Hello everyone!

As a part of my networking and marketing in an attempt to build my business and attract my first client, I have decided to start up a Blog, which seems to fit in nicely alongside the various social networking, VA networking and marketing directories that I have accumulated within the past month!

My Blog is entitled, "FastFingers Typing Service... The Socially Conscious VA" and it can be located at:


After having compared a few Blogs, mainly Blogger and Wordpress, I decided to go with Blogger as I felt that it was more user-friendly, in terms of setting up. I did like the Wordpress template that I had chosen -- I just wasn't happy with the journey I took to reach it -- but I find that I quite like the Blogger set up. I guess it is an individual thing -- each to his own.

Well, on the 6th July it will be one month since I launched FastFingers Typing Service... Your Virtual Admin Assistant -- please pray that I will be able to celebrate by welcoming my very first client..! I am a job seeker at present -- not working at all on a paid basis -- so I really need prayer at the moment that I will find a good job that I can earn a living from... and I pray that that job that comes along is via my business, rather than an "ordinary", mainstream job -- oh, how I pray!

I'm sorry I haven't been very active on here in the past month or so since I joined -- I've been doing a lot of reading, but no contributing... so hopefully this long post will more than make up for that!! And hopefully it won't be too long before my next post...

Hoping this finds you all well and busy with work assignments,
Blessings,

Hi Denise, congrats on the blog. I'll give you some tips as I've been blogging for many years.

Make sure you post regularly but don't set a routine you can't keep up. Weekly is fine, every few days is fine, but make sure it's regular and at a pace you can maintain.

Blogger is great to learn with and many people have fantastic blogs at Blogger. However, bear in mind that you need to maintain some kind of backup system because if Blogger lost your blog you would be off the air. I started with Blogger but after having close to 100 posts there I woke up one morning and wondered what would happen if I lost everything I'd written. Periodically I would publish all the posts to one page and then save it as an html page as that was better than nothing.

Eventually I shifted to Wordpress and have it self-hosted with my website and have a backup plugin installed so that my blog is backed up every single week. I have close to 1000 posts on there now (sounds like it's almost time to run a competition or something hey?) and my blog has gone through many visual changes but I'm fairly happy with the template I have now. Just got to add a couple more tweaks - was trying to get it to view better in Internet Explorer and now it's more to the left in Firefox. Currently looking at that.

Anyway, great start and congratulations in joining this aspect for your business.I found that regular blogging has helped attract more clients.

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Kathie M. Thomas, VA Coach
A Clayton's Secretary, VA Blog

Great suggestion about the backup, I never thought about that Kathie! I don't have anywhere near 1000 blogs but it's still a good idea to have a backup.

My problem is what to write about and finding the time! How do you feel about guest bloggers? I thought I'd invite a couple of people who's blogs & articles I enjoy (on the rare occasions I have time to read them) to monthly blog on mine...

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Need Help?Ask Viki!

1,000 posts - not blogs, Although I do own quite a few blogs.

I set a date in my diary on a weekly basis and pre-post blog posts - that way I don't have to remember to do it during the week and have been able to establish a weekly posting pattern for the blogs I want updated. My VA blog is 3 times a week, my photoblog is daily, and I have a couple of other blogs that are usually once or twice a week (one on small offices and another is a family blog).

I do have other blogs that relate to books I've written or are holding bays for future books - great way to test content with your audience.

Guest bloggers are a good idea - it helps build up interest in your blog with their own audiences and gives you content when you're low on that.

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Kathie M. Thomas, VA Coach
A Clayton's Secretary, VA Blog

Great job on the blog! I just subscribed to it.

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Winston Stewart
PennWin Administrative Services

Thanks for the information about your blog. I have not started a blog because I need to be able to post it regularly and I'm not sure where I will get ideas for content. I do not like to write probably because I don't think I'm very good at it. Don't know what I'll do at this point. I am also needing to get some clients since I have not been able to find a new job after looking for the past six months. That's why I started my VA business.

Janet

Love the pharse.. I will sign up on your blog..

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Virtual Express Inc.
Ramonita Comas

Hi Denise, Congratulations on your one-month anniversary! You've got a lot of good stuff going on, it looks like. I'm looking forward to "running in to you" around VAF!

Posting on a regular basis seemed very daunting to me as well, until I did a 10-week blogging internship under Kelly McCausey of WAHM Talk Radio. Now I have tons of ideas on how to easily write regular posts and form relationships with other like-minded bloggers. I wrote a post on my VAF blog that lists 4 quick and easy blog post ideas.

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Virtual Assistant 3.0

Nice start

I love to write as well and can't wait to start blogging, although I think it will be a while before I get to that portion. I just wanted to let you know, though, that the link to your VA website (not the blog) seems to be broken.

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase

Nice blog. I wish you much success with it and your biz. :-) The clients will come, try not to worry!

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Blessings,
Carol

Hi everyone, thanks for all the positive comments and advice re: my new blog, especially re: backing up my blog - good advice which I will definitely take into consideration!

Keep well,