Building a website for your new virtual assistant business might seem like the first logical thing to do to put yourself in front of your ideal clients. But let’s take a minute to talk about whether you actually need a website as a new VA.
A website is a fantastic way to leverage brand authority on the online space and to expand your reach through organic searches.
Simply put, having a website allows you to create one focal point where your clients can find everything there is to know about you just by searching for you in google. And it’s an efficient one stop shop in the link in your bio.
But, in order to have the chance to rank on google, a website first has to be properly SEO optimised. Otherwise, it’s just another .com floating in the web-o-sphere.
And let’s consider this. You want someone to be able to click on the link in your bio and see your site (duh). But seeing your site is not enough.
In order for it to convert views into sales (which really is the whole point), there are a lot of factors that have to be taken into account to make the website functional, on brand, and optimised to convert (take it from me, I design websites for a living as well.)
So if you’re investing in a domain, a good host, a reliable piece of software and builder (which is a worthy investment to ensure the security and optimum functionality of your site), but it’s not properly optimised in all ways, you’re wasting your time and money.
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Here’s what you should be doing for your virtual assistant business instead of designing a website:
Spending time on building solid brand foundations.
This involves getting clear on your signature offers, doing your market research, learning your ideal clients pain points like the back of your hand and building your portfolio to get experience and testimonials and start the flow of revenue.
When you get around to building your website, it should then contain all of the above.
So if you build your website without first getting super clear on what you offer, on who your clients are and how to sell to them and if you haven’t allowed yourself time to build a brand, your website is going to need updating every couple of days as new ideas come to you or it might need to be changed altogether several times.
And who has time for that when you’re balancing this new virtual work and your offline work? (possibly a 9-5, children and home to care for? Time is precious!)
Give yourself a couple of months to settle into the space, and once you’re clear on the above and have begun to work with your dream clients and the ball is really rolling, then you’ll create a site that is truly representative of the work you’re doing.
Creating efficient marketing strategies so you can start getting confident networking with clients.
The instinctual thing to do is have a website where you can display an about page, talk about your prices and then leave your calendar link so people can book a discovery call. The hope is that it creates a middle man so that you don’t have to do too much convincing in your conversations.
But having a website is not a marketing strategy in and of itself.
A proper marketing strategy involves creating content, engaging with your community and yes, having conversations with people in the DMs. (Spoiler alert: it is possible to have warm and authentic DM conversations but that’s a topic for another post).
At the start of your business, you are going to have to be proactive in your search for clients. Which means that you can’t wait for people to come to you. You have to go out and network.
As a new virtual assistant, your biggest objective should be to get potential clients into a discovery call. It’s then on the discovery call that you can add immense value, and prove to this person that you are worth the price you will quote them at the end of the call.
Once you’re networking in the DMs, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to book a discovery call with you.
So it makes more sense to send people your calendar link directly (or better yet book the call in yourself so they just get a calendar link) instead of getting them to go to your website and do it themselves. There’s no guarantee they’ll go through with it.
Without knowing how to create content marketing strategies on social platforms, how to reach out into the DMs, how to network effectively, there’s no one to show a website to. A lot of new VAs spend time building a website in order to say that ‘it’s ticked off the to do list’ and then spend months not having any clients.
Don’t use a website as a way to procrastinate on networking and working on your confidence by reaching out to people.
Creating a value piece PDF that you send before a discovery call to add value for your client.
The idea of your website is to allow you to share some more value with your prospect and hopefully give them an idea of what it’s like working with you and your quality of service.
But if your website is not properly optimised, it might actually deter people from seeing your value. You’d rather have no website at all than one that’s potentially giving people the wrong idea.
Instead, create a pdf in Canva that acts as a value proposition.
In the value piece, or what we sometimes call a welcome kit, you can have an ‘about me’ section, a ‘how to work with me’ section, a ‘services’ section and you can dive into what it’s like to work with you. You can even add some referrals.
This does the same job as a website at the start of your journey but it much easier to create (because Canva is so user friendly), it’s more budget friendly and it takes no time at all!
Save your money, time and energy with a simple 3 page PDF that packs more of a punch then a website you aren’t even sure you built correctly.
What are your thoughts on building a website at the start of your entrepreneurial journey?
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