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When your blog starts to make money, you might find yourself much busier than you expected. Between blogging, social media, dealing with PR reps, and finding the bottom of your email pile, it can feel like you’re drowning! Fortunately, a Virtual Assistant can help with all of these tasks.
Ways A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Blog
Hiring a Virtual Assistant can feel like a big step – and it is – but it’s worth it! If you’re reading this article, you’re most likely ready to take that leap, so let’s talk about what a Virtual Assistant can help you with.
Screen and answer emails.
If you aren’t comfortable with someone else replying to emails for you, at least have your VA screen them. This could save you hours each week.
Find opportunities for you to guest blog.
Guest blogging means linkbacks and more exposure for your blog. Time spent researching these opportunities is something well suited to a virtual assistant, freeing you to do other things.
Comment on other blogs.
Commenting means linkbacks (if the bloggers have CommentLuv), and overall good karma.
Generate blog post ideas.
Give your VA a list of topics you cover, or keywords you’d like to use in your next posts. Your VA can then do the keyword research, and give you a list of ideas for upcoming blog posts. It’s best to have your VA working way ahead. So if you’re reading Easter posts, your VA can be working on back to school ideas.
Maintain an editorial calendar.
On top of helping you generate blog post ideas, your VA can create and maintain your editorial calendar. This has been one of the most helpful tasks I’ve had a Virtual Assistant do. It takes me hours and hours to do this type of thing, but it only takes her a few minutes a few times a week.
Manage comments and social media.
You should have a plugin that helps combat spam, but there’s no plug-in for responding to comments. Having a VA spend 30 minutes a week approving and replying to comments on your blog and social media will free up a lot of your time. Time is money!
Optimize your blog posts.
Install an SEO plugin, and have your VA go through your old posts to optimize them. This will increase your traffic immediately!
Promote your blog posts, new and old.
Have your VA promote each new blog post you publish, and also have them go through each week to promote old posts. This will help to increase your traffic.
As you can see, there are a lot of places where you could benefit from having the help of a virtual assistant. You can also have a virtual assistant help you with the promotion of each post you publish.
Example of what you might have a VA do each time you publish a post:
- Write an initial tweet, then schedule tweets for the next day and next week, including hashtags (I have a spreadsheet to track which ones I use for which topics).
- Announce the post on Facebook – in groups and on fan page(s). Your VA can join groups on your behalf and network with other bloggers, so when a relevant thread pops up, she can add your link without being spammy.
- Send post out via email newsletter. I personally like to have my VA write out a “frame” of the email, and then I will add my personal touches to it and send it out. If your VA has worked with you for a long time, they might be able to do the entire thing.
- Find a handful of related blog posts and comment on them. This shows your friends and readers that your content is relevant.
- Finish strong! Pin it, stumble it, promote it via all social media outlets – one per day – until each network has been covered. If you have your VA in LinkedIn groups, make sure he/she adds links to relevant groups/threads there, too. It’s important to spread promotion out. You don’t want to come off as spammy or needy.
Hopefully this has given you some ideas of ways to utilize virtual assistants to free up your time for more writing, connecting, and even more time away from the computer.
Keep Reading
Looking for more information on time management in the world of blogging? Here are a few posts you’ll find helpful:
- Balancing Work And Family: 5 Tips For Moms Who Blog
- How To Double Your Productivity
- Write A Blog Post In 15 Minutes Or Less
- How To Schedule Posts With Hootsuite
- How To Diversify Your Blogging Income - Jul 15, 2016
- How To Get Paid To Manage Other People’s Social Media - Mar 25, 2016
- 4 Ways To Make Money From Home - Jan 7, 2015
- Ways a Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Blog - Oct 1, 2014
- 11 Ways to Get Creative and Make Money with Your Sponsored Posts - Nov 19, 2013
- How to Make a Media Kit Using PicMonkey + Media Kit Examples - Sep 3, 2013
Thank you for the ideas! A VA would be so helpful to have, yet these are all things that I love to do, too. May have just found my next career move…
Great tips, thanks for sharing!
Oh, I’d love to have a VA. One day…!
Great blog post and I like your VA tips! Happy SITS Day!
Great tips.
I’ve had girls actually approach me about doing an internship for college credit with my blog and I’ve always said no because it’s just me in my apartment! But I never considered that I could have someone do a virtual assistant sort of thing! This post gave me a lot to think about!
xo
Kara
Interesting to think about. Thanks for the advice!
This is great advice. I’ve been drowning and need the help.
Wow I never realized how badly I needed a virtual assistant until I read this blog post! Just reading through all of those reminded me of how much work I do on a nightly basis, that could easily be done by someone else. Especially when I really want to focus on expanding and growing my blog, and less on the day-to-day tasks. Thanks for the post!
Thank you! I travel 70% for my career, and sometimes think I’d like to hire one for a month to help me get stuff going, then go from there!
I need a good Virtual Assistant to help with a few of these listed things for a few hours a week. Any suggestions on where to find a great VA for a great rate?
This is the group I use: https://www.facebook.com/groups/258810377591742/
Great article – thanks! Can’t afford a VA at the moment however I like the SEO optimization idea… I have a question, I never thought of going back to the posts (pre-understanding how to use a plug-in) and updating them. If I wrote them say a year ago and I update that does not re-publish but it will trigger search engines???? Thanks!
If you keep the (old) date the same, it won’t republish to the top of your blog, no. But it will help with SEO juice if you do it right – just don’t change the permalinks.
Wow!! Sounds so nice. Way too much of my time is spent doing some of those other things. How much does a virtual assistant cost (range)?
This definitely depends on which tasks you hire them for, and obviously how much they charge. For example, I have a VA that adds my links to linky parties each week and I pay her $10. I have another that adds my links to roundup requests for $8 a week. Yet another does my email for $25 a month (she just sorts, doesn’t screen/read/etc).
I’m also a VA and I wrote posts for other bloggers, do roundups, link swap outs (for giveaway follow pages), etc and I charge by the individual job. So it really depends on who you hire. I have several recommendations I can give you if you want to email me!
Love this! I’ve been honestly thinking about hiring a VA to do some of these tasks! You have great ideas for utilizing a VA SlapDashMom!! Thanks!
Yes, the trick was how do you find a Blog Assistant? That is why I created Blog Assistants Network. If you look through our directory you will find their years of experience and skills & experience! We have some talented people ready to help you.
You had me at screen and answer emails.
How does one find a good virtual assistant? This part sounds time consuming. Any tips?
Hi Aruna, you can check out http://www.blogassistants.com.
Thanks Teresa. Ill check it out.
Wow great tip, Teresa! I’m already thinking of hiring someone from there, thanks so much!
This is the group I have used for quite some time: https://www.facebook.com/groups/258810377591742/
Many are other bloggers so they charge less and know more about our unique situations than a general assistant might.
And another group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/231921603629548/