New Blog Marketing Mini-Course from VAClassroom

As you know, the business of blogs has grown and evolved significantly over the last 24 months. A quote from the WordPress.com site puts it best…

“Blogging is growing both in the US and especially internationally. Tens of thousands of new WordPress blogs are created every day – by regular bloggers, companies, large media publishers, and many others. In addition, we seeing a trend that’s potentially even bigger than blogging: Publishers are starting to use WordPress as a platform to create all kinds of sites beyond blogs – large and small company sites, online magazines, social networks, travel sites, scrapbooking sites, contact managers, startups, multimedia archives, video sites, sports sites.”

Isn’t this cool? Ten of thousands of blogs being created DAILY! Businesses are using blogging technology to create company websites, social networks, video sites, membership sites and so much more.

The sad reality is that a good portion of these blog sites won’t last more than a year as they are lacking some key success strategies for optimizing and marketing their blogs.

Well now there is a great remedy for that problem….

VAClassroom.com has recently launched a new 2-week mini-course titled, “Blog Marketing Tips, Tools & Tactics”

As I have reviewed course, I see two valuable reasons for taking this program:

1.  This blog marketing mini-course will give you some advanced and current marketing and optimization skills that you can offer as a high value and “in-demand” service to a fast growing base of blog site owners.

2.  Many of you may currently be using a WordPress blogsite as your primary online business presence, which is very smart! This two-week training program will essentially provide you with a blog marketing tune-up and blueprint for your site, so that you can increase your targeted traffic, business visibility and new client leads.

This two-fold purpose will have a strong impact on both your business visibility as well as new income opportunities!

To get all the details on this important new training program, just click on the link below:

http://www.vaclassroom.com/socialmarketing/cmd.asp?Clk=3195901

 

Hot Skills VA Training & Fun Products

I have been a part of the Hot Skills VA training sessions since March.  It’s been a huge eye-opener for me and has helped me learn how to become an E-commerce Specialist, using Wishlist for WordPress to create a membership site, and becoming an Online Business Manager.  Throughout the weekly class sessions, I’ve learned to transition from working corporate to virtually, and how important it is to have a marketing mindset towards my business and of my client’s.  I learned about having a Pink Spoon Marketing tool to give away as a way to encourage people to sign up for teleseminars, webinars, and build lists for future announcements of products and services and for establishing relationships with people.

Tina Forsyth and Cindy Greenway coaching style are truly inspirational.  Taking their online classes (now self – directed) have contributed to the building of my business model and mission.  I encourage anyone  interested in building a Virtual Assistant practice to enroll in their online classes.  They now have self study programs which enables you to take these classes at your own convenience.

They are currently running a summer savings on self study specialist programs in:

• Website and Blog Specialist
• Podcasting and Video Specialist
• Membership Specialist (using Wishlist for WordPress)

Business Building Self Study Programs in

• 3 Clients in 30 Days Challenge
• Managing Mulitple Clients

They are starting a Certified E-Commerce VA Specialist on September 21 and Certified Online Business Manager in February 2010.

All the above mentioned classes are discounted until August 31, 2009.

The Fun Part!   “VA’s Do It On Their Laptops”  products are available and are great give-aways at meetings.   I couldn’t resist purchasing a few items .

 

Considering a Career as a Virtual Assistant?

Author: Ana Lucia Novak

The recent market conditions and massive lay-off’s has caused many of my friends to reconsider their career paths. Recently several of my friends asked me about my business as a virtual assistant. I told them that a Virtual Assistant is someone who offers his or her expertise to a specific target audience on an hourly basis or a monthly retainer fee. A Virtual Assistant is administrative at it’s foundation, but a person can specialize in event planning, website design, content/copy writing, internet marketing and advertising, or as an Online Business Manager. A Virtual Assistant is a business owner and not an employee or contractor.

When a client decides to purchase my services, they do not have to worry about purchasing new equipment ( laptop, printer, etc.); pay my taxes nor provide me health benefits. This is strictly a professional relationship, hopefully a long lasting, collaborative one.

They expressed a tremendous amount of anxiety about quitting their jobs, and felt a little uneasy about the process. My recommendation for anyone is to KEEP your day job, but to leverage your time and finances to get your ducks lined up in a row:

1. Assess your current skills
2. Take a Myers Briggs Test and understand your working style
3. Review your resume and write down the common theme – which will tell you what you love to do (and don’t like to do)
4. Write down the type of work you enjoy – tailor it towards a particular type of client: this can be a coach, speaker, event planner; online business (retail) owner, real estate, legal, marketing, public relations or advertising
5. Get plugged in with at least 1-3 virtual assistant sites such as: IVAA.org or VACOC.com. These sites offer resources and list seasoned and professional VA’s who are very helpful and insightful
6. You still need to get some kind of training because it will also help your “mind-set” when you transition to working for yourself as a VA: Virtual Assistant training through AssistU, EA to VA by Sydni Craig-Hart, or JERPAT Training by Patty Benton
7. I highly advise training in internet marketing, social media marketing and e-commerce – even if you don’t want to offer these services to your clients, you will want to apply some of these tools to your own business
8. Once you get through at least 6 months of training and certification courses then you will want to hire someone to build and design your website offering your services, get listed in every Virtual Assistant organizations, Yahoo, Google, and MSN, and other directories

I highly recommend that you hire a Virtual Assistant who specializes in website build and design who can whip out a tasteful, classy website that will reflect your personality, professionalism and attract the right type of clients. Their prices are affordable and because they’ve “been there and done that”, would be able to provide you excellent advice about your site.

If you would like to learn more, please feel free to email me at ana@cyberqueen.net and I will be happy to help spare you time and resources and point you in the right direction!

About the Author:

Ana Lucia Novak is the owner of Cyberqueen VA Solutions. Cyberqueen VA Solutions specializes in providing high level organization and online business management support. Her services include but not limited to Internet marketing;Social media marketing; Blog Posting & Maintenance (preferably WordPress!);E-commerce; and Creating and Using Auto-responders

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Considering a career as a Virtual Assistant?

 

INTERNET MARKETING VA TRAINING PROGRAM

$30 Member’s Discount on INTERNET MARKETING VA TRAINING PROGRAM

The IMVA Certification Program provides a solid foundation of the Internet Marketing skills and support tasks that many business clients are seeking here in 2009. The skills developed through this program will not only apply to the services you are providing to your clients, but will also further develop your Internet Marketing know-how for your own business promotions This program covers a cross section of the main areas of Internet Marketing such as Search Engine Marketing, Website Analytics, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging & Social Media and Email Marketing.

INTERNET MARKETING VA TRAINING PROGRAM
Internet Marketing Certification Course
$30 Discount
Coupon Code: IMVA09

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$100 Member’s Discount on SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SPECIALIST PROGRAM

For those of you who have not yet taken our Social Media Marketing Training Program, we are still offering a $100 discount off this popular program. We have heard of so many testimonies of new client and income opportunities from our graduates, as there are endless numbers of business outsourcing Social Media Marketing tasks that VAs can start doing right now.

Just click on the below link to get all the details on this program. Also, I have include the $100 coupon code below:
and enter the coupon code upon checkout!

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TRAINING PROGRAM
Become a Specialist in the hottest niche for 2009 – Social Media Marketing!
$100 Discount
Coupon Code: SOCIAL