Id suggest you avoid hiring someone unless you REALLY know what you are doing.
You can spend an age and a fortune on hiring lazy twats, when 50 dollars and a few hours would get you a decent tool for life the job done for you for you over and over again without costing a penny more.
I suppose it depends a little on whether you start your SEO career "cash rich" or "time rich" Many are now time rich (unemployed).
In a situation like that, seriously farming out a ton of work you could do yourself is damn risky. The results are flakey at best. People are people. Most are lazy bastards - most will take you for a few bucks if they can.
Proving the links were posted is hard work i've seen "finshed job reports" that are little more than a list of random websites without a link of mine on any of them.
Then you get all the "it takes time to show"
Yes I know - 4 months enough? Still no links on any site.
Articles that get rejected, or have crappy keyword placememt and quantity, or read like they were written by an ape.
Sure there are good workers, but they cost, you need to build relationships with them.
Learn everything the hard way first! That way, when you DO decide to take people on you can be;
- Specific about what you want
- Canny about what you spend, and
- Objective about the results
It's that old famine relief analogy
Buy a man a fish a feed him for a day (i.e get someone to do the work for you)
Buy that man a rod and feed him and his family for life (get the tools, learn them, do it yourself)
Only when you are already raking it in would I even consider seriously hiring people.
Many - in fact probably MOST successful people on this forum failed miserably for a year or so before they hit home.
Most IM's don't get to that year mark. Dedication and knowledge is what you need. So do "the knowledge" first.
Then it won't matter whether you use tools as resources or manpower, you'll probably be ok.
Scritty