If you have a website one of the most important things you should be doing to create a better presence for the site inside of the major search engines like Google and Bing is by creating unique and engaging content about your topic through blog posts. Using a blog to generate traffic to your website and develop your credibility as an expert in your industry can assist your online presence to differentiate yourself from others. However it is not always economical to be doing all of the writing yourself, especially if you must focus on the day to day activities of running your business. Reaching out to an individual or small team on a service like oDesk can be very rewarding and produce long term results that benefit your companies growth. Article writing is a core component to any online marketing strategy whether you are posting just on your own blog or also participating on facebook, twiiter, and several other sites, having original content is an asset to your businesses social media presence with its website.
What you need to do to start blogging with an outsourced team member online.
1. Post a job position - include the industry you are in and some general ideas about the content you will want produced.
2. Review applicants to project, request portfolio examples, if you are looking for someone for a long term project or several articles on a single topic, it is not unreasonable to ask for an opening paragraph for an article on a topic to compare with others.
3. Upon hiring a new article writer it is usually best to provide them with several important pieces of information - number of words per articles you want 300 - 500 usually is a good number to focus on. - how many articles you need written. - your company website and generally a sample blog article or two you have written or published on your site that you would like to have be an example for future articles.
Keep your website current with new blog posts and become an authority in your industry online to help drive customers to your website.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Is a Virtual Assistant the right addition to your start up?
Have you ever thought it would be nice to have a part time helper to go through email, call back random phone calls, coordinate schedules for meetings with customers and vendors, and all of the other basics that a business owner must manage every day just to keep the company moving forward. Most small business owners have, but decided again hiring an executive assistant or secretary as the budget just doesn't allow for the luxury of an extra person at the earliest stages of starting a new company.
This can all be forgotten now, hire a virtual assistant that helps you from the comfort of their own home while you go about your day they provide you updates, check messages for you and help keep your virtual presence open at all times of the day despite you being in a meeting or working on your product develop or whatever other duties you need to have accomplished for the day. A good virtual assistant can be found for a couple of dollars an hour and most are willing to work part time schedules as you may only need help for 4 hours or day or even less, but that added help reduces your busy work load tremendously and makes sure that those trying to reach you are handled properly and not wondering if they should call again or send you another email just cause you haven't responded immediately.
Some of the items that I feel are great for Virtual Assistants to do on a regular basis:
1. Check Email - Message you for mission critical items
2. Answer phones through a 1 800 service or retrieve voicemails and provide you transcript copies of voicemails so you can just read them in your email.
3. Call back individuals from Voice Mail
4. Schedule meetings
5. Assist with expense tracking - weekly / monthly / quarterly
6. Manage customer and vendor lists
7. Monitor company twitter account - make scheduled tweets to community
8. Help promote website and brand online
9. Create market research packets about competition
10. Online postings - Craigslist / classifieds, online marketing, etc.
This can all be forgotten now, hire a virtual assistant that helps you from the comfort of their own home while you go about your day they provide you updates, check messages for you and help keep your virtual presence open at all times of the day despite you being in a meeting or working on your product develop or whatever other duties you need to have accomplished for the day. A good virtual assistant can be found for a couple of dollars an hour and most are willing to work part time schedules as you may only need help for 4 hours or day or even less, but that added help reduces your busy work load tremendously and makes sure that those trying to reach you are handled properly and not wondering if they should call again or send you another email just cause you haven't responded immediately.
Some of the items that I feel are great for Virtual Assistants to do on a regular basis:
1. Check Email - Message you for mission critical items
2. Answer phones through a 1 800 service or retrieve voicemails and provide you transcript copies of voicemails so you can just read them in your email.
3. Call back individuals from Voice Mail
4. Schedule meetings
5. Assist with expense tracking - weekly / monthly / quarterly
6. Manage customer and vendor lists
7. Monitor company twitter account - make scheduled tweets to community
8. Help promote website and brand online
9. Create market research packets about competition
10. Online postings - Craigslist / classifieds, online marketing, etc.
Find Web Developers - Online Outsourcing
All new companies today are faced with the decision of how to set up a website to show off their business and begin to market their products. Even local grocery stores and other very traditional businesses are best served to have a basic website and online presence to take advantage of Google maps on smartphones like the iPhone. Finding the right web developers can sometimes be difficult, especially when you dont want to spend upwards of a several hundred dollars for simple website with your business information, location, and any other pertinent information for your customer base. These types of web developer an designer tasks are perfect for online outsourced teams ad individuals. You should be able to set up a project proposal for a basic website fairly easily and get bids that are very competitive between a couple of hundred dollars for a basic website with a blog. If you are not experienced with working domain registers and hosting companies most web developers will not only design your website for you but also help you host it so that it becomes visible to the web.
Sites like oDesk and other freelance websites often have several tests that are available for the aspiring contractor web developers using the system. Check out how the person has done for the basic information concerning the subject. If someone did poorly I often pass, there are enough candidates to choose from that unless you are in a real pinch for cash, saving a few extra dollars is not always the best even though that is often the goal with outsourcing online, make sure to pick someone with a quality filled portfolio.
Sites like oDesk and other freelance websites often have several tests that are available for the aspiring contractor web developers using the system. Check out how the person has done for the basic information concerning the subject. If someone did poorly I often pass, there are enough candidates to choose from that unless you are in a real pinch for cash, saving a few extra dollars is not always the best even though that is often the goal with outsourcing online, make sure to pick someone with a quality filled portfolio.
Outsourcing Online for Entrepreneurs
If you are an aspiring entrepreneur and are seeking support from additional people with skills you do not currently possess yourself you can find talented individuals from around the world that can contribute greatly to your idea becoming a reality. Using online outsourcing sites help you find the right talent at the right time for the specific project you are working on and you do not need to retain the people full time or contract out a large company to support you with the tasks. Entrepreneurs can find support for everything from business plans, to marketing strategies, for the business side to graphic design, engineering support, product design and project management depending on how much time you want to commit to directly managing the day to day activities of your team.
Of course you often will have to be very active to get the best work out of your team and it may take you a little while to find the right people for the jobs you need done, by working with reputable online outsourcing companies that build in the right checks and balances between employers and contractors, using outsourced employees in places like India, the Philippines, China, and many other areas can be very cost effective and get the basic jobs done quick. You will even find contractors for all levels of jobs applying from Eastern and Western Europe and also North America. You can pick to stay in country if you are not comfortable with hiring an overseas team for your project and you will still be able to take advantage of many of the plus's using online outsourced help provides entrepreneurs launching new companies.
Of course you often will have to be very active to get the best work out of your team and it may take you a little while to find the right people for the jobs you need done, by working with reputable online outsourcing companies that build in the right checks and balances between employers and contractors, using outsourced employees in places like India, the Philippines, China, and many other areas can be very cost effective and get the basic jobs done quick. You will even find contractors for all levels of jobs applying from Eastern and Western Europe and also North America. You can pick to stay in country if you are not comfortable with hiring an overseas team for your project and you will still be able to take advantage of many of the plus's using online outsourced help provides entrepreneurs launching new companies.
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