Could virtual services for coaches be the answer to your overwhelm? Will hiring a virtual assistant really help you grow your business?

If you aren't new to coaching, you've probably already heard of virtual assistants but are these and other virtual service providers the key to building the business of your dreams?

As you begin to grow your coaching business, it's common to hit that point where you have more on your plate than one person can handle. There's working with clients, managing the day-to-day, and handling future growth. It's easy, and natural, to start to feel overwhelmed. So you start looking into a virtual assistant. Maybe you do a search on the internet or even ask around on some of your social media groups.

But is that the best way to go about getting help? And what are the first things you should outsource?

Virtual services exist that make running a business much simpler. However, it's important to understand how to identify the services that would be better outsourced and those that would be better kept in-house. Here’re some tips that you can follow.

3 Tips for Knowing When to Outsource Virtual Services for Coaches Like You

1. You are spending too much time on tasks unrelated to the core services of your business.

This can often be a tough question to answer because some coaches are stuck on the idea that, “If you want things done right you must do them yourself.”  This is a common mistake in business. Whether you ARE the expert in an area or have no experience at all, hiring and training right can prove that others can do the job as well, and sometimes better, than you can.

The reality is that you’ll spend far more over time trying to do your bookkeeping, marketing, or admin yourself rather than outsourcing those tasks to an experienced virtual services for coaches provider. 

Take some time to identify the tasks that are the biggest time wasters in your business and outsource them to someone who does them better. Time wasters can be things that take you much longer than they should because you don't know the systems or processes well enough to do them quickly. They can also be the things you are constantly procrastinating because you just don't like to do them no matter how good you may be. 

And even if you can do something faster than someone you hire, it doesn't mean you should. The key to overcoming overwhelm and developing a track record of success is letting go so you only do the things that ONLY YOU CAN DO!

 2. Does performing this function highlight your expertise?

The tasks and projects that you outsource may depend heavily on the nature of your coaching business. 

As a coach, there are specific things you have to do yourself. Planning and executing your coaching programs, for instance, is essential for your business’ development. But there are many different moving parts to creating, marketing and executing a coaching program. Yes, you will need a strong website and systems to make it happen. However, that doesn’t mean that you need to hire a team of IT professionals full-time.

On the other hand, if you are a business coach who teaches others how to create a brand, then you may want to do the brand development of your program yourself.

Outsource the parts of projects that don't highlight your expertise to someone who provides virtual services for coaches. 

3. Is it a service that is only needed a few times throughout the year?

Coaches often do annual or semiannual launches. Since these only occur a few times a year, at most, it makes sense to outsource these projects to a virtual services for coaches company. They'll bring a level of knowledge and expertise to the project so you don't have to spend a lot of time learning skills you'll only use once in a while. 

6 Top Virtual Services for Coaches to Delegate

Virtual services are available in a wide variety of skills. There is a service that offers a solution to almost every problem a coach faces. Here are some of the virtual services you can consider when choosing where to get started.

Graphic Design

Attractive visuals form an important part of branding. A graphic designer will, therefore, be an important member of your team.  However, it is highly unlikely that you will have a consistently high volume of work for him or her to complete. This means that hiring a graphic designer as a permanent member of your team won’t be the best use of your funds.

It's tempting to hire a virtual assistant as a generalist to handle everything from your basic admin to things like graphic design. Most virtual assistants, though, won't have that range of skills. It's better to let your virtual assistant do admin related tasks and then find freelance graphic designers who you can hire on an as-needed basis.  You’ll find that you save a lot of money and time without compromising on the quality that you need.

When looking for a good graphic designer, consider these important points:

• Experience - While Canva has come a long way as a graphic design tool for social media posts, experienced graphic designers will have skills in more advanced programs such as Adobe. Graphic designers have a deeper understanding of color theory, font styles and even psychology so that the graphic elements you are asking for will enhance your brand and message.
• Portfolio - Do they do the kind of graphic designs you need? Some graphic designers only do logos while others specialize in websites or print design. What are the types of projects you are looking for and does your graphic designer specialize in those areas.
• Accessibility - There's nothing more frustrating than needing something done by the end of the week and not being able to reach your graphic designer because the power in their country is unpredictable.  (Ask us how we know that one). Make sure you work with someone who's internet and electricity are reliable and they are available based on the hours you need. It's important to understand what you might be getting when someone who provides virtual services for coaches works in other countries.

Task and Appointment Scheduling

Task and appointment scheduling is one of the quickest and easiest virtual services for coaches to delegate when they are just getting started. Virtual Assistants are often one of the first people a coach will hire and they tend to have the core skills for this type of work.

Virtual assistants are often adept at the use of scheduling software and project management tools common in the coaching industry. Your virtual assistant can use these tools to call to confirm client or prospect appointments, follow up on tasks or manage other details on your behalf.

Travel arrangements can also be scheduled. A virtual assistant can schedule flights, accommodations, car rentals…essentially any aspect of traveling.

Content Creation and Management

Content is what establishes you as an expert in your field. This might consist of podcast episodes, blog posts, e-books, free webinars or courses, videos for social media and your website, etc... All successful coaches use a variety of content marketing strategies to make their brand visible to their target audience. And yet, it is a time consuming and often difficult process that requires content creators with deft skills and experience. This makes it excellent virtual services for coaches to delegate.

Marketing forms a huge part of your coaching business. If you aren't already producing consistent content to market your coaching skills, it will be an important next step.

A content marketing manager might be just the right person to add to your team. This person’s role is to make sure that all content pieces (whether written or visual) appropriately depict the brand. They help to create and implement a comprehensive content creation schedule. He or she can also help you get the most out of the content created and ultimately allow you to reach a wider audience. While some content managers can also create the content for you, this typically falls to you as the expert or to an expert content writer.

Social Media Management

If content on your podcast and blog are like the marketing signs IN your store...

Then social media is like the billboard outside enticing people to come in.

If your social media content isn't well managed, it will be like having a billboard in Death Valley, CA. There won't be many visitors.

Social media changes, ALL...THE...TIME! Don't make it your career to keep up on all those changes. These are excellent virtuals service for coaches to delegate so they can free up more of their time and focus on what matters most.

Event Planning

Coaches, regardless of their niche, often host events (whether virtual or in-person) occasionally. Event planning is a highly detail-oriented process that can distract you from the core needs of your business. It may be something that you believe you can do yourself, but carefully consider the time you would lose when you could be spending that time attracting more clients.

You want your events to be the talk of the town for the right reasons. Consequently, your event planner should:

• Have great interpersonal skills
• Be able to manage time effectively
• Make stellar organization a priority
• Be flexible and have a contingency plan
• Have a track record of success in planning and executing similar events
• Be creative and innovative
• Have a passion for planning

Client Relationship Management

Building positive client relationships is crucial to business growth. You may not have a large client list when you start out so it's tempting to handle the management yourself. However, outsourcing the following client relationship management functions can help you establish even stronger relationships and provide a higher level of professionalism to your business:

• Manage invoicing and payments
• Follow up for schedule appointments
• Send thank you cards

What Should you Look for in a Virtual Services for Coaches Provider?

Now that you’ve jumped onto the outsourcing bandwagon, it's time to understand what to look for in an outsourcing partner. Here’re a few things that should be at the top of your checklist:

     1. Experience

Is it OK to hire someone that doesn't have experience with your programs or in your niche?

There's a good chance you'll find a lot of applicants that don't have a lot of experience with your specific tools or in your niche. For example, a content creator that specializes in articles on health and beauty may not be a great fit for your topic of money mindset. Or a website designer who has always used Wix might not be the right hire for your Kajabi website creation. This is often the case when looking at providers with lower hourly rates. Just like in the medical field, it's more expensive to get a specialist. You probably wouldn't get a nose job from someone who's worked in pediatric medicine for a few years and now wants to do plastic surgery too. And, if you decided to, you probably wouldn't pay them the same rate as someone who's specialized in nose jobs for 20 years.

It's totally OK to hire someone with less experience and skill as long as you understand what you are getting. You can't expect them to have the knowledge that a more experienced person will. They also won't be as fast as there is often a steep learning curve (that you are likely paying for). You'll also be investing more of your time to get them up to speed. All of these things will factor into the overall cost.

Now, if you have a routine task that you have already outlined a clear standard operating procedure, it may be perfectly OK to go with someone that isn't highly experienced.

     2. Flexible

Anyone you outsource business to should be flexible enough to meet your unique demands. This makes communication integral to creating a successful working relationship. Your expectations should be made clear from the get-go and you should also make it clear that there may be instances where flexibility must be exercised.

    3. Good reviews and social media presence

Customers paint a clear picture of the true service a company provides. You have to go beyond the fairy tale picture painted on the company’s website. Check out the social media pages and read the discussions people are having about the company or individual. If something doesn’t seem right, they might not be a good fit for your brand.

In this day and age, a person or company that is aligned with yours is a direct reflection of your business. Take some time to review the social media posts and content (just be careful when using this information for hiring individuals) posted by the company. If their values do not align with yours, it could come back to haunt you.

Ready to get started?

If you are finally ready to start outsourcing virtual services for your coaching business, the next logical step is to understand what tasks to outsource and who to outsource to. A great place to start is with these six focus areas:

• Graphic design
• Scheduling
• Content management
• Social media management
• Client management
• Event management

And if you want to say yes to a little bit of all of them, then a one-stop-shop for virtual services like Virtual A Team may be the best option for you.

Note: This article was originally published on April 30th, 2019 and updated February 5th, 2024.

Hosting a blog is an essential way of bringing traffic to your website. If you've been handling this project on your own you know it can present unique challenges that might make getting help from a professional blog manager a good idea for your coaching or consulting business.

Is Your Blog Content of Decent Quality?

One challenge coaches experience is keeping their content consistent both in theme and timing. It's easy to see a variety of content on other blogs and decide to pursue the same path. And having the infrastructure for a blog is great. But often posts aren't consistent enough to make a difference. Both challenges deliver mixed results.

Professionals who manage blogs know how to overcome these particular problems. They understand the unique challenges that coaches face getting traffic to their websites. 

Blog managers work with you to help ensure that your blog has plenty of content to entice your visitors. They make sure the content is suitable for your business. You want to get the traffic, but you don't want your business going off in multiple directions, either.

Loving or Hating the Writing Part

Do you have a love or hate relationship with writing? No matter your answer, there are challenges that come with how you feel about writing your own content.

If you love to write, you likely struggle with not having ideas for your blog or not having the time to write quality posts.

If you hate writing, your understanding of the need for an excellent blog is in a constant battle with your aversion to the task. 

Blog management is useful in both situations. Getting the help of a professional is a good idea for anyone lacking either the time or passion needed to write quality blog posts on a regular schedule. Visitors to your website will notice the difference that dedication makes.

Think about your blog from the perspective of a visitor to your website. Would you want to use the services advertised on your site based on the content of your blog? If not, the time might be right for some changes in your strategy.

Coming Up with Ideas

Having a steady supply of ideas is essential for a blog to deliver results. However, running out of ideas or not being able to translate them into decent blog posts is a common challenge. The right content is essential to building your blog's following.

One of the most time-saving benefits of hiring a blog manager is content curation. They focus on coming up with the right ideas for posts that will get attention. They get to know your ideal client and then search for the right topics to keep your ideal client interested and engaged. Turning that task over to a professional blog manager means you'll have more time to devote to other parts of running your business.

When you don't have to brainstorm to find ideas for blog posts, you can devote more of your time to other essentials. Blog management professionals will help you maintain that proper balance for your business needs.

Do You Publish on a Regular Schedule?

Publishing blog posts on a regular schedule is important, yet this is an area where many website owners fall short. There isn't one single way of choosing when to publish posts. However, a few tips are worth remembering:

• The publication schedule should be consistent
• Posts should have a regular style
• All posts should read as though they had the same writer or group of writers

One of the advantages of using a blog manager is having someone available to write the posts who knows what the best schedule is to use. We can arrange a schedule that works well for your business needs.

Keywords and Titles Make a Difference

Keywords and titles make are more important than most business owners realize. As search engines like Google regularly change their requirements, it can be difficult for consultants and other business owners to keep up.

Although exact keyword usage may vary depending on your business focus and geographical area, some of the factors that might determine the best search terms include:

• Phrases including your company name, if applicable
• City, state or county-related keywords
• Terms related to business and life coaching

Blog managers can make a big difference in this area. They bring knowledge of the most recent updates and help determine the most impactful keywords and post titles will make a difference in helping the search engines deliver your answer at the top of the list when your client goes searching. 

Writing the Content You Need

Regardless of whether you lack time to write or don't enjoy writing, we can help. Your blog's content is an integral part of how you will reach clients. The right approach makes all the difference in whether you make that crucial connection.

There's no doubt that to attract your ideal client you must have a professional-looking website. In addition to looking professional, the site should also help provide a sense of confidence in your ability to handle their needs.

Using blogging experts to write your posts helps ensure that everything is grammatically sound. Because your posts are in the hands of an expert team, you don't need to worry about the quality of your posts suffering because you have additional obligations for your business.

The Importance of Good Editing

Getting your content written is just one part of the story where when it comes to your blog. Without editing your posts, you're running a genuine chance of missing major grammar or spelling errors. Such errors can make your posts appear unprofessional.

Using blog-related services is a good solution when you compose your own posts but require someone to check them for errors. This solution is a good alternative for professionals who feel comfortable writing content but need grammar and spelling help.

Creating Graphics for Use

Graphics can make a difference in how much attention blog posts attract. In some cases, website owners have the best chances of making an impact with specially-created graphics. However, many business owners lack the skills necessary to create such graphics.

Examples of graphics that can make a difference include:

• Infographics that help explain key concepts
• Charts and diagrams to demonstrate numbers
• Animated clips to supplement information on the site

Blog managers can help with creating the right graphics for attention-getting posts. You will find this solution useful because it allows maximum impact without you having to acquire a new skill.

Sourcing Graphics for Use

You can likely find the ideal graphic for your blog post with a simple Google search. However, it is important to respect copyright law when using such images. Sometimes it can be challenging to determine who the image's copyright holder is.

Blog managers are diligent about ensuring proper sourcing of images. You don't want your business hindered due to a copyright issue.

Proper Formatting for Timely Posting

Getting your formatting right matters when you're publishing a new blog post. First impressions matter and posts with bad formatting will not project the professional image that you need.

Proper formatting also helps ensure that your posts are published on your schedule. Taking the time to make corrections to a post because of a formatting error can be very disruptive for your schedule.

Analyzing Metrics and Determining the Pivots

Another skill that a blog manager will possess is measuring metrics to determine the efficacy of posts. Many businesses lack either the time or necessary knowledge of how to measure such things on their own. Experts can make all the difference in these types of situations.

Blog managers will also be able to decide when to pivot or shift your blog posts to a new focus. Pivoting is often a necessary strategy when your posts aren't generating the traffic you need. Blog managers know when and how to strategically take this vital step.

In Conclusion

Although blog managers are not necessary for every business, they can be a valuable resource for professionals such as business or life coaches. You might be surprised at how much time a blog manager can save you resulting in a greater return on your investment. 

You may be asking yourself - does SEO really matter? You’ve done some research to try and figure out how to get more people to find your website.  On one hand, SEO seems like a magical potion that will miraculously solve your website traffic woes. On the other hand, it seems super complicated and it just gives you a headache thinking about it. Is SEO really worth the trouble? Do you really need to spend time optimizing your website or is that just for large businesses?

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is simply a marketing strategy for “increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.” It’s what websites use to get ranked on search engines so that they are found when you type search queries.

Let’s say that you wanted to understand why hiring a virtual assistant is important. You type “Why hire a virtual assistant?” in the Google search bar as shown in the screenshot below.

Google instantly uses its autocomplete feature to suggest other possible search engine queries. Each of these queries (including your initial query) is called a keyword phrase.

You click “Enter” and the following results appear.

It is highly likely that the webpages you see on the first results page have used some elements of SEO to get their articles highly ranked.

Getting SEO right often seems like rocket science. There are so many elements that contribute to a successful SEO strategy and businesses are often competing in an overly crowded marketplace. In fact, some businesses only choose to use SEO techniques if they want to get leads from organic search while others focus on different combinations of digital marketing strategies.

The truth is that SEO is important for everyone. Not only can it improve a website’s visibility on search engines, it can also improve a website’s user experience. Virtual A Team is committed to helping our clients incorporate the best SEO practices that lead to greater brand exposure. Here’re some of the things we do to help our clients get the most out of SEO.

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SEO Best Practices for ALL Websites

There are just some things that all websites must have even if you aren’t trying to rank on search engines. Some of these elements are described below.

1. A Keyword-Rich Title Tag

Moz defines a title tag as “an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. [They] are displayed on search engine results as the clickable headline for a given result and are important for usability, SEO and social sharing.”  The title tag should not be longer than 60 characters and should have the following format:

Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name

Here is an example of a title tag using the virtual assistant example.

Let’s say that you own a life coach agency called Life’s Spring. You have done your keyword research for your homepage and identified “life goals” as your primary keywords and “lifestyle guru” as your secondary keywords. Your title tag would look something like this

Life Goals – Lifestyle Guru | Life’s Spring

This is great but how do you actually create a title tag on your website? The answer to this question depends on your website host.  Here’re the steps if you’re using WordPress.

• Install and activate the Yoast plugin.
• Create a new page or post.
• The Yoast box will appear below the text field. Click “Edit Snippet”.
• View the preview and adjust where necessary.

Contact your website host if you’re not using WordPress to determine how you can access the HTML code for your website’s pages. Here’re the steps for changing the page’s title tag using HTML code:

• Locate the editable HTML
• Move your cursor between the <head> tags only.
• Type <title> Life Goals – Lifestyle Guru| Life’s Spring </title> (The exact title will depend on what you include in the prescribed format.)
• Save the code.

2.  Appropriate use of keywords in meta descriptions.

According to Yoast, a “meta description is a snippet of up to about 155 characters which summarizes a page’s content.” It’s often what people use to determine whether to click on a link and view a web page.

Here’s an example of a meta description.

The same text is not on the webpage when the link is clicked.

A good meta description has:

• A clear call-to-action that relates to the headline and is written in the active voice
• Wording that matches the actual content on the webpage
• Focus keywords

Here’re the steps for including a meta description for your web page if you use WordPress.

• Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin.
• Enable meta keywords support in Yoast SEO.
• Create a post or page.
• The Yoast box will appear below the text field. Click “Edit Snippet”.
• Enter the meta description. Remember that it shouldn’t have more than 155 characters.

The meta description would need to be included in your website’s HTML code if you don’t use WordPress. Contact your site administrator to learn how to do this.

3. Internal page linking

Internal page linking involves including links to other pages on your website in your content. It acts like a web connecting your website’s pages together. Search engines get a better sense of what your website is about and how it is structured when you use internal page linking. In fact, internal page linking can help a search engine learn which pages on your website are most important.

There are 3 ways to include internal links on webpages:

• Identify your most important content and include links to this page in more than 60 percent of your content. These links would be included in anchor text (clickable text within content).
• Add anchor text links for related topics. For instance, let’s say that you’ve written a series of articles about creating attractive signs. You can include links to these articles in your most recent article in the series.
• Add a related posts section. Some websites include this section in the middle of the text, others include it at the end.

+ 5 More Important SEO Features for an SEO Marketing Strategy

These SEO features specifically relate to those who are more focused on SEO from a digital marketing perspective.

1.      Content Rich in Target Keywords

Content marketing is a highly involved digital marketing technique that utilizes bog articles, videos, podcasts and other types of digital media to provide valuable information to customers. It’s less about selling products or services and more about addressing customers’ pain points.

Each written piece you create for your website should be rich in target keywords. This doesn’t mean that a keyword or keyword phrase should be included in every other sentence. Instead, the content should be written in a natural way bearing in mind the inclusion of target keywords.

A good content writer can help you use the following strategies to get the most out of the content you create.

• Include primary keywords in the article’s title and H1, H2 and H3 headings.
• Write posts that are longer than 1,000 words. Longer posts tend to perform better.
• Long-tail keywords in the body of the content

It’s also important to set up a content calendar. Think of your content calendar like your GPS; it guides the content pieces that you post each month. Some of the benefits of a content calendar include:

• Organizing content based on monthly themes
• Choosing the right focus keywords related to the theme
• Identifying the right types of content (article, video, infographic etc.)
• Setting publish dates and assigning writers and other content creators

2.      Keywords in Image ALT Text

ALT text is an abbreviation for alternate text. It is the image description that helps search engines know what the image is about. Including ALT-Text in your images can help people find them in the results of an image search. This adds an additional layer of visibility to your website.

Here are the steps for including alt text for an image on any website hosting platform:

• Insert the image.
• Click “Image Options”.
• Click on the “Alt text” box.
• Write the Alt text and click save or enter.

Some things that you should look out for when including image alt-text are:

• Avoid keyword stuffing. Use keywords strategically to explain what the image is about.
• Be specific based on the article’s topic.
• Use less than 125 characters.
• Only use keywords in one of the images in a blog post. Including keywords in every image used in a single blog post can be too much.

3.      Backlinks

Backlinks are sometimes called inbound links or incoming links. Think of them like the links on a chain. Each link represents a website. When one website includes a link for another, a connection is made in the chain. Backlinks are these connections and they can only occur when another website includes a link to content on your website.

The thing is that getting backlinks for your website isn’t easy. It all boils down to doing one or more of the following:

• Consistently writing high quality content that people love. People will naturally want to include links to the content in their own articles.
• Volunteer for guest blogging. Search for blogs that have a “Write for Us” or the “Contribute” page.
• Look for broken links on competitors’ websites and try to create new content using the topic of the missing link as a guide.

4.     Use the power of Featured Snippets

Let’s go back to the search results for our “Why hire a virtual assistant?” query. You probably noticed something interesting about the results page.

Do you see that box with “Reduces Costs” as the heading and a cartoon-like image? This box is called a featured snippet. Impact BnD defines it as “an instant answer to a search query found in a box above organic results on a search engine results page.” It’s one of the most sought-after pieces of search engine real estate for 4 reasons:

• It’s prominently featured in search engine results. Its rank is sometimes called Rank 0. A website user will more likely click on this search result and ignore the rest.
• It takes up much more space than other organic search results.
• More internet users are doing web searches from their mobile devices. This considerably reduces the number of search results they see thus making it even more likely that they’ll click on a featured snippet.
• The webpage doesn’t have to be in one of the top 3 positions in order to be featured.

So, how can your webpage be featured?

• Your content needs to be in the first page results. This means that your content must be a part of the top 10 search engine ranking.
• Give a clear answer to a common question. Remove the fluff and get straight to the point.
• Use primary keywords in your H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags.
• Use specific HTML code for lists and tables:

5.  Don’t forget voice search

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed the way we interact with our devices. An iPhone user can simply say, “Hey Siri, what is a virtual assistant?” An Android user can do the same with Cortona, Genie or even Google Voice. An Amazon Echo user can talk to Alexa. You get the idea.

These smart device virtual assistants add another layer of complexity to SEO. In fact, it has created another branch of SEO called Voice Engine Optimization (VEO). So, how can you optimize for voice searches?

• • Reduce the page load time for your website
  • Write your content with a focus on conversational, long-tail keyword phrases. Think about what you would say about the topic if you were speaking to someone in person.
  • Create content that answers questions and is easy to read.

How can you find the right keywords?

We’ve spoken a lot about keywords throughout this article. You know they’re important for SEO but may have challenges finding them especially if you’re on a tight budget and can’t afford to invest in sophisticated keyword finder tools. We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves to help you solve this problem. Here they are:

• Identify a topic that you want to write about and create a mind map of all possible related ideas and subtopics. This can help narrow down your keyword research.
• Type a query into the Google search bar. You’ll get a range of suggestions that you can use as a guide for basic keywords.
• Use one or more of the following free tools:
  • Google Correlate
  • IM for SMB Bulk Keyword Generator
  • Soovle
  • Ubersuggest
  • Wordtracker Scout

Putting It All Together

SEO is here to stay. It works in your favor if SEO becomes a natural part of building your brand’s online presence. Some of the best ways to build a strong SEO strategy include:

• Keyword research
• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Internal page linking
• Strong content marketing
• Image Alt text
• Backlinks
• Featured snippets
• Voice search

Let Virtual A Team help you use SEO to make your brand visible online. Contact us today for a free consultation.

How do you know that it's time to update your website? Well, have your parents ever shown you their pictures from back in the day?

You know those old-time photos when almost everyone was either a hippie or wearing a huge afro and bell-bottom pants.

They probably looked cool but you’re saying to yourself, “I would never dress like that now.”  What was hip back then has less appeal now.

An outdated website can be compared to one of these back-in-the day photos. It was great at the time when it was created but has lost its relevance and appeal. You may think that it’s okay for your website to remain the same forever. Create it once and never update it.

Thinking this way can be detrimental to your online brand. A strong brand undergoes regular revisions as the needs and interests of consumers change. Your brand and website shouldn’t be any different.

How to Know if You Need to Update Your Website

Before we dive into some of the telltale signs that it’s time to update your website, it’s important for you to understand the value of a website audit.

What is a website audit?

 HubSpot defines a website audit as, “an examination of page performance prior to large scale search engine optimization (SEO) or a website redesign.” The aim is to improve the website and increase its performance.

A general rule of thumb is that a website audit should be conducted once per quarter (4 times per year). The benefits of frequent audits include:

• Keeping up to date with the latest SEO trends
• Collecting data in more manageable chunks so that it’s easier to analyze
• Giving you a good idea of what your baseline metrics should be. What should you deem acceptable based on the trends of your website?
• Ensuring that your website is a current reflection of your brand
• Suggestions on how to update your website

What does a website audit highlight?

A website audit analyzes your website’s performance, SEO, conversion rate, and technical elements. It provides a comprehensive look at everything your website needs to truly represent your brand and provides guidelines for what you need to do to update your website.

Do you have to hire a professional to do a website audit?

It would be wise to hire a professional to do a website audit especially if you are unfamiliar with the elements that are analyzed. Virtual A team can work with you to complete your website audit.

Download our Ultimate Guide to Delegating for More Tips & Tools on How to Delegate as a Solopreneur

However, you can invest in website audit software and do it yourself. Some of the best website audit software include:

Woorank

This website audit tool is the most popular. It’s best feature is that you can run a free review which gives the website a score and highlights errors that need to be addressed. Creating an account also allows you to get help from a certified expert.

SE Ranking

This website audit platform specifically focuses on the strength of your SEO. You get an overview of your website’s health, can view page-by-page analysis, see a breakdown of the strength of your meta-tags and headings, view image optimization, and analyse your links and usability.

Serpstat

SEO analytics are the focus of this platform. The platform has the following tools: keyword research, rank tracking backlink analysis, competitive analysis and site audit. The best part is that you get a recommendation for how to fix the issues.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog calls itself the “SEO Spider”. This name provides a vivid description of what they actually do. They explain that, “Screaming Frog is a website crawler that allows you to crawl websites’ URLs and fetch key elements to analyze and audit technical and onsite SEO.” Essentially, it goes through your website with a fine-tooth comb and identifies how to update your website.

Google Webmaster

Google is the most powerful search engine in the world. Therefore, optimizing your website to improve your Google Search ranking is critical. The platform’s tools allow you to: measure your website’s traffic and performance, fix critical issues and increase your site’s visibility on Google.

What are the telltale signs that you need to do a website audit?

Your website isn’t mobile-friendly.

A mobile-friendly website is more than a shrunken version of your desktop website. Google identifies mobile-friendly websites as those websites that:

1.  Avoid software that is rarely used on mobile devices (such as outdated Flash).
2. Use readable text that don’t require zooming.
3. Adjust to fit screen sizes
4. Include easily tappable links. (Links should be far enough apart so that they are not accidentally pressed.)

Thankfully, most website builders offer templates that include mobile-friendly elements. So, if you’re a DIY fanatic who created an account on WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix or any other website builder platform within the last few years, chances are that the website is already optimized for mobile. 

However, you may have paid a website developer 10 years ago to build your website. This is the first place to make changes to update your website. Great emphasis wasn’t placed on mobile-friendly websites back then. That doesn’t change the fact that more people view websites on their smartphones now more than ever. Your website needs to get up with the times and adopt a mobile-friendly design. It’s time to either hire another website developer to update your website or use a website builder to recreate your website.

The website’s design doesn’t suit a modern aesthetic.

It’s well-know that there should be consistency in your brand’s aesthetic. The colors, fonts and messages shouldn’t conflict. However, it’s possible to be too rigid with maintaining a consistent brand image on a website. The essence of a brand can remain intact even if the website’s design has a more modern feel.

A website with a complex design is an instant turn-off for both potential customers and search engines. Minimalism doesn’t mean that your website will be boring. Instead, it can make your brand stand out even more with the right use of colors and text. If you have a website with too many images and clunky elements, it’s time for you to update your website to a more modern aesthetic.

In summary, your website should have:

• A clean aesthetic (avoid the clutter)
• Bright colors that reflect your brand
• Make good use of white space

Slow load speeds are common.

Page speed measures how quickly page content loads. SEM Rush indicates that the load speeds for your website’s pages should be “as fast as you can make it without compromising the customer experience.” However, they also indicate that Google wants ecommerce websites to load in less than 2 seconds. Pretty fast huh?

In fact, Google has indicated that page load speed is a metric used to rank websites on the search engine. People have short attention spans. The longer your website takes to load, the more likely it is that it’ll have a high bounce rate. Increasing website speed boils down to 5 things:

• Removing unnecessary high-resolution images and videos.
•  Fixing JavaScript issues
•  Removing Flash content
•  Incorrect use of caching techniques
• Too many HTTP requests

If simply removing high-resolution images and videos doesn’t improve page load speed, you may need to hire a website programmer to help you address other possible causes.

Your brand’s services or products have changed.

This is a key indicator that it is time to update your website! A change may be necessary simply because your brand has changed. Experience has taught you that certain services or products perform better than others. This has led you to do a reshuffle where you’ve discarded irrelevant products or services and placed greater emphasis on rebranding those that are in high demand. Your website should be a part of this change process.

The blog is inactive.

Blogging serves one primary function for businesses; it helps establish the business as an industry leader thus increasing credibility and trust.  Consistency is important but shouldn’t take the place of producing high-quality content. Furthermore, a blog helps your website by:

• Improving visibility. People will find your website because they read an article from your blog that someone in their social media network shared.
• Transforming visitors into valuable leads through clear call-to-actions.
• Increasing your website’s relevance and longevity
• Giving your brand a voice

Therefore, blogging is an important part of your brand’s online strategy. Running a business is challenging and there are many demands placed on your time. You probably haven’t posted in awhile because time hasn’t been on your side.

If your blog has dated posts and the dates are several months (or years) old, then it sends a sign to your prospects that you aren’t consistent. 

Consider hiring a writer to get back into producing quality content on a regular basis, or remove the blog altogether.

You aren’t getting any leads.

Lead Squared defines a lead as “an individual or organization with an interest in what you are selling.” Interest is one thing but getting that lead to become a paying customer is another. That’s a story for another day.

You may be concerned because your website isn’t getting any leads. There are a few people visiting here and there but none of them are filling out your contact form to learn more. Your sales funnel is broken. Time to update your website.

It isn’t enough to have a contact tab on your website and expect people to naturally go there to connect with your team.  A lot of planning and effort goes into creating a sales funnel that takes a lead from awareness to action. Some key points to note when creating a strong sales funnel are:

• Increase brand awareness through PPC campaigns, organic search and social media.
• Craft content that builds interest in your industry and product or service. This includes blog articles and free downloadable opt-ins.
• Nurture the leads you get through opt-ins through an email marketing campaign. Increase their desire for your product or service.
• Understand that only a small percentage of prospects will reach the buy stage.
• View the sales funnel as a journey. What journey do you want potential customers to take as they interact with your brand?

Opt-ins aren’t visible.

Opt-in forms are the way we gather more information about our visitors so that we can keep in touch and continue to guide them on the buyer’s journey. It is often used on websites to build an email subscriber list to whom newsletters, product sales, and other marketing material can be sent.

Your website probably has no opt-ins or opt-ins in obscure places. However, you need opt-ins on your website because they help you create an email subscriber list that Allan Dib calls marketing gold. This list consists of people who are aware of your brand and like what you have to offer. If you play your cards right, these people can become paying customers in the long-term.

Here’re some things that you may be doing wrong if your opt-ins aren’t working for you:

• The opt-in isn’t in the right place.
• There are too many fields.
• There is no compelling offer.
• You’re using the word “newsletter”. People are tired of seeing it.
• You are directing people to an external site to view the opt-in.

An opt-in is something that you can create yourself or hire a pro to create for you. Let Virtual A team help you get started.

What if you don’t know what to do with the results of your website audit?

Chances are that your website has many problems. It can become overwhelming and frustrating. The frustration may even get to a point where you do nothing. It’s okay. We understand your pain, we know which steps need to be taken to update your website. Take a deep breath. Calm your nerves and hire an expert to get your website moving in the right direction.  

Also, remember these key things that you should look out for when doing a website audit:

• Mobile friendliness
• Slow page speeds
• Outdated design
• Changes in your brand’s products and services that aren’t reflected on the website
• An inactive blog
• No leads
• Unsuccessful optins

Virtual A team will help you run a complete website audit and use the results to get your website performing at its best. Our team of project management, social media, and website experts will work in tandem to get your website to produce the results you desire. Contact us today for a free consultation. 

Great websites focus on more than appearances, they also focus on avoiding a few key rookie website mistakes.

“Oh my gosh! This is so pretty!”

Have you ever had this reaction when you’ve visited a website?

Click a link and boom! A page with nice pictures and fonts appears. Maybe it’s just me, but a website’s appearance is the first thing that grabs my attention.  

Here’s the thing. A pretty website isn’t enough. You need to avoid certain website mistakes. 

Attractive websites don’t always provide the return on investment (ROI) entrepreneurs desire.

 Why?

The answer to this question lies in the fact that there is far more to a successful website than what meets the eye. It’s easy to make some common website mistakes, especially when you are DIYing things.

A good website begins with a well thought out plan based on the K-E-E-P principle. Understanding and implementing each element of this principle will help you develop the 10 key ingredients your website needs for long-lasting success. It’s time to K-E-E-P your website performing at its best by avoiding website mistakes.

The K-E-E-P Principle for Avoiding Website Mistakes

 K- Know your goals.

 Your website is your brand’s online real estate. However, it shouldn’t be treated like a plain ol’ Jane, just sitting there waiting for things to happen. This is a common website mistake solo entrepreneurs make when first starting out. 

You know that guy your best friend keeps around “just in case”? Your friend strings him along because she isn’t quite sure what she wants from him yet. Is your website treating your prospects like “that guy”?

A website without clear goals will string along potential customers, leaving them confused. Setting clear goals about what you want to achieve with your website at each stage of business growth is important.

You must be saying, “Are you out of your mind! I don’t have time to continuously change my website. It’ll stay this way for as long as the business is open.” It’s time to shift your perspective. Have you ever heard the words personalization and segmentation? Both are important for attracting the audience you desire and they require ongoing modifications to your website.

Website goals continuously change based on your marketing objective. Here’s an example.

Shelly

Shelly has a relationship coaching business called Talk It Out. She wants to attract young couples to the website so that they can schedule a strategy session with her. Her business goal is to schedule at least 10 strategy sessions monthly. Her segmentation and personalization goals for her website could be:

• Use A/B testing for the landing page to determine if potential clients are attracted to an image of a happy couple or a couple in discontent.
• Change the pop-up window to offer seasonal topics like How to Handle Holiday Stress or Vacationing with your Partner.
• Change the colors and fonts to determine which combination gives the best results.

Each goal will result in an occasional change to the layout and “feel” of the website in some way.

E- Establish consistency

Think about some of your favorite brands. How do you know that you’re seeing something from Coke, Apple, Tiffany’s or any brand you love? There is an element of the brand that is clearly visible in anything they produce. Coke has the iconic wave, Tiffany has the infamous Tiffany blue color, Apple has their easily identifiable logo and simplistic design…the list is endless.

There must be something distinct about your brand that makes it easily identifiable. This distinct element should be on your website. It should always be there even when you change other elements of your website to achieve your marketing goals. One of the questions you should ask before creating your website is, “What will make people know that they’re interacting with X brand besides the brand’s name?”

E-Engage and improve.

A website isn’t a social media platform. But, it does provide useful analytics that help you identify website visitor trends. Your potential audience is indirectly letting you know what they think. Listen to them.

For instance, website analytics show the most frequently visited pages on your website and how long website visitors stay on each page. This information should cause you to question why some pages are getting more traffic than others, especially if the target pages you want people to visit are being ignored. It’s a game of finding out what works and what doesn’t.

Website analytics can only be used after your website has been launched. While it should be a part of the evaluation strategy of your website plan, you should get feedback and make improvements prior to the launch of each iteration of your website.

Close friends and family members can be your first option for getting this important feedback. Ensure that they understand what you’re trying to achieve so that they know what to look for when viewing your draft.

A truly unbiased perspective can also be sought from a sample of existing customers. Focus groups and social media posts are 2 possible ways to get this feedback. You can use mockup images of the static pages to try and get this feedback.  Probably even have a competition where you use the mockup that has the most votes. There are many interesting ways that you can get your audience involved.

P- Practice simplicity.

Some teenagers have extremely cluttered and messy rooms. As a parent, this drives you up the wall! You open the door and are greeted by an environment that makes your head spin.

There are some websites that look like a teenager’s cluttered and messy room. They’re a complete turn-off for website visitors and a big website mistake.  Their minds are going bonkers!

Simplicity is key. A simple website that is easy to navigate and visually appealing always comes out on top. This is the type of website that you should aim to create.

2.    Slow load speeds

Website load speeds matter for 2 main reasons. People have short attention spans. (We all can have the attention span of a 2-year-old when surfing the net.) Additionally, search engines use page load speeds to rank websites. The faster your website loads, the better your ranking, so it’s important to do what you can to avoid this website mistake.

The Crazy Egg offers 20 ways you can improve your website’s speed. Some of these strategies require an understanding of the technical side of things. Here’s what you can do instead of becoming flustered and overwhelmed; hire a freelance website developer.

2.    Slow load speeds

Website load speeds matter for 2 main reasons. People have short attention spans. (We all can have the attention span of a 2-year-old when surfing the net.) Additionally, search engines use page load speeds to rank websites. The faster your website loads, the better your ranking, so it’s important to do what you can to avoid this website mistake.

The Crazy Egg offers 20 ways you can improve your website’s speed. Some of these strategies require an understanding of the technical side of things. Here’s what you can do instead of becoming flustered and overwhelmed; hire a freelance website developer.

Now let’s talk about the website mistakes to avoid. 

11 Website Mistakes to Avoid

 Great websites focus on more than just how they look. They also focus on avoiding a few key website mistakes.

1.   No Secure Socket Layer certificate (SSL)

I’m starting with one of the most technical things you’ll need on your website because it’s one of the most frequent website mistakes I see. In today’s super heightened digital age of hackers and data breaches, many browsers are no longer displaying pages that do not have an SSL certificate. This certificate is simply a piece of code on your site that authenticates your site as legitimate and secures the transfer of data from one point to another. You know if your site has SSL if it starts with https instead of http.

3.    A non-existent or dated blog.

The SEO Tribunal provides some useful statistics about blogging. They state that “companies who blog receive 97 percent more links to their website.” Additionally, “57 percent of marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging.”

Blogging gets your website noticed. The key to blogging is consistency. Hire a good content writer who can help you create engaging content. It’s a plus if this writer also has content marketing experience and can help you create a content calendar.

Download our Ultimate Guide to Delegating for More Tips & Tools on How to Delegate as a Solopreneur

4.    Little to no visuals

Customers respond well to visuals. In fact, more video content is being watched now than ever before. Statistics show that “54 percent of consumers want to see more video content.” Text and images on your website are great but, you need videos to attract a wider audience.

Video can come in a variety of different styles including live, animated, slides and more. There are many options out there to make video even easier to create, so there’s no excuse! You need to be using video to market your business. Including both quality images and videos on your website will give it the media boost it needs and help you avoid this website mistake.

5.    No indication about what you do or who you are

Be true to your brand’s personality. Potential customers want to visit your website and get a true sense of what your brand does and what it believes in. Writing a generic About Us page doesn’t make this happen.

It’s also important to ensure that your brand’s message is clear. Sometimes a brand can get lost in writing text with a lot of spunk that the message is lost. Inject the personality but don’t lose the message.

6.    An ugly or boring site

It was said at the beginning of this article that there’s more to a website than its aesthetics. This doesn’t mean that how the website looks isn’t important. The design is the first thing that grabs a website visitor’s attention.

Remember that the design shouldn’t be cluttered and difficult to navigate. People don’t want complexity, another website mistake. They want something that looks good without being too much. Here’re some examples of well-designed websites:

-          Air BnB

-          Mint

-          DropBox Business

7.    No keywords

Keywords have changed for search engine optimization (SEO). However, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth paying attention to them. Content should be written in a natural way and meet the user’s needs above anything else. Chances are that you’ll include the right keywords anyway if you do this. It does help though to have long-tail and short-tail keywords in your title, section headings, and Alt text.

8.    Not mobile-friendly

I was looking up some restaurants the other day, on my phone. It was utterly shocking how many of them do not have mobile-friendly sites!

Approximately 52.2 percent of the global website traffic was generated through mobile phones. Your website should create a positive user experience for these mobile users. In fact, Google thinks this is so important, that they will rank mobile optimized sites ahead of those that aren’t. A mobile-friendly website has:

• Responsive design: It should adjust to screen sizes of different devices. The website should provide the same experience regardless of the device used.
• Simple mobile navigation: The navigation should be vertical with enough space between elements to avoid people clicking the wrong things.

 9.    No Social media links

Social media is an important part of any digital marketing strategy. It’s like word-of-mouth advertising; someone who likes your content will share it with others thus creating a domino effect. Make the social media sharing process as simple as possible by including social media buttons on your website. A user shouldn’t have to copy and paste a URL in order to share a post.

10. No contact information

As a solopreneur, you may be hesitant to provide an email address or phone number on your website. Keep in mind, though, that different people have different preferred methods of contact. Don’t make the classic solopreneur website mistake and only provide one (if any) contact method. 

And be sure to make it stupid obvious. Anyone who visits your website should easily find your business’ contact information without visiting the Contact page. A good rule of thumb is to include the business’ contact information in the website’s footer so that it is visible on each page the customer visits.

11. A clear call-to-action

Ultimately, you want website visitors to do something when they visit your website. Whether it’s buying an oh so fabulous dress or signing up for a newsletter, the expectation must be clear. Including a call-to-action button on your landing page can do the trick. It also helps to have a call-to-action in each of your blog posts. Don’t be afraid to ask multiple times!

Some thought should go into the call-to-action. Here’re some questions to consider:

1.     Where will the call-to-action button be placed?
2.     What colors will you use to make it stand out?
3.     What’s the right wording to fit with your intended message?

Play your cards right and you’ll get more website visitors to complete the desired action.

Putting It All Together

 Your website will only be the bomb dot com if you K-E-E-P working at making it the best it can be. There will be numerous revisions as you try to produce the best result. Nevertheless, K-E-E-P pressing forward.

The 11 things your website needs to succeed include:

1.     SSL
2.     Site Speed
3.     A well done blog
4.     A mix of media
5.     Clearly defined description
6.     Great aesthetics
7.     Well optimized keywords
8.     Mobile friendly design
9.     Social Media buttons
10. Contact info
11. A clear call-to-action

Who knew that so much was required to create a killer website? Thankfully, there are DIY website creation platforms such as Wix, SquareSpace and WordPress that make the website creation process easier. Or, take the smarter approach and Delegate THIS!

You must have heard that you need to create unique content for your blog often, right? Whether you are an unwilling or a natural blogger, it’s important to maximize blog content to make the most of every post's visibility.

Here’s an all too familiar scenario: 

You finish writing engaging content for your blog and you joyfully post it on your site. You then promote it on your social media accounts - once…

Next, you question why it's not generating leads and traffic. No comments, no engagements. Nada!

There's nothing like that sinking feeling when you've put a lot of hard work into a blog and no one sees it.

 “What is it that I'm not doing? Is it the article? Why is no one interested? "Do I need to change the approach?”  Well, maybe.

Why Your Blog Content Isn't Generating Leads

Many bloggers stop putting in any effort to promote their content after they publish an article. They tend to wonder why no one visits the blog or hit the share button. Maximizing blog content by promoting it across different social media sounds difficult. But if you and your team put it in the work and add it to the routine, it'll be worth the effort.

Download our Ultimate Guide to Delegating for More Tips & Tools on How to Delegate as a Solopreneur

Leading your social audience back to your blog can work magic. You need to create quality content for your blog, do keyword research and draft a social sharing strategy. Hold on...we don't mean to overwhelm you. We understand that it’s a complicated process. But it works. And it isn't so bad when you have a team.

10 Steps to Maximize Blog Content and Boost Traffic

When it's time to maximize blog content, work smarter, not harder. No worries, we are with you - here are 10 steps you can take to maximize blog content and boost blog traffic!

1. Create Great Content for Your Blog

If we want to boost blog traffic, we must create quality content. You may have heard the term “content is king.”  In actuality, it's thrown around more than a baseball in a ball game. But do you know that creating quality content isn’t only about quality? It includes developing content marketing strategies.

Good content satisfies a particular need. Consider your audience and find out what they love. Presently, articles fall into these categories:  Useful and informative or modern and funny. Pick one, and you’ve laid a foundation.

Smart Tip: Mental block? No problem. Check Quora to know the questions asked, which relate to your business subject. Also, Buzzsumo contains contents written by others in your industry. Go through them as they'll help you can craft better contents. We've also discovered that these blog topic generators are useful.

In terms of style, aim for mind-boggling statistics, superb storytelling through video, and appealing infographics. In essence, create stuff your audience will want to click and share.

Want to learn how videos can help market your business? Click here

Create Evergreen Content for Your Blog

Evergreen contents? Yes, evergreen! Evergreen contents are timeless. It's a great way to maximize blog content by generating traffic that keeps coming.

For instance, an article about this year’s Easter event will become irrelevant later. But an article about the pros and cons of something, the history of something, or statistics will remain relevant, making it evergreen.

So let's make certain that most of our contents are evergreen. For evergreen content ideas, click here.

Create Awesome Headlines

It's about time we started creating compelling headlines. The internet is full of junk, let's not add more, a great headline is what captures the interest of visitors.

Truthfully, a headline is more powerful than the main post! If engaging content hides behind a poor headline, it won't survive. Appearance is key.

Can you show up at a party wearing an apron or a sick cloth? I guess not. It applies to content too.  We shouldn't rely on dull headlines to improve our blog posts.

Try to test many headlines. Share your blog content many times with different headlines to select the best style.

Do you want more blog traffic? Read: Blog management, Read up why you should hire a VA.

Start a Newsletter to Display Quality Articles

Do you know what needs a large part of our content strategy? Promotion! If you're wondering why? Well, we need it so our articles can drive traffic to our site!

An easy way to maximize blog content and begin directing traffic to your site is to send emails for a blog newsletter. After collecting those contacts, send them emails monthly or weekly. 

We recommend that you include a link to your recent blog post below your email signature. Try WiseStamp. Set it up one time, and it will update through RSS feed.

2. Use Keywords

Want to drive massive traffic to your site? Make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keywords a big part of your strategy. People get nervous when we suggest the use of Keywords and SEO, but remember this; SEO works when it’s done right. In other words, you’ll get real traffic from Google. Additionally, your users get the information they’re looking for.

So do you know what to do now? No? Shout, “I'll always value keywords” and shout it out loud! But remember to use keywords in moderation.

DOs

• Add keywords in your content
• Include links to other articles you’ve written, especially related articles.
• Allow keywords to guide your outline and help envision your articles

DON'Ts

•  Don't stuff your content with keywords to saturate them entirely with search queries
• Avoid adding a lot of links so that every other sentence is marked with blue hyperlinks.
• Don't put search bots and keywords before user experience.

Google drives many searches daily. You need keywords to rank on the result page.

With many advertisers and websites online, and competing for the successful keywords, do you stand a chance? Yes. How?

Wait for it....

Long Tailed Keywords Explained:

These keywords are search phrases with more than three keywords. It's simpler to target long-tail keywords since the struggle for these phrases is less. Using long-tail keywords can help us get a top Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) spot on Google.

If you’d want to rank high in Google for “exercise gadgets”, you need long tail keywords. “Exercise gadgets” is a competitive phrase.

But, if you concentrate on “affordable exercise gadgets” or “exercise gadgets for running,” you'll rank higher.

Now how do we conceive these excellent long-tail keywords? Begin with Google. Start writing in a phrase on Google and see what its auto-complete suggestions are. 

 Next, put some of the auto-complete suggestions into Google to get few related search suggestions. They're positioned towards the end of the page.

Are you done with that? If yes, take every long-tail phrase you want and input them in the Google Keyword Planner.

Get the phrases that push the most traffic and extract the keywords with low competition and high search volume. Voila! You've gotten your long-tail keywords! Next, we suggest creating content around those keywords.

3. Find Your Audience

If we want to drive more traffic and maximize blog content, we need to go where our target audience hangs out. Knowing your audience can help you build excellent referral links from reputable websites. 

Use Google Analytics to determine the sites pushing the most traffic. Look for the sites and forums your audience frequents, and get active.

Discuss topics, comment on blogs and post links when suitable. Don't pass as spammy. Let them see you as an essential member who brings in vital information.

If a member needs advice about weekly exercise plans, point them to your website! If it's something unrelated to your business, you can move along.

The moment you find your audience, go all in.

If you need more traffic, you can ask. A study shows that people who requested their followers to retweet their posts on Twitter get 73.48 average retweets. People who didn’t ask only got 2.09 retweets.

If you want users to share your post, all you need to do is ask! It's that simple.

4.  Optimize for Mobile and Speed

 Viewers won't wait around for your site to load. If your page doesn't load up fast enough, they’ll try the next or even a competitor’s site. Remember, time waits for no one.

If you want to check the speed of your site, Google’s Page Speed Insights tool (link) will help.  It gives the speed score and tips on what to do to give your website what it needs to improve.

Likewise, users spend about 3 hours a day on a mobile device or tablets (link). Going mobile is an easy task for website owners. If your current blog isn't sufficiently good, explore any of these Wordpress plugins. They help build a better style of your blog that's optimized for tablets mobile phones.

Jetpack by Wordpress 

WPtouch Mobile Plugin

5. Establish Good Relationships with Other Bloggers

If you want to build traffic online, good habits can go a long way. We recommend building solid ties with other bloggers in your field. Teaming up with your competition is a good strategy. If you've seen Game of Thrones, then you know what I mean.

Stay active in different forums and comment on other blogs. Think about interviewing key industry bloggers or add other bloggers in a “Top 5 or Top 10” post style. For instance, Top 5 Blogs for health and lifestyle.

Once you feature or cite a blogger in any posts, tag them in your social media to let them know. They'll likely share or retweet the post mentioning them. This act will give you more shares and of course, more traffic in turn.

6. Include Interlinks

Yes, linking to your site is right for SEO. But it’s vital to link to other sources too. This shows that you’re not a spammer. It also tells Google that you're helping to build a real relationship with other websites you’re linking to.

Also, links within your articles to other sections of your site, using keywords, inspire visitors to explore. Note that you’re building an experience for readers and adding value.

If there’s an article written from another website that can add value, link to it. Yes, if your audience knows that you're a source for relevant content, they’ll come to you for more.

7.  Use Videos

Do you want to add a little pizzazz to your blog post? If so, we recommend using video. Combining written content with videos can distinguish you from your competitors.

Further, articles with videos create more inbound links and boost viewership than a content without.

8. Include a Call to Action (CTA)

“A call-to-action or CTA is a line of text or image that (prompts your consumers, leads, and visitors to take action.

We advise that you include a CTA at the end of a Google+ post, Facebook post, blog post or any anywhere you want the audience to take action.

 Although your aim may appear clear to you, restating the course of action for audiences raises the plausibility that they’ll follow through.

9. Share New Contents on Social Media Accounts

Establish a schedule that you're comfortable with. For example, you can post more often on Facebook than on Twitter, and you won't lose your audience. Consider what works better on each platform. Learn the best social media for business here.

10. Incite Subscriptions and Comments

Encourage visitors to comment, and reply to the comments in a meaningful. Interaction builds rapport—and offers opportunities to add engagement, long-tail keywords,  and new content for your blog. One strategy to encourage comments is to conclude blog posts with a call to respond.

We recommend adding visible buttons for subscribing via email. Subscribers will have access to your blog without visiting it.

Final Thoughts

We shouldn't let our contents to wither in the back of beyond. Follow these rules and watch how your traffic will soar to your website in no time!

Get more content like this on our website or click the following related articles below:

Why You Need to Have a Target Audience and How to Find One

Why your Newsletter Opt-in needs one

What We Think Of the Top Social Media Management Tools

Content Writer vs Copywriter: What you need to know

It’s that time of year again when you put on your warm clothes (here in Arizona, that means jeans instead of shorts), drink eggnog and search for a great new year’s eve party! But it’s also that time when you come up with new year’s resolutions that you know you aren’t going to keep. I mean I vowed to learn French last year but all I have learned so far are the words, baguette and duck l’orange (from the local french restaurant).

But hey, you can’t have the same attitude with your business - it might end up as bad as my French. Setting New Year Goals for your coaching business is one of the best ways to grow it every year. Don’t try for a moonshot, instead go with something more achievable - some goal you know you won’t give up on easily.

Obviously, the goals will vary depending on your particular coaching business, but here are a few ideas to help you get started. Some of these tasks might seem daunting, but don’t worry. You can easily complete them with the help from a virtual team.

Increase Email Lists

You know those annoying emails that you keep getting from your bank asking you to get a credit card that you can’t possibly afford with your shopping habits? Yes, that means you are a victim of their mailing list. This is just one of the ways that the banks market themselves and you can do it too! Now, it is your turn to increase your email lists so you can market your products and services to others including banks as well.

Modify your website

One of the most common ways to increase your mailing list is to target the people who are visiting your website. There is a multitude of ways of getting them to your website - we leave that up to a different article. For now, focus on getting the emails of the people who do end up visiting your website.

You can ask your web designer to create screen overlays with tempting offers in exchange for their email. For example, you can offer some of your content in the form of an ebook in exchange for it. You can also restrict the content to members who can gain access through free signup using their email ID. A well designed pop up, with easy to enter email and a tempting enough offer might just lure your users to give you their emails for you to add to your personal collection.

Leverage your offline meetings

Every day, you meet people offline who can be a potential lead, so why not ask them for their email to forward them some good content. A simple way of leveraging your offline meetings is to use the business cards that you receive from people and add their emails to your list.

Alternatively, you can also use the seminars to distribute sign up forms to online newsletters so you can get their emails. Trading your business cards in for theirs is also a great way to increase the number of people on your list.

Use Social Media

Finally, you can use social media too as a great tool to ask your followers to hit you up with their email addresses so you can send some new content their way. You can publicize this through media posts or text posts. Alternatively, you can ask them to send you an email so you can reply to it while adding their address to your list.

If you want to save yourself some of the efforts, you can just ask one of your connections in the same business to do an email list exchange of sorts. It would profit both of you equally with no hard work required. This is where all the skills of networking on Facebook and Instagram that we taught you would come useful 😉

Now there is a possibility that you already had an extensive mailing list which is lying dormant somewhere in your computer. You can skip a lot of this effort and simply organize and re-engage the old email list. This would save a lot of time as well.

Create an Online Program

As someone running a business, your goal should always be to make more money with the least amount of added efforts. A clever way to do this is to create an online program for the same stuff that you are teaching in seminars offline. Once your online program has started, with some effort of marketing it, you will be able to sell more by not putting in any extra effort other than when you created the content. Furthermore, it would increase your reach from a local level to a national or international one. Meanwhile, you can continue running your offline coaching business to get more revenue.

Get the resource ready

The most important thing here is to create the resource that you want to sell online. It is up to you to decide what is it is. You can either create a series of videos as tutorials or go with an ebook that you can sell to others. Both of them will require quite a bit of effort from you in the beginning. However, with the help of a virtual team, the work can be cut in half or even lower.

For an ebook, you could hire a writer and give the basic points that you would like to be covered or a detailed summary of the whole book. The writer should then be able to form the content around that. On the other hand, the videos can be created with the help of an animator with your voiceover. Alternatively, if you are too lazy, you can just skip the animation part and jump to distributing audio files. As long as you focus on making good content and not something on lines of ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’, you would be able to sell the content easily.

Create Awareness

A popular saying goes “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”. Once you are finished creating your resources, you should start marketing them on your website as soon as possible. For higher chances, start advertising your new product on social media too. Facebook has some great options that allow you to advertise online. Hire a social media marketer to make this job easy as pie.

Write a Book

Writing a book is something everyone says they will do but no one ever gets around to it. There are a number of reasons for this, but let’s not focus on that. Instead, let’s focus on why you should start writing a book and how you can go about it.

Firstly, it would be a great way to document all (or some) of your teachings and wisdom in your field. As you are noting all of it down, there are chances that new ideas come to you kid of like how you remember the best argument during a fight after the fight is already over.  It may also be possible that while you are researching for this book, you find something out that you and/or others didn’t previously know about. All of this makes the book, something of great value. You can later use this book to sell it online or offline.

One of the best times to write this book is when you feel like taking a break from all your work. That way, you will be spending your breaks productively, stepping away from procrastination and writing a book all at the same time. Of course, you can take the help of a content writer from your virtual team and fill in the gaps, beautify it or just have it proofread. Either way, at the end of this, you will have something that you can call your legacy.

Improve Social Media Presence

As the world takes to social media to try and beat their competition, it is time you do too. There are several businesses that haven’t lived up to their potential just because they lost out in a marketing war while refusing to take things online. This year, try something different and improve your social media presence online so more people get to know about you.

Expand to other Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit - I would run out of fingers and toes to count but there would still be more social media left. Unfortunately, only a few of these websites are widely used for marketing. But this doesn’t mean that the other websites are less effective. First, check if you are already using most of these platforms to share your content. If you aren’t then get started on them now!

Start by moving on to some other site, then another one, and keep going until your goals are met. This might seem like a lot of work for you, and frankly, it is. That is why virtual teams like us exist. With the help of social media marketers and influencers, you are bound to see a rise in traffic and hopefully, conversions.

Improve on current numbers

If you are already marketing yourself in most of the platforms out there, you need to come up with ways to improve the numbers. In Facebook, you should attempt to get an increase in the number of followers on your page and the percentage interacting with your post.

Similarly, for Instagram, you would want more followers and a large percent of them liking your posts or sharing them. There are plenty of ways to do this, but some of the easiest ones involve you reaching out to viewers or posting advertisements.

Be More Productive

Everyone knows that one of the best ways to earn money is to get more work done. But the real challenge is to get more work done in the same amount of time. Thankfully, I have some tips for you to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed or overworked...with some help from your friends of course.

Set definite goals

One of the key techniques in avoiding procrastination and improving productivity is to set small achievable targets. So you take a big task like increasing your site’s traffic to over 1000 visitors a month and then you divide it into smaller targets with definite time constrained goals.

This will help you achieve them in a definite amount of time and increase your productivity. The completion of these small goals overtime also gives you a small morale boost which leads to better productivity as well.

It is important to ensure that you focus on one goal at a time. Otherwise what happens is that you try and juggle all the different objectives and hardly end up achieving a few of them.

Alternatively, you could reduce procrastination by unsubscribing to Netflix. But let’s not kid ourselves, that’s never going to happen.

Delegate work efficiently

Sometimes when people work in a group, one person tends to take on most of the jobs because he/she feels that they can do it the best. I know I do. But this often leads to a decrease in productivity as you can’t focus properly on one task at a time and thus in a delay in completing all the tasks.

Trust your virtual team and delegate part of the work to them. This will not only reduce your workload but it will help you get more work done faster thus increasing your productivity. Similarly, remember to assign them deadlines with smaller tasks one after the other. This should keep them in check too.

Another great advantage of delegating work is that it lets you concentrate on other aspects of the business. Overall, it increases the productivity of the full team.

Have more time for family

Those that know me well, know that spending time with family is about far more than an obligation. For those that don’t know the story, in 2013, we lost a son. He was just 3 weeks from turning 18. It’s easy to get wrapped up in working to grow your business. But, if you are growing your business so that you have more time to spend with your family, don’t wait. You are never guaranteed tomorrow. You can read more about the story on our About Us page.

Besides, taking a break from work is often one of the best ways to get more motivated and come up with brilliant new ideas.

Here are a few ways with which you can start spending more time with your family.

Free up your weekends

Weekends are meant for relaxing. Anyone who says otherwise is negative company you don’t need in your life. While you should work as much as you can, your weekends should help you detox from everything. Fortunately, this is the nice kind of detox - not the herby green juice kind. Take this time off to spend time with your family. Go out with your partner (or in search of one), show your kids who is the boss in Mario Kart, or simply take a nap on the couch - anything but work.

Go on Vacations

What is the point of making money if you don’t spend it, am I right? Going on vacations is the ultimate way to tune it all out, kick back and relax for a while. At the same time, you will be making your family happy as they will get to spend uninterrupted time with you as well. You don’t need to worry about a single thing. Your virtual team back home (from all around the world) will be helping you grow your business while you are away.

Conclusion

There are several ways to boost your business starting fresh from a new year. However, not everyone follows them through. Don’t try and accomplish all the goals that were mentioned in this post. Go about it at your own pace. To recap, you can accomplish the following goals with the help of your virtual team -

• Spend more time with your family whenever you can
• Be more productive and efficient rather than just blindly doing more work
• Write a book, preferably about your specialty
• Improve your social media influence across all platforms
• Increase your email list
• Create an online program for your followers around the world

Finally, to conclude, I’d like to leave you with a Super Tip.

I don’t know if you realized this or not but most of the goals here are interconnected. So, if you do manage to complete one of them, the other ones will start following dominoes.

If you start being more productive, you will be able to spend more time with your family and finish writing your book. At the same time, your virtual team will help you increase your social media influence leading to a longer email list. With your content and marketing aids ready to go, you can start your own online program creating a boom in business perfect for celebrating the next new year’s eve with multiple bottles of champagne 😉

Don’t wait too long. Get ready for attacking the first goal of the new year now!