37 Ways a Virtual Assistant can Grow your Internet Business

Outsourcing.

We all know it’s important for growing an Internet business.  With a virtual assistant you can streamline a business and get a lot of things of done.  One of the reasons I was able to live out of a backpack for seven months was because I relied on a team of workers to run my business.

The problem with outsourcing is many people don’t know what tasks a virtual assistant should be doing.

This post answers this question.  Below I’ve listed 37 activities that can be outsourced.  These aren’t the one-time projects you’d find on a freelance site.  Instead these are the day-to-day tasks that can completely managed by a virtual assistant.  (Like using someone to generate targeted web traffic.)

There’s a lot to cover.  So let’s dive in…

Writing Web Content

1)      Write Ezine Articles:  Article marketing is one of the best ways to promote a website.  The downside is it’s really boring.  You can easily hire workers to handle your content creation…for as low $3 to $4 per article.  The trick is to create a master list of talking points which a virtual assistant can use to quickly write the article.

2)      Spin Articles: Using an article spinning service is a great way to increase your backlinks.  The trick to this technique is to substitute different phrases so each article is unique.  This is a very time-consuming task that can be easily passed on to someone who has firm grasp of English.

3)      Create SEO Content:  This task is similar to writing ezine articles.  Basically you have someone create content for your website/blog based on specific keyword phrases.  This is a great way to add more information to your site without having to personally write hundreds of articles.

4)      Transcribe Audio and Video:  Another great way to generate web traffic is to offer written versions of your audio and video content.  This task requires a virtual assistant to type a word-for-word version of the multi-media content you’ve created and submit it to popular article directories.

5)      Write Blog Posts: Blog content is a cut above the standard article.  That’s why it’s important to find a talented writer for this task.  You’ll spend a little bit extra.  But it’s worth it if you want to work less while maintaining a high standard of content.

6)      Build Lenses & Hub Pages: Squidoo and Hub Pages are two great sources of traffic.  You can use these sites to target keywords, build backlinks and promote affiliate products.  With this task you’d hire a person to take your existing content and build web pages around quality keywords.  This is a great way to expand your reach without doing more work.

7)      Comment on Blogs: Blog commenting is an incredible way to promote a site. However it’s extremely tedious – Especially if you comment on dozens of sites a day.  An outsourcer could be the perfect solution here.  The trick is to hire someone who understands your niche and can effectively talk about market-related topics.

8)      Respond to Blog Comments:  Another mind-numbing task is responding to the people who leave comments on your blog – Especially when you have 50+ per day!  You can hire a virtual assistant to do this task for you. BUT make sure this person knows everything about your business.  The quickest way to lose an audience is to be known as someone who doesn’t take the time to personally respond to blog comments.

9)      Create Press Releases: Press releases are a great way to generate interest in your “personal brand.”  The hard part is to create a press release that gets results. You can improve your success by hiring someone to write this specialized type of content.

10)   Proofread and Edit Content: Sometimes it helps to have an extra pair of eyeballs looking at your web content.  Personally, I make a lot of grammatical mistakes with my content.  So I know the value of having someone proofread my content.  You can easily find a highly qualified writer to review your writing…for a lot less than you’d think.

11)   Write Copy for a Sales Page: Creating web copy that converts is an important skill that most Internet business owners lack.  You can easily increase the profits of your business by outsourcing a professional copywriter.  This person would write your sales pages and squeeze pages for your Internet business.  I’m not going to lie. This task costs a good amount of money, but its well worth it!

12)   Create Autoresponders: This task also involves hiring a very skilled writer.  Instead of creating emails yourself, you’d hire a virtual assistant with email marketing experience to craft responsive messages.

13)   Interact on Social Media Sites: It’s hard to stay connected on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.  You can keep up by having someone comment and interact with people on these sites.  This technique is especially effective now that Facebook allows you to comment using a Fan Page.

Create Additional Web Content

14)   Record Audio Content: Many people love audio content – Especially those who spend a lot of time in the car or at the gym.  You can increase web traffic by hiring a person to read all your articles and turn them into MP3 files.  Then have this person submit these audios to popular audio and podcast directories.

15)   Create Video Presentations:  In addition to outsourcing audio creation, hire someone to add slides to the MP3 and create a simple video.  Submit this presentation to YouTube and you’ll have another source of web traffic!

16)   Amplify your Web Content: The other week we discussed how Amplify is a great tool for promoting your web content.  With this task you have a person “amplify” your marquee web content and use it to drive more traffic to your sites.

17)   Post Blog Articles: Every week I spend two hours posting the articles to my site.  Here’s what I need to do with this task:

• Find images
• Format the images
• Add the article
• Format the article
• Tag the article and add keywords
• Add SEO information
• Review for mistakes and omissions.

If you’re like me, you can easily save time by paying a virtual assistant to format and post your blog content.

18)   Post Content to Other Websites: While we’re on the subject, another time-saver is to hire someone to submit content to traffic generating sites like EzineArticles.com, YouTube.com, and Podcast directories.  Sure it only takes a few minutes to submit content.  But this time quickly adds up if you’re cranking out dozens of articles each week.  This is something I’m currently doing with my Go Large Project.

19)   Build Amazon Sites: A great product on the market right now is Chris Guthrie’s Amazon Niche Profits.  You make money by creating ultra-specific sites that promote a high-end physical product.  Like a lot of tasks, it’s pretty tedious to build multiple Amazon sites.  To fix this, create a step-by-step process and then pass it along to a dedicated worker.

20)   Build Niche-Specific Websites:  Another technique for making money is to build a series of niche-related websites which leverage Google Adsense and affiliate products.   Once you’ve done this a few times, it’s easy to streamline this process and turn it into a blueprint that anyone can follow.

21)   Compile Keyword Lists: Keyword research is the definition of BORING.  Instead of doing this yourself, pay a person to use tools like Google Keyword Tool and Market Samurai.  The trick here is to hire someone who has an intuitive grasp of how to find quality keywords.

22)   Design Images and Graphics:  If you have a lot of web properties it’s important to hire a designer to create eye-catching graphics.  This will save you both time and money that you spend finding a quality provider for each project.

23)   Create Viral PDFs: A great way to drive traffic to a product is to give affiliates a free piece of content that’s embedded with their affiliate link.  They (and you) make sales by giving away this report to anyone interested in this niche.  The problem here is takes time to create a separate PDF for each affiliate.  This is a task that can easily be handed off to a virtual assistant.

Do Small “Micro-Tasks”

24)   Do Daily Content Marketing: This task is similar to the Amplify process.  What you do is create a step-by-step plan anyone can follow to promote a piece of content.  Usually this involves submitting it to places like Twitter, Facebook, and Stumble Upon.  The difference is this technique requires automation coupled with an ability to write a quality summary of the content.

25)   Generate Massive Social Media Exposure: With certain pieces of content, it’s important to generate a lot of interest (ie: Views, Tweets, Stumbles, Likes, etc.) Instead of relying on one worker, you’d hire out a small team of people who regularly promote your content.  The trick is to have a dozen or more workers who simultaneously do the same task.

26)   Manage “Add Follower” Tools:  A number of tools can help you automatically add followers and subscribers on social media sites.  But you shouldn’t do this yourself.  Instead have a dedicated virtual assistant who uses this tool to automatically add people.

27)   Create Backlinks: Getting backlinks to your site is a tedious process.  You need to submit your site to directories, RSS feeds, and web 2.0 sites.   This is a process that can easily be passed off to a part or full-time worker.

Provide Niche-Related Info

28)   Filter Information:  There’s way too much information on the Internet.  So it’s important to create systems to not get overwhelmed.  An outsource worker can provide the perfect solution.  First give this person a list of your favorite sites/blogs. Then tell him/her the topics that you’d like to learn more about (ie: YouTube or Facebook marketing).  Finally have your assistant send links to only the articles that discuss these topics.

29)   Collect Links of your Favorite Sites: What if you want to consume the content of an entire site?  Have a virtual worker create a document that contains hyperlinks to ALL the articles.  Turn this into a PDF and you have a great tool for quickly digesting the entire content of a website.   I did this a few times and it save me heaps of time.

30)   Compile a Swipe File: Tell an outsourcer to follow your favorite marketers. Then have him/her collect things like blog post titles, email subject lines, and calls-to-action.  This is called a copywriting swipe file.  And it’s a great trick for getting better results with your sales material.  Even better…hiring another person to collect this data is a great way to increase your learning without adding to your workload.

31)   Track your Web Stats: Tracking your websites is an integral part of an Internet business.  This information lets you know what’s working and what’s not.  You can easily hire a person to collect weekly (or monthly) reports of all that’s happening with your Internet business.  This can include traffic stats, affiliate earnings, article views, and tracking stats.  Simply identify the key areas to the growth of your business and have someone else monitor these stats.

Manage High-Level Tasks

32)   Email management:   You can waste a lot of time with email.  As much as two to three hours a day.  This is where it pays to get an outsourcer to manage your inbox.  Their job is to respond to the messages based on a set of instructions you’ve created.  Furthermore it’s the responsibility of this worker to act as a filter for the important emails.  The end result is you’ll only respond to the stuff that’s absolutely critical to your business.

33)   Edit Audio and Video: If you create a lot of audio and video content, you can save time by hiring an editor.  This is a skill that requires a higher-level of expertise.  So I think it’s often better to find a professional to take your raw multi-media content and turn it into a professional presentation.

34)   Be your Webmaster: Most websites require some day-to-day management in order to run smoothly – Especially if you have a blog.  My advice is to hire another person to handle this process.  They   can do things like redesign sections, manage plugins, and optimize your text.

35)   Manage All Social Media Activities: If you hate doing ANY type of social media, you can hire a person (or company) to manage the entire process.  Their job is to interact with people in your market while subtly pushing the content on your website.  In my opinion, it’s better to hire a professional than to do a half-assed job with social media.

36)   Recruit Affiliates:  Every product needs an army of affiliates.  This is especially true if you’ve built a program that’s better than most in your market.  You can hire a professional to contact and recruit potential affiliates.  My recommendation is to make sure the worker is contacting people on an individual basis instead of sending blanket, spam messages.

37)   Manage Other Outsourcers:  As you’ve seen, there are a lot of tasks that can be outsourcer.  The downside to this process is you’ll spend time managing the people who are supposed to save you time.    To solve this, hire a qualified virtual assistant to manage all your outsource workers.  This person monitors the results and gives you detailed reports about how everything is going.   Out of all 37 ideas, this is my personal favorite because it’ll save you heaps of time.

How to Get Started with Outsourcing

Okay, you might wonder where you can find workers for these tasks.  These six sites can help you get started:

• Elance
• Rent a Coder
• Fiverr
• Micro Workers
• Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Online Jobs Philippines

For every task, I recommend testing out a virtual assistant before hiring him/her on a permanent basis.  This will prevent a lot of headaches.  Trust me. It’s not fun dealing with incompetent people who need something explained five times before getting it right.

Add YOUR Favorite Virtual Assistant Task

Now… it’s your turn!

I’ve listed 37 ways a virtual assistant can grow your Internet business.

But I’m sure I didn’t think of everything.    So I need your help!  In the comment section below, please add a few ideas/techniques you recommend for a worker…

Take Action. Get Results.