If you don’t follow me on twitter you may not already know this, and I don’t want to drag out the clickbait title… so here is how July 2022 ended for me:
The good news is, I hit my target of $1000 in ads only (I actually never knew I hit it until just now!) 🎉🎉🎉
From Ezoic, I earned $1,001.27 from 70,773 Unique visits. That is an ad revenue increase of 18.35%
Portfolio pageviews are up 18.86%, with 85,206 pageviews vs. 71,685 page views in June.
From Amazon, I earned a combined total of $499.13 vs. $239.27 in June. That is an increase of 108.61%.
From my own digital products, I earned $49.66 which is -$43.02 less than last month.
From other affiliate programs (combination of ShareASale, Awin, etc., as well as niche-specific programs), I earned $663.62 which is +$214.28 more than last month.
Now then, let’s tally that all up:
Total earnings: $2,213
Was surprised to see my overall EPMV improve slightly, but it is still very low. An EPMV of just $20 would result in $1400 in ads alone with 70,000 unique visits. But as ever, the focus remains on the things I can control; adding more content and optimizing old content.
Site 2 (the only site impacted by the Google algorithm update) has suffered and was my main ad revenue earner, so I know next month, instead of hitting new highs, will likely be a lot lower – sad times.
Total spend: -$1,938
Total spend includes:
Ezoic premium subscription,
content,
team of 3 virtual assistants
Mailchimp, Canva, Hosting (Namecheap and Cloudways), and Jasper.
In the coming months, I will be looking to reduce my outgoings in all other categories except for content. I hope to retain 2 virtual assistants, one part time and one full-time, rather than three part-time.
Earnings Breakdown:
Ads:
I pay $110 for premium, it is technically worth it, but I do wonder if it is truly worth it 🤔
Amazon:
Other Affiliate Programs
Digital Products
Site Portfolio
Site 1
Age: 1 year 9 months Total Articles: 40 (0) Total Word Count: 62,648 (0) Average Article Word Count: 1,566 (0)
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $8.09
Site 2 (Hobbies)
Age: 1 year 8 months Number of articles: 225 (22)
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $1,250
Site 3 (Sports)
Age: 1 year 7 months Number of articles: 79 (0)
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $85
This site is very seasonal and declining rapidly. Not sure what I am going to do with it, it has an opportunity for unlimited keywords, however I have no plans of working on it for now.
Site 4 (Pets)
Age: 1 year. 1 month Number of articles: 114 (0)
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $143.32
Site 5 (YMYL)
Age: 9 months Number of articles: 18
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic):
$0.39
No ads on this; really surprised it made a single Amazon commission.
Site 6 (Pets Test Site)
Age: 11 months Number of articles: 75
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $5.85
This is a 100% AI test site used to train VAs
Site 7 (Fitness)
Age: 10 months Number of articles: 239+
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $598.80
I may aim to get this site to $1000 per month and sell it by the end of the year to fund my megasite project.
Site 8 (🔝🤐)
I do not want to reveal too much about this site as it is built in a completely different way from my other sites, and I want to share the case study along with my free plugin in the near future.
Rough Earnings (Amazon + Ezoic): $110.86
What I Have Done This Month
This month I spent a lot of time improving Site 2, so it seems that work was in vain. However, I am hopeful that things will improve with time. I lost 3/4 of my traffic on that site, but I am confident that it has been built properly and has a good amount of EAT.
Again, I am very shocked that out of all my sites, that one was hit. By the looks of it, Google is going through some things, and many of us are being wrongfully impacted as a result.
In any case, I can only put my energy into things I can control and that likely means setting that site aside for now, at least until Google works through its issues. It isn’t like I don’t have other sites demanding my attention!
What I Am Doing Next Month
I have a few options, pivot completely and focus on my megasite or go back to building out “Site 7”. The worry is that “Site 7” is largely product focussed, and with its low EPMV, I would be looking at writing more product reviews.
If it gets hit by some sort of update, that would be on me as I already know the risks with that one. Conversely, my megasite is ready and waiting with 1000s of keywords and potential.
It could be 100% info, 50/50, or anything in between, and I really like the idea of building something Google-proof with a good amount of varied traffic sources and a solid email list for the long term.
Some of my SOPs
Keywords
My favourite ways to find keywords are:
👉 Google Autosuggest 👉 Keywords Everywhere longtail finder 👉 Keywordtool.io 👉 Reddit/Quora reverse (you need Semrush or AHrefs to do this)
I still use the KGR method, but these days I don’t really need to check the calculation; if it seems KGR it probably is! The keyword goes in the title with some clickbaity additions, and then I build the post out as normal.
Example keyword (so sorry if this is your niche…):- how to get your pet cow to sleep at night
Example title with keyword and clickbaity addition:How To Get Your Pet Cow To Sleep At Night: 3 EASY Tricks!
When I find new keywords, they get clustered and then put on a master list, ready for a content brief and outsourcing to one of my Upwork writers. You can check out my video on free keyword clustering tools below:
As I’ve mentioned previously, I either use the Thruuu SERP analyzer (free) or Outranking to create a content brief for my writers (Outranking if I want the help of AI and to ensure the writer covers all of the key topics – I can always flesh it out myself later if need be).
When I give my writers outlines, I may also include a specific Youtube video on the topic or urge them to use Youtube and things like Quora and Reddit to help them form their article.
I do not expect the writers to be master SEOs – I include any additional LSI keywords I want to support my articles in the H2 outline. They usually end up repeating the phrase naturally in the paragraph.
Formatting
This is where the magic happens.
I definitely like my posts to be aesthetically pleasing. Formatting was the first thing I outsourced to my VA! It was important to me but started to get very time-consuming as I ramped up content publishing.
I think formatting with spacers, bolded text, bullet points, headings, images, video and then alt text, internal linking, proper anchor text etc etc… are all signals to Google that the post was made with love and care… as well as being optimized for the reader!
It is a good way to get a balance between making Google happy with all the technical and semantic SEO and making the reader happy enough to hang about and see more ads!
Repurposing Content
I am a big fan of repurposing content. Whether that be creating pins out of the key points in your blog, making audio from the blog that you can embed, or making videos to use on Youtube.
I’ve stopped with the Pinterest pins, although that had worked pretty well. Pinterest no longer seems like a wise investment of time. Instead, I have my VA use Pictory to create a video for each of my blog posts.
It allows her to select the key text she wants it to include and then it auto-selects stock videos related to that scene.
I love these videos as they:
are clean, useful, and easy to make.
provide value to the reader as they get the key information in your blog post in a more concise visual format.
can be used for video ads
can be repurposed for various social network platforms including Youtube
Until next time…
Also, if there is anything specific you would like me to touch on, feel free to reach out or let me know in the comments, Twitter etc.
From Ezoic, I earned $846.06 from 59,773 Unique visits. That is an ad revenue increase of 12.42%
Portfolio pageviews are up 18.40%, with 71,685page viewsvs.60,543 page views in May.
From Amazon, I earned a combined total of $239.27 vs $187.10 in May
From my own digital products, I earned $92.68 that is an increase of +$44.74
From other affiliate programs (combination of ShareASale, Awin, etc., as well as niche-specific programs) I earned $449.34 which is +$87.20 more than $362.14 last month.
I also noticed I have been earning some money from AdSense!! So that is an additional $70.88
Now then, let’s tally that all up:
Total earnings: $1,698.23
Despite my overall EPMV declining, the focus remains on adding more content and optimizing old content – that is the only thing I can control.
My sites with a lower EPMV continue to gain traffic, hence the overall EPMV decreasing but it may start to rise as I focus on the topic clusters of high-revenue pages.
Total spend: -$2162.49
Total spend includes:
Ezoic premium subscription,
content,
team of 3 virtual assistants
Mailchimp, Canva, Hosting (Namecheap and Cloudways), Affilimate, and Jasper.
While it may seem like I am running at a deficit (which I technically am with my sites), I have other online income from books and other digital assets which I use to fund my sites, so I am in profit overall!
I am sure there are other recurring payment leaks I need to fill, I will go back into my accounts and see what I can get rid of as only $700 of that went on content. However, the second-highest expense are VAs and I need them.
Earnings Breakdown:
Site Portfolio
Site 1
40 posts, nothing added in around a year.
Age: 1 year 8 months Total Articles: 40 (0) Total Word Count: 62,648 (0) Average Article Word Count: 1,566 (0)
Site 2 (Hobbies)
This is my active project. I am digging deep with this one and the full case study can be watched here 👉 On Doug Cunnington’s channel
Age: 1 year 7 months Number of articles: 203
Less articles were added but a lot of fine-tuning, added a calculator, and had two plugins made. Brand-building! I want this site to be a solid authority in its niche.
Site 3 (Sports)
The trouble with seasonal niches …
Age: 1.5 years Number of articles: 79 (0)
Site 4 (Pets)
Age: 1 year Number of articles: 114 (0)
Site 5 (YMYL)
The algorithm update was a defibrillator for this site.
Age: 8 months Number of articles: 18
Decent quality articles on there but definitely requires a bit of EAT! Will be testing out Ezoic Basic Ads on this when I get the chance to throw some articles at it.
Site 6 (Pets Test Site)
This is my 100% AI test site
Age: 10 months Number of articles:
Nothing added, just watching to see how Google responds to it throughout updates.
Site 7 (Fitness)
I have accepted that this site is not going to be the crazy ad-earner that I thought it would be. So I am keeping the focus on products and other affiliate programs.
Age: 10 months Number of articles: 200+
Site 8 (🔝🤐)
Not going to say much about this site, I have some plans I want to roll out – but it is a 5-10 year project: Be sure to join the mailing list to hear about this site exclusively.
What I Have Done This Month
In short, nothing on six sites, a lot on two sites.
The content I put up last year on the sites I am not actively updating continues to age and rank, but I have no intention to sell any of those just yet. It would be quite pointless selling them at this stage as there is no immediate gain.
The money just wouldn’t be enough to make a difference as the sites mostly pay for themselves and I would prefer to bring up that monthly revenue and reinvest it (in other words, continue to bootstrap).
I pay my VAs, pay my subscriptions, and pay my writers. For now, I will kick them along as they add an extra $100-$200 to my content-VA-subcription budget.
My Portfolio Reinforcement Strategy
Last month, I spoke about reinforcing your sites after the Google update. While my sites weren’t really hit, it reinforced my thoughts on my approach and strategy. It makes me think I am doing some things right, which is very inspiring.
Some of my SOPs
Disclaimer: I am 100% winging it. Keep in mind, I joined this space in October 2020 – I am a newbie in the trenches!
I love sharing what works for me. I love coming to conclusions and looking at the amateur mistake I made just 1 year ago, 6 months ago, and even yesterday!
When something works for me, I have the benefit of trying it out across multiple sites in multiple niches – if it works again and again; it is a thing!
None of my sites are aged-domains and none have any special backlinks. I am building for the long term and, while I may discover and form my own hacks from time to time (as is my nature), I am only interested in building solid, long-lasting assets.
With that said, here is what I have done and will continue to do and improve upon:
Keywords
My favourite ways to find keywords are:
👉 Google Autosuggest 👉 Keywords Everywhere longtail finder 👉 Keywordtool.io 👉 Reddit/Quora reverse (you need Semrush or AHrefs to do this)
I still use the KGR method but these days I don’t really need to check the calculation; if it seems KGR it probably is! The keyword goes in the title with some clickbaity additions and then I build the post out as normal.
Example keyword (so sorry if this is your niche…):- how to get your pet cow to sleep at night
Example title with keyword and clickbaity addition:How To Get Your Pet Cow To Sleep At Night: 3 EASY Tricks!
When I find new keywords, they get clustered and then put on a master list, ready for a content brief and outsourcing to one of my Upwork writers. You can check out my video on free keyword clustering tools below:
As I’ve mentioned previously, I either use the Thruuu SERP analyzer (free) or Outranking to create a content brief for my writers (Outranking if I want the help of AI and to ensure the writer covers all of the key topics – I can always flesh it out myself later if need be).
When I give my writers outlines, I may also include a specific Youtube video on the topic or urge them to use Youtube and things like Quora and Reddit to help them form their article.
I do not expect the writers to be master SEOs – I include any additional LSI keywords I want to support my articles in the H2 outline. They usually end up repeating the phrase naturally in the paragraph.
Formatting
This is where the magic happens.
I definitely like my posts to be aesthetically pleasing. Formatting was the first thing I outsourced to my VA! It was important to me but started to get very time-consuming as I ramped up content publishing.
I think formatting with spacers, bolded text, bullet points, headings, images, video and then alt text, internal linking, proper anchor text etc etc… are all signals to Google that the post was made with love and care… as well as being optimized for the reader!
It is a good way to get a balance between making Google happy with all the technical and semantic SEO and making the reader happy enough to hang about and see more ads!
Repurposing Content
I am a big fan of repurposing content. Whether that be creating pins out of the key points in your blog, making audio from the blog that you can embed, or making videos to use on Youtube.
I’ve stopped with the Pinterest pins, although that had worked pretty well. Pinterest no longer seems like a wise investment of time. Instead, I have my VA use Pictory to create a video for each of my blog posts.
It allows her to select the key text she wants it to include and then it auto-selects stock videos related to that scene.
I love these videos as they:
are clean, useful, and easy to make.
provide value to the reader as they get the key information in your blog post in a more concise visual format.
can be used for video ads
can be repurposed for various social network platforms including Youtube
If you want to see where I was at last month with my main site, site 2 – check this video out:
Until next time…
Also, if there is anything specific you would like me to touch on, feel free to reach out or let me know in the comments, Twitter etc.
Finding and training a capable virtual assistant is one of the smartest things you can do to grow your business. By delegating tasks that are eating up your time, you can focus on the revenue-generating activities that will help your business scale.
And the best part is, as your business grows, you can hire additional virtual assistants to take on even more tasks! That is where I am at now.
Of course, not all tasks are suitable for delegation. And some tasks require more training than others. But we will get into all of that in a moment.
I’m going to share with you the following:
Why Hire A Virtual Assistant
Where To Hire A Virtual Assistant
The Types of Tasks that I Delegate to My Virtual Assistants
How I Give Them Tasks and Briefs
How I Train Them and Creating Training Videos to Use Again and Again.
How to Pay Your Va and Set up A Payment Schedule
Building a Team and Scaling up Even Further
I also answer some frequently asked questions about hiring a virtual assistant and share some templates for posting job listings, as well as two sample contracts that you can edit and use for your own business.
Why You Should Hire A Virtual Assistant To Scale Your Business
There is an endless list of reasons to hire a virtual assistant, but the main one would be to help you scale your business by taking on some of the tasks that are eating up your time.
With an extra forty hours a week, you can focus on the high-leverage activities that will help your business grow whilst the menial yet important tasks are taken care of by your assistant.
At first, I was hesitant to hire an assistant because I thought it would be too expensive, and I had no idea how I would teach them all the little things I do that I had developed a knack for over the years.
But it turns out that hiring a virtual assistant is relatively inexpensive, and with a little bit of training, they can do almost anything you need them to do!
Even those things that you think nobody else in the world but you can do, yup! As special as you probably are, chances are other people in the world can do it just as well as you IF they have the right guidance and training!
Bottom line: if you want to scale your business, you need to learn to delegate.
What Tasks Should You Delegate
As I mentioned previously, there are menial; tasks that are still highly important for the success of your business, but they are not activities that generate revenue and are therefore not the best use of your time.
Those types of tasks are a good place to start, but by no means should you stop there! You can also delegate any task that is outside of your zone of genius.
For most online businesses, design work is very important. However, if you are not a designer and cannot design to save your life, what do you do? Most people head over to Fiverr and hire a freelancer on a per-job basis.
With a VA, you can have them on standby to design anything you need to be designed, whenever you need it, without having to worry about the quality or turnaround time. Or better yet, you can hire a VA who has experience with design work but can also handle your data entry-type stuff.
I have a VA who is a skilled social media manager and designer but also handles all of my data entry and WordPress formatting.
I am not the best video editor, but I have just hired a virtual assistant who is an expert in video editing to help me create my Ezoic videos. Eventually, I will give her the raw footage for my Youtube content and let her do her thing!
There are all sorts of things you can delegate, but it really comes down to understanding what your time is worth and what tasks will help you scale.
Think about all of the repetitive tasks you do daily, or make a record of your work week and what you do throughout the day for a week or two.
You might be surprised by the time you spend on repetitive tasks and how many hours they rack up! Pretty much anything you do not want to do, can be outsourced.
Things I Delegate To My VA & Plan On Delegating In The Near Future
Data Entry
Blog Post Formatting
Research
Emails (soft outreach)
Social Media Marketing
HARO Link-building
Video production/editing
What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant in The Philippines?
Exchange Rate
There are many benefits to hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines. One of the most significant advantages is the exchange rate. The Philippine peso is much weaker than most major currencies, which means that your money will go further when you hire a Filipino virtual assistant.
This is not a bad thing; all it means is that the deal is more favorable to both parties. The Filipino worker gets paid more while the business owner spends less. It’s a win-win!
Time Zone
Another significant advantage when you hire a Filipino virtual assistant is the time zone difference. The Philippines is located in the UTC +8 time zone, which is ideal for businesses based in North America and Europe.
One of my VAs works for me part-time and begins her shift in her evening after another job. She begins our work at 9am, my time.
You can agree upon and set a schedule that suits you both, but the point is that the time zone difference can be used to your advantage.
Language
The Philippines is an English-speaking country, which means that communication will not be a problem. Filipino virtual assistants are also highly educated; many of them have college degrees or are students looking for means of supporting their studies.
Quality of Work
One of the things I was most worried about before hiring a virtual assistant was the quality of work. Would they be able to do the job as well as I could?
I am happy to report that I have had nothing but positive experiences with my Filipino VAs. They are all hard workers who take pride in their work and are always willing to go the extra mile to get the job done right.
They will often go above and beyond to complete a task, and often find better ways of doing things. I am always happy to give my VA free reign to do things her way, as long as the job gets done!
Internet Speed
This is one of those things you do not know is an issue until you experience it. I have hired freelancers from various places and had to deal with power cuts or unstable internet connection. This can cost a lot of time and money.
The Philippines has some of the fastest improving internet speeds in the world, which means that you can rely on your virtual assistant to have a stable connection and get the job done quickly and efficiently.
What Are the Disadvantages of Hiring a Virtual Assistant in The Philippines?
While disadvantages are few, there are a couple of things to consider before hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines.
Cultural Differences
There are bound to be some, depending on where in the Philippines your virtual assistant is from. Generally speaking, Filipino culture is very friendly and hospitable, but there are some regional differences that you should be aware of.
You shouldn’t just assume that because they get your jokes, they will understand your sarcasm or phrases specific to your culture.
Heck, being Black and British, I have a bunch of cultural idioms and expressions that my American counterparts would not understand, as close as we all are, let alone a Filipino. And that British sarcasm and humor? Gosh, let’s not go there!
Although, I wouldn’t really class cultural difference as a disadvantage but rather something to be aware of when you are communicating.
Be patient. It is not personal.
Explain things thoroughly, and be prepared to answer questions. Let them know there is no silly question – they are only asking for clarity and to deliver the best job possible. Once your virtual assistant understands your expectations, they will be able to work more independently.
You should also be willing to learn about their culture in return. It will make for a much more harmonious working relationship! For example the 13th month (which I will explain later)
Decline In Attitude And Work
This may be down to the employer and lack of moral support from you, the employer, more than anything else.
Even if you are the best boss in the world, your virtual assistant is still working in a virtual environment, which can be quite isolating.
It is important to make an effort to connect with your virtual assistant on a personal level to maintain that relationship and keep them motivated.
I have found that the best way to do this is to have regular (preferably weekly) video calls, in addition to the usual messaging channels like Whatsapp. This way, you can get to know each other on a personal level and build that relationship.
This is not the easiest thing for me to do, and I understand the time drain that it can be, but it is so important to keep that connection alive. Otherwise, you may notice your VA begins to pay less attention to detail, is less responsive, and generally just not as engaged as they used to be.
Online Jobs is dedicated to helping business owners find virtual assistants in the Philippines and to providing digital workers in the Philippines with access to serious employers around the world.
As they are dedicated solely to this business model, they are unmatched in my opinion. You can be as specific as you like in your job posting, and you will have access to a large pool of highly-skilled virtual assistants who are ready and willing to work.
They also have a grading system and ID verification to help you weed out the less reputable workers.
Online Jobs has a $69 per month fee, which made me hesitant at first. But you only need one month! And what I did was shortlist and interview a few VAs and hang on to the ones I liked best. After that, I just stopped paying the monthly fee.
You are probably already very familiar with Upwork as it is one of the most popular places to hire writers. But Upwork is also a great place to find virtual assistants from all around the world, not just in the Philippines.
One of the benefits of Upwork is the volume of candidates; however, this is also a con as it can make it difficult to find the needle in the haystack.
Additionally, their fees make long-term projects with a virtual assistant more expensive than using Online Jobs.
Fiverr
Fiverr is another popular freelancing platform, but in my experience, I have not had as much luck finding high-quality virtual assistants there.
There are definitely some gems to be found, but overall, I would recommend using a platform more geared towards long-term relationships rather than gigs.
Cost of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
$2-$5 per hour.
Depending on where you hire, costs will work out a bit differently. For example, if using Upwork or Fiverr and transacting on their platform, both you and your VA will need to account for transaction fees.
The good news is that, in general, the cost of hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines is quite reasonable.
Wages can range anywhere from $2-$5 per hour, depending on the quality of the VA and the level of experience.
I have found that $3-$4 per hour is about average, and you can find some really amazing VAs in this price range.
13th Month Payment
Filipinos have something called a 13th month, which is an additional month’s salary that is paid out in December.
This is required by law in their culture but not always adhered to by foreign employers. I highly recommend that if you do hire a Filipino virtual assistant, you budget for this extra month’s salary even though you do not have to.
It is a nice way to show your appreciation for a job well done, and it will help to ensure that your VA is with you for the long haul.
Set Wage Or Hourly
I choose to have my VAs track their time and invoice me each month.
The advantage of this is that if I ever feel like a VA is slacking, I can easily see how much time they are spending on a given task or if hours are being tracked, but very little is getting done, which was the case with my first virtual assistant.
I create a 3-month contract, and if all goes well, we have the option to move to a set wage for either part-time or full-time hours.
Paying Your VA
Now you know how much to pay but when and how?
For most people, the answer to those two questions is, “easy, end of the month- PayPal”.
But, consider this; PayPal is known for its transaction fees. We kind of just get on with it and factor it into life, however, if your virtual assistant is invoicing you, PayPal skims those fees right off the top of your VAs income and this can really add up over time, eating into your VAs earnings.
It’s not just the fees either. If you are paying in a currency other than that of your VAs home country, there will be an exchange rate to contend with as well, which can also affect how much your VA actually receives.
Some employers also choose to pay weekly, in the beginning, as they build trust with their VA and as a means of keeping them motivated.
I pay my VAs at the end of the month, using Wise; it is cheap, and easy and they do not hold money and restrict account access for foolishness.
However you plan on paying, you should also detail all of this information in your contract. Your Filipino VA is likely not going to want to keep asking you about money matters.
I’m using Google Sheets more and more these days. More specifically, my writers all work from a single sheet (FYI, I have included my Article Hitlist spreadsheet in the downloadable), and my VA picks these articles up, formats them, and submits them.
I grabbed the AppSumo deal a while back as it was a lifetime deal. I use it to add tasks and projects and store all of the links to their training videos and spreadsheets – otherwise, it could get pretty hectic.
They also use it for time-tracking and invoicing. Plutio works just as Click-up does, or any other project management software – so in this case, as long as it allows you to dump information of all kinds of formats and track time, the free’er the better.
WhatsApp
I asked my first VA what her preferred method of contact was, and she said WhatsApp! I didn’t really use it beforehand; however, it has made things so easy for us to just chat on the go and solve issues or answer questions instantly.
Compared to email, which can sometimes get lost in my inbox, WhatsApp is so much better for quick back and forth.
And, as I have the WhatsApp desktop app installed and synced up, we can continue the conversation on a computer if I need to type out a longer message or attach a file.
I honestly couldn’t train my VAs effectively without Descript.
This is a tool that allows you to record yourself, transcribe it and then edit the transcript directly.
It is so simple and straightforward yet feature-packed. It is free to use to do the above, but I have a paid plan as I use the other transcription and AI features it comes with.
Virtual Assistant Contract (Highly Recommended)
This is the most important part of the hiring process as it outlines what is expected from both parties, pay, duties, and more.
Not everybody uses a contract with their virtual assistants, but I highly recommend it. A contract protects both the employer and employee.
Remember to keep it short, sweet, and to the point. You can use my contract templates in the downloadable. Just be sure to edit all of the details, such as your employer name, your assistant’s name, wage, contract length, main duties, etc.
Once you have drafted up your contract, you can either have that imported into your project management tool (I know Plutio does this, unsure about the others) or use the free version of DocuSign to have your VA accept the terms and sign.
If nothing else, a contract represents how serious you are about your business, and it will show your assistant that you are the kind of person who likes to get things done the right way.
Red Flags to Watch out For when Hiring a Virtual Assistant
1. Poor communication – if the VA is hard to get in touch with or takes a long time to respond to emails, that’s a red flag.
2. Lack of organization – if the VA can’t seem to stay on top of their work or keep track of deadlines, that’s a problem.
3. Inexperience – if the VA doesn’t have much experience in the field you need help with, they may not be able to do a good job. If they are willing to learn, that is great but overstating their experience is a red flag.
4. Unreliable – if the VA has a history of missed deadlines or poor quality work, you don’t want them working for you.
5. Unprofessionalism – if the VA is rude or unprofessional in their communications with you, it’s best to find someone else.
Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your Virtual Assistant
Be Clear About Your Expectations
It is important to be clear about what you expect from your VA in terms of tasks, deadlines, etc. Otherwise, they may not be able to do a good job.
Communicate Regularly
Keep in touch with your VA on a regular basis so that you can give feedback, answer questions, and provide direction as needed. I like Whatsapp for this because I can address concerns in seconds, either via text, voice note, image, or video.
Be Organized
It will be easier for your VA to do their job if you are organized and have a system in place for them to follow.
I am not the most organized person and probably fall in with the least organized crowd when it comes to business, but my templates and outlines have saved my life!
Be Willing To Let Go
It’s natural to want to have a hand in every aspect of your company. After all, it’s your baby! However, if you want to scale your business and take it to the next level, you need to be willing to let go of some control. Letting go frees up your time to focus on the big picture and strategic planning.
Trust your VA
If you have chosen a good VA, then trust them to do their job. This will help you to relax and focus on other aspects of your business. You want to be a manager, not a micro-manager!
Set Weekly or Monthly Targets (preferably Video Calls)
In order for you and your virtual assistant to know that progress is being made, it is important to set targets. These could be daily, weekly or monthly targets.
I like to go over what has been accomplished, what needs to be improved and any new ideas during our weekly video calls. This keeps everyone on the same page and accountable.
Provide Feedback
Make sure to give feedback, both positive and negative, so that your VA knows what they are doing well and what needs to be improved. They appreciate this as it helps them to do a better job.
Train Your Virtual Assistant Properly
This is where most people fail. They expect their virtual assistants to be unicorn mind-readers. If you want your virtual assistant to do a good job, you need to take the time to train them properly.
This includes telling them what your expectations are, how you like things to be done, and providing any necessary resources.
Again, this is why I keep banging on about Descript. The transcription editing feature on top of the screen record feature has me wanting to create courses! It is so good.
I pop open Descript for even the most minor demonstration and then share the link. So no larger file exporting and hassle.
And, you can be certain that what you want to show your assistant will be understood.
Providing Training Videos
As mentioned above.I use Descript to create and edit transcripted screen recordings of tasks for my VAs (I do this for my writers, too!)
You can also use the built-in screen recorder on your laptop to produce similar and upload your training videos to Google Drive. I used to do this, but it took forever, recording, editing, rendering, uploading, and then sharing.
With Descript, I can cut all of those additional actions out and have a working transcription that goes along with the video nicely.
Remember you want to communicate your needs effectively so your VA understands them.
It also lets me cut out all of the filler words in one click (and believe me, there are a lot of “um”’s to remove). As well as editing the entire video just by removing chunks of text.
So when I make a mistake or need a do-over, I just keep recording and then, at the end, select the text where I made the mistake, and it chops it out of the video for me!
No editing.
When I’m done, I just add the private URL to my training spreadsheet or send it over to my VA.
Some Ideas For Training Videos You Could Create:
WordPress Formatting
Keyword Research
Outreach
Internal Linking
Canva Editing And Compressing
On-Page SEO
Creating Outlines
Data Cleaning (Google Sheets stuff)
How To Use Tools (Eg. AI writers, video editing, SERP tools)
Using this method, I’ve pretty much produced an entire course that my current and future employees can watch and have access to at all times!
Offer Bonuses & Incentives
One way to motivate your virtual assistant and get them to go the extra mile is to offer bonuses and incentives. This could be a bonus for completing tasks early, going above and beyond, or meeting targets.
Switch It Up
Don’t be afraid to switch things up from time to time. If you feel like your VA is getting bored or isn’t motivated, try changing their tasks or giving them more responsibility. This will help to keep them engaged and challenged.
When my VAs have been doing a particular task for a while, I introduce a new, more complex aspect of the business. This keeps things fresh and slowly eases them into a more complex understanding of how everything works together.
Paid Training Time
I always remind my VAs to track their time when they are watching training videos or researching something I asked them to.
Long-Term Language and Thinking
Remember that your virtual assistant is a human being, not a machine. They have feelings and emotions. Sentiments like “our business” or “join our team” will go a long way in making your virtual assistant feel like part of the company.
Morale-Boosting
A lot of this falls under the category of leadership, but it’s still important to touch on. As your business grows, there will be more demands on your time.
You need to make sure that you are still making time for your virtual assistant(s). This could be in the form of regular check-ins, video calls, or even just taking the time to say “thank you, you are doing a great job.” Or paying attention to what they do share about their lives and inquire deeper.
These little things can make a big difference in terms of morale and motivation.
If you want to get the most out of your virtual assistant, it is important to treat them well and make them feel valued. After all, they are an essential part of your business!
May was a sad month for many, and while I am grateful that I am not here, reporting tragic news – I am mindful that Big G has made an absolute mess with this update.
A mess that has cost many people their earnings and time – and there is no guarantee anything will recover or bounce back.
I hate gatekeepers with a passion; I have had many run-ins with gatekeepers 😒… I know it can happen to anybody.
But, for whatever reason, 90% of my portfolio withstood the G-bomb, and most of the sites are better off for it…even site 6 🤔.
From Ezoic, I earned $752.57 (from 50,630 Unique visits)
Portfolio pageviews are up 22.93%, with 60,543 page views in May vs. 49,248 page views in April.
From Amazon, I earned a combined total of $187.10
From my own digital products, I earned $44.94
From other affiliate programs (combination of ShareASale, Awin, etc., as well as niche-specific programs) I earned $362.14
Total earnings: $1,346.75
Total spend: -$2320.50
This month, my expenses totaled $2320.50. This included fees for my Ezoic premium subscription, content, a custom plugin and CSS, my virtual assistant, hosting, and Jasper.
Overall, I spent more than usual this month, but that was due in part to some one-off expenses like the plugin and shortcodes.
Even so, I’m confident that these tools will help me to save time and money in the long run. And of course, the content spend goes without saying.
I am either leaving a lot of money on the table or these are just not worth the effort, let alone the effort it takes to log in and check them.
My Portfolio Reinforcement Strategy
Many people wanted there to be a correlation between sites utilizing AI tools to create content and sites hammered by the update, but that just wasn’t the case.
In fact, beyond the loss of snippets, there doesn’t seem to be any solid pattern for any type of site or niche that was hit (from what I have seen).
All this says to me is, “anyone can get it!”.
Nobody is safe from being hit by a G-Bomb, and whether you were or were not hit, I think it will be beneficial to do one or both of the following:
Reinforce your site or portfolio.
Diversify.
1. Reinforce Your Site Portfolio
What do I mean by reinforcing your site portfolio? I mean, wherever you know that you have weak areas, go back and fill those in. Maybe you were just throwing posts up as quickly as you got them back from your writers and need to format them and optimize them a bit better.
Maybe you know your site speed could be better, but it has not been on the top of your list to sort out (I can definitely relate!)
When it comes to reinforcing my sites personally, that means all of the above and a whole lot more.
creating and implementing a video strategy (mostly using AI-generated video ) and possibly doing the voiceover myself or using my cloned voice (yep, AI again!)
The combination of these random Google updates and the loss of third-party cookies has everybody rattled. There are talks about the death of display ads, the death blogging – generally, people are very concerned about death, lol.
I reckon we just have to adapt and keep swimming.
This could mean spreading your risk with a second site in another niche, or it could simply mean looking at different methods of gaining traffic besides organic search traffic.
Social Media Branding
Social media is usually the first port of call for most people, but people often make the mistake of trying to be in too many places at once and not being effective in any of them.
Every niche has social media platforms that it does better on than others. For instance, if you’re in the wedding industry, obviously, Pinterest is going to be a big one for you. If you’re in the tech industry, Twitter might make more sense.
The key is not just to be on social media, but to be effective on social media. This means having a strategy and sticking to it. The good news is that there is an abundance of social media scheduling tools to help.
One I have been playing around with is this AI Twitter automation and scheduling tool. It can help you come up with 100s of tweets in an hours work, and schedule them. All you need to do is go back and engage with your audience.
I suggest you focus your attention on one or two social media sites that are most relevant to your niche and audience and then build up a presence and following there.
Growing Your Email List
The other area people often diversify into is email marketing. Growing an email list can be a great way to insulate yourself from G-Bombs, as well as give you another avenue to sell products or services.
Email marketing can be very profitable if done correctly, but it’s important not to spam people or buy lists of emails (both of which are against the law in many countries).
Start A Youtube Channel
This could technically fall into the social media category, however, Youtube is it’s own beast and deserves it’s own mention.
Youtube is a fantastic way to build an audience and it can be very profitable if you know what you’re doing.
There are two main ways to make money on Youtube. The first is through advertising, and the second is through affiliate marketing or selling products.
Both of these methods can be effective, but it’s important to remember that Youtube is a search engine, so you need to treat it as such. This means creating videos around keywords that people are searching for, just as you do with your posts.
You can then use them to benefit each other by embedding your videos on your posts and linking to your posts in your videos.
Tighten Up Your Branding
When this recession eventually lands and the death of something eventually occurs, branding is going to be more important than ever.
Your brand is what sets you apart from the competition and makes people remember you. It’s one of the most important things you can focus on, no matter what niche/business you’re in.
Make sure your branding is on point and that people know who you are, what you do, and why you’re the best at it.
Things like a uniform color scheme, a recognizable logo, and font, help to establish trust and credibility and can be done very easily using Canva (free!)
Build Relationships In Your Niche
No matter what happens, relationships are going to be key. Building up a good network of contacts in your niche is going to be important for weathering any storm that comes our way.
I have mentioned many times that I am not a fan of link-building, however, I have seen some success with what I call “soft outreach”, and all that is is creating listicle/roundup-type posts and then reaching out to the people or businesses you mentioned, letting them know you featured them and that they can share the post if they want.
This is a great way to get your foot in the door with people in your industry, and if you can provide value to them, you’re likely to build a good relationship which will be beneficial in the long run.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – that’s the moral of the story here!
Were you hit by the G-Bomb? Is your site recovering? Are you doing anything, in particular, to help reinforce or revive it? Let me know in the comments; I would love to hear from you!
My average EPMV is taking a nose dive! But here is why I am not worried…
Date
Visits
Ezoic Ad Partners
Mediation Ad Partners
Premium Ad Partners
Earnings
EPMV
2022-04 (Apr)
39,728
$389.91
$68.81
$174.88
$633.59
$15.95
2022-03 (Mar)
33,000
$413.13
$9.74
$169.15
$592.02
$17.94
2022-02 (Feb)
27,386
$385.53
$0.00
$171.88
$557.41
$20.35
2022-01 (Jan)
23,958
$346.29
$0.00
$177.23
$523.52
$21.85
Right now, site 2 makes up roughly half of my Ezoic earnings but only a third of my visits. It has the highest EPMV but it is not my fastest growing site.
Some of my newer sites are really picking up in traffic but lacking on the ad revenue front. Hence, the rise in traffic and sessions on my account but the declining EPMV (at least I think that’s why 🤔)
Something strange is going on with Mediation, standard earnings, and Premium Earnings. It looks like they are just shifting between each other but honestly, I am not fussed. My only focus is on what I can control, and those are;
Adding more content.
Improving older content.
Highlights:
From EzoicI earned $633.59 ($41.57 more than last month) from 39,728 Unique visits (6728 more than last month).
47,893Total Pageviews (7826 more than last month)
From Amazon, I earned a combined total of $198.89 ($25.50 more than last month)
From my own digital products, I earned $48.66
From other affiliate programs (combination of ShareASale, Awin, etc., as well as niche-specific programs) I earned $309.61
*Despite EPMV dropping each month, overall Ezoic earnings are still rising as the traffic is rising. The key takeaway here is to keep publishing and work on increasing traffic! It is the only thing you can control.
Total earnings: $1,190.75
Total spend: -$794
Expenses Include:
Content
An AppSumo treat!
Ezoic Premium
Hosting
I am going to need to keep these short and sweet for the foreseeable future for a few reasons.
a) I have so many sites. I hardly even check the analytics or earnings from a bunch of those sites because I am not actively working on them. Now and then I check GSC to ensure the traffic is still rising month after month so I may continue to include those screenshots in these reports.
b) I am already documenting my progress on the site I am working on (site 2) and the site I started my case-study with Doug on (site 7) over at Niche Site Project.
👇
Up 50% from the previous month’s update!
👆
In those reports, I go into depth about what I have done, what is and isn’t working, and any new revelations.
Accompanying those reports is also a video update where we discuss some of those details so it makes more sense to forward people over to that content instead!
c) I am trying to maximize productivity. I will have juicier stats to report if I can remain focused on the things that matter most; content.
Ps…
I am working on something FREE that is going to blow your mind (it may be in the form of a plugin or a script)…
I am creating it because it is going to make my life and growth of all of these sites A LOT easier and it is something I want to share and give away freely to my subs and community so be sure to subscribe to the mailing list so you do not miss out on it…
In this article, I am reviewing two powerful AI SEO writing assistants. Scalenut and Outranking. I have tried and tested both for a number of months, and I can finally put them head-to-head in a Scalenut vs Outranking comparison!
I thought about comparing Scalenut to Jasper AI but then, in all honesty, it wouldn’t be an apples-to-apples comparison – as Jasper AI could only be compared to either Scalenut or Outranking.io if you included the extra subscription of Surfer SEO (for SERP data) with it. And then it just gets all clunky and expensive…
Scalenut and Outranking.ioessentially do the same things; help you write more competitive blog posts, faster, using AI to gather SERP data. Neither are simple AI writing tools or article spinners.
Personally, it is a very close draw, but Outranking.io is the winner for me and you will see exactly why below.
You simply cannot write articles to compete with the top 10 results that Google is already rewarding without getting some data on what Google is already rewarding!
I have found this to be true on many occasions. When I started paying more attention to the average word count for the search query, the searcher’s intent, and the related questions (or people also ask), I started writing better, more informative articles.
You get to cover the popular and consistent themes they are covering PLUS all the things they have missed out on. This way, you can write a better, more informative post while still meeting the searcher’s intention.
Using SERP data can also save you from writing a 3,000-word article when the average top 10 articles are only 1200 words long!
This is why I promote free tools like Thruuu, which let you analyze the SERPs at a glance. But what about those of us trying to publish 15, 20, or 30+ articles per month?
Amongst all of these AI writing tools popping up, developers are now starting to gear their efforts towards writing better copy rather than just writing more copy.
And while it is easy tocreate junk content at scale, it is not as easy to create quality and factual informative content at scale in a cost effective way… until now.
Outranking.io Review
Honestly, when I first signed up to Outranking.io, I didn’t touch it for a few months. I was intimidated by the UI, and I told myself I would watch all the YouTube tutorials so I could make the most of the program, and come back to it. I just didn’t have the time for what seemed like a steep learning curve.
They’ve since made changes to their UI, and they also have tooltips along the way.
Outranking.io Key Features
The most notable features for a blogger looking to scale up are:
Full blog post SERP outline generator in less than 15 minutes (they really nailed it with this one)
Rough draft
Premium draft
Step-by-step SEO Optimization
Quick Wins
People Also Ask Keyword Research Tool (free)
Serp Outline Generator
Outranking.io’s AI-powered SERP Analysis tool provides you with 360 degree intelligence on competition and helps you to craft an SEO Title, meta description, and Outline in under 15 minutes.
To build the most competitive outline, it considers your target keywords against the top 10 results in the SERPS. It then gives you optimized suggestions for your title, meta description, and Outline for better results.
If you have consumed any of my content, from videos to tweets to blogs, you will know I do not go anywhere without my trusty SERP analysis tools. And, I have praised Outranking for this as a key element in my strategy many times. I will not write a post or order an article without having a solid data-driven outline.
Rough Draft
Once you have developed your outline and have a skeleton of H2s and H3s, you have the option to generate a rough draft. The idea behind this is that the draft will fill in key points and highlights of factual information which you can then go of and flesh out or hand over to your writer.
Premium Draft
The premium draft is the newest feature to be added to Outranking, and let me tell you, it is a beast! I jumped on a call with Natalie, the CMO, the other day. And, she kindly showed me how powerful this feature is. The premium draft requires minor editing and fact-checking and produces a full-length, optimized article.
When I say minor editing, I mean, put it in Grammarly and add those missing commas, and you are done! If you aren’t too OCD, you could even publish it as is. Of course, I would never recommend that.
While it’s true that a premium draft will take you most of the way to a finished product, there’s still some work left to be done. Optimization, copyediting, and plagiarism checks should all be part of your post-draft process.
But in addition to those technical considerations, don’t forget the human element. Your content needs to offer value that goes beyond what your competition is doing. And that can only be achieved by putting your own brainpower to work. So yes, if you want to create truly outstanding content, you’ll need to go the extra mile.
In any case, the point is, it cuts your editing time in half (or more). And, on the right plan, it could cut your spending on writers in half too. Which is a huge win!
The 1 Million Credit Deal ($69) equates to around 25 premium drafts; that’s less than $3 per article!
This is one of my favorite features because it has saved me from shooting in the dark on so many occasions. Knowing how many images your article should have, how many times you have included additional key terms, whether or not your title is the best it could be etc.
It then updates you with an SEO score out of 100, which is always satisfying to see going up. Just don’t get caught up in hitting 100; 70+ is usually pretty solid, especially as you have probably not added optimized images yet.
Quick Wins
The quick wins feature is designed to give you an edge on the competition by helping you to identify and fix any low-hanging fruit attached to your domain which could be quickly and easily implemented into your existing posts for better results.
You can see a full list of Outranking.io features here.
Outranking Vs Other Tools
I wont do a full-blown comparison of other GPT-3 text generation or optimization platforms but I will share Outranking’s own analysis chart of how its features stack up against some of the competition.
Scalenut is very beginner-friendly. I tried it out on my phone (and you know if a program can be used and navigated perfectly fine via mobile then it’s safe to say it’s pretty straightforward).
I don’t intend to use such tools on my phone, but sometimes I find myself lying in bed, doing keyword research for entertainment (I know, sad…)
I really like ScaleNut as it groups all of the PAA, NLP, and Reddit questions in one tab, so if you really want a meaty bit of content, you have a nice variety of context to use for headings and to structure a competitive post.
It also allows you to filter the source of the questions, so if you only wanted questions scraped from Reddit, you can do that. Personally, I like to see all the possible related questions and form my FAQs section based on that.
The AI also does a great job at analysing the data and automatically creating some good FAQs of it’s own.
Scalenut Key Features
Scalenut is dead simple and straightforward. From the main menu it gives you three options;
SEO Content Assistant
Short-form Templates / AI Copywriter
Marketplace
Human x AI Writer Content Option
SEO Content Assistant
The SEO Content Assistant is the long-form editor and keyword research tool. You can either search for a topic or a URL and use that as the basis of your research.
I like that it takes you through all of the questions people are asking about your topic, as well as related topics, PAA, and NLP all in one place without you having to tab between different programs.
You also get an SEO score for your article as you write it. So it keeps you on track and helps you to include those LSI keywords.
AI Copywriter (Short-form Templates)
This section is similar to what you will find on most AI writer platforms. Different templates for writing things like;
Meta description
Quora answers
Blog title generator
Introduction paragraph
Conclusion paragraph
Video hook and introduction
Video description
+ over 30 more tools
Marketplace
From the marketplace, you can hire their team to write content for you or do design work.
I haven’t tried this out as I don’t find their rates very competitive. I think 0.05c a word and up is pretty standard across the board for 100% human written content so I guess I will need to order 1000 words and see what they are working with.
But to be honest, I am not trying these platforms out to find writers, I am trying them out to speed up my own output for my blogs.
Scalenut’s Managed Marketplace allows you to purchase human and AI-assisted content. This is not a bad idea, as Rocket Content has been successful offering just this. The only issue here is the price!
For those prices, you are better off hiring your own writers on Writer Access, as I just don’t see the appeal of paying the same or more for AI-assisted content from a trained product user, over a human doing the research and wiring it from scratch.
$0.05 and $0.06 just doesn’t seem right. You may want to consider hiring a VA and taking the time to train them with one of these tools, so they can produce the content for you in-house.
What I do like, though, is the ease of ordering the content.
Scalenut Chrome Extension
The Scalenut Chrome Extension is a free tool that you can utilize to use AI content generation anywhere on the web (including directly into WordPress!)
$0 – 2 SEO Documents – 2,000 Short form AI words – 2,000 Long form AI words
Individual
$40 / Month – 10 Documents – 60,000 AI words processed – 0 Team members
$29 / Month – 5 SEO Documents – Unlimited Short form AI words – 20,000 Long form AI words – 40+ AI tools – 24×7 live chat support – 24×7 email support
Growth
$82 / Month – 25 Documents – 250,000 AI words processed – 1 Team
$79 / Month – 30 SEO Documents – Unlimited Short form AI words – 100,000 Long form AI words – 40+ AI tools – 24×7 live chat support – 24×7 email support – Instruct Mode – AI Settings – Paraphrasing – SERP Facts – Collaboration
Pro
$157 / Month – 50 Documents / Month – 500,000 AI words processed – 3 Team
$149 / Month – Unlimited SEO Documents – Unlimited Short form AI words – Unlimited Long form AI words – 40+ AI tools – 24×7 live chat support – 24×7 email support – Instruct Mode – AI Settings – Paraphrasing – SERP Facts – Collaboration – Dedicated customer success manager
20% off Annual subscription
60% off Annual subscription
Outranking Vs. Scalenut: And The Winner Is…
As you can see, Scalenut is cheaper, but Outranking works out better on the first two plans when paying monthly. On the Pro plan, Scalenut wins with unlimited words. When it comes to the annual plan, Scalenut is a clear winner with 60% off, although this is only for a limited time.
My recommendation would be to try both free trials and decide from there; both offer 2 free documents every month and 2000 AI words. The UI and premium draft feature was what won me over with Outranking.io
