VA Helper Podcast for Virtual Assistants

Transcription

1 VA Helper Podcast for Virtual Assistants This episode is available for listening at Our topic this week is guest blogging. Hear us on Stitcher Radio -or- Find us on itunes Loretta: Hello. Welcome to the VAHelper.com podcast for virtual assistants. I'm your host, Loretta Oliver. For today's episode, we have something a little bit different. Christina has some very good guest blogging tips that she would like to share with you today so I'm going to hand things over to her and I'm going to take a break from the microphone for a while. Enjoy. Christina: Hi, this is Christina Lemmey from MultimediaVA.com and I just wanted to share some thoughts with you about guest blogging. It's become quite the popular topic of conversation lately and there are some right ways to go about guest blogging as well as some wrong ways. I wanted to approach it from two different viewpoints: the first being the blogger, and the second as the blog owner. As a guest blogger, it's a great idea to submit a guest blog post to someone else's blog or website because it could be a complementary blog in your niche, this could

2 be someone who has been in business longer so they have much more of a following. Basically, it's a great way for the guest author to increase their reach, to reach more people in their target market. That's fabulous. It's a very inexpensive way to do some extra marketing. However, this needs to be a win-win situation for the blog owner as well. If you approach a blog owner, presumably it's someone who's been in business for a while, who has a really great following, large numbers on their list. If you approach them saying, "Hey, I want to submit an article," and you're thinking strictly that it's going to get your name out there and if they allow a link back to your site, it's good for SEO that's really not thinking through the whole process. The blog owner, who has already put in all of this work to grow their leadership and to grow their list, they need to know what they're going to get out of it, as well. Depending on who the blog owner is, there are certainly some real bigwigs out there who may not want to just give up pricey real estate on their website for someone who's going to blow in, throw up a blog post, and then disappear into the night. That is the wrong way to approach it. If you want to guest blog, I suggest that you do your research and you find the complementary blogs and blog owners who really fit your niche. If you blog about snowboarding, chances are someone who runs a blog about sightseeing in Hawaii is going to have absolutely no interest in your snowboarding article. But if you don't do your research and you send them a very basic, generic, non-targeted , that's not professional. If the big blogger in Hawaii does remember your name in a future encounter, that's leaving a bad taste in their mouth about how you approached them. Always do your research and find blogs where it would make sense for you to post. Let's face it, you don't want to waste your time writing a blog post if it's going to get lost or it has no relevance whatsoever to this blog owner. Also, when you decide to contact the blog owner, actually go to their website and see if they have a contact page. Some people have preferred methods of how they want to be contacted. Most often, it will be an , which could go directly to them or it may get filtered through a virtual assistant. You never know.

3 Some people welcome phone calls. If you do decide to call someone, always make sure you know what time zone they're in. There's nothing worse than being on the east coast and calling someone early in the morning when they're not even out of bed yet on the west coast. Always keep that in mind but really respect the blog owner's forms of contact. Again, if you decide to call them and you've done some mystery digging to find their phone number that was not listed on their website, again, could be perceived as very unprofessional and pushy. If their preferred method of contact is by , they should have their address on there. Really make sure that you proofread your and don t just write a generic . I've seen some s from guest bloggers come across my desk, and I swear, someone out there somewhere has a product showing people how to write a proposal to be a guest blogger because all of these s look and sound exactly the same. It's kind of the old rule from when you were submitting resumes to get a first job out of college. You have a ten second window of opportunity to make either the blog owner or their virtual assistant notice your and get the gist of what you want. If they all look the same, one is going to blend right into the other. There is nothing that's going to make your stand out. Along those lines, always proofread your . I had one guest blogger approach me and they had put a completely different and incorrect website in the body of the . That led me to think, "You don't even know who you're writing to, so why would I contact you back to write a guest article when you haven't done your research?" That's how it came across. I've also had plenty of s from authors who use bad grammar and bad punctuation, and that's a huge pet peeve of mine. Again, it goes to appearance. If you are going to be writing an article for my website, your proposal had better be written very well. If you're missing words, you're misspelling words and you're talking slang in your , then how am I supposed to trust that you're actually going to give me an article that's well written, that makes sense, that is going to be useful to my audience? There's no way to know. If you have met the blog owner in the past, either via social media or in a conference, or if you attended a webinar that they did, for instance, it's perfectly okay to write that in your . It's always easier to say or to hear, "Yes, I was at

4 your list-building webinar back in October. You did a really great job. Here's why I think my article would be a good fit for your audience." It's certainly okay to bring up these meetings or even to drop a name if you want to. If you're friends with John Smith, say, "Oh, hey, Johnny says hi. He mentioned that this was your business and that maybe I could talk to you." That breaks the ice a little bit more than just reaching out of the blue when the blog owner doesn't have any idea of who you are. When it comes to submitting your guest blog article, always follow the rules and regulations of the blog owner. If they want a certain word count, be respectful and submit that word count. If they want it formatted in a particular way or if the article should be sent to a virtual assistant, just go through the rules and follow them. Again, it's about appearances. If you can show the blog owner that you're being respectful and you're following the rules, then they may ask you back again. This could become something of a good relationship again. You want to think win-win for both you and the blog owner. Once your guest article is published, if they have a Wordpress blog then you most likely will be listed as the author and you may be notified if there are comments or questions left at the end of your article. If there are comments or questions, again, be polite and go back and answer those as the writer of the article. In my experience, I have had people who have sent me the article, they've gotten the link, and then they're never to be heard from again. If I think that you're just using my web space for a back link, why would I invite you back to submit another article? Doesn't make sense. If you truly want to form a relationship with the blog owner, contribute toward the conversation. It's perfectly okay for you to be the first commenter, to say, "Hey, gang? What do you think about this article? What are your thoughts? What's been your experience?" Maybe try to stir up some conversation that way. If someone leaves a comment, even just going back and saying, "You have a really good point. Thanks for commenting." It means the world. Not only does it get your name in front of these readers' eyes once again, it shows that you're interested in engaging readers, and the blog owner will take notice of that. There's really no point in having a blog if you're just going to put up posts and you're not going to engage the readers.

5 This is especially true if your readers have a question. If they're asking what the best piece of software is, or the next step they should take, you don't want to leave them hanging. They've come to the blog for a reason, they've taken their five seconds of time to write the question, don't leave them hanging. It will mean the world to the reader to see that someone cared enough to come back and answer their question. One more thing you can do when your guest blog article is published: Get the link and start promoting it. Not only is it good exposure for you to be featured as a guest author on someone else's blog, especially if that someone else is a much bigger name than you are, but it's beneficial and it's good mojo, good karma, if you will, to help promote that article. Certainly, don't be afraid of using guest blogging as a way to market your VA business. You can certainly find either other virtual assistants or other people. Just remember to think about who you're trying to reach and what you can tell them about, what you can teach them, what tidbit would they find useful? This is not just for your clients but you can use it for your own virtual assistant business as well. Now, let's switch gears for just a minute and think about it from the blog owner's point of view. I did mention a few things but I just wanted to touch on them again because it could be likely that you'll have a client who wants to open up their blog, the website, to guest authors. Maybe they're having a real hard time keeping up with posting content, or they just want some new perspective or some new names. Maybe they're even going on vacation. Some people want guest bloggers for a one or two week period strictly so that they can go on vacation and not worry about posting. That's certainly a reasonable request. As a VA who has done this for a client, I just have a few tips for you to try to make your life a lot easier. If your client has never had open submissions for guest articles before, definitely write down some rules and regulations, some guidelines if you will. Consider how long you want the articles. My client wanted nothing less than 500 words. He felt the longer, the better. Do you want the writer to submit a photo? How many backlinks are you willing to accept in the article? Some people are happy with just one backlink in the author's

6 byline. Others try to insert six, seven, or eight links. Many of them are reference links referring to research that they read about or survey results, or that type of thing. A few research links can be fine, but if you find that there's a link in every single paragraph, there's the potential for it to look really spammy. Decide with your client, prior to accepting anything, how many links you're willing to accept. Something else to consider is, I've had some guest authors come to me and say, "I want to write an article for one of my clients." It's not actually the person who is coming to you who's going to be answering the questions and fielding comments. It's a little harder when there's a third person involved. I always say, "This is one of our guidelines and requirements, that you participate in the conversation if there is one after people leave comments," and they're usually okay. Again, you always want to check the links that are being supplied. You know, generally people want family-friendly links. Some people also try to slip in an affiliate link into the body or the author's byline section. It's really up to you and your client to decide whether or not affiliate links should be allowed. When you accept guest articles from people, especially people that you don't know, if you have a Wordpress blog, you can set them up as a user. Just make sure that the user setting is set on "Contributor." Anything more than Contributor will allow them to write their article inside of Wordpress and publish it whenever they want to publish. This is giving up some control over either your website or your client's website. Especially for someone that you don't know, if you've never read this person's writing before, you're really taking a chance that they're giving you correct and valuable information. If you give up the proofreading part of it or the editing part prior to publishing, it could hurt the credibility of your or your client's website, if you just let anybody off the street start publishing. I suggest you set them up as a user or you have them their articles directly to you, without them going into Wordpress at all. That way you really have total control and you can also take your time with formatting and finding a photograph if you need one. You really get to work on your own time, as opposed to them getting into Wordpress and having the settings incorrect, and they just get to post whenever they want to.

7 When you get the articles, always double check them to be sure that they're original. Maybe some people don't care whether the article has been published before or not. My client only wanted original material and it really makes sense, because if you wanted to reprint someone's article, you could just go to E-Zine Articles and grab and article and pop it on your site. There certainly is good reason for doing that, however, if your client is a bigger name in whatever industry, they don't want to just throw anyone's article onto their website. They need to be providing value to their readers. That's why they've built up such a large readership. It's because they provide value. When you get an article, what I do as I'm editing is I'll copy a few sentences and I'll go to Google, and I'll put those couple of sentences into the search box with quotation marks. That way, Google is looking for those exact sentences, those exact words, in that same order. It's called an exact match and you can do that with keyword research as well. When the quotes are around it, if that sentence has been used or published online anywhere else, those will show up in the results. There have been plenty of times where I've done that and I'll find out that a particular article has been submitted to a dozen other online websites. If it's already out there a dozen times, it's not going to do us any good. My client specifically wanted original content, so before you even start editing, take a couple of sentences. Some people can mix original work, maybe they'll rewrite the first sentence and the rest of the article could be rewritten from something else. Always take a couple of sentences, either from each paragraph, or start at the beginning and just select a few other random sentences throughout the article and double check it that way just to make sure it's original. After the article is published, again, watch to see if your authors are interacting with your readers. Keep track of the ones who are, or keep track of those guest articles that have the most comments. That means that that's the type of content your readers want. Especially if you're trying to get your readers more active, and more engaged, by leaving comments, then pay attention to the content that is getting those comments. You can either ask other people to contribute similar types of content, or you can go back to that guest author and say, "Hey, you had an amazing article. It got a lot of great responses. How would you like to make this a monthly or a weekly

8 column?" Obviously people are busy, but again, as the blog owner, this has to be a win-win situation. As the blog owner, it's very nice to have someone else contribute some content so you can maybe have a day off, but if they're getting the conversation rolling, that's a plus for you. Those people are going to spread the word that you've got really great writers and that it's worth coming over to read, or they'll share the article on social media and draw in some more traffic that way. Just like the guest authors should be very careful and respectful of the blog owner's readership, the blog owners should be respectful too and be willing to reward a writer who really puts in the effort and gets the conversation going with their readers. All right. That's guest blogging in a nutshell. I hope this was useful to you, either as you market your own business or as you offer this service to your clients. I'd love to hear your thoughts so feel free to leave your comments in the comments section of this post and I will be back soon to check. Again, my name is Christina Lemmey and I'm from MulitmediaVA.com Take care. Loretta: Thank you for that really informative episode today, Christina. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to visit us at VAHelper.com Leave a note for Christina on the show notes for this episode and let us know if you have any questions. We'd be glad to help in any way that we can. Thank you again. Have a great weekend. Stop by the blog and leave a comment or ask us a question

9 Feeling intimidated by audio technology? Christina can help get you over that hurdle! Super Simple Audio is an at-home tutorial course for making your very own audio product. With Super Simple Audio you receive: Whether you want to try your hand at podcasting, turn your ebook into an audiobook, or host your own teleseminar or webinar, this course breaks down each step of the process into an easy-to-follow guide. a 20-page report, complete with screenshots an audio version of this same report to download to your ipod and a video tutorial of the easiest audio editing software available What you will learn with Super Simple Audio: How to record while staying on budget 3 different recording options Step-by-step directions for using the easiest and most budget-friendly recording software Where to host your audio files Tips for getting the best-quality recording and Prepping for interviews People learn differently some love to read while others absorb their information better by watching a video or listening to an audio product. This is why YOU need to expand your knowledge of technology, so you can provide your audience with the product they respond to best.

10 Meet the Team Behind VA Helper: Loretta Oliver I ve been a work at home mom offering a variety of virtual assistant services since I shifted my business focus from being a general virtual assistant to focusing on offering transcription services and I no longer accept new general assistance clients. However, I do still maintain a few original client relationships and I really enjoy working with those people. When you have great clients work doesn t seem so much like work as it does helping a friend, and that s the way it should be in my opinion. One thing I learned quickly as a virtual assistant and transcriptionist is that you can t let your entire business be YOU. Eventually you will reach a point where it won t work anymore, something might call you away from your comfortable desk (like you husband being in the hospital for two weeks), or you might want to take an actual vacation where you don t have to go back to the hotel and work for four hours every night, or maybe you ve just got too much incoming work that you can t handle it all alone anymore. The truth is even the assistant needs a little help sometimes, and that s perfectly okay. So I gathered a group of my closest friends who are also virtual assistants to contribute here at VA Helper. Everyone brings a unique set of skills to the table and we all focus on different areas. In fact, I ve worked together with each of these lovely ladies on various client projects as a team effort to create an exceptional client experience. Without further ado, I m pleased to introduce our VA Helper contributors. Alicia Jay Transcription Crash Course. Alicia Jay began her foray into the online world when she found herself very pregnant and very laid off in a down-turned economy. She discovered Loretta Oliver and became a student of her Over time, she has built up her own general transcription business while perfecting her skills and gaining the trust and respect of her clients. She now teaches others how to master transcription. In an effort to give back, Alicia recently created newvaadvice.com, a site where she shares her journey of becoming a Virtual Assistant in the hopes of inspiring other women to follow their dreams of having a business that works around their lives not the other way around!

11 Lauren Haugh Lauren has been involved in online business since Starting out in Direct Sales, and has always had at least 2 websites that she contributed to and maintained. Along the way she has mastered many online skills that she combined into a Virtual Assistance business so that she could offer her services to help out other WAHMs and online business owners. In Lauren s opinion, helping other business owners is one of the most rewarding things she can do. Erica Cosminsky Erica Cosminsky is an HR Business Strategist for small businesses. She can slog through the pile of applicants and help deliver the best assistant to your office door, she transforms mile long to-do lists into manageable bites, and like your best friend after a raging party, she sticks around to offer assistance or clean up any messes, etc. Find her free delegation workbook attheinvisibleoffice.com She is a former corporate HR Manager, and ran her own virtual business team for 4 years. She has a BS in Organizational Leadership focused in HR and is a grad student in Industrial and Organizational Psychology focused in Workplace Efficiency. Honestly, if you have questions about working with people, Erica can probably help you. Ask her on Christina Lemmey Christina is the owner of MultimediaVA.com and focuses on creating compelling website content for her clients. In addition to audio, video & written content creation, Christina also offers one-on-one coaching sessions for clients who need more help learning some of the popular business software programs, such as WordPress, Aweber and Easy Video Player.

12 Tracy Roberts Whether you re just starting out or you ve been in business for awhile, finding people that you can trust to give you the information you need, when you need it and at the right price for your current pocket book can be hard work. Tracy shares her trusted resources at Moms In A Blog so you can avoid the frustration of digging through all the turds to get to the golden nuggets. She has been where you are and has been working online since 2006 as a virtual assistant, affiliate manager and running a team of virtual assistants for various clients. Tracy shares the inside scoop on people, products & ideas you can take to the bank as well as the how-tos, tips, techniques that you need to know to run a successful business. Lisa Roberson Lisa is a stay at home mom with three kids, two of them are almost 6 foot, and she is just barely getting over the shock of that. She loves kids and also children s education, with a strong leaning toward literacy. She eats books for breakfast and has raised her kids to do the same. Her boys read faster than lightning itself, and she really doesn t understand that fast-forward reading nonsense. She is sure one day it s going to be hard to admit to their superior intellect. Not today, though. Lisa also loves the internet like there is no tomorrow! She cannot. get. enough. She s grown to love marketing from hanging out online with a bunch of internet marketing geeks. She loves to read marketing books and industry magazines. She also loves animals, trucks, and living simply. It is one more sad fact of Lisa s polarity, that her love for all kinds of big, air-polluting machines and trucks belies her desire to live an eco-conscious life. A true Gemini, indeed.