This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

Last week we left off with the CTO of Resistor being taken into custody by some friends acting like the ‘KGB agents’.

As the week progressed we knew that we had to build relationships not just with the executive team of our development partners, but with their employees as well. These are the people doing the majority of the work, and it’s important to be friendly with them as well, since they are often working long nights make sure that software is out on time.

After talking with the team for a few days, we decided to show them what and American keg party is like. In Belarus they are no strangers to heavy drinking, but they had never heard of a Keg Stand. We invited the entire company to come.

We ordered a Keg of micro brewed beer from the brewery across the street and decided to have the party right there in the office after working hours.

Once the beer arrived, the team began drinking immediately. It wasn’t long before the drinking competitions started. To our surprise, the CTO, Marc was beating everyone! This was unexpected since there were some big guys trying to slam beers with Marc, but in a way this was his redemption after the fake abduction he endured earlier in the week.

The development had one last shot at redemption to see if they could find someone to beat Marc in the drinking contest. They convinced the PM, Vitaliy, to challenge Marc. This is a pretty big deal because Vitaliy has a reputation for never drinking, he hates it. But with the pride of his company on the line, Vitaliy did not back away from challenging Marc. Here is the video of what happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDqtz6NLHc&feature=channel_page

So who won? Leave your comments on this blog post.

So obviously we had quite a rich experience in our trip overseas to meet the development partners, but there was a purpose for all of this.

Relationships are key for productivity and general shared excitement around any development project. If someone does not know who they are working for, its hard to care about the end product.

We achieved our goal, we built working relationships and created memories with people from another country that made the development process for Disciple much easier and increased the communication dramatically.

Tags: game development, mmo development, mmorpg development, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

Last week we left off with getting beaten with branches in a 150 degree sauna in Belarus by our development team.

The next story of our adventures in team building center around the Resistor Productions CTO named Marc. Marc is a good friend with the CEO of Resistor, Tobias, and Tobias knew that Marc had never been overseas. With the anxiety of Marc’s first time overseas, along with the weird feeling of visiting a former soviet state, Tobias went to great lengths to take advantage of Marc’s awkward feelings.

Ahead of the trip Tobias called the owners of Apalon and planned a prank that is so epic in proportion that it rivals anything you have ever seen on the show “Punk’d”.

On the second night in Belarus, Tobias left early to go to dinner with some of the employees of the development firm. Marc was left alone with one of the owners late at night in the offices. It was then that a ‘KGB agent’ showed up, accompanied by an armed guard with an AK-47.

They approached Marc and asked him for his passport. They told him he was wanted for questioning under suspicion of espionage. Marc was completely freaked out. The agents barely spoke English, one had an AK-47 and they kept his passport. They were yelling at him in Russian and trying to get him to sign a confession that was written in Russian, so Marc had no idea what it said!.

When Marc refused to sign the confession, they handcuffed him and put a black bag over his head. They lead him outside and threw him in the backseat of an SUV. They drove around for about an hour and yelled at him to shut up anytime he asked any questions.

Marc was silent and shaking.

After about an hour of driving around, they pulled up to a security gate and showed their badges. The guard let them through. All Marc could think is that he wanted to see his wife, and that he thought he was going to be tortured in some crazy interrogation.

As the car made its way down into a parking lot, there were a group of men yelling outside the car. They parked the car and took the bag off of Marc’s head, and standing in front of him was Tobias, half drunk, with an evil smile on his face.

It’s probably not appropriate to write what Marc said to him in this blog, but there was a very colorful exchange. After Marc released some tension, he shared the laugh with Tobias and the developers.

Marc said he completely believed it was real, and wondered if he would die. It was the most epic prank he ever experienced and will remember it to the end of his days.

Tobias Batton,
CEO Resistor Productions LLC

Tags: game development, mmo development, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

As you know Disciple is a browser based – no client download game that is heavily focused on PvP, level progression and rankings. The actual Production time for this game was about 20 months, from concept to release. This is part one of a series of posts about the different aspects of making a browser game. I thought it would be fun to start with some of the more entertaining aspects of game development.

When we started the design process, the majority of what we were doing was fleshing out the actual game concept on paper. This was everything from gameplay, to story and lore, to art style, and even basic combat formulas.

As our concept became defined, we needed to choose developers to implement our ideas from paper to code. There was a lot of discussion on whether or not we would hire our own developers or hire a professional 3rd party developer. Rather than train our own development team, we thought it would make sense to hire a 3rd party with experience and give them direction, rather than creating our own crew from the ground up.

After a little looking around, we discovered a company called Apalon based in Europe. They were both affordable and qualified to handle our project, and had done work for several large companies in the past such as Fisher Price. We knew from the start that there would be a few issues managing a project in Europe, one of which would be team building and general excitement and moral.

We had to keep the development team excited about the project, and we had to make them feel like we were all part of the same team, even if we were an ocean apart. So during the process of development, the management of Resistor took several trips overseas to manage the development and build relationships.

Apalon is based in a country called “Belarus” which is part of the former USSR and one country east of Poland. These countries have become a hotbed for technology, even Google has set up a huge development office in this area.

On our first trip there we did not really know what to expect, but upon arrival the similarities to the USA are truly uncanny. On nearly every corner of the downtown area you see McDonalds and TGI Fridays, as well as other familiar sites.

As soon as we arrived in the office, we were hard at work, but we also knew we had to find ways to become fast friends with our new partners, so that they could feel as though they were a part of our team, and our friends. I asked them to give us a taste of traditional Belarussian culture.

The first night they took me to a Belarussian Sauna. Its very hot. Like 30 seconds now get me the hell out of here right now hot! I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was quite an experience.

I have been in a Sauna in the USA maybe once or twice in my life. The Russian Sauna is much hotter. After 30 seconds the only thing you are thinking is that you want to get the hell out before you pass out from the heat. You touch your hair and it feels like its about to light on fire. The gentlemen I was there with were pouring beer on the coals and laughing.

Peter, the VP of their company, wanted to leave too, but we were trying to be tough and hang in there. Next thing I know, one of the guys walks in with some tree branches and points for me to lay down. My response was:

“what the hell???”

Matvey, the Operations Manager explains that he will hit the branches against my back, and this is tradition in Belarus. All I could think was that I wanted to get our of there right away. Matvey told me I was a Sauna virgin and they were going to “pop my cherry”. Not wanting to look like a wimp, I reluctantly agreed.

Getting hit with the branches didn’t hurt . . . . When i tried to get up, they pushed me back down. It was similar to a college hazing. After 2 minutes or so, I thought I would die, so I insisted on leaving and they let me go. In all it was a great experience, everyone got their turns with the hot room, I was able to take joy in watching them suffer too.

This was just the first night. In my next post we will cover a staged arrest of our CTO by the “KGB” as well as drinking contests and more! Here is a preview video for what we will cover in the next post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDqtz6NLHc

Tobias Batton,
CEO Resistor Productions LLC

Tags: game development, offshore development company, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

We all know that competition is a crucial business law, and that if there were no competition, there would not have been progress. In the case of most businesses, competition is comprised by a big or small number of other companies involved in the same business but mostly in the same country. In the case of outsourcing, offshore outsourcing companies have to compete not only with other companies in their home country, but also with other countries of the world, which makes the competition tougher, but also stimulates and encourages for better and better results.

According to A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index, 2007 (below is the cut down version of the Kearney’s research. The original version is available at http://www.atkearney.com/res/shared/pdf/GSLI_2007.pdf), Russia is rated in top 50 locations worldwide that provide the best remote functions, including IT services and support, contact centers and back-office support.

Table 1

Note: The weight distribution for the three categories is 40:30:30. Financial attractiveness is rated on a scale of 0 to 4, and the categories for people and skills availability, and business environment are on a scale of 0 to 3.

Source: A.T. Kearney

If we look into the summary of Gartner Outsourcing Summit in Dallas in March, for example, we will see that Russia is mentioned in the trinity of IT outsourcing global leaders. It is not a surprise. The total value of Russian IT market grew 25 times over the last 7 years, and it means that outsourcing in Eastern Europe is speeding up the pace. Below you will see the table demonstrating the marks for quality of workforce in a number of countries involved in outsourcing:

Table 2

Source: PRTM (Pittiglio Rabin Todd McGrath), Ernst & Young

It is evident that India’s progress has become an example of how people can gain profits offering developed countries the services that they strongly need but at lower rates. As a result, the 90-s have brought the world a number of offshore outsourcing companies in Eastern Europe, which have been making a tough competition to Asian countries for about 10 years already. However, it is quite challenging to change the people’s established opinion of India as the best country to outsource jobs. On the other hand, if we think where this common belief takes its roots, we will understand that only from the fact that India is the first on the outsourcing market.

So, now, why is it a common belief among Americans that India is the best place for outsourcing? Is it a stereotype? A mistaken view? Or maybe there is something at the bottom. Let’s speculate. Below is a table with a comparison analysis of Belarus and India as two potential countries that an American company would think of contracting for outsourcing.

Table 3

According to the table, Belarusian outsourcing promises to be a smoother process than Indian outsourcing with its communication gaps and quality breaches. However, since the Indians were the first to offer outsourcing services to American and European companies India transformed into a ‘brand’ or synonym to outsourcing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this is number 1 choice of an outsourcing destination nowadays – the Indian outsourcing market is overheated already.

What conclusions can we make from the mentioned above?

First of all, Belarus has a more favorable geographical location than India. Located almost in the heart of Europe, Belarus borders on countries-members of EU, which makes it incorporation into the European culture quicker. Besides, Minsk, the capital, is within a two and a half hour flight from Frankfurt, which means that it will be possible to build business relationships not only on a virtual level, but also personally. It is critical that customers visit the office or delivery center of their outsourcing partners, establishing thus personal contact with management, get acquainted with the company’s workflow, facilities, etc.

Secondly, the Belarusian time-zone allows Belarusian and American working hours overlap, while Indian and American working hours do not overlap at all. Some of the businesses even offer almost full business-hours time overlap with the USA. There is not that much difference in the price, but there is some clear difference in the quality of the services provided. Belarus is known for performing all outsourced tasks promptly and effectively with the business relationships based on trust, teamwork, and effective use technology.

Third, Belarus is offering the same set of services as India. BPO is a niche, which still requires some intellectual investment, but this is only a matter of time. Lack of experience in BPO is fully compensated by a high level of expertise in software development.

Fourth, the Belarusian education is one of the strongest growth supporting elements. In fact, when it comes to experience with complex software development tasks, Belarusian developers tend to outrank all others.

Add to this the absence of vivid cultural differences and a good command of the English language, and you will see why Belarus is so much better than India. Plus ambitious plans of the Belarusian government for the future of the Belarusian IT. In 2004, the government announced an initiative
to create a high tech park that would unite the leading IT outsourcing companies under one roof and promote their services. Apart from that, the government has announced an ambitious goal to boost the country’s IT services export to 4 percent of that of India by 2008! All that makes us believe that Belarus is a true outsourcing hotspot in Eastern Europe.

Tags: outsource India, outsource-to-Belarus, outsourcing, outsourcing jobs to Belarus, outsourcing offshoring
Posted in outsourcing | 8 Comments »

Being an offshore outsourcing company, MoveYourWeb doesn’t regularly have face-to-face meetings with the customers. The distance prevents daily personal communication between our managers and customers. However, if you are contracting an outsourcing offshoring company and have a long-term relationship, it might be nice to visit the country that they are from, to see the office they are working in, get to know the employees who are performing work for you. This helps you establish solid long-lasting relationships with your offshore partner and contributes to thorough and fruitful cooperation.

MoveYourWeb Offshoring Web Development Company is located in Belarus (Eastern Europe) with its headquarters in Minsk, the capital, and the branch office in Homel. Located conveniently in Eastern Europe, Belarus is easy to reach from any spot of the world. Minsk has a newly renovated National Airport Minsk just 50 km (30 miles) from the city center, ultra-modern Central Train Terminal with regular trains between Minsk and practically every major capital in Europe; and a developed net of highways.

Belarus is blessed with gorgeous landscape defined by splendid foliage – and coniferous forests, numerous crystal-clear lakes, spectacular rivers and immense green fields. Our climate is quite comfortable for all foreigners who come here. With warm and moist summers and mild, yet sometimes snowy, winters, Belarus sees about 175 sunny days a year. Belarus is known for its diverse culture, including visual arts, ceramics and music, unsurpassed Belarusian cuisine, and kind attitude to the foreigners.

MoveYourWeb will help our partners who wish to visit Belarus arrange a business trip. We’ll handle the official invitation for our partners to obtain a business visa to Belarus. The easiest and most popular way to get Belarussian visa is upon arrival (the belarussian officials will stamp it right in the Airport). The fee for visa upon arrival is $180 for US citizens. As soon as you arrive, we’ll pick you up at the airport and assist you in terms of accommodation and other things you might need. We’ll take special care of your visit so that you feel maximum of comfort on your business trip.

You will definitely like Minsk, which, yet big and busy, is kept surprisingly clean and pleasant to live and to stay, while numerous parks and green areas create an oasis of peace among the city’s hustle and bustle. Minsk offers a variety of accommodation options for your convenient stay, but, to be honest, our hotels are not our strong side – they provide an average level of comfort at a price of $60-160 per night for a single room, and $100-200 per night for a double. New grand 5-star hotels are being under construction at the moment, and very soon Minsk will offer its guests world-class accommodations in hotels. By now, if you are seeking luxury and maximum of comfort, we can arrange a super luxury apartment with all the modern amenities you can imagine – located in the city center, penthouse at a price of $250 per night.

When it comes to eat, Minsk offers a number of choices to enjoy your meal varying from grand and expensive restaurants to small cafes and take-aways. You will be able to indulge in delicious Belarusian, Italian, French, American, Japanese, and Mediterranean cuisine at modern and immaculately decorated restaurants with excellent service: James, Saloon, Westfalia, Casa Agustin Lopez, 7 Tonn, and hundreds of others welcome you to try fantastic culinary masterpieces created by their talented cooks.

Now, as you arrived, unpacked your things, refreshed a bit, and had a lunch or dinner – it is high time for a business meeting. The typical itinerary for the day is as follows:

1-00 pm assistant of the CEO picks the customers and drives to the office

1-30 pm – introductions

2-00 pm – project meetings

3-00 pm – break

3-15 pm – project meetings

4-30 pm – lunch

5-30 pm – project meetings

6-00 pm – assistant drives the customer to the hotel/restaurant/any

place of interest

11-30 pm – chill out in a night club.

We also recommend not to plan any project meetings for the first and the last day of your stay so you can recover after the flight and have time to pack/unpack the suits.

Having a spare weekend is a nice opportunity to see the stunning places of interest such as Opera and Ballet Theatre, Victory Obelisk, Cathedral (catholic) of Simeon and Alyona, Minsk Botanical Garden, Trinity Suburb (where our office is located by the wayJ) in Minsk itself; or visit some nice Belarusian historic places in the Minsk District, including Mir Castle, Palace-and park ensemble in Nesvizh, Historic Museum in Dududki, Khatyn Memorial, Stalin Line; unique parks and preserves, like Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and Berezinski Preserve.

It seems like your business trip is going to be very saturated, and it is not only business but also discovery! Our company will give you assistance in all your matters while you are in Belarus. But before, please, read some of our practical tips

Practical Tips:

• Language

People in Belarus speak Russian. Even though most of people study English at school, language problems may arise sometimes (but not with MoveYourWeb employees), so don’t be surprised in case you can not communicate with regular people on the streets.

• Cash & ATMs

There are many ATM machines in all major cities. However, having some money in cash is necessary, because credit cards are not widely accepted. Money is Belarusian ruble and its current rate is here. You may get Belarusian money from currency exchanges, which can be found in abundance in all Belarusian towns. Euros and dollars are okay in many places. You will be able to get Belarusian rubles in any ATM located at in the nearest shop, there are some specific ATM’s allowing dollar/euro withdrawals.

• Hygiene & Health

Tap drinking water is typically safe – you don’t have to boil it or anything. Epidemiological situation is reasonable – close as in US or Western Europe. No malaria here

• Communications

There are Internet cafes in Minsk and other cities, which provide cheap, but usually slow Internet access. Also many postal offices offer have Internet services. Public phones use cards only, which can be bought from newsagents. You may always go to the Postal office in Minsk, which provides internet access 24-hours every day.

• Tips

Generally you should give tips only in the restraints – which is not obligatory as well. If you pay by credit card you will not be able to specify a tip amount. So just leave some cash (5% of the order) while leaving.

Belarus is located in Europe and there is no big cultural difference from other developed countries so generally all other popular rules apply here. All customers who visited our company or Belarus in general are welcome to comment and share their experience in regards their stay.

Tags: belarusian offshoring company, explore Belarus, general thoughts, Minsk, offshore Belarus
Posted in general thoughts | 1 Comment »

Offshore Dedicated Team (ODT) or Staff-based ODC is a relatively new term to name a group of specialists, united into one team to suit the needs of a customer, who is in need of IT developing or designing certain software products or fulfilling back and front office tasks for mainly financial services industry. The offshore dedicated team is usually hired for performing a certain task once or it may be hired on a permanent basis for fulfilling every day routine activities, which are not the essence of the business, but which are nevertheless important. Such teams normally work for a fixed monthly fee.

The members of the offshore dedicated team work under the supervision and control of the customer, and can often be available during the business hours, needed for the customer. That is, the team may work the same hours as the business or they can work at the time, when the customer’s business is not working, thus creating a 24-hour working environment for a firm. Offshore dedicated teams often supervise the business processes on behalf of the customer, which guarantees superior productivity.

Offshore dedicated team providers usually offer their customers software development centers with the newest technologies, often with various cost-reduction plans during all the period of the project. When hiring an offshore dedicated team, the client often gets much more than just professional IT specialists. The problem of keeping a professional IT team together becomes the problem of the offshore center, which again helps save costs. The offshore center also takes care of taxes, which gives further cost savings options. These advantages allow the clients to invest their resources into other important activities, not spending extra time and money on managing the everyday and routine tasks.

Nowadays, offshore centers can offer a great number of offshore dedicated teams, which specialize in several knowledge fields. IT development, web technologies, analytics, front and back office operations, intellectual property services, clinical research, legal research, business research, publishing services, real estate services, case study services, call centers, human recourses, customer care are only some of them.

An offshore dedicated team center is to some extent an extension of the customer’s business office. The center aims at presenting the best skilled work force, facilities, and benefits to their clients, making the necessary operations to protect all the rights of the customers. The offshore dedicated team also offers a cost effective plan for those intending to cooperate on a permanent basis. In this case the team is constantly trained to for the specific needs of a customer, which ensures perfect quality of the services rendered. Finding and selecting the right offshore dedicated team may be a time-taking procedure; however the benefits received by the customer are usually worthwhile.

Tags: offshore, offshore dedicated center, offshore dedicated team
Posted in outsourcing | No Comments »

The countries, which have established the greatest number of knowledge process outsourcing firms, are India, Philippines and China. These countries possess extensive knowledge banks and enough professionals in different fields for fulfilling the knowledge process needs of businesses in the USA. The work of knowledge process outsourcing firms requires profound analytical and highly specialized skills.

It is estimated, that knowledge process outsourcing is rather prospective and is going to grow in the next few years. Most probably, the area of information technology services, which is currently provided by knowledge process outsourcing firms will expand and include such services as intellectual property services, clinical research, legal research, business research, analytics and publishing.

Right now, knowledge process outsourcing firms specialize in the fields of content writing and rewriting, research and development, patent research, pharmaceutical technology, equity research, market research, data research, database management, finance modeling, design and development in various industries, animation, medical reports and services, distance education. Engineers, doctors, attorneys and many other professionals are becoming more and more popular.

Experts of the market research industry have already evaluated all the benefits produced by knowledge process outsourcing firms and have started to outsource the fields in which technology and IT solutions seriously improve the research process. The researches are highly profitable as they are really cost effective. Even small companies can make use of them, not having to increase their budget spending. Therefore, knowledge process outsourcing is a really proven method of quickly boosting the productivity and cost savings in the field of market research.

The article has been taken from Knowledge Process Outsourcing, Ezinearticles authoritative resource

Tags: knowledge process outsourcing, outsourcing
Posted in outsourcing | 3 Comments »

Imagine that your company wants to start a business blog – a blog, which will be a part of the company’s image, and a benefit to your company’s search engine optimization and internet marketing campaign. The first important question that you should answer before launching a blog is: “Who will actually write the contents?” A blog is useless without regularly updated posts… A blog has to be dynamic, brisk and informative; it has to be posted with catching, well-structured, and informative articles. Along with writing the contents, blogging also includes answering comments and building the community, not mentioning the technical aspects of blogging. So before launching a blog, think if you really have a person in your office to do all the things mentioned. Does this person write well? Can he or she find new ideas for regular posts? Can he or she take care of the blog’s templates and plug-ins?…

Instead of appointing a person from the office who has never been involved in blogging professionally, it might be wise to hire a professional blogger.

But who is a professional blogger?

A professional blogger is a person who gets paid for writing consistent posts for your blog. This is a person who has already written hundreds of posts before; a person with vivid imagination and inexhaustible ideas; a person with a perfect command of the language and sense of the language; a person able to play with words, build sentences that flow nice and make lots of sense.

Contracting a professional blogger is truly a win-win situation for everyone involved. If you are still not sure that your company’s estimate should include blogging services, remind yourself of the additional financial revenues that your company will gain through a business blog over time.

Besides, if you are far-sighted enough and buy professional blogging services from an offshore outsourcing company, i.e. MoveYourWeb Offshore Web Development Company, you will benefit twice. You can use great imbalance in global economy to your advantage if you send your outsourced work abroad. It makes sense as it will allow you hire a professional blogger for a more affordable price than in your own country. You see the point? The fees charges by the blogging professional will turn out to be much less than the added revenue or the cost of hiring an additional staff member for blogging.

Having a strong company background, which has been formed for many years, MoveYourWeb has a cohesive team of professional copywriters and bloggers to make your business prosper. Our extensive experience in the sphere of Copywriting, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing helps us create high-quality informative content for various types of businesses from mortgage and real estate to sports and tourism. Our excellent knowledge of the language and language skills along with innovative attitude to everything we do helps us create well-structured sensible and interesting texts as well as be on top of the things happening on the net. Having played with blogs a lot, our professional bloggers will also relieve you from the technical aspects of blogging, or train your staff to maintain the blog.

In a nutshell, outsourcing professional blogging services from a reputable offshore company is certainly a wise solution from all points of view. However, before hiring a professional blogger, make sure you specify some things about the services they offer.

Tags: blogging, blogging services, copywriting, internet marketing, offshore blogging services, offshore company, professional blogger, web copywriting
Posted in copywriting, internet marketing, outsourcing | 1 Comment »

A blogger and copywriter myself, I tried to put myself in my employer’s shoes and create this list of recommendations: What would I be concerned about if I were a blog owner? What posts do I want to see on my blog? How often? What will be the style of my posts?… Below is the list of questions that you should specify before contracting a professional blogger.

1) Have the blogger ever written posts on my topic or on the topic similar to mine?

This is important because the web copywriter should understand the business, and should be able to use the language of your industry. If your industry is that rare, that a blogger with such knowledge can hardly be found, ask your future blogger to carry out a thorough research of the business before writing any posts.

2) Will the posts be optimized for my prime keywords?

Search engine optimization is important for your blog, because being an Internet marketing tool, your blog will help you promote the website of your business. Therefore, ask your blogger to optimize your posts and provide them with up to 7 prime key words or phrases you would like to be searched by.

3) What is the minimum word count per post?

The information you get from different bloggers may vary. Most bloggers write posts no shorter than 250 words. Overall, the optimal text length, which will ensure that your text is informative, well structured, and unobtrusive, is 350-500 words.

4) What type of posts will these be?

Normally, you can distinguish between personal posts, adjunct posts and ghost posts. Personal posts are posts that you write yourself. Adjunct posts are posts that are authored by someone else, and the name of the author will appear under the post. However, your name will be attached to the post. Having such posts on your blog will show the reader that you are getting somebody else’s help in keeping the content fresh. And, finally, the last type of posts is ghost posts. When dealing with ghost posts, you pay somebody to write for you but still have your name under the post. This is the most preferable type of posts from the point of view of a blog owner. You don’t have to write anything, or ask anybody authoritative to place a post on your blog – you just pay the money and get the high-quality post which is to the point and makes sense, and has your name under it showing you as an expert in your field. We are not deepening into moral issues here, it is not our aim now to discuss what is honest and what is not. We are here to make our blog a powerful marketing tool and we are looking at this issue from the point of view of our business. In the business world such type of writing is quite acceptable.

5) Can I review the posts before you post them? And, if I dislike something, will you revise?

This is a very important question to specify with your offshore copywriting company. To make your cooperation solid and effective, you need to discuss such issues in advance. As a rule, companies offering copywriting and blogging services welcome you to make comments and give ideas. You won’t have time to read the posts all the time of course. However, please, draw special attention to the first five posts written for you. You need to adjust the style, to choose the right “voice” of the post, to let the blogger feel what you need. Once you are comfortable with the quality of the posts, you don’t have to review their writing as closely or as frequently.

Besides, you can also provide the blogger with specific links, interesting posts or articles that you may come across on the net and might want your blogger to use for your blog.

6) How often should new posts appear on my blog?

My experience shows that the ideal number of posts per week is five. You have 5 working days in a week – and each day you must say something new. Though you may stop on 3 posts per week. It will be quite okay, too. Keep in mind that you don’t need more than 5 posts per week.

7) Will the professional blogger also take care of comments coming to my blog and handle technical things when necessary?

Very important question. As a rule, blogging companies include this in their blogging services. However, it is always better to clarify.

Above I tried to summarize the main recommendations to a blog owner who has never dealt with bloggers and blogs and who might need some education in this new and exciting sphere. As a blogger myself I know what questions I can expect from the clients and can help the people who are unaware of blogging but who want to get involved in it.

Tags: blog, blogging, blogging services, copywriting, internet marketing, offshore blogging services, offshore copywriting services, web copywriting
Posted in copywriting, internet marketing, outsourcing | No Comments »

I doubt that there is any professional copywriter who has never heard yet about such a service as Copyscape.com The matter is here about plagiarizm and defending your rights online. In two words this service helps to identify the duplicate content in the Internet – pages, that already have the “same content”.

How does it work?
You insert the definite web-address (it can be the root URL or a concrete page) and push the “Go!” button. The system start global scanning and can provide you with the number of urls that have the same content or that have quoted you. Great, isn’t it?!

In reality everything is much more commonplace as you might think: the system just uses the command that is called “exact match” when you type something in Google, like, for example, “web development company in Europe” – you will get results exactly for this very phrase. No wonder, this is invaluable for copywriters.

By and large, what we’ve got?
The tool that queries Google (and Google only!) to find the pages that have the same or practically the same content. Is it perfect? Absolutely not! I will write down a list of disadvantages of Copyscape (sorry, if I criticize it sharp – I would like to see the more powerful tool in the nearest future):

1) Limited free queries per IP address (20 at the moment);

2) Google indexed pages scanning only (this means that Yahoo! Live.com and other search engines are ignored and this is really in vain as it has been long ago noticed that other Search Engines index pages more often and faster);

3) The system is often mistaken (for duplicate content it can take absolutely different information though some connectors, parenthesis or other cohesive elements that can be used absolutely everywhere on different web-sites);

4) It scans only those pages that are in the main index in Google (the pages that are in Supplemental Index – a very common practice nowadays – are excluded from scanning. Why? No idea!).

Once again, I’m not paying tribute to this Tool just for the disadvantages mentioned above. They are enough to ruin (100% the right word) a copywriter’s job! Even the following picture won’t save you 100% from stealing your content.

P.S. Ready for a big discussion! Please, leave comments.

Tags: copyscape, copywriter, copywriting, google, plagiarizm, SEO
Posted in SEO, copywriting | 4 Comments »