wanted to know who your competitors are in your niche or would want to know who you can market your product to?  You can hire someone to do these jobs for you.  Information that can be found in the net can be researched and organized by an online freelancer.
  Example: Research and organize information about people in your college class as potential market and invitees to your product launch
  
• Article writing – Do you have a blog or several blogs but can’t find the time to update all of them?  Or maybe you have long wanted to write an ebook about your niche?  Hire a freelancer to ghost write for you.  There are a lot of freelancers out there who are brilliant writers and who are willing to offer you their services.  Truth be told, a lot of bloggers don’t even write the majority of their articles personally, but actually pay freelancers to write for them.
  Example: Blog Article
  
• SEO – Making your website rank on the first page of search engines can be time-consuming work.  This task can easily be outsourced to freelancers.  There are freelancers who are very experienced in SEO work and may be able to do a better job than you.  Of course, you can hire a company to do your SEO, but you can also hire an individual and spend less than when hiring a company.
  Example:

• Link Building – Link building is another way to increase your website ranking on search engines.  You can hire someone to visit link directories and submit your website.  You can even ask them to visit similar and complimentary sites and negotiate a link exchange. This is a very easy task but a very tedious one.  Hiring a freelancer to do this will free you of having to do this on your own.
  Example:
  
• Customer Service – If your business involves customers, you may need the assistance of a customer service representative.  When you are still starting out, you may be able to handle customer support on your own, but time will come when you can no longer do so.  Even if customer service related issues are few, wouldn’t you rather do something better with your time than handling these things yourself?  This type of work is one that can be outsourced.  Just give your contractor some training on the background and workings of your business and they can handle customer service for you.
  Example:
• Virtual / Personal Assistant – If you feel you need an assistant to help you with your daily grind, you may want to hire one online.  Virtual assistants are one of the most sought after freelancers.  They can help you do what you normally do yourself.  They can sort your emails, set appointments, update your personal and work calendars, etc.  Virtual assistants are jacks/jills of all trade.  Just make sure you make a defined job description at the beginning of your working relationship and outline the scope of the work that you are to delegate to him/her.
• Website Management – You can hire a freelancer to manage and maintain your website.  They can write content, approve comments, moderate members, check your forums for inappropriate content, etc.  Basically, they can make your website run like a well-oiled machine.
• Web Design –  If you want a website designed, you can hire web designers online.  Even if you are a web designer yourself, you can delegate some or all of your work to a hired freelancer who does web design.
• Web Programming – Want to build a website?  You may need the services of a web programmer.  There are a lot of programmers you can find online, for whatever programming language you want to use for your website. A freelance web programmer is a lot cheaper than a web programming company, which may charge you thousands of dollars to make a website.

The above list are only some of the work you can outsource to freelancers in the Philippines.  If you can give detailed instructions for the work you want done, or create a video to demonstrate it, chances are you can find a freelancer to do the work for you.