How to Hire a Virtual Assistant to Propel Your Blog Growth

As your blog grows, it might be time to start thinking about hiring a virtual assistant. But one thing you might be thinking – why should you hire a virtual assistant anyway?  And what do they do?

Let’s break it all down today!  We’ll cover the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant, signs you need a virtual assistant, and ideas on specific tasks you can outsource.

This can seriously be a huge relief as you’re juggling all the hats.  If you’ve been following along with me here for a while, you may know I run multiple sites – and my son only goes to preschool a few days a week.

This means I’ve got to be extremely efficient with my time, and focusing on the activities that are going to bring me revenue. That means there are often extra tasks that may need to get done, but I simply don’t have time to do. And some things I’m just not the best at. Hiring virtual assistants to help me out has been super beneficial.

So let’s get to it, shall we? I hope by the end of this post, you have a clear idea on why to hire a virtual assistant and what that can mean for you and your wellness blog.

Benefits to hiring a VA

First, let’s think about the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. While some of us might think we can do it all… a virtual assistant can take a huge relief off of our shoulders.  Here are just a few benefits:

1. Productivity

Productivity in your business is so important. By hiring a virtual assistant, you can focus on the things that are most important.  Obviously, you want to be focusing on the tasks that are going to bring in more revenue for your particular business.

This is going to vary based on your goals and business model.  Each of my websites has a slightly different long term plan. As an example, Snacking in Sneakers focuses primarily on traffic growth for ad revenue and sponsored partnerships. So for that site I need to make sure I’m producing SEO-optimized content each week.

Of course, the problem is that productivity can become limited if you’re bogged down with other small tasks that are taking up time.  Shift those tasks to a VA, and this allows you to focus on your revenue-generating tasks.

2. Time

If you are running a wellness blog alongside of being a professional in the wellness industry, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know you are busy. 😉

By hiring a virtual assistant, you can take back some of your time. You can spend more time with your family or just have more “me” time. Or you can allocate more time on things that matter in your business, instead of rushing around trying to get everything done with the little time you have.

3. Growth

We all want to see growth in our business in the long term. You may be trying to grow your blog to be your primary source of income, or you may be using your blog to establish the know-like-trust factor among a greater number of potential nutrition or fitness clients.

If you hire a virtual assistant and outsource tasks correctly, most of the time you’ll see growth quicker.  It goes back to the productivity factor, where you are able to block out your own limited time for the highest-yielding tasks – while your VA is able to tackle the smaller (but less specialized) to-dos.

4. Revenue

Similarly, think about the potential for cumulative revenue growth.

Let’s say you are a dietitian that’s hoping to do more brand consulting.  You typically bill out $150/hour when you are consulting.  But you’re getting bogged down in the little aspects of your business, like fixing technical issues on your website and scheduling social media content.  This is preventing you from taking on new clients.

If you hire out a VA for $30/hour that can help with these tasks, and you can find work at $150/hour to replace that time, you’re netting $120/hour!

5. Peace of mind

Lastly, it can really help just having a peace of mind. Running a wellness blog is hard; being a professional in the wellness industry is hard.  But hiring a VA can…

• Allow you to relax, knowing that all the little things are being taken care of
• Reduce your stress level by making work-life balance more manageable
• Perhaps my favorite – make you less frustrated about tasks you’re not good at!  I’m not good at fixing technical things on my website, and used to spend about 10 hours to fix something that could have taken a web-savvy person about 15 minute.  I can’t even tell you how much better I feel about those issues now when I just email my web guy to fix something.  And, I know it’ll be done correctly!

I don’t need to tell you how valuable all this is.

Signs you need a VA

Okay so you’re convinced that hiring a virtual assistant for your blog is a good idea. But when do you start considering it as an option?

If any of these sound like you, it might be time to start looking.

(PS: I also want to add that you will get the most bang for your buck if you have systems in place and have an idea how your wellness blog runs. At a minimum, you need to be able to clearly communicate how you want something done for your blog or business.)

Burnout

Look, I know what it feels like to be burned out in your business. You are tired, frustrated, maybe not seeing the growth you want for the amount of hours you’re putting in…anyone with me?

This is the perfect time to start outsourcing a virtual assistant.  It will prevent the inevitable crash that comes if you don’t pay attention to the burnout, and keep your business running smoothly.

Lack of time

As I mentioned earlier, it can be hard to juggle all the hats. Blogger, wellness professional, parent, friend, and everything else that life throws at us.

If you’re at the point where you just don’t have time to do it all, a virtual assistant is the perfect answer. They free up time that you don’t have.  You get more done, spend more time with those you love, and anything else you need to devote time to.

This sign is particularly true if you’re currently turning down work you’d love to do because of lack of time.  Hire out for some less specialized stuff and take on that work that lights you up!

No longer excited

After you run a blog for a while, you may lose some of that initial excitement.  This can be a sign of two things:

1. You’re not really passionate about the site you started, and maybe you need to take a step back to see if there’s another business model or niche that would fit better.
2. More commonly, though, you are still passionate about the topic – but the hustle of maintaining the website without seeing as much growth as you hoped can get frustrating.

If you’re struggling with the later option, one way to get excited again is to take some things off your plate. Focus on the things that get you excited in your business and outsource the things that don’t.

Losing Customers/Readers

Are you taking week’s to respond to someone’s blog comment?  Forgetting to reply to potential customers because you’re email inbox is overwhelming with stuff?  Forgetting about an important deadline for a sponsored blog post?

All of these are signs you need some better systems in place, and a VA may be able to help get these set up for you.

Virtual Assistant Tasks

Alright so you have decided that you not only want to hire a virtual assistant, but you need one too. Like, maybe yesterday? Great!

Now where do you start figuring out what tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant? Well, here’s a few things to get some ideas going…

Admin

The admin side of things can be the most draining for most of us. I mean… checking email isn’t all that fun. And maybe you aren’t the best at customer service. This is a great area to hire out.

Virtual assistants can take care of things such as:

• Checking your email for incoming questions or concerns
• Responding to blog comments left on various blog posts
• Moderating posts and comments inside a wellness facebook group
• Assisting with organizing your schedule

As well as much more! If it falls under admin or customer service and you just don’t want to do it… you can definitely find a rockstar virtual assistant to handle it for you!

Social Media

Okay so maybe you love the admin work. For some personalities, it can be pretty rewarding and fun! But social media is another area that is either difficult or draining.

You can hire out for things like:

• Developing an instagram strategy to drive traffic or sales
• Running facebook ad campaigns
• Running Pinterest ad campaigns
• Posting on various platforms
• Interacting in your Facebook groups
• “Chore threads” (though as an aside, I generally don’t like these, with the exception of a few solid Pinterest threads where you can pick and choose what you want to share)

Social media is an area that many even specialize in and are true rockstars at! If social media isn’t your thing, hire it out.

On the flip side, you may find that you specialize in one of these aspects yourself – and that can be a great ancillary service to add to your blog.  For example, I personally L-O-V-E running promoted pin campaigns and doing SEO research, and help several clients with that.  It’s a great source of extra income doing something I enjoy.

Graphic Design

Not all of us can have an eye for design, which makes it a great area to hire out for! Most will specialize in this area for a more specific area.

You can hire a virtual assistant to do things such as:

• Design a logo and other branding
• Create social media and blog graphics (for example, pin-friendly images)
• Create PDFs to offer as free downloads
• Design workbooks, webinar slides, etc
• Make business cards or flyers to give to clients

There are so many great things you can utilize designers for! And great design also can lead to great marketing. They pair very well together and can result in growth for your business.

Writing

Some of us are great on video, great as verbal communication, but we lack the ability to put that into words. Hiring a virtual assistant to do the writing in your business can be great!

These are just a few things you can hire out for:

• Writing blog posts based off your ideas
• Writing pages on your website that represent you well
• Creating copy for your sales pages
• Developing product descriptions for products

Finding a good writer can also yield results for your growth. Writing copy that converts into sales will have a huge impact on your business!

Recipes

That’s right, there are VAs out there that specialize in this too!  For many of you, healthy food may be an integral part of your blog – and we all know people eat with their eyes first.

VAs can take care of:

• Creating recipes
• Running nutrition analysis on recipes
• Doing food photography for new recipes or re-shoots for old recipes
• Making “tasty-style” videos for your recipes to use on social media

This is one that I’ve personally been utilizing more in the last few months.  While I can make a pretty good recipe video, it takes me forever (and a day) to get one done.  I found a fabulous VA who is helping me out with a bulk set of videos to use throughout the year.

Strategy

Lastly… a virtual assistant that is great at strategy is really great for your wellness blog. There are a number of things that they might be able to help with.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Assisting you in implementing automation workflows
• Ideas for next steps in your business to see growth
• Developing a solid brand strategy to connect with your audience
• Helping you with a solid marketing strategy to grow your income

There is honestly a strategist for nearly everything. If you’re struggling with it, find someone to help!

Important Considerations on Tasks for a VA

When you first look into VAs, you may be tempted to hire out for ALL.THE.THINGS.  Take a step back though, and really evaluate a) skill level, and b) earning potential.

Let’s say you’re a fitness trainer that focuses on postpartum fitness for women.  You most likely have a much greater knowledge base on this subject than a general content writer. If you hire someone to write highly specialized content for you on these topics, you’re likely to encounter one of two situations:

1. The writer gives you a piece that’s not accurate or far too general, because they’re not super familiar with the topics you’re writing about.  The result is a piece you either have to spend a ton of time fixing up, or that you can’t use.
2. The writer does have expertise in the topic, and charges (appropriately so) for it.  The issue here is that you may not be at a point in your business where that particular fee outweighs your time.

There’s definitely a balance here between expertise, time, and money.  You need to figure out the best tasks to outsource.  The best place to start are the tasks that you don’t like doing and that don’t lie in your particular area of expertise.

Where to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Alright, you know you want to hire someone and have outlined the specific tasks you’d like to outsource.  Where do you go from here?  There are a few options for hiring:

Virtual Assistant Service

There are some dedicated services out there that connect bloggers and small business owners with virtual assistants.  Most have a certain number of hours per month that you’re contracted to use.  A few examples are Zirtual (starting at $398 for 12 hours), U Assist Me (starting at $299 for 20 hours; uses college students),

Open Call in a Marketplace / Group

This could be something like posting or searching for someone on Upwork or Guru, posting on Craigslist, posting on Virtual Staff Finder, or posting in your blogger or business Facebook groups.  I generally like the Facebook groups the best (for example, if I were going to hire a regular VA, I’d consider posting a request like this in the Boston Business Women and Boss-Moms Facebook groups) — but you can go with what feels right to you.

VA Facebook Groups

This is perhaps my favorite option for bloggers!  There are several Facebook groups out there specifically designed for bloggers looking for VA services.  Many will have VAs that post article topics they’re willing to write, share recipes they’ve already made and photographed, or offer services like Pinterest management or Facebook management.

If you’re not quite sure about hiring a VA for regular work but just want to try paying for a few project-type tasks, this is the *perfect* kind of place.  One of my favorites is the Facebook group VA For Hire and Pinterest Friendly Content for Bloggers.

With any of these options, you want to try to get samples of work and references first. Just like hiring for anything, you have to sift through some not so great candidates to find the best options for your business.

Final thoughts on hiring a VA

When it comes to hiring a virtual assistant, I truly believe they have a lot of benefits. You can save time, up your productivity, gain a peace of mind, and grow your business.

But you also need to know that you are ready for one. If you need more time or are dealing with burnout – and you’ve got some tasks that you know you can outsource – it’s time.

Thankfully there are a number of ways to get help in your business. No matter if that’s help with admin tasks, social media, writing, design, or even strategy… you can find the help you need.

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