32 – Could a VA Help You and Your Blog?

Since your signed up here you’re probably more than aware of just how much work goes into running any time of business, blogging included. In fact, you probably spend more time dealing with all the “behind the scenes, admin stuff” than you do writing, right? There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get it all done but being self-employed means at the end of the day, it’s all down to us, or does it?

In recent years you may have heard of the term VA (virtual assistant) being spoken about and wondered what they were or if they could help you. Well, the simple answer is Yes! Keeping reading to find out how.

What is a VA or Virtual Assistant?

Put simply a VA or virtual assistants are real life people who usually run their own businesses. They are available to hire to complete a whole range of different work that an assistant may carry out in real life, except they are doing it virtually, online from their own homes. They are highly skilled individuals who can help with technical, creative or administrative tasks and help relieve some of the stress and pressure from you. Some VA’s will have a specific area of expertise too so if you are looking for help for something specific such as finance, artist tasks etc be sure to search for a VA with those skills.

How Can a VA help you?

People often assume that all VA’s really do is admin, but that simply isn’t true. In fact, VA’s are often highly skilled in their area and this can include many different aspects of work, here are just some of the examples –

• Social media management
• Data entry
• Content creation/blog writing
• Bookkeeping
• Website design and graphics creation
• Admin
• Document production
• Help with coding, analytics and all the behind-the-scenes jobs
• Responding to Emails / PR
• Scheduling

In fact, if you can think of a job that you do for your blog, it’s probably something a VA could help with.

The best thing to do before hiring a VA is sit down and make a list of all the jobs you have. Cross out the ones you enjoy doing or are happy to do, then cross off all the ones you can do in your allotted working time and are happy to do. What you are then left with is a list of jobs you either don’t have time to do, hate doing or find tedious, or these might be things you want to happen for you blog, but you don’t know how to do it. These are then the jobs you could look at hiring a VA for and this list will help you narrow down the sort of VA that can be most helpful to you.

Do you “need” a VA… well no, but could one help you, absolutely yes! If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed or snowed under with tasks and mounting jobs, or perhaps have been putting off a job you hate or have no idea about, the likelihood is a VA could help. The great thing about using a VA is that you choose what you need done, you choose the amount of time you would like them to help for and you can hire one as and when you need help. Most will work to an hourly rate so you can hire them for as little or as much time as you need or can afford too.

Ultimately hiring a good VA can be worth their weight in gold (and more)! Not only can they help alleviate some of the stress and pressure you might be feeling but they can help you clear all of those pesky tasks you put off, earn more money, gain more traffic and really get back on track when you didn’t feel it possible.