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How to Create a Manual Table of Contents That Adds Value And Traffic to Your SBI Homepage

by Francis
(January 02, 2013)

how-to-create-a-manual-table-of-contents-that-adds-value-and-traffic-to-your-sbi-homepage-21694242

You know that you can simply take the Table of Content SBI block, and add it to your homepage, right? This works really well.

As your site gets older and bigger, it can make sense to make the table of contents manually. This way you can:

  • Prevent keyword stuffing.
  • Add additional content to your website.
  • Add long tail keywords to your website.
  • Add navigational thumbnails to the page.

All of these actions will lead to increase traffic and I have used it for the homepage of Ideal-helper.com as well as for my other SBI sites.

How to Do It

  1. Get an inventory of all your Tier 2 pages.
  2. Detect one picture of each Tier 2 page that you want to use as a navigational thumbnail.
  3. Create a title and a good description text block with some additional information about what the Tier 2 page is all about.
  4. Order all your Tier 2 pages in a logical order.
  5. And then, create your Table of Contents manually.

Each time you add an additional Tier 2 page, you need to update your manual Table of Contents or else your tier navigation will be screwed up.

How I Outsourced All of This to My Virtual Assistant

My virtual assistant is very SBI savvy so instructions don’t take long anymore. I simply recorded a series of screen recordings with a video, looked at my Table of Content that is automatically generated by SBI and recorded audio transcription files with new content for each Tier 2 page.

My VA transcribed it, formatted the transcript with the thumbnails and created a manual Table of Contents.

In addition, you or your VA can research long-tail keywords from SBI’s search engine headquarters. Actually, this is the perfect time to do it. A manual table of content has added at least a thousand words to my homepages. This leads to a lot of additional long-tail searches.

Why not use the long-tail keywords from the search engine headquarters to beef up your homepage a little bit?

Either research each keyword yourself or ask your virtual assistant to do it. This is just one small but very fundamental task that my VA has helped me with.

Do you have questions to this project or more ideas that a virtual assistant could help you with your SBI site? If yes, just join us in the comments.

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Hiring a Virtual Assistant

by Kirk

If you’re drowning with tasks and you don’t know how to get things done, one of the best things to do is to hire a virtual assistant.

It could help you save time and allows you to stay focus on important tasks.

When hiring a virtual assistant you need to screen them first even you acquire them on legit sites like Staff.com and Guru.com, which allows you see their potential.

Having a virtual assistant is a great benefit for your business as long as you know how to find the right person for the job.

Thanks for your story, Kirk!

I also think that selection and training of the virtual assistant is the most crucial step to take, in order to be successful.

If you hire anyone who is willing to work for you, you’ll be in for a harsh ride. Believe me, I have been there, done that and gotten the t-shirt.

A good way to pre-screen an assistant is to hire two VA’s at the same time, assessing them and keeping the person who is the better fit to your business.

Your working style is as variable as there are personalities under the VA’s.

Personally, I found it important to relate to my VA’s as a real person. That’s why I’m interested in working with “nice, human” VA’s rather than professionals.

If you’re the CEO of a big online enterprise, you might need the exact opposite…

Bottom line:

Before you drown in your work and start to despair – get a virtual assistant!

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Working with a Provider with Very Low Computer Knowledge and Skills

by Virtual Assistant
(December 21, 2012)

Some days ago, I and Francis have hired a provider, ‘M.A’ (Original name not disclosed). As you are already aware of, we have hired multiple providers for Francis’ outsourced job research project.

First we have hired a provider from Bangladesh, ‘Roman’:

  1. I set up initial communication between Francis and Roman,
  2. interviewed him via Skype,
  3. then opened a contract
  4. and hired him for this project.

Although I have already told him that this would be a time-sensitive project and he had to start working for us right away, we did not hear anything from him after hiring him.

Why doesn’t Roman write back after being hired?

As this was not a new experience for both me and Francis, I didn’t close the job opening. Instead, I reviewed and short listed another contractor who was also from the same country I belong to.

We were looking for someone to research Chemistry related organizations and companies in Munich, Germany within a specified radius. This new person wrote in his cover letter that he is not only a Chemistry student, but also has some German language knowledge.

Found the perfect research assistant…?

So apparently this person seemed to be the perfect candidate for this position, but in actual that was not the case. I have closely reviewed his profile and found out that he was currently working in a well-reputed firm and I evaluated that if his provided information is correct, he would be earning at least $1000 PM, which is a very handsome pay in my country (Pakistan).

On the flip side, he applied for $1.11/hr including oDesk fee for our job. So that was the only reason I really don’t want to hire him: for me he was over qualified.

I and Francis had a detailed discussion over this and finally agreed on the point that we will hire him for a limited contract of 5 hours per week and if he performs well, we will increase his quota.

Discussions via Skype took a long time

discussion-over-skype
Just a small parts of the tedious discussions my VA had with this provider

Before hiring him, I asked him to come online via Skype and discussed some important terms and conditions with him. He was totally new on oDesk and during this chat I came to know that his computer skills and literacy were very, very low and he even didn’t know about some of the basics of oDesk Team Room Application.

I experienced two really funny experiences with this provider:

His Internet connection was so slow due to…

As I realized that he has very low computer knowledge and skills, but still we were interested in his chemistry and German language skills, so I moved a step ahead and told him each and everything about the project. But his internet connection was so slow that it took hours to download the provided training videos.

In fact I told him to download these videos and then we will discuss it tomorrow.

The show begins…

The next day I didn’t hear anything from him and sent him a chat about the videos, after some time he replied that he was still waiting for videos to be downloaded. I asked him why it’s taking so long to download these videos and also asked the speed and details of his internet connection, but everything was good.

After an hour or two he told me that there is a notification in his icon-bar that the internet is out of coverage.

I asked him where wifi router of his internet connection is placed, and he replied ‘Downstairs’.

So that was the reason why he was not getting complete internet signal and was unable to download the training videos 😉

He was unable to click to the bookmark icons on Google maps because…

google-maps-screenshot
He was unable to open Google maps bookmark balloon

In fact, he was able to click those bookmarks on Google Maps but apparently they weren’t popping out their addresses.

Let me take you into the situation from an earlier time frame.

After he downloaded and watched all the training materials, as expected he was not sure what to do. So I tried to train him little more. I made helpful screen captures with text annotations with the help of free screen recording software ‘Jing’ and sent him so that he can understand what we want from him.

I wanted him to follow along my step by step instructions and implement them in real-time. Out of these many screen captures, one has a screenshot of Google maps showing some bookmark balloons and places.

I asked him to do the same practice I did in the screen capture, but there was a serious problem with him, he was not able to click and open these bookmarked balloons. I stayed with him for at least 30 good minutes and explained him different solutions, but all in vain.

After 30 to 40 minutes of intense efforts, I realized that this person was not browsing Google maps on his browser. In fact he was clicking at my screenshot and was trying to open bookmarked locations over there.

Finally it’s time to work on the project and deliver results

After I explained him each and every step of this project in detail and asked him to start his work for this project, he disappeared.

Those days I was also absent due to some domestic reasons, but I asked him two or three times about the project which he never replied.

After around 10 days I saw some activity within his work diary and noticed that he has worked on our project, as I told him that I would be away he reported directly to Francis instead me.

employer-contract-feedback
Final Rating and comment given after ending the contract

I was really not happy with his performance and especially with his work attitude so I recommend Francis to rate him low, but still he was more generous and gave him a rating more than I recommended.

2 weeks after ending his contract, I got an email from him that he was busy due to some PhD thesis, that’s why he couldn’t work. I didn’t reply back because I think he should have let us know about this especially when we have already told him that this was a time sensitive project.

So in my opinion if you don’t have a professional attitude towards your work, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are. In any field of life your attitude comes first and everything else comes after that.

I would love to hear your comments about my failed but interesting experience.

Comments for Working with a Provider with Very Low Computer Knowledge and Skills

Aug 08, 2014 self-discipline is a must
by: Francis Ever since I’ve been following this post, I had such a great time reading everything about it. I think this kind of job is not how great your titles are, how excellent you are in school.This kind of job is about talent and skill to adapt to the nature of the job. Although I know I have my own flaws, but I am learning and willing to be trained 😀

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Working on the Design of the Ideal-Helper Website

by Francis
(December 20, 2012)

A friend of mine had a lot of criticism to say about the design (comments are in German)

A few friends of mine are entrepreneurs. They know how websites are supposed to be built and also know a lot about marketing. I’m lucky to have their feedback regarding the layout, design and look and feel of the Ideal-helper website.

Personally, I’m most proud about the contents I am writing here. The written words you can read here are based on my personal experiences of working with virtual assistants from all around the world. In my opinion, the written content is the most useful stuff you can get from this website.

On one hand, it’s impossible for me to ignore the tons of feedback my entrepreneur friends give to me.

Their main concern?

How the layout of my website might scare off new visitors.

I like to believe that someone who is really interested in the topic will read past as an optimal design.

But on the other hand, why lose potential readers and friends?

Why not go the extra mile to reach out to an even larger audience?

That’s why there’s also some intensive testing, working and fine tuning going on behind the lines – all for the optical pleasure.

Is this necessary?

I believe so.

Is it the highest priority?

I don’t believe so.

My virtual assistant and I would put an extra hours to make sure that you will receive fresh and relevant content on an ongoing basis.

The design optimizations will take place over time.

But as long as I can profit from the feedback of my friends, I’ll try to do so.

So please don’t be surprised if you see some optical changes on the next few days (or weeks…).

I promise you all the information will stay here. I won’t take down any of my information.

I‘ll also try to be as transparent as I can be about the whole process. Perhaps, there’s a lesson to be learned here.

And to be honest, I believe that what you can learn here from me is rather unique on the web.

Since I’m a totally normal guy who’s working together with virtual assistants without even having a notable income – so I haven’t found much resources about this when I started out outsourcing.

That’s why I believe the information you can read here still is useful.

But I will make ends meet so that the information is not only useful and present it into a very appetizing matter.

Stay tuned.

Comments for Working on the Design of the Ideal-helper Website

Aug 12, 2014 Content is better than the layout
by: JomvieFor me, yes a good layout is only a plus point as a random reader. What is more important for me is the content in the page itself. Because layout doesn’t have to do with my research.What’s worst is, if the layout is not so good and the content is not so good..then that’s the worst thing the owner could ever have in this business. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with the layout 😀

 

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Wrapping Up the Outsourced Job Research

by Francis
(December 20, 2012)

Finally, having virtual assistants work on researching job opportunities for me will be wrapped up soon. I’ve gotten some great job interview opportunities but those were mostly based on me attending job fairs. I’ve learned a lot on how to do job research effectively.

If you want to use my best tips and free job search websites, be sure to research for jobs smartly. Quality is way more important than quantity.

Summing Up the Work of My Researchers

Outsourced Job Research Results

Outsourced Job research results - 200+ chemistry enterprises in the area of Munich
 

or

Roman did a great job. He researched over 200 possible places where I could call and apply for jobs; only in the area of Chemistry, Biochemistry and localized in and around of Munich. Muhammad, on the other side, was very tough to work with. Managing him has been a real challenge to my virtual assistant. This has been posted elsewhere.

This Research Is My Ace in the Sleeve

To be honest, I wanted to stay in Munich very badly. Mostly out of private reasons but I also just like it here. It’s my home. If I would not have found anything at all in Munich, I would have been forced to look globally for work.

Now this research that I got from both from Muhammad and especially from Roman, are my ace in the sleeve, tightly tucked away in case I ever need another job opportunity in Munich.

It’s a good feeling to have some pre-researched data where I could quickly crank out a lot of applications to useful places that I could even pay a visit personally to if I wanted.

Doing the research has been a fun ride.

The Cost of My Research

What did this whole outsourcing my job research experiment cost me, actually?

I hired Roman for $1.23 an hour, Muhammad was hired for $1.11 an hour. Roman’s work was the most useful. He has worked in total for 40 hours and 10 minutes. So, I paid him just under $50. When I compared his results with some professional job research websites that have premium services, this was pretty cheap.

Actually, I paid $163 at one time for a professional job research website and have gotten no results whatsoever out of it.

I’m very happy with the results I got from Roman. Muhammad, on the other side, mostly took a waste time of my virtual assistant and his research did not give us much results. He has researched a few places after finally getting set up.

Some of his research overlaps with Roman’s, of course. I will consolidate the data and use it whenever I will need it. In sum, he has only worked 5 hours. But I have made more costly experiments on Fiverr before.

So on the financial side, there was no big loss from working with Muhammad. We did learn a lot about managing a team of virtual assistants though.

Closing Remarks

As I said, outsourcing my job research was fun. I hope you could follow along with my posts. Please excuse me if some of them were pretty chaotic. You also have to know that many of my posts were transcribed from audio recordings that I made before.

Still, I hope you could get out something out of this research series.

I’d love it if you leave me a comment on what you learned from me or if you have some follow up questions. I try to be as transparent as I could. Please call me out if I withheld some information that is important to you.

See you in the comments.

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Comments for Wrapping Up the Outsourced Job Research

Aug 13, 2014 Roman’s online adventure series
by: Jomvie This kind of stuff is great for anyone who’s in the business, at least they can get an idea which is better and which one is not. Although you’ve gone through many experiments and put some holes in your pocket, but at the end of the day you’ll get what you wanted.

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Outsourced Job Research with Roman – One Month after Hiring

by Francis
(December 20, 2012)

It’s just been a month since I hired Roman to research job opportunities for me. He has worked 30 hours for now and therefore, I have spent $36 up to now.

He has researched over a hundred places in Munich complete with contact information, the career’s webpage and the location. Everything is nicely spread out in a spreadsheet.

It’s time to assess how far he has gotten in researching the whole city. I’ve asked him about making a schematic illustration about which places in Munich he has already taken care of. Unfortunately, the communication is a little bit lacking. That might be because my virtual assistant is away at the moment or a problem on his side.

In comparison, the cooperation with Muhammad was disturbingly demotivating to say the least. I’ll save that for a series of other posts.

The hardest part of the whole job search is yet to come. I’ll have to take that list of over a hundred job contact opportunities and phone or email each one of them. If after all that, I cannot find a place to work then it’s probably time to cut corners and change the location.

P.S. – While Roman focused on scouting the web for job opportunities in the areas of Chemistry or Biochemistry, I took the freed up time to visit a few job fairs and send out a few more job applications on my own.

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Comments for Outsourced Job Research with Roman – One Month after Hiring

Aug 18, 2014 silent competition
by: John

This pretty much sounds like a silent competition—I noticed that you like to experiment on some stuff. Probably it’s because you want to see what would be the probable downside and most beneficial to your site? I really enjoyed reading Roman’s internet adventure. Good thing is he landed on to someone who can train him well that he could he use for the next task in the future.
Sep 05, 2014 When You Test Out Different Things While Outsourcing, You Get Even Better Results
by: Francis

It’s true that I like to experiment around a little bit when I do outsourcing experiments like this one. It teaches me a lot about outsourcing in general. It also helps to have better results in the end.About the silent competition, it’s a possibility to have a competition open or in silence. If you have it in silence, in my experience, the results are a little bit more to be trusted than if you have an open competition.