New VA biz - Paralegal question

[joywilder]

Hi all!

The launch date for Wilder Office Approach is October 31! Yay! I have a lot to do to make this goal At the moment, I am creating my website.

HUGE question for all of you:
I am a Litigation Paralegal and wanted to incorporate this into my business. I'm wondering whether I should start off as a Paralegal VA, both a general office *and* a Paralegal VA, or a general office VA.

I don't want to spread myself too thin, but am not sure what the market for a Legal VA will be. I'd like to add that I have about 2 years experience in the Chicago/Illinois legal industry.

My first inclination is to include both and narrow down later. If that is the route I choose, would you suggest I make a separate web page for both niches on my site? One tab for Office Support (or whatever I call it) and one tab for Paralegal Services?

Thanks in Advance,

[Action Jackson VA]

I agree with creating two pages. I also suggest that you put in your intro page, a.k.a Home page, the two different services you offer.

Great goal!
Andrea~

[Office Goddess]

Stick to both! I would combine both services on one page as they are not only very similar, they are often intermingled.

[joywilder]

Thanks to both of you for your opinions.

I've decided to include the fact I do P/L and "general" services on the home page *and* make tabs for each separately.

[Denyse Giguere]

Hi

I am in the same position as you. I am a real estate paralegal and pondered for a while about whether I wanted to strictly be a paralegal VA or a general office VA. I have since decided to go general for now as there are other services outside of paralegal services I plan to offer. The way I have my business plan set up is I offer two kinds of services: 1) General Administrative Services, and 2) Paralegal Services. It seems to be working great so far in my layout.

Good luck to you

[dawndmd]

I am 95% a virtual paralegal. However, I have recently started a second business offering general virtual assistant services. I have created two web sites, one for each business. They will be treated as two business because that is the way I want to do that, but you don't necessarily have to do that. I have been successful with the VP aspect, and choose to create the additional business so the two are not intermixed. One reason why I chose to do two is because each web site is significant to the services I provide and allowed me to optimize each web site with their respective services offered. Dawn

[joywilder]

Thanks, Dawn!

Your post leads me to my next question....

If I were to integrate both the general and legal entities on the same website...how would I present how I charge? I would think that I would bill higher for the legal work.

Many VA sites I've viewed put how much they charge per hour.

[dawndmd]

I believe you should put what you charge, but I am not sure you should provide different charges for general and attorneys on the same web site page as that may very well deter attorneys as they may wonder, as we all know, gee why am I getting charged more...even though we all know how much they can make an hour. How about having a separate web site page for attorneys and a separate web site page for businesses in the same site? Then you can put your credentials and experiences, services you provide and fees on their own respective page.

Make sure you optimize each of those pages well with respective keywords too.