Try SquadHelp For Lots of Creative Expert Advice

Last week I received an invitation to try SquadHelp.  SquadHelp is just one of many crowd sourcing sites that you can use to outsource some of the tasks where you need expert help — but don’t have the money to pay the experts.

Start With Your Challenge as a Contest

SquadHelp runs a “contest” model.  You choose how much money you’re going to give away (the minimum is $75 plus a $25 fee).  I chose the minimum which was a total cost of $100.

The next thing I did was post my project.  They call it a contest because you post your project and people respond with expert advice.  Then you pick the best advice and they win the contest.

Contest Categories

There are contest categories such as SEO, Tag lines, web site names, etc.  So you will have to put your contest into a category.  I chose SEO.  I know a little bit about SEO – but I am FAR from an expert.  Since I’d just recently updated my DIYMarketers theme to Thesis and had made a commitment to make better use of all those SEO features, I thought it would be a good idea to get some advice.

Fast Response

In about an hour I had already received a couple of responses.  And they were very good.  Not only that, but several of the “contestants” responded a couple of times.  You have the ability to send e-mail back and forth.  So you can give contestants feedback and they can respond if they choose to.

Harder Than I Thought

I made one major mistake in this — I hadn’t decided on the criteria I would use to choose the winner.  This was a big mistake because everyone had different responses and everyone provided great insight – to the point where I wanted to declare all of them the winner!  So my advice to you before you start is to be VERY clear on what your criteria are for a winning entry.

Be prepared for people to really go beyond the call of duty.  I had one person actually submit my site to a bunch of directories – I really appreciated that, but then maybe I didn’t.  I don’t know how safe it is to have your site submitted to a bunch of directories and how do I know that this wasn’t all underhanded?  So look out for that.

How I Picked the Winner

Ultimately I had to choose someone and I basically chose the person who gave me the most valuable information for me at the time — which was keyword suggestions.

While all the people went to the site and saw what was missing and have me outstanding feedback.  ONE person realized that the root cause of my problem was having a lack of good keywords.  The other thing this person realized was that I was using WordPress and they gave me insight into specifically HOW to put the feedback into play on wordpress.  In other words, this person was able to intuit exactly where my level of expertise was and spoke to that.

Avoid the Guilt by Being Clear

I’m not going to kid you — I do feel a bit guilty that only one person could win the prize.  And the person I chose wasn’t the person who came back several times with input.  The person I chose wasn’t one that had taken action on my behalf.  The person I chose was one that gave me the feedback that fit my expertise level and root problem.  But the others gave valuable feedback that I now have and have implemented to a point.  And that sort of makes me feel bad.  But that’s how the model works.

How Can They Do This For So Little?

Many of the respondents or “contestants” are not in the US or in Europe.  It looks like some were in India or Phillipines, etc.  You need to take this into consideration.  Some of them work for US companies, projects and sites and some will use methods that you may not be comfortable with.  Take all this into consideration as you choose.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that the advice was good.  The price was right and let’s see how my results come out.

Have you used SquadHelp?  What’s been your experience with them or other crowd sourcing project sites?squ