Posts Tagged ‘Web Presence’

How easy do you make it for your prospective clients to contact you?  Do you have a contact form on your website with direct email ?  Are all your telephone numbers visible? If you are on Social Media do you have all the widgets in place connecting through? For a lot of us this seems standard practice but I have recently visited a fair few websites that don’t make it easy for me to contact them.  Their telephone number is hiding in the bottom left hand corner of the page, an email address will be displayed but doesn’t link through and although they talk about following them on Twitter and Facebook again the URL doesn’t link me up.  How frustrating is that?

Surprising isn’t it that so many companies have websites but omit the most crucial information.

Check your website and make sure that the following are in place:-

• Telephone number is displayed clearly – best position top right hand corner, in my opinion, it’s where I always look first.
• Have a separate tab on your site “Contact” which will have a pre-set email form where they can send you a message direct
• If you don’t have this and only show your email address then make sure that is hyper linked
• Ensure your Social Media Links actually link to the relevant sites

As I say, it might be common place for a lot of us but there are a lot of sites out there that just don’t want to be contacted – amazing!  Why make it impossible for your prospective clients to contact you?  What will they do?  They’ll move on to the next provider they find on Google search.  Now that is a missed opportunity.

Debra Ellis wrote about this recently too.  Note:  If you are not already registered on The Social Customer you will need to sign up to read the report – well worth it.

Take a moment now and check your website is working for you.

It’s hard to believe that it is only 12 years ago that Google came to us.  I know as we get older the years seem to fly by far too quickly, actually in my case and hopefully for some of you too, I am sure the year has been cut down to 6 months.  Like this year – here we are almost at the end of September and no doubt come the 1st October we will be listening to Christmas carols in the shops!

There’s nothing we can do about the passing of time but we can celebrate with Google their achievement in just 12 years.  Congratulations and long may your service continue to grow and assist all of us  - Happy Birthday!

In my profession as a Virtual Assistant one of the most common questions I get asked is “So what exactly is a Virtual Assistant, and what do they do?” For many people in business the concept of a Virtual Assistant (or ‘VA’) is well understood, but for other people I find that I need to carefully explain what services a Virtual Assistant can provide.

So in this blog I have decided to explain in simple terms exactly what a Virtual Assistant is and show how a VA can help businesses both large and small. In simple terms, a Virtual Assistant is an independent administrative assistant just like any other Assistant, Secretary or PA. The difference is that in this case a VA does not physically work within your office premises but works remotely using technology to service all your business needs and requirements.

Although no two VA’s are likely to provide identical offerings, most VA’s tend to focus on a number of core business services. Typically these would include secretarial type services like making phone calls and following them up, sending e-mails and physical mail, scheduling appointments, taking messages and even electronic filing. In addition, some VA’s will also maintain your web presence by managing your social media sites; Facebook, Linked-In and Twitter for example.

Some VA’s will also offer to maintain your business website or your blog, arrange mail-shot campaigns, arrange the distribution of company newsletters, write press releases and assist with general sales and marketing activities. For example, as part of my own business I look after a number of clients who need a 24/7 presence on the web through the medium of social media.   I am able to set up their accounts and profiles thus giving them the web presence they require.

The advantages of using the services of a Virtual Assistant are many, but crucially it can prove to be a very cost-effective way of working. By using a VA your business will not have to pay for office space, a PC or office equipment, Internet connection, printer, phone, filing cabinet or desk. Also, because your VA is not on the company payroll, you do not have the additional expenses of health insurance, national insurance, sick pay and holidays. Also, most VA’s already have prior experience of working in an office environment and therefore need very little training in order to start becoming productive.

If you are running a business that uses a Virtual Assistant you will often find that they become an integral part of your team, providing a number of key benefits. To make the most of the services of a VA however, it is worth taking the time to plan exactly how to utilise this important resource to best advantage. For example, think about which tasks can be delegated to a VA, structure these tasks into a priority order and then discuss with your VA how these tasks can best be scheduled. In many cases a VA will specialise in a particular aspect of business and it is worth taking advantage of this expertise if possible.

Realistically, taking on the services of a VA is not always as cheap as taking on a school leaver or part-time Administrative Assistant, but because of their professional experience and reliability it is often more cost effective to utilise the services of a good VA than risk putting your business relationships into the hands of inexperienced staff. Also, it is always advisable to find a VA who is able to offer a wide range of skills than to use the services of a number of different VA’s – because a good VA who understands your business and is able to operate using their own initiative is a much better option than farming work out to a number of different individuals – and then having to coordinate their efforts.

The bottom line is that a good VA can be worth their weight in gold because they free up your time to focus on the most important parts of your business, while you are secure in the knowledge that all your administrative duties are being taken care of by a professional that you can trust.

Don’t forget that if you want any further information on any of the above topics then please do get in touch. On The Go is already helping successful businesses in many of the ways described above – as well as implementing their social networking strategies, helping them set up a consistent company profile and scheduling their media messages to give them a 24/7 web presence.