The Upwardly Mobile

Virtual assistants are a great resource for any SEO worker or webmaster. I mentioned in my previous post, the Virtual Website Assistant Edge, that hiring a virtual website assistant can significantly improve the productivity of your website as a marketing, sales, and informational tool. Virtual assistants are, of course, as good if not better at online tasks as they are with offline ones. But what exactly should you expect a virtual website assistant to do? What tasks are best-suited for virtual website assistants, and how can they increase your website’s efficacy? Here are the top 10 website tasks for virtual assistants:

10. Keyword Reasearch

Keyword research is possibly the most important function for any SEO worker. Knowing what keywords have become common and what keywords are up-and-coming can help you determine what areas within your niche are information-saturated and what topics are ripe for discussion. This knowledge will in turn help you and your team know what your audience is looking for and what kind of content to create; knowing your customers this well gives you an incredible means to create content that’s effective. If you have a virtual website assistant or are considering using one, make sure both you and your virtual assistant are well-versed in the art and science of keyword research.

9. On-Site SEO Optimization

Optimizing your site for search engines by getting down and dirty with the html, css, and backend code is definitely not a fun job, but, as they say, somebody’s gotta do it. If you’re new to SEO and you want to know what to expect from your virtual website assistant in terms of on-site optimization, be sure to check out SEOmoz’s 24 On-site SEO Checkups For Clueless Developers / Marketers.

8. Backlink Building

Backlink building is by far the most tedious task for any SEO worker. It is, however, an incredibly effective way to drive traffic to your site and, if done correctly, it leads to the increased sales or marketing conversions that prompted your company to start a website in the first place. Start by reading Courtney Tuttle’s 102 Ways To Make Your Site A Back-Link Superstar; make this require reading for your virtual assistant as well. Pay careful attention to #81, but subsititue virtual website assistant for “starving student”!

7. Link Exchange Candidate Research

Finding candidates with whom to exchange links is a good way to build relationships within your niche. Have your virtual website assistant research players in your field who would be likely candidates for link exchange.

Businesses and individuals with a similar, though slightly higher level of traffic, Google Page Rank, or industry stardom (or whatever other rubric seems appropriate) are the best candidates.  A mutually beneficial relationship is most possible with these individuals. Avoid direct competitors and look for businesses or individuals who could drive traffic to your site without losing out on sales themselves. For example, if you’re a small custom computer manufacturer, have your virtual website assistant try to find small computer store websites that might want to feature and sell your products. Avoid spending time soliciting from very large players–the Best Buys in this example–unless you really have something to offer them, since they’re unlikely to gain significantly from working with you. Since finding these smaller players will take some time, dedicating some of your virtual website assistant’s time to this task can be very beneficial.

6. Market Niche Briefs

It’s important to know what’s going on in your market niche both offline and online. Have your virtual website assistant prepare weekly briefs of internet developments within your niche. What stories are discussed most in popular industry blogs and forums? What are your competitors doing with their websites? Have they offered new features or started a new online marketing campaign? What are the members of your supply chain doing online? Having this kind of a 360 degree view of your online marketplace is incredibly important, and a good virtual website assistant can gather and analyze this information for you, enabling you to make efficient and effective decisions. Have your virtual assistant read niche blogs regularly, and sign her up for a google news feed with important keywords for your industry.

5. Adwords Campaign Management

Google offers a directory of individuals who will design adwords campaigns for your company for a not-so-small fee. Instead, have your virtual website assistant not only design the ads, but implement, monitor, and maintain the entire adwords campaign.

4. Webmaster Networking

Networking with other webmasters in your niche can be as important and effective as networking with their offline marketing and operational counterparts. Have your virtual assistant identify important individuals in your niche who have a significant online presence and schedule phone or IM conversations with them. This can be a valuable way to learn information that you might have missed out on, as well as receive valuable feedback about your company, your website, and whatever online initiatives you’ve started.

3. Content Creation

If you have a virtual website assistant (or general virtual assistant) who speaks and writes English well, content creation can be a valuable task to assign. Although many smaller website owners may be uncomfortable with having others write their content, it’s important to overcome this fear to become more effective. If you’re balancing many other responsibilities, it’s impossible to write as much content for your website as you’d like by yourself. If US presidential candidates,  Hollywood celebrities, and the Queen of England hire speech writers and press agents to compose messages on their behalf, why can’t you hire a virtual website assistant to write content for your website?

2. Comments and Questions Response

When users try to interact with you, it’s important to make sure you actually respond. Not doing so often causes loyal customers to consider other brands and turns off newcomers to your company and it’s mission. Having a virtual website assistant to help you manage the emails and blog comments you’ll inevitably get when you’re website gains popularity can be a real boon to your productivity. As long as you’re honest about using a virtual website assistant to respond to customers, the vast majority of users understand. After all, I don’t expect to talk to Steve Jobs every time I call Apple.

1. Google Analytics Analysis

If you haven’t tried Google Analytics yet, do it now! It’s an incredibly powerful tool for webmasters and SEO workers that helps them understand the traffic their site is getting and improve the ways they interact with and market to customers. Have your virtual website assistant learn the ropes if she hasn’t already, and put her in charge of analyzing the data and creating new ideas for increasing traffic and improving the conversion rate of existing users.