Best,

The Squidoo idea is simple and easy to explain: allow anyone to build a single page, called a lens, on a topic that he or she is passionate about. SO, I get it.  I am passionate about creating Camtasia videos and helping other VAs build their businesses. Perhaps that should be my Squidoo lens. Duh, so I made one.  Well I started to. Check out this demo to see a couple of other VA’s lenses and then decide if you should throw one up too.

Bye,

You’re going to LOVE this video which details the development and the features of these animated Virtual Assistants. It is hard for me to believe that they can really carry on conversations with their clients like real people (and in a sexy Russian accent) but it seems they have these amazing voice recognition abilities. I wonder if these things can be trained to write. Perhaps I will consider outsourcing some of my blog posts to one of them. Just a test really.

On a side note, though, I think I will not let my husband see this video as I am slightly concerned he may get some weird ideas. Sort of “Stepford Wives” kind of thoughts. The only thing he would not like in the video, though, is when the hot VA tells her client to “clean the kitchen himself”.

When you create an Adsense campaign for your client, you are putting up small advertisements for related products, on whichever pages you choose.  When someone clicks on those ads, your client will earn revenue. There are several types of Adsense campaigns you can choose to set up. In the demo below you will learn how to add Adsense to your client’s blog page. I have not investigated how to do this with a nonblog site but it can’t be incredibly different. When you start setting this up you can choose for your ads to be displayed in a box, known as an ad unit or have them displayed as links, known as a link unit. You can also choose the colors, layout size and shape. If you spend some time reading about Adsense you will find that certain types of ads work a lot better than others but you really need to take some time experimenting to see which works better for YOUR client.

Once you have chosen the design and layout of your Adsense campaign, you can create “channels”. This will allow you to get advanced tracking reports. If you are new to Adsense, you don’t have to worry about setting them up right away.

Finally, after you have selected all of your criteria, Adsense will give you a bit of Javascript (just a little bit of code) that you can cut and paste onto the webpage or blog.

I started creating this demo from scratch but after a little research I found this nice sounding Englishman on Google Videos to demo this for you. This video is about 2 minutes.

I had heard about this software for quite a while from other VAs so I have been wanting to check it out for some time. I’ve discovered that Site Build it is a service that helps you build a profitable online business from scratch. They educate you step-by-step on how to do it in a very thorough, no-nonsense manner. They also provide the web hosting, tools, and technical assistance you need, so even non-technical people can succeed. Creating a profitable site with SBI is actually easier than building a blog the way I did. They also provide complete hosting as well as an extensive suite of tools to help you build traffic and generate meaningful income.

I encourage you to look into Site Build It to see if it makes sense for you. I recommend you start with the Site Build it home page, then watch the 2-1/2 minute video and follow whichever links interest you. The video tour starts out mostly motivational in tone (i.e. benefits of working from home), but later on it dives into the details of how the tools and monetization strategies work, using real web sites as examples.The whole deal comes with a money-back guarantee, so there’s really no risk to check it out.

The feedback I’ve been hearing from my clients who’ve signed up has been extremely positive. Several people mentioned that the educational value alone is well worth the price.

If I hadn’t already learned how to build an online business the hard way, I’d use Site Build it to get there much faster. It would have shaved years off my learning curve if this had been available when I created my first Website.

Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include a demo:

I am the Queen of To Do lists and, while it is hard for me to believe, not everyone uses them in their business. Although I do find them absolutely essential for me to get all my client’s work and my own work done every day I don’t think I use them in the best way possible. In this brief video, Michael Cheney talks about how to create an even better To Do List.

The video is boring up until it gets to 1:30 minutes, so go ahead and drag the video bar to the first marker that says “Let’s Get Cracking”.  That is where he actually starts talking about creating your list.

I completely agree with him on having one main item that is the absolute highest priority for the day. Some days I do everything on my list except the one thing than will make the most difference in my business. Unfortunately, it is not always so obvious which item is the highest priority. Is it the client whose project deadline is the closest or the Press Release you need to get out about your VA business?  If anyone has ideas about exactly how they prioritize items please let me know.

Enjoy,