How to Work Effectively with VAs & Revolutionize Your Business Growth
Many entrepreneurs around the world contact us to learn more about virtual assistance and how to take advantage of its benefits. At the end of their calls, most of them hire their first virtual assistant (VA) from our Virtual Staff Finder service. This has resulted to more success stories and very positive feedbacks since we’ve started our VSF service. To get you started, there are some important things you have to put into consideration such as:
Tip #1: Have a business plan
If you want to start a new business online, we recommend that you read Pat Flynn’s SmartPassiveIncome.Com where you will find a plethora of resources on planning and creating your own business on the internet based on your passions, interests and experiences. You can also learn how to find and hire reliable and talented Filipino office virtual assistants,without leaving the business planning to your employee.
What online business that suits your interest, talent, and experience? There are many online entrepreneurs that provide free advice about the best niche market that suits you best. You can ask Chris C. Ducker of ChrisDucker.Com for entrepreneurial assistance. You can also read white paper and entrepreneurial articles from Entrepreneur Magazine and Evancarmichael.com for more online resources.
Tip #2: Know the different types of Virtual Assistant in the Philippines
First of all you need to identify the stage of business development you are in right now. The stage of business development will affect your decision making in selecting the ideal home-based administrative assistant for your business. Below is the list of the different types of offshore virtual assistants.
-
A. Niche marketer virtual assistant
From keyword and competition research, to CMS application, website structure, and essential elements to have, your niche marketer home-based virtual assistant is the right person for the job. She or he is also known as Virtual Marketing Assistant, who is proficient in niche development process typically using WordPress.
If you have large volume of products, the VA might recommend a bigger CMS program like E-commerce platform such as Business Catalyst, OS commerce, ZenCart and Magento. For a business selling e-books, memberships website, best selling Amazon niche products, affiliate product under ClickBank system and Adsense niche earning website then it is better to use WordPress CMS program.
What are the SEO Virtual Assistant job descriptions?
-
- Keyword Research– the home based SEO who is proficient in Niche marketing and development will conduct keywords research. The entrepreneur should provide at least 5 possible options. The research will be based on those keywords identifying relevant sets of keywords for your business niche.What domain-keyword you should purchase and the size of hosting package? BlueHost offers one of the most affordable hosting packages, while Hostgator is the most secured hosting company.If your website will require 1000 web pages, then shared hosting package is best for you. If you’ve a big business that requires internal website accounting system then you need a more dedicated hosting package.
-
- Competition Research – Before your Virtual Niche Developer can suggest the right keywords and domain name, he needs to conduct niche competition in order to guarantee the profitability of your business.
- Usually, you do not compete with overcrowded niche products unless you have enough resources for different marketing areas and number of sales virtual assistants you should hire. Those terms like Page Rank, Alexa rank, sites’ number of years online, number of pages live, number of keywords that rank well, number of page competitions are all essential for niche marketing.
- Niche Site Development – If your site will use basic WordPress template without major customization, your Virtual Assistant SEO can install the WordPress program, setup the plugins, and structure the site. He can configure your opt-in form and Aweber auto responder.Your Virtual Assistant SEO can create basic designs for the sign-up form, configure your sales page, prepare the pages and navigation of the niche site, and set up the WordPress SEO Yoast pluginwhich he can send to Google and Bing webmaster, as well as Analytics for confirmation with the search engine. VSF can provide a VA who is proficient in Niche Development at $350.The job includes keyword research, competition research, WordPress niche development using a template, 10 well optimized contents based on your keywords written by one of the best content writer in the Philippines and WordPress SEO plugin setup. The project will take 2 to 3 weeks.
-
B. Creative Filipino Graphics Artist
If you want a customized niche or personal branding website, you’ll need the service of a freelance graphics artist to design the mock up pages of the site. The cost will depend on the number of pages you want customized.
For a generic page, the cost is less since the home based web designer charges $50 to $75 per page. It is recommended to customize your product or service page since this is the most visited page of the site.
Both the VA and employer should understand the important elements of an effective and sales generating website. An ideal website should have the following:
-
C. Freelance Web Developers in the Philippines
As mentioned earlier, an experienced freelance web programmer is in-charge of re-coding and customizing WordPress design, functionality and plug-ins. The VA will convert the mock design of the website usually in the jpg or image format into HTML or PHP. This type of freelance php web developer will require you to provide a C-panel access, ftp plug-in, and WordPress access.
Depending on the number of pages, the VA usually completes the project in 30 days. Full-time home based Filipino web developers normally require 50% deposit before they start working on the project. How much are the rates of VA web developers in the Philippines? They normally cost between $500 to $800 depending on the complexity of the WordPress theme customization, and plug-in configuration.
For a big e-Commerce website or membership site that has more than 100 pages with complex functionality, you will need a team of programmers consisting of freelance front end web developer and back end programmer.
-
D. Freelance Content Writers in the Philippines
There are many freelance content writers in the Philippines. You might be asking yourself how much does a content writer virtual assistant make per article. The usual charge of a Filipino article writer is between $5 and $8 for each 500-word article.
Topics and resources may also affect the price and delivery schedule. However, if you need a full-time freelance website content writer or SEO content writer, the rate could be between $350 and $500 per month. The fastest business writers can produce 4 to 7 articles a day depending on number of words and topics.
-
E. Freelance Online Marketing Specialist
What are the SEO specialist job descriptions and how can they bring in customers to your site? The Filipino freelance SEO specialist is in charge of the overall marketing of your website. He or she conducts site and competition analysis, keywords research, and plugin installation. The VA will make necessary changes to the title tags and descriptions of your site based on the search volume, and on the value of click rate from Google webmaster. Google SEO specialists are trained to create web 2.0 blogs, submit articles and press release, join and leave links to forum, harvest resources, track ranking and traffics changes, and overall growth of your niche in terms of traffics, sign ups and conversions.
How much is a monthly freelance virtual assistant from the Philippines? Filipino VAs are considered as one of the most affordable SEO specialists in the world because they usually charge $400 to $700 monthly for an online marketing campaign, depending on the number of keywords and the level of difficulty. Search engine marketing campaign offered by top SEO Company in the Philippines are more expensive due to business requirements by the Local Governtment.
Some American and Australian SEO companies outsource their projects to local SEO specialists from the Philippines. SEO Virtual assistant salary range varies according to experience, number of website portfolio, residential location and internet expenses.
Tip #3: Use a Virtual Assistant Contract Agreement
Never start a project without the “letter of agreement for a virtual assistant. This agreement is your guideline on work ethics policy especially on the security of website data and customer resources. If you are looking for contract sample or template for virtual assistant you can download the VA form here.
Tip #4: Evaluate the performance of your VA before hiring her (or him) full-time
It’s always wise to give your VA a test and an evaluation before bringing her in to your organization as a fulltime virtual employee. You can do the evaluation on a project-based performance. Does the VA able to meet the deadline? Are you satisfied with the results such as traffic and ranking stats of your SEO VA? Does he/she provide you the quality of work you’re looking for from a VA?
Tip #5: How to Keep Your Virtual Assistant Happy while Working for You
One common reason why Filipino VAs would lose interest working or just quit on a project is that you ask them to do a different job. For instance, you can’t expect your Philippines SEO specialist to write articles for you. You can hire a professional writers for that. Or ask your web programmer to do search engine optimization, or serve as your online chat support, and so on and so forth. There are many virtual assistants in the Philippines that are versatile and very flexible in their work. But sometimes their employers make them do some works that are no longer in their job description, which is a big no-no. In short, you need to cherry-pick your VA who knows exactly what she’s doing, and do the job right.
- Another big reason for the VA to get discouraged is the delay of salary. Please always pay your VA on time and they will be very happy to work for you and be loyal to your company.
- Also it’s important to observe the local holidays in the Philippines such as Holy Week, Christmas, and other local fiestas and festivals such as Sinulog, Pinagbenga festival, Maskara festival, Ati atihan, and Pintados. Keep in mind that Filipinos are fiesta-loving and very family-oriented people. They will love and cherish their employers that allow them to spend a day or two to observe the holidays with their family.
- Other important tip to keep your VA happy to work for you is by offering the right and fair salary compensation.
- They also love a well-deserved appreciation for their work.
Final Thoughts
The task of the virtual assistant is to provide support to your business. Therefore, the success and failure of your project lies in your hand. There are many skilled and talented virtual assistants from the Philippines who can really help you revolutionize the growth of your business.
Contact Virtual Staff Finder today to hire your virtual assistants! You will enjoy a systematic process of selecting skilled and professional VAs who are best suited for your business needs.
