You Love to Write and You’ve Got a Blog, Now What?
It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or have a successful blog, everyone needs help from time to time.
Maybe you’re trying to scale your business, or maybe you’re planning on taking some time off and want to get a backlog of posts ready.
Maybe you have other projects you’d like to tackle, or maybe you’d just like a little more free time. No matter the reason, a virtual assistant can help.
What Is a Virtual Assistant?
I found this definition of Virtual Assistant on Wikipedia (I condensed it a bit):
A Virtual Assistant (typically abbreviated to VA) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office.
I like to think my personal definition may be more appropriate: 😉
A Virtual Assistant is a valuable weapon in your arsenal to help you find more hours in the day, become more organized, and be more productive. An awesome VA will take over your day-to-day tasks and free up your time to do what you want-build your business.
Worry less, keep your sanity, and enjoy your free time, all while building the business you want.
I’m a Blogger, Why Do I Need a Virtual Assistant?
Blogging is hard work with a lot of steps that need to be completed before the writing even starts, right?
And it doesn’t stop there! You need to find images, format and publish to your CMS, and then market your content so that people will find it and love it!
There are so many ways working with a virtual assistant can make your life easier and your business more successful. Save time and money by outsourcing completely online.
8 Things a Virtual Assistant Can Do For You
1. Idea Generation and Content Calendar
Ever worry about what you’re going to write about next? Work with a VA that can develop a content calendar for you. You should be able to communicate where you see your blog progressing and maybe have some idea of topics you’re interested in exploring.
A VA can use this information to create a list of proposed blog post topics for you to work with in the future, and/or create a calendar for you so that you know exactly what you’re writing about and when.
2. Keyword Research
Keyword research can be tedious but is a necessity for getting your content found online. Hiring a VA with excellent research skills can move this task from your plate to theirs.
Now you can use that time for something fun!
3. Research and Outline
So now you’ve got your content calendar and keywords, the next thing to tackle is the actual post research and outline.
Guess what?! A qualified VA can take this task off your hands too.
They can research your topic and provide links to websites with pertinent information.
Depending on your arrangement, they may create an outline with a topic overview, post title suggestions, recommended headers, and bullet points for you to follow while working your writing magic.
4. Proofread and Edit
Everyone knows it can be difficult to proofread your own writing. Many Virtual Assistants have specialized training in proofreading and editing. Let someone else give your work the final review.
You get one chance to make a first impression, make yours count with error-proof blog posts and content.
5. Format and Post to CMS
Even if you’re tech-savvy or have a lot of experience with content management systems, like WordPress, adding and formatting the content on your blog can take hours. Especially if you write longer posts with lots of headers, images, etc.
And, if you’re not tech-savvy, this part of blogging can be miserable! Why not add it to your Virtual Assistant’s duties?
A VA with website experience can put this time back in your day while relieving the stress of fighting with your website.
6. Social Media
Your awesome, shiny new post is up! Now you need to get it out there. And… yep, you guessed it! Your VA-they’ve got this 😊.
Depending on their specialty (and your agreement), they may take over part or all of your social media strategy.
However you decide to proceed, outsourcing online will give you more free time!
7. Guest Posting
Collaboration is a great way to build your business, but it takes time and research.
If you’re looking to be a guest on other blogs, or invite other writers to contribute to yours, a VA can handle the research and outreach for you.
There’s a good chance your VA will have connections that you might not, so they may be able to help build your network personally too.
And, they may have awesome writing skills and be willing to be a guest or ghostwriter for your blog. How easy is that!
8. Stay Organized
It can be difficult to keep track of your blog topics, your social media posts, your outreach efforts, mailing list, etc.
As your VA is helping make your life easier via the above-mentioned ways, ask them to help keep you organized by developing organization strategies and systems as well.
Work together to determine what works best for you. Whether it be a project management program like Asana or Trello, or even just Google Sheets and Docs, a Virtual Assistant can keep your business information up-to-date for you.
Is that it?
NO! The many ways a Virtual Assistant can help you grow your business depends on their skill-set and your needs.
Many times, a blogger-VA relationship will change and develop based on both business owners’ growth.
Once you find a qualified VA that you “click” with, the sky’s the limit!
Need some help organizing your blogging business? Check out these 7 free apps I can’t live without.
Getting stuck with writer’s block? Here are 18 ways to beat it.
Just getting your business started? Follow these 6 steps to start a home-based business the right way.
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