You start a blog, write a blog post and might get lucky and get indexed on Google. That may drive you 1-2 visitors a day. How do you drive a large amount of visitors and get social engagement and increase the search engine ranking on Google? Here are 5 sure fire tactics to achieve that.

1. Talk about celebrities – Some how relate your post or topic back to a famous celebrity in a fun and catchy way. e.g. The 5 gagets Scarlett Johansson would love.
2. Relate it back to hot news stories or seasonal events – Anything happened lately and people are searching or or is on top of their mind. e.g. Guide to iphone 4s marketing strategy, How to market your to get the most out of Christmas
3. Make a Top 10 List – Make a top 10 list and review the top blogs in a related space. Tweet out to them and they might retweet or make a blog post. That will get you visitors and a link or links to your blog. e.g. Top 10 social media blogs you have to have to follow
4. Hold a contest – This may be a tricky one because you would need to have a critical amount of followers already but doing it can increase the discussion on the links as well as they will promote to their friends. e.g. Retweet and like us on Facebook to win an ipad
5. Guest Blogging – Writing guest blogs on blogs that have your target market. Some say that when you start off you should write half of your blog posts should be guest blogging.

Depending on your industry you might not be able to use all the tactics and some will have more effect than others. The goal is to experiment and see what works best for you. When one tactic works great scale it up. Also be creative you can combine multiple tips, like writing a guest blog post titled “Win the top 5 apps you need to make your own Christian Bale The Dark Knight Rises.

You can dramatically increase the amount of free time you have by hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA). They can do many redundant things for you business or personal. When you hire a VA you might not have enough tasks for them for the 40 hour week so go through this list to help you get ideas:

Here is a list of standard things they can do.:

1. Scheduling interviews and meetings
2. Web-research
3. Following up on appointments, errands, and tasks
4. Online Purchases
5. Creation of legal documents
6. Basic Website Maintenance (web design, publishing, uploading files) that doesn’t require a professional
7. Monitoring, editing, and publishing comments for online discussions
8. Posting job vacancies online
9. Document creation
10. Proofreading and editing documents for spelling and formatting
11. Online research for updating blogs
12. Updating the database for CRMs (Customer Relationship Management)
13. Voicemail Transcription
14. Market Research
15. Financial Research
16. Business Plan
17. Industry Analysis
18. Market Assessment
19. Reports
20. Legal research
21. Analytics
22. Creating presentations
23. Reports and Newsletters
24. Search Engine Optimization
25. Maintaining and updating databases
26. Managing Procurement processes

It is best if you start with simple tasks then move to more complicated tasks. The best is to make a video outlining step by step how to do it. I recommend using Screenr which is a video capture webapp that is dead simple to use and super convenient.

Those are just some ideas. If you have more please suggest in the comment section below.

If you do surveys here and there but it’s not part of your main business you might consider using the free plan from the top survey providers Surverymonkey, Zoomerang, Surveygizmo, and Poll Daddy. There are details of their free plans.

SurveyGizmo:

SurveyGizmo is the top choice because it has a very easy to use interface to help create questions quickly. It is the only provider to offer unlimited questions and you can have over 100 responses per question. And the great thing is you can also export your data.

1. 250 Responses per month
2. Unlimited questions
3. Basic reporting
4. Export data

SurveyMonkey:

SurveyMonkey is easy to use with simple features it does not offer the slick and highly usable interface of SurveyGizmo. It also have many limitations like the other providers.

1. 100 survey responses per surveys
2. 10 questions per survey
3. Basic reporting
4. No data export

Zoomerang:

1. 100 survey responses per surveys
2. 10 questions per survey
3. Basic reporting
4. No data export

Poll Daddy:

1. 200 survey responses per month
2. 10 questions per survey
3. Branded with links
4. Basic reporting
5. No Data Export

You can try those out. What I highly recommend is NEVER use GetResponse’s survey feature. I used that at first because I have a free account and it was a waste of time and cause of much frustration. There are not much options for questions and when viewing the data it is very limited and you cannot see each response. The worst is the export data feature, I got the data in excel and could not follow, took a lot of time. And the data was actually incorrect from the site to the export file and I discovered that the most important respondent was missing.

What can virtual assistants do:

Virtual assistants (VAs)  provide personal and office support services, such as

1. general administrative tasks
2. making customer contacts;
3. writing reports;
4. editing documents; sending out marketing materials;
5. handling thank-you notes, gifts and follow-up letters
6. setting up and maintaining databases
7. handling billing and bookkeeping; and updating Web sites.

You can also get a VA to manage your personal life as well. Here are some of their tasks:

1. Some VAs even help clients manage their personal lives
2. Doing such tasks as arranging for pet-sitting
3. Calling the plumber
4. Scheduling doctor’s appointments
5. Planning an upcoming family reunion
6. Or coordinating a move.

For a comprehensive list see: Tasks that a Virtual Assistant can Eliminate for You.

Sites to find VA’s:

Many people have recommended using VAs from the Philippine because their culture and accent is close to North America. They are also hard working and very loyal. Some sites to use is Onlinejobs.ph ($49) and Manila Craigslist (Free). However I posted 2 of the same job description on Onlinejobs.ph and Odesk and I find the candidates on Odesk to have a lot higher quality response.

Searching:

1. Better to hire them full time and split with friends or clients
2. Lower rate is not a good thing. When a VA is charging too low of a rate it means that either 1) they are not good or 2) they will have to juggle too many tasks to make a living and your responsibilities will slip to the side
3. Have everything written and signed. This includes fees, terms and conditions, etc…
4. Consider working with someone on a short term project basis before fully jumping in. This will ensure that you two are compatible but also ensures that a VA is what you are looking for.
5. Find out the hours they are available and make sure it is compatible with their responsibilities.
6. If there are certain specialized tasks you have make sure they have the right tools and equipment to do the tasks you require
7. View sample work.
8. Ask them to fill out a survey. You will get a lot of applicants, the fastest way for you to filter it out is to have them fill a survey, you can use SurveyMonkey.
9. Look for training and certification. If you are using Odesk it provides this information.
10. Return business. Look up the history of the VA to see how much and how long does their client stay with them. If they have many clients but only a few or no repeat clients then it a telltale sign that they are not good. In Odesk I was able to see how much each client spends with them then I know that they are good.
11. Look for polish work. A sure sign of incompetency is spelling errors, typos, and gaammar mistakes.

Working Together:

1. Use a software to communicate – e.g. basecamp or other
2. Stay in contact
3. Set realistic deadlines
4. Set a communication schedule

once they are hired treat them like an employee. The saying goes “Hire slow fire fast.” If you get any clue that they are not the right fit end it as soon as you can. Make sure they are real issues and not just communication issues. One of the biggest issues would be punctuality.

Questions:

Hire one or hire many?

Hire from a firm or individual?

Signs of a good Virtual Assistant

1. If they ask for a consultation
2. They have a system or software they use to keep track

My friend hired an Virtual Assistant and used the Zappos questionnaire to filter the candidates.

1. What does customer service mean to you?  How do you know if your customer is satisfied?
2. Give me an example of a time you went over above and beyond, why did you do it?
3. Tell me a time you came up with an innovative solution to a problem?
4. Have you suggested any new ideas to your manager?  What, why and how did you present it?
5. How did you get into this line of work?
6. What was the hardest thing you had to do professionally in the past month?
7. What accomplishment are you most proud of from the past year?
8. What do you like to do for fun?
9. What did you do at your last job to make the workplace more fun?
10. What was the best mistake you’ve made?
11. When was the last time you broke the rules/policies to get the job done?
12. Did you receive feedback from your last job and was it helpful?
13. When was the last time you asked for help?  How did you feel about it?
14. Describe a time you had to present unpleasant information to someone.  What and how?
15. Under what conditions do you work best and what can your manager do to make it better?
16. If money was not an issue, what would you be doing?
17. What is your salary expectation?

These guys tend to talk a lot when answering the questions so you may want to cut them off if you have a lot to ask them.  It took me a bit over 30 mins to get through the questions with each person.

Even if you find the right theme unless it’s well supported you will come across issues sooner or later. The best option is to get free themes from premium sellers who offer the free themes as marketing and provide good updates and support. Here are some that I found:

Woothemes free themes:

Makes one of the best engines for wordpress themes. You can expect good integration and quality. The style is professional as well as it has some that are more playful.

Site5 free themes:

Themes are professionally design and good layout but it adds playful graphics to it. Good for web 2.0 websites that are casual but serious business sites. They provide great hosting service. They offer these themes to promote their company so you can expect good support and updates.

WP Shower:

Minimalist themes. Great for arts and fashion businesses that need simple elegant themes. They also recently started have premium paid themes. With their minimalist design there is not many options in the back to customize the themes.

The best domain names are taken but there are many people who forget to renew. This is the perfect opportunity to grab it up. This is the life of an expired domain and how you can get it.

1. 0-45 days Renewal Period – Registrant can renew it at renewal rate
2. 30 day redemption period – The domain is no longer active, registrar owns it but let’s registrant renew it at higher fee. Some registrar may decrease this period to get the domain faster.
3. 5-10 day auction – Auction off
4. 5 day pending delete – registrant cannot renew it and registrar puts it on “Soon-to-be-available” list
5. Release to Public – Then it is released to public between 11am and 2pm PST.

You can no longer try to catch valuable dropped domains because the registrar will auction it off or keep it if they are valuable. The way to get expiring domains is to bid for them with Snapnames, Pool.com, GoDaddy’s TDNAM or similar services. Or you can hope to pick it up when with drops with Snapnames.com, Enom.com, Pool.com, and GoDaddy. If the domain is half decent there is no point in trying to catch it when it drops because the other companies have a lot more resources.

Snapnames.com

They charge $60 to get your name unless there are many other bidders. Affiliated with Network Solutions. They have an exclusive contract so they get first pick for expiring names on network solutions.

Enom.com

They charge a $30 fee. But now NameJet handles all of their backorder domains.

Pool.com

They will get the name for you for $60. Once they get it they will offer you a option to increase your bid but does not tell you if there are other bidders and how much they are bidding. If there are 2 bid or your bid is within 30% of the top bid there will be a one day auction.

NameJet.com

Exclusive domain management for Network Solutions and Enom. If your domain is with those providers you will have an opportunity to get it.

GoDaddy.com

You can buy expiring or auction domains from Godaddy. Starting bid is $10 but they charge an additional amount for the renewal. I recommend checking DomainYank.com Search to find the ranking and traffic for the domains.

Power tip: To get leverage over the other bidders it is good to get the .net, .org, and .info.

Part of the starting a business is finding a good domain name. Here are some really cool tools that makes it very easy. You can also use this tool to build additional SEO sites with the keywords you want.

Domain Hole – A tool that help you mine expired domains. Then check on hosterstat to see the age of the domain. You can find some good ones.Here’s a list of what you can do:

1. Expired search – Find expired domains based on keywords
2. Name Spinner – Enter a keyword then select options to generate available names with the keyword
3. Instant Check – checks the domain as you type it but what’s really great is that all the names stay on the page
4. Complete Check – Checks all the different TLD extenstions
5. Name generator – This helps you come up with web 2.0 names where the domain is available

Panabee – Enter 2 words and it will generate a list of possible domains. Comes up with a lot of creative names.

Bust A Name – combines keywords in different combinations to get available domains

namestation – use this tool to generate random words or hold a contest for names. Tools that generate random domains, combine and blend words, and find short web2.0 domains.

Valuedrops.com – This shows the dropped domains for today and pending drops for tomorrow. It uses it’s logarithm to filter by value.

wordoid.com – Enter a word and this generates names with that word. e.g. enter “deal” and you get dealized, dealizing,, idealth, etc…

Domai.nr – enter a word and it will help you find short domains

Creative Strategy Worksheet

The following sheet helps to understand and guide the process of developing an ad. This was taken from Fundamentals of Copy & Layout (1984) Alber C. Book and C. Dennis Schick

Product (or Service):
Primary Selling Points: (Product Points: built-in characteristics or product itself, including any U.S.P.)

1. .
2. .
3. .

Primary Benefits: (Prospect Points: what buyer gets from using the product or service)

Pain Points: (The pain the prospect feels in which this product/service will solve)

Consumer Profile of Target Prospect:

1. Demographics: (Age, sex, education, income, occupation)
2. Psychographics: (Lifestyle, attitude, personality traits)

Belief you want this ad to establish:

Reasons why prospect should believe it:

1. .
2. .
3. .

“Big Ides” to dramatize this belief:

1. .
2. .
3. .

Visualization of Big Idea:

1. Product alone:
2. Product in setting:
3. Product in use:

Action you want reader to take:

The goal of this process is to discover the following:

1. Do they know and understand the importance of the project
2. Their knowledge and experience on the topic and style of writing
3. If their communication style matches yours

Either if you do not care to know those information, it is better to still do this process before hiring to make the candidate do more work. This will make the job seem more scarce and coveted and as such they will respect the job more and work harder.

Questions:

1. Why do you think this project is important?
2. What kind of related work have you done before?
3. What’s your knowledge and experience with the topic?
4. Describe the target audience?
5. How do you typically communicate with your clients? How often?
6. How long do you think it would take to complete the task?
7. What would be your process for completing this task?
8. Do you have experience doing this work and how does it relate?
9. Do you have any suggestions for the project?
10. Do you have any questions for me?

Those should be enough to get their response and their dedication to the project. Then you can filter out the candidates and find out additional information to select the right one.