If you are fortunate enough to have an SEO specialist on your team, you know the importance of maximizing their time. However, between meeting with clients, analyzing data, and working on campaigns, there is only so much they can do in a day. That's where an SEO virtual assistant comes in--someone who can help take care of some of the tasks that would otherwise bog down your SEO specialist.
In this blog post, we will show you how SEO virtual assistants can help you save time and maximize the efficiency of your SEO specialist.
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5 Ways Your SEO Virtual Assistant Can Help Your SEO Specialist
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What Is SEO?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It's the process of improving the visibility and organic search results of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines like Google use algorithms to determine site rankings in search results.
There are a number of factors that go into search engine optimization, including things like the structure of a web page, the quality of its content, and how popular it is with users. By making improvements in these areas, businesses and individuals can rank higher in search results, which can lead to more traffic and conversions.
SEO can be divided into two main categories: onsite SEO (or on-page SEO) and offsite SEO (or off-page SEO).
Onsite SEO
On-page SEO refers to all the measures you can take to make your website pages more visible. This includes things like optimizing your titles and meta tags, publishing great blogs and other content, and making sure your page is easy to navigate.
Offsite SEO
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, refers to all the measures you can take to make your site more visible to search engines outside of your own web page. This includes things like creating a link building plan and creating social media profiles.
What Is an SEO Specialist?
SEO specialists are individuals who provide SEO services to clients. SEO services can include website optimization for search engines, improving website content to make it more relevant and keyword-rich, building backlinks to a website, and more. They can develop effective SEO strategies that will get your website noticed by potential clients.
SEO is an ever-changing field, and specialists need to be able to adapt their services to the latest changes in the SEO landscape.
In order to be successful, specialists need to have a deep understanding of how search engines work and how people use search engines to find information on the internet. They also need to have excellent communication skills, as they will often need to explain their SEO services to clients in a way that is easy for them to understand.
How Can an SEO Specialist Virtual Assistant Help My SEO Specialist?
Remember that your virtual assistant is not a professional SEO specialist–this is a key distinction to make. Virtual assistants are implementers and task-completers; they don’t advise on strategy or implement anything complicated. Their role is to make life a bit easier for you or your specialist.
An SEO Virtual Assistant Can Do Keyword Research
There's no denying that keyword research is important for any small business that wants to be visible online. But what exactly is keyword research, and how can an SEO specialist virtual assistant help?
Keyword research is the process of finding and selecting terms that people are actually searching for in relation to your business or website. This is important because it allows you to target your content and marketing efforts towards the topics that people are actually interested in.
You may have noticed SEO specialists going back and forth in articles about the relevance of using keywords. It’s definitely true that stuffing articles and meta descriptions with keywords doesn’t help, and in fact may harm your chances with Google.
The key is “user-centric” content, where the keywords you use are a natural fit for your users.
However, the time-consuming part can be the research; this is where VAs can be a great help.
By conducting keyword research, your VA can help you identify high volume keywords that are relevant to your business. They can also help you determine which keywords are being used most often by your target audience.
In addition, your VA can use keyword research to identify new opportunities for your business, and they can help you brainstorm new keyword ideas based on your business goals. They can also help you track your keyword rankings over time so you can see how your efforts are paying off.
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An SEO Virtual Assistant Can Set Up SEO Tools and Monitor Results
While your specialist can oversee how well your content does in search engines, there are also a number of tools they can install on websites or generally use to help with search engine optimization.
For example, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two essential tools for website owners. A virtual assistant for SEO can help you set up both of these tools and show you how to use them to track your results.
Google Analytics can track your website traffic and help you see where your visitors are coming from. Meanwhile, Google Search Console can help you track your keywords and see how your website is ranking in the search engines.
Furthermore, on WordPress websites, Yoast is a tool that analyzes content and makes recommendations as to how well the content meets search engine optimization practices. It will give ratings on various points, using red, amber, or green lights to indicate what you should pay attention to.
Virtual assistants are great at setting up tools like these, but it also makes sense for them to be monitoring and fixing issues. Many virtual assistants are also in charge of setting up content, so a quick check of Yoast or a similar tool can easily become part of their process.
An SEO Virtual Assistant Can Submit Your Content to Curation Sites
Submitting your blog content to curation sites such as Medium or LinkedIn is something that the experts tend to contradict each other over when it comes to SEO. Does it help with SEO for your own website, or doesn’t it? The answer seems to be a strong “maybe.”
Regardless of the actual SEO benefit, Medium and LinkedIn are platforms with huge audiences. By that fact alone, you have the opportunity to drive traffic back to your website.
Consider the idea of posting a summary or taster of a longer piece of content--if you do this well enough, it can pique the interest of readers and have them looking to your blog for more. This can help to send signals to Google that your content is interesting and relevant.
Using content curation platforms effectively means tailoring the content to the platform. It is generally suggested that you don’t simply duplicate what you already have on your blog.
With all of this in mind, a virtual assistant is quite capable of submitting content to curation sites and ensuring it is presented well. Depending on your needs, you may want someone to rewrite that content first (virtual assistants will sometimes pull out snippets, but they don’t usually do any lengthier rewrites).
An SEO Virtual Assistant Can Research Backlinks
Any successful SEO campaign relies heavily on link building efforts. And while there are a number of ways to go about building links, one of the most effective is to find and research potential backlinks. This is where a virtual assistant can be extremely helpful.
But, what are backlinks?
Simply put, they're a link from another domain back to your site.
Backlinks are important because they help to lend authority to your site. But the key to remember is that not all backlinks are created equally.
Those that help your site the most come from websites that have authority, relevance to your content, and a trustworthy reputation with Google.
A VA can help you identify link opportunities by conducting research and then compile a list of potential link partners. They can also help you track your link building progress, and do SEO audit and competitor analysis.
An SEO virtual assistant Can Track How Your Content Is Performing
All your SEO efforts won’t mean a lot unless you track and measure how you are doing. How else will you know if it is working, or if you need to adjust course?
A virtual assistant can provide invaluable tracking assistance, monitor analytics, and keep you informed.
Final Thoughts
When you hire SEO experts to work on your website, you’re usually investing a decent sum to get expert help. This means you should make the most of that expertise, and ensure that they’re not doing tasks they really don’t have to be doing themselves.
An SEO VA is not a specialist, but they have some SEO skills that are enough to help to take over tasks that are otherwise time-consuming. This is a great way to free up your specialist so that they can strategize and test.
To learn more about what virtual assistants can do for you and your business, read our Ultimate Guide to Virtual Assistants that dives through every aspect of what a virtual assistant is about.
The Virtual Hub virtual assistants take several tasks that help in the SEO space. Talk to us today about how one of our virtual assistants can make a difference in your business!