5 Ways Freelancers Can Benefit Your Online Business

Freelancers can help your online business

Whether you’re a small business with a functioning website or one that’s just getting started on an online portion of your brick-and-mortar business, you can benefit from hiring freelancers rather than trying to do it all yourself or bring on new part- or full-time employees. Here are just five main benefits of hiring freelancers for web design, search engine optimization, copywriting, and other common online business tasks.

1. More expertise

Many people these days are starting freelancing careers in areas that mesh well with the world of online business. Because there are so many freelancers flooding the market, most are forced to become experts in one or two niche areas. When you hire an employee to work on your business’s online sector, you might, especially as a small business, need to hire someone who wears many hats – from web development to content writing. When you hire a specialized freelancer for a single portion of your online projects, though, you can get a true expert in that area. Whether it’s SEO, keyword-based writing, logo design, or back-end link building, you can hire a freelancer who is an expert in exactly what you need.

2. Lower overhead cost

Not only do you get more expertise with a freelancer, but you’ll also pay much less for that expertise. How much would it cost your business to hire a full-time content writer for a year? Think about salary, tax payments, health insurance, etc. Even if you only hire a part-time employee and can get out of some of these expenses, you’ll still have to provide that person with some benefits, as well as a place to work, which costs even more money! With a freelancer, you will usually pay a flat hourly or per-project rate which is probably going to be entirely reasonable compared to hiring an employee. Plus, freelancers are always competing, so you can get a fairly competitive rate for the work you want done.

3. Focus on a single project

Again, employees in your business will usually have to focus on multiple projects at once so that they can fill their forty hours a week and keep your business running. A freelancer, on the other hand, can focus on a single project at one time, which allows them to bring better ideas to the table. Rather than getting mediocre work on several projects at once, you can leave your most important projects to freelancers, whose careers depend upon the ability to throw everything they have at each and every project they tackle.

4. Less hassle

When you hire a freelancer, you don’t have to worry about things like employee taxes and benefits, which boils down to less hassle for you. You do need to make sure that you’re not treating freelancers just like your regular employees, as the IRS can get you tangled up with tax problems even if you hire freelancers to be contract workers but are treating them like your employees. As long as freelancers are working on different projects from your regular employees, you can usually just cut them a check and let them take care of their own taxes, healthcare, paperwork, and other hassles.

5. Tighter deadlines

Freelancers thrive on tight deadlines. In fact, many of them get into a freelancing business because it offers them flexibility, but they know that with that flexibility comes the need to pull an all-nighter once in a while to get things done. As long as your freelancer accepts project deadlines up front, they can stick to those deadlines, and you won’t get stuck paying time-and-a-half or overtime for weekend work or for a freelancer who works more than forty hours in a week!

Abby Henderson is a contributing writer at the business credit card applications website, CreditDonkey.  Remember, if you don’t quite have the cash on hand to start hiring freelancers but you want to boost your online business with the help of freelance writers or web designers, check out business credit cards. Many of them have high limits and great rewards, and you can use them to pay for your freelance services without breaking the bank. With a small business credit card, you can get all the benefits of freelancers when you need them – now! – rather than having to wait until your business has the cash to cover freelance payments.