I was intrigued because I have to say 85% of the virtual assistant websites I land on result in an immediate ‘No’.

The original post written by Tanya Sutherland whose blog is full of great tips for Virtual Assistants. Her list of five items (visit her blog post for more detailed descriptions) every virtual assistant needs on their website includes:

1) Your contact information.
2) Privacy policy.
3) Your rates and/or prices.
4) A sign-up box on EVERY page.
5) The most current information.

So here are some other things you need on your business website if you want me to consider you a professional virtual assistant.

1) A high quality, professional LOGO. If you can’t afford logo design, please spend some time searching for a unique professional free font and create a simple crisp high resolution logo. Brand your business with the font until you can incorporate the font into a professional logo.

2) Your photo, a professional nice photo. I don’t need to know you have a cat or 20 cats. I need to know you look like someone I want representing my business as my VA. Maybe a photo of your very organized workstation would be appropriate, a nice family photo (think portrait like) might make you seem more approachable.

3) High quality stock art. All images should be crisp and professional. You can download high quality stock art from Dreamstime for as little as .50 an image.

4) A content manager. If you created your website in html using frontpage I hate to tell you but that says this;

‘ I know less about administering a business online then your son in grade five’.

As Tanya mentioned in her original post, WORDPRESS. Its free, is easy to learn, and it can help you create a professional site.

5) A professional template that is customized. There are many free templates that are professional and some that are meant to be used for ‘personal blogs’ not business websites.

6) Proper font contrast. I would like to be able to read your blog without having to tilt my screen and stand on my head. Your best bet - BLACK on white. Dark on light. Some fonts are meant for printing, some for computer screens.

Another tip: Learn how to ‘chunk’. Reading on a computer screen is not the same as on paper. Keep your paragraphs short.

AND THE BIG ONE …

7) Web 2.0: Unless your name is McFly, virtual assistants are by name ‘virtual’ and that means you provide services in the year 2009 not 1959

Your virtual assistant business website should not be a dinosaur of the web 1.0 era. Avoid cheesy clip art, wood panel backgrounds, and take some time to learn what is current.

Not sure ? Ask your nearest techy college student to look at your website.

Watch their face - it will tell you what they really think when they tell you it  “Looks good ” . (Remember when your daughter drew a picture of you with your feet on your head when she was 3? You want to ensure they don’t have a similar look on their face to the one on your face when you said “oh its me! I am so beautiful!”.

Think 2009 not 1986 Here’s a little visual for you;

8 ) SEO: Your virtual assistant business website needs to be SEO optimized so that people can find you. (WordPress has great free plugins for this.)

9) Content: Web 1.0 was a website with 6 static pages. Web 2.0 provides a way for your business to interact with your customer. Provide information of value for free and create fresh content/articles every week related to the services you offer.

10) Testimonials & Clients: Let your prospective clients see what others have to say about you and who your clients are. (With their permission of course.)

If you would like your website developed in WordPress including a web 2.0 logo for just $600 Click Here.

And the last one

11) SOCIAL MEDIA. Link to  your social media profiles. By now you should at least have a twitter account and a LinkedIn profile.

]]> http://her-media.com/919/virtual-assistant-website-tips/feed/ http://her-media.com/914/sweet-free-rss-icons/ http://her-media.com/914/sweet-free-rss-icons/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:26:58 +0000 Her Media http://her-media.com/?p=914 Looking for some great creative and free RSS icons? I went on a little hunt last night and found some to share with you.

The first are offered by Mathew (the original creator of Mingle2) on his blog 0at.org.

While you are at his blog you should check out his work. Its amazing. Mathew has not just developer and programming skill but a natural talent for web 2.0 from concept to launch.

View them all at this link

He also created the site Recipe Star.

The next set is where I found the RSS coffee cup that I plan to use myself

This icon set was designed by Dirceu Veiga from Brazil especially for Smashing Magazine as a gift for its readers.

They can be used on personal and commercial blogs with a link back.

Click Here to view them all

Their computer is on, oh it has been for two weeks? The update icon has a ! and there are more icons on the desktop then I can count. When I ask them when they last defragged they look at me blankly.

Remember thats the little icon I moved into your task bar so you could click it each week? OK you get the just.

I can’t drink any more coffee and think it would be nice to visit my friends just to visit and I bet your social groups ‘computer geek’ feels the same way as me.

So here’s my basic weekly computer maintenance check list to help your computer from hating you. (I know it’s a strong word.)

1) Updates, you NEED to stay on top of Microsoft critical updates. Yes you will need to restart your computer afterwards. Go to Windows Update and set up your computer to auto update.

2) You should only have ONE antivirus program. ONE yes ONE. It’s really not a case of the more antivirus software on your computer the better. If you are cheap (or broke) I suggest AVG Free. Be sure to download it to your desktop - then UNINSTALL the old antivirus software BEFORE you install AVG.

3) Run a FULL scan with AVG every week.

4) Clear your computer each week: (Programs-> Accessories->System tools)

• Run “Disk Cleanup” to delete unneeded files
• Run “Defrag” to defragment your files
• Delete your temporary Internet files & clear your Internet history.
• Back up your files and store them away from your computer
• Empty your Recycle bin (It’s not a storage folder)

One more quick tip:

Your computer is also not the place to store ALL your photos, videos, and music. By all means keep those you use often.

of⋅ten
[aw-fuhn, of-uhn; awf-tuhn, of-] S
–adverb
1.     many times; frequently: He listens to his music as often as he can.
2.     in many cases.

I am betting if you lost all your family photos you wouldn’t be too happy. That should be reason enough to make sure when you download the photos you zip the folder and upload them to MSN skydrive and burn them to a disk.

A few very simple tasks that will keep your computer happy and your computer geek friend sane.

Business Editors

NEW MEDIA PR SERVICES REACHES WOMEN ONLINE Through Social Media Strategies and Affiliate Programs

Port Alberni BC Canada June 23rd 2003 — Her Media Marketing and Design has launched an affiliate management service from their office in British Columbia helping business owners online reach a specialized audience of ‘women and mothers’.

With two new clients launching affiliate programs next month (Indie Kidz of Victoria BC and ListPlanIt of Topsham, Maine) owner Karrine McFarlane is looking forward to a busy summer.

Started in 2007, Her Media Marketing and Design has been a part time home based service operated in the most unlikely of locations for a company specializing in helping Internet based businesses with their marketing and pr strategies. A small logging town on Vancouver Island.

“I don’t live in the most tech savvy of towns, in fact most people I see each day have no idea what I am talking about when I tell them about the power of marketing their business through Social Media” says Her Media Marketing and Design’s owner.

The business is located in the town of “Lumberjacks and Bear Tracks”  to most an internet start up might not seem to fit in this little town. However, Her Media’s services are offered to clients around the globe as effectively from this little town as any large city.

Social networking applications such as Twitter and Facebook are seeing an increasing volume of female users. Epicenter states that over 4 million US women aged 35-44 joined Facebook in March 2009 compared to September 2008.

According to Karrine, “If you want to reach mothers online, you need to make their shopping experience relevant to their immediate need and they want to know that the people they trust endorse the service or product. Moving your PR and marketing efforts into the web 2.0 world makes sense if you want to reach women with your message.”

-30-

Karrine McFarlane

Her Media Marketing and Design Ltd

(206) 855-6811

karrine.hermedia@gmail.com

Tweet: Hermedia

Her Media Marketing and Design Ltd is a New Media PR and web 2.0 marketing company specializing in helping small businesses reach a female demographic audience online.

The site states you can create a free web 2.0 badge or peel back seal in under one minute and once you figure out how the generator works you can create on in about three minutes.

It’s a handy tool when you don’t have time to wait for a designer and need an interim web 2.0 graphic solution.

I used it to create the peel back image in the following creative for Her Affiliate. (If you have a blog for women you should join Her Affiliate to learn about affiliate marketing.)

I have seen a bit of a debate going on over using your real name or Social Media ID as your facebook user ID.

I opted to use my real name ‘Karrine’ though the reason is only because I know there is another Karrine out there who is always snatching the name up before me. I don’t have a fan page for my blog/s or myself (that seems a little conceited) which means I am no where near the required 1000 user names to obtain a user ID for the non existent group or fan page.

Be sure to think about what user name you want and double check your spelling as there is no going back once you hit that submit button according to Facebook;

“No. Once you have claimed a username by clicking the “Set Username” button, it is not possible to edit it, or to transfer your username to a different account on Facebook. Additionally, when an account is removed from the site, its username will not be made available to other users for security reasons.”

Which reminds me of the time I set up a dating profile and mistyped my user ID. Girlwithabrain means something completely different on a dating site when you type Girlwithabrian !

To see all the Facebook USER ID guidelines check their Facebook User ID notes page.

While you are there stop by Shawn Collins Fan page and become a fan. According to his Affiliate Thing Podcast yesterday he only has just over 200 fans.

Based on over 450 affiliate responses around questions such as :

• When signing up for an affiliate program, do you read the affiliate agreement?
• Do you prefer network or independent affiliate programs?
• How many affiliate programs do you actively promote?
• How many return days for cookies would you consider to be fair?

The affiliate aff report / guide also contains valuable affiliate industry tips such as forums, blogs, and even a glossary of affiliate terms.

The 2009  Affiliate Summit AFF report will be available Monday June 15th for download at AFF Stat .

Be sure to list your blogs and follow Her Media. Click Here

For detailed instructions on how to get your blog promoted on FaceBook through Networked Blogs check out this post by About Communication.  How to connect your blog with Facebook

Networked blogs is just one of many ways to promote your blog through Facebook. Others include;

1) Be sure to list your blogs on your profile

2) Use your status updates to list your blog happenings

3) Create a Fan Page

4) Applications such as Simply RSS. Just go to applications and search for RSS and you can browse through all the available applications.

Here is how you too can get Google Friend feed up and running on your blog:

Go to Google Friend Connect and log on with your Google ID.

Provide your blog name and URL.

Google will then ask you to download TWO files, be sure to save these into your blogs local folder on your computer.

Upload the files using ftp then return to Google Friend Connect and submit to the next step. If all is uploaded properly, you can then insert the Google Friends Connect Member Gadget to your blog.

If you need help uploading this blog gadget or others to your blog check out Her Media Social Media Services.

My Blackberry contacts Sync to my Google Contacts which syncs to my Outlook contacts to ensure I always have my contacts with me. However, how can I pass your business on to a potential lead for you if I don’t have all your contact details ?

Here is an example; there are about three SEO consultants that have taken the time to offer to help me with my site for free (if you are reading this , please contact me again;). Yet none of them attached a full and complete outlook contact to the emails they sent me.

Providing me with a completed Vcard or Outlook contact would have ensured I had their full contact details readily available in my blackberry when the father I was speaking to at the water park was asking me how to get more people to his business website last weekend.  I can offer general advise but I am no SEO expert.

Judging by his vehicle, he could afford to pay a quality SEO consultant for their help but I didn’t have any-one’s information to give out.

There are many people out there who would be happy to help you promote your business through referrals, however it shouldn’t be their job to hunt down all of your online contact information and type it into a Vcard or OutLook contact for you.

So how do you make sure your Vcard is complete ? How do you create a Vcard? How to you distribute your contact details to those potential networking opportunities easily ?

You can create your own Vcard using outlook and attach it by email (some people don’t like attachments), or you can upload your Vcard to your business website or blog allowing you to provide a link to your card. Or you can use an online Vcard service such as GetMyVcard to store your Vcard so that others can easily download it.

For instructions on how to create a Vcard in Outlook visit the Productivity Portfolio .

I suggest ensuring you list all of your Social Media Profile URLS in the notes of your Vcard along with a brief description of your services. Be sure to include a photo and possibly your company logo in a web resolution.

I have blogged about the importance of creating a Vcard for your small business in the past.

Remember to consider the value of your contact details being easily accessible to potential clients (if you post it on your website)  and weigh it with any spam you may receive as a result.