Tip of the Week:

 

     3 Reasons You Should Be Blogging for Your Business

 

 

I started blogging for the first time in September 2008.   At first, I was experimenting and I wasn’t concerned about how many visitors I was getting, even though I knew it was important.

However, when VA Classroom announced their new Blog Marketing Course at the beginning of August, I signed up immediately.  After all, I have already become Certified as a Social Media Marketing Specialist as a result of taking their Social Media Marketing Course and I was certain I would learn much more about marketing my blog.  VA Classroom can be found at:  http://www.vaclassroom.com

Not only can I apply this new knowledge to my own blog, but I have been advising my clients that blogging is an excellent way to show their expertise and drive traffic to their websites.  It has certainly had a positive effect on the readership of my blog and driven traffic to my site.  With the knowledge I gain, I can apply the same strategies to boost traffic to my client’s blogs.

Today, I received an email from one of the blogs I subscribe to.  Hubspot’s post is “Study Shows Small Businesses that Blog get 55% More Website Visitors.”

Stats show that businesses that blog get:

1. 55% more visitors
2. 97% more inbound links
3. 434% more indexed pages

Their blog can be found here:  http://blog.hubspot.com.

And, there is so much more you can do to utilize your blog to gain income as I have been learning at VA Classroom.  No doubt I will be addressing this subject in more detail in the coming weeks.

How about you – do you have a blog?  Feel free to post a comment and don’t forget to provide a link to your blog!

 

Diane L. Coville

ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE

http://www.alternativeofficeassistance.com

Tip of the Week: Websites and Emails

Why do I need a website?

So you’ve started your business and everyone seems to have a website but you are not sure if it is worth the expense and how it will grow your business?

Example:

I recently googled a business for a friend of mine.  They had offered her a part-time position and then didn’t get back to her.  So, being the internet marketer I am and having had many, many years of internet experience, I decided to do some research.  Guess what?  The only place Google found them was a listing on a Kijiji site.  Just a listing with no contact information and a generic Google email.  And the hits on that listing amounted to 50 in 6 months.  That alone told me that this was not a Company yet!

In six months, they had not created a website, had not created a “business” email and very few were looking for them on the net.  (It is not a brick and mortar business like a dry cleaners or a dress shop.)   This is a service provider for chiropractic assessments.  If this company was genuine and trying to grow, they would have had a website where doctors and health care professionals would be looking for them on the net and potential patients would be seeking them. 

The Benefits of a Website:

Having even a simple website these days is the best way to market what you do and provide information to pinpoint your expertise.  The cost to obtain a domain name can range around $7.99 and up depending who you buy it from and is a yearly rate.  A webhost who provides the space for your site on the net can range from about $90 a year up, depending on who you choose and what you want on your site – simple description of your business, contact information and some information about you and your products and/or services to the more elaborate requirements like “shopping carts”, multiple tabs with links, directories, data bases, sales pages, etc.  And your webhost will offer usually unlimited email addresses that show your Company is professional.

If you own a computer and you are in business, most likely the first place you will look for information is on the internet.  How many people do you know who pick up the Yellow Pages first?  Not many any more…  Not to mention the significantly higher cost of a Yellow Pages “local” ad in relation to the pennies a month you pay for advertising your business on the entire internet with it’s millions of users worldwide.  Even local businesses see the benefits of having a professional presence on the net.

And the end result of having your presence (website) on the internet states quite clearly that you are genuine business and your personalized email will too.

 

Diane L. Coville

ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE

www.alternativeofficeassistance.com

Tip of the Week: WEBSITE DOMAINS

I didn’t gain any more new clients this week, but present clients have added extra services to their list of needs which indicates I am forming a professional relationship with my clients who can identify how I can assist them in their administrative tasks as well as trust that the work will be done to their satisfaction.  And every week now I schedule at least one webinar/eseminar to add to my knowledge and skills.

I DOOOO love my job!

Since I have been very busy doing client work, I really couldn’t think of something to share.  Then I realized I did.  I found a site by accident and it brought back some very vivid memories of an incident that happened to me over 2 years ago.  It was a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”!

I hear many new Virtual Assistants asking if it is pertinent to get a website.  Since most or all of our work comes by way of the internet, how are your clients going to find you unless you have an on-line presence?  How are you going to market to clients?   With my first company (before Virtual Assistance) I knew nothing about websites except when I was surfing around.  So when a company (say it is called Company X) was recommended to me that would buy my “domain name” (the website address) as well as offer to create the website for me or provide software whereby I could create my own easily without HTML knowledge, I jumped at it.  However, what I didn’t know was that the Company X ALSO knew very little about websites.  Their servers were hacked in December 2006 (over 2 years after I had signed on with them) and they didn’t know it!. All their clients websites were lost. (all 665 of them)  And they had bought everyone’s domain name.  Oh, they bought them in the clients name alright but registered the domains with Company X’s email address.  Everything the domain registry company sends out will go to Company X, not to the client.  If any client wants to make changes, they have to go through Company X.  When Company X was unable to restore the lost websites, they refused to turn over the domains to their clients (I suppose in hopes of not losing all the clients until the websites were recreated or restored).  In June of 2006, all the clients were still waiting to have their websites restored.  Now that was more than 6 months of no on-line presence.  All my contact information included my website and no-one going there would be able to see it.  I could only imagine those clients whose websites were their bread and butter, where they sold their products and services directly like a store.  They would be “virtually” without a business.  I quickly learned with ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE how to obtain my own domain address.  It was so easy!  And I had complete control of that address.  Nobody could take that away or manage it for me.  I recently, through Google Search, found a site where they were selling almost exactly the same package to Virtual Assistants.  “They would be happy to buy the domain for you and create your website.  You wouldn’t have to do a thing!”   Well…….I learned my lesson the hard way.

Have a great week, everyone, and to my US clients and associates, have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Diane L. Coville

ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE