10 Tips to Starting a Great Virtual Assistant Blog

Having a blog these days is a really great way to update your web content regularly and it’s easy to get started. But be sure that you take the time to put a plan together to ensure that your blog is not a hodge-podge of ideas and thoughts.

1. Decide whether you want to have your blog hosted online or if you want to host it on your own server. There are advantages to both. A hosted blog allows you to have someone else handle the backend technical issues. Hosting your own blog allows you more creativity, but also costs you more time and possibly money, depending on your technical capabilities.

2. Decide who your audience is going to be. It is important to know who you are going to be writing to so that you can organize your thoughts and your content properly. You want to write about things that are going to have a common thread to keep your audience’s interest.

3. Decide your blog topic(s). Along with your audience, it is important to know what you are going to write about. When you are setting up your blog, you can choose your categories and general keywords and this comes from knowing what you are going write about. You want your blog posts to flow and be interesting to your readers.

4. Determine your design. Again, the flexibility you have here may be dependent on whether you have a hosted or self-hosted blog, but do you want your company branding to be carried through your blog? Do you want it to be different? What type of layout do you want – sidebars, multiple pages? Remember, you can always add, but be careful to make it too big when you first start out. Single page blogs with one sidebar are typically quick to put together.

5. Name your blog. Once you know your audience, your topic and your design, determine a catchy blog name or tagline for your blog. Remember that the first time people see your blog you want them to know what it’s all about. By letting them know with the blog name or tag line, you will help them to determine whether they are in the right place.

6. Figure out a writing schedule. Nothing will sink a blog faster than not posting to it. If you want to build your readership and use your blog to improve your online marketing efforts, be sure to post to it often. You can post once a week or several times a week or more, but pick a schedule and stick to it. The more regularly your readers will see you writing, the more seriously they will take you as a blogger.

7. Add photos to your blog posts. It makes your blog more visually appealing to have small images with your posts, and it makes people more inclined to click through to read a blog post if they see an interesting image that goes with it. It’s a sensory thing.

8. Be sure to link to other places in your blog posts. Adding hyperlinks to relevant words or phrases in your posts is a great idea – you can direct traffic to your own products or services, or you can reference other people’s articles or products. Either way you are allowing your audience to be interactive with your posts. Be sure not to use too many links per post, though.

9. Respond to comments. When people comment on your blog, be sure to thank them or reply to them if it’s applicable. Again, you want to increase the interaction on your blog and this is a very easy way to do it.

10. Install a social networking plugin on your blog so that people can share your blogposts with their social networking circles. There are many to choose from and once installed they allow your readers to click and share their favorite posts that you write, creating a link back to your blogpost from their social networks.

Following these simple tips will ensure that you have a great plan in place to get your blog on its way. The easy part is just to write!

And luckily I have an easy way to keep you on track for the writing part too. Join my monthly mastermind group The Virtual Circle. We have a monthly co-working session that is perfect for you to get your blog writing done. There are loads of other benefits of being a part of the Circle too – check it out here: www.YourVAMentor.com/tvc. I’d love to have you in the group!