Many businesses have a blog on their website, and is it any wonder? Blogging can be an effective marketing tool for your business, as it drives visitors to your website and showcases your expertise. But blogging tasks can also eat into your day – and that’s why you need to outsource them to a Virtual Assistant.

If you’re looking to claim back your time, you no doubt have listed all the tasks you carry out in your day. And when it comes to blogging, if you just write ‘blogging’, you’re doing yourself a total disservice! 

Below, you’ll find a breakdown of the most common blogging tasks that are needed for every blog post on your site. You’ll be pleased to know they can also be outsourced to your Virtual Assistant too!

[And if you’re in any doubt as to why you need a blog on your site, check out 5 good reasons why every small business needs a blog.]

Blog post research 

A blog post can’t be written until the idea has been thought up and researched. From generating ideas and carrying out keyword research, through to online searches of your keywords – these are all things you can outsource to an assistant.

Writing your posts

The most essential of blogging tasks! A Virtual Assistant can write posts for you. In its basic form, this involves you writing a rough outline first, but some Virtual Assistants specialise in content writing too.

Editing 

Once the post is written, you’ll need someone to edit it – and that’s another job you can outsource.

Uploading and scheduling blogging tasks

Don’t underestimate how long it takes to do this part of a blog post. There’s the initial upload, and there’s also finding the right featured image and adding any graphics to the post, as part of the uploading and scheduling process.

Optimising your posts for SEO 

Many business owners are using WordPress for the blog page. If you want to make your blogs SEO friendly, you’ll need Yoast. And your assistant can take the time to optimise your posts using Yoast’s guidance.

Creating graphics 

As mentioned earlier, when you upload a post, you want to add images and graphics. That often means you need to source suitable images and then create the graphics for your posts. And don’t forget the pins for Pinterest too!

Creating social media posts for your blog posts

You’ll also want to share your blog posts on social media – and this will be something else your Virtual Assistant can do.

Repurposing your blog content

There are so many different ways you can repurpose a blog post. Hand it over to your assistant and see how creative they can be.

Researching guest blogging opportunities

If you want to take advantage of guest blogging, let your Virtual Assistant research potential websites and blog posts you can feature on.

Updating old blog posts

Once a blog post is uploaded and gone live, it’s not finished. You can breathe new life into it, by updating and adding to it.

Managing comments 

As your blogs get read, there’s bound to be comments added to them – and they’ll all need replying to. And whilst you’re there, you’ll also need to monitor those spam comments too…

Maintaining your content calendar 

As part of their blogging task management, a Virtual Assistant can ensure your content calendar is updated. This includes reflecting changes made to old blogs, as well as recording any new blogs that are now on the site.

Marketing blogging tasks

There are a whole load of tasks a Virtual Personal Assistant can also help you with around marketing your blog too. Avoid these tasks as your peril, unless you don’t want to grow your business. As Chris Ducker explains nicely in this his blog post How to work with a Virtual Assistant to market your blog, if you market your blog:

You can generate 88% more leads than non-blogging online businesses (yes, that’s right – research has shown that small companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who have a static website). 

Many businesses understandably have a blog on their website, so they can reap the benefits it brings to their business. But if you’re in charge of your blog, you’ll also appreciate how much time it can take out of your working week.

By giving those tasks to your Virtual Assistant, you’ll be freeing up a lot of your time. But also, there’s a high chance your assistant will have the time to complete more of the tasks listed above, enabling your business to benefit more from the blogs on your site.

If you’re looking for a Virtual Assistant to take on some of your blogging tasks, reach out and get in touch