Developing a blog is likely one of the best ways virtual assistants can utilise their free time. It’s the first aspect most people come across in your business, so there’s not much leeway for mistakes. Trying to make it too extravagant or complex is largely futile. These days, you don’t need a computer expert to do the job for you, because everything necessary is readily available, most of it for free.
The one point that I would recommend, if this is going to be your primary internet presence as a Virtual Assistant, then you should have your own Hosting Package and a domain name that’s the same as your business name, or as close to it as you can get it. The steps you need to follow when developing your blog are:
First of all, before you begin, here is a big warning: Keep your site clean and simple, clarity is everything! Make sure that the site is simple for your users to navigate, so that they can easily find what they’re searching for. Whilst in technological terms it may be state of the art, your blog still needs to appear stylish.
1. The first you should do is spend some doing keyword research on the topics you’re going to discuss on your blog. From this you can identify the most optimised names for the blog.
2. Your next task is to look into the blog platform that you are going to utilise. There are a great number of choices available, offered by providers such as WordPress.org – the Moveable Type for the self hosted option, or the likes of WordPress.com, Typepad, Blogger, Blogspot or Blogsmith for hosted platforms. The things you really need to make sure that you do are:
* Use a platform that is widely support by a very active community.
* Use something that is portable, and always keep a back up should anything go wrong.Use a portable option, and always maintain back ups in case anything goes wrong.
* Go with the most flexible option you can find so that you can easily customise your blog.
* Look to the future and try and see how your blog may evolve, and make sure that the option you choose will evolve with you.
3. Once you’ve selected a platform, sign up using one of the preferred names that you picked for the blog, or install the site onto your own domain.
4. Choose the template that you want to use, and make sure that:
* It ‘s appropriate to your topic.
* You fully customise it with headers, pictures, buttons and so on to make your blog stand out.
* The end result suits your style and brand.
5. Once you’ve finished this check out what else you’re able to add to your site, i.e. popular widgets and plug-ins.
6. When you’re comfortable with the general style, you should add some posts to get a good idea of how the blog will appear once users start to interact with it. Once you’ve done this, make any tweaks necessary to improve the appearance and layout.
7. When you are happy with the overall look you can then publish your blog.
Maintaining your blog can be a bit of a challenge as you really need to post at least once a week, two or three quality posts would be better. You need to be providing something that visitors will want to come back for – and encourage these users to sign up to your feed. If you’d like to have some solid support, consider looking up an expert virtual assistance service today!
Remember that this is an online business blog and you’re displaying your corporate image, so keep the discussions agreeable, as you want to put forth your individuality while still remaining completely professional. Don’t mix business with pleasure on your site, and as you don’t want to alienate anyone, try to keep away from any kind of controversial topics.
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