Looking for some custom CGI or Perl scripts to build into your website? Don't want to tackle the learning curve yourself right now? Hire out the job!

If you have a great programming idea for your website but lack the programming skills, you can hire help online. Sometimes this investment saves your business hundreds of dollars, and other times it results in increasing your profits many fold.

Some well known places to hire someone for programming:

• CGI-Central -- Custom scripts and new scripts.
• Elance.com
• RentACoder
• FreeLance.com

Tips for hiring out a project

Hiring someone to program for you is a skill. You will need to hone that skill to ensure that you get the results you want and don't get cheated for your hard earned money. The advantage of hiring out a job is that your time is probably more valuably spent planning your business, or other long term activities that build on your own strengths. Delegating projects helps you get further faster.

• Have a clear vision and description of the project. Write it down. Have a friend review it. Now you will have a clear idea of exactly the work that you need hired.
• Get references. Oh yeah, you'll get the cheapest bids from people with little to no experience, but you might end up paying a LOT more having to redo the project. If you know all the skills necessary (down to dotting the i's and crossing the t's), you might be able to quiz your prospective programmer enough. However, you will also want references that this person will finish the job within the time frame specified. Good references are important.
• Fire often. Build it into your agreement. Never pay fully up front, and be clear that if something isn't going to your liking, the project will be cancelled. Be fair, you'll need references as an employer hiring out projects!

Some other free CGI sources include:

• A list of tutorials in CGI and links to free scripts at BJ Geiger's CGI/perl page
• Some free site gadgets at sitegadgets.com.
• And yet more CGI gadgets to check out cgiforme.com.