Outsourcing success - Page 1 for $40

The main point of this thread is to encourage people who are thinking about outsourcing, but are worried about the horror stories they've read.
I've seen quite a few threads around outsourcing, and it seems that opinions are pretty divided on whether it works or not.

Last week I posted a job on oDesk (definitely my favourite site out of all of them) for an SEO expert. There are definitely a lot of terrible freelancers on there, but that just means you need to be careful about who you hire.

Just 1 week after hiring a contractor, we've gone from nowhere on Google to #6/7 for 2 of our major keywords (medium competition), with a couple of others around page 3, and we have not done any other SEO on the website.

He does everything manually (no automated software involved), sends me a report every few days and seems to be very honest, trustworthy and reliable.

Overall, I'm happy with the result - I think I've found someone who we will be working with for a long time.

I've been working with oDesk (as freelancer and buyer) for 5-6 years, and I still think it's a great place to find contractors or projects - obviously you need to be careful about not picking a scammer. Here are some rules that I follow when hiring:

#1 - Never give out Skype/IM until you're seriously considering hiring them. A lot of them will push for your Skype/email address after 1 message so they can then try to sell you their services instead of focusing on the job. If they can't answer your questions via oDesk, they probably can't answer them via Skype.
An example of this: I was hiring a web developer, per hour to work on finishing up a couple of projects. As soon as he had my Skype details, he was redirecting me to his sales page and pushing me to purchase a "Cheap website".

#2 - Watch for spammers - There are definitely people with multiple accounts (and in my opinion, dishonesty is a huge black mark on your application), so make sure you read through every single job application properly. You should be able to identify these in most cases - usually you'll get applications that are signed off with a different name, or you'll see multiple people using a similar script.

#3 - Make sure you provide all of the job details - There's nothing worse than having a freelancer who can't do the job you've asked of them. Most of the time, they won't admit it - they'll simply be slow to respond, and never seem to get anything done. By the time you realise, you're two weeks past deadline and nothing to show for it.

#5 - Start up a conversation in your job posting - Ask them something that will require them to think about your project.
Example: When applying: please provide a estimated timeframe for each of the modules described above, and summarize what needs to be done to complete them.

#6 - Always check their feedback history for negative feedback.
If they have negative feedback, ask them about it. They'll likely make up an excuse, but at least you'll be able to decide whether to cross them off or not.

Hopefully those tips will help some people. And if you hire a freelancer who doesn't do their job, or you're not 100% happy with, end the contract. At the end of the day, just because they're freelancers doesn't mean they can get away with being unprofessional.