Virtual Assistants are in high demand, so if you’re considering this flexible career path, you have excellent earning potential. The list of VA services required by businesses (big and small) is endless, so it can be a daunting task trying to decide which services you might like to offer.
When I had my first baby, my husband and I decided that I would stay-at-home and work if possible. The world of VAs was entirely new for me, but with no setup fees and minimal experience, I started a business offering social media and content writing services. Mostly from word of mouth, I quickly had more work than I had time for, so I started to niche down and choose the services I preferred, which were also the best earning. That’s the dream job, isn’t it?
If you’re also struggling to work out which services you’d like to provide, check out this list.
9 Virtual Assistants Share Their Best-Earning Services
1. Writing Blog Posts
After about six months as a virtual assistant, I discovered that writing blog posts was not only the service I enjoyed the most, but with experience, it soon became my best earning one. Not only can I charge more now per article, but I write a lot faster, meaning I work fewer hours for more money. Oh, and it’s even led me to a role as an editor – a lifelong dream of mine.
Nearly every business out there has a website (they’d be crazy not to!), but not every business owner can write well. Blog posts are an essential tool to gain followers and customers while giving the brand authority as an expert in the field. It’s a great way to become visible in the online world, so if you love to write, you’ll never be short of work, and rates can be high for experienced freelance writers.
Related Content: 4 Helpful Tips for Beginning Freelance Writers
2. Social Media Management
Mackenzie Armstrong from Armstrong Virtual Solutions claims that this is her best-earning service, which includes posting, content creation, graphics, and engagement. She believes that her skills as an educator have honed her ability to evaluate data and research and apply that to a brand’s social media presence.
Social media management is a broad term for the process of creating, scheduling, analyzing, and engaging with content through social media platforms. A great idea is to choose the platform you’re most familiar with and specialize in it, offering a defined social media management package to your clients. For instance, you might have a flair for creating visually appealing imagery using Canva, so you could specialize in Instagram management for brands in your preferred industry.
Related Content: How To Turn Your Love of Social Media into a Thriving Online Business
3. Email Marketing
Leighanne Payton from Danu Digital turned her lifelong love affair with language into a virtual assistant business, which focuses on email copywriting and marketing.
Email marketing is often a part of business’ digital marketing strategy and is the process of sending content to a list of subscribers via email. It’s used to generate leads and website traffic and is one of the most effective marketing tools to drive ROI for businesses (according to Campaign Monitor). It’s quite a skill to create an email that subscribers will actually open, so your content must be engaging.
Related Content: 8 Bite-Sized Tips to Learn Email Marketing
4. Pinterest Strategist
Kristen Larsen started as a blogger, and after writing a post about how Pinterest helped grow her blog traffic, she was inundated with businesses that wanted to hire her as their own Pinterest VA. Today Kristen teaches others how to become Pinterest VAs in her course, Become a Pinterest VA Today.
Having a Pinterest account is crucial for the online success of many businesses, but without the knowledge and time, it’s often best to leave it to someone who specializes in this niche social media management service. A strategist can help set up (or makeover) and manage a Pinterest account, creating a custom strategy specifically for a brand’s unique style and needs.
Related Content: How to Make Money on Pinterest
5. Network for Virtual Assistants
After 18 years of working as a virtual assistant, Tawnya Sutherland grew tired of working alone and created VA Networking. It’s now the market leader for virtual assistants to network and receive training resources and is earning her six figures from home!
Read more about Tawnya’s success story here, in which she also provides some great advice to aspiring VAs and how much one can realistically earn.
6. Personal Assistant (PA)
Carmen Louise Finn of Your Virtual Solutionist has a background in PA work and administration. Those services are now her biggest earners as a virtual assistant.
Many people think a VA is the same as a PA, only virtual, but a lot of VAs don’t actually offer services that a PA traditionally would. Another name for this is Personal Concierge. If you’ve worked in this field before, you might enjoy tasks such as managing appointments, running errands, booking flights, and taking phone calls.
Related Content: How to Get Started Working at Home as a Personal Concierge
7. Bookkeeping
Michelle Mangen of Thrive Business Accounting is a virtual assistant who primarily does bookkeeping, and it earns her a six-figure income. She loves working with numbers and helps take the stress off service-based businesses which are done handling the ins and outs of bookkeeping.
Related Content: How to Work From Home as a Bookkeeper
8. Website Support
Renee Shupe of Geek in Your Pocket started as a virtual assistant, helping clients with a wide variety of business needs. Her business has evolved over the years to become what it is now – a WordPress maintenance and security service.
Business owners usually need technical support so that they can run their businesses and focus on what they do best. Ensuring a website is secure, search-engine-optimized, and up-to-date involves navigating content management systems, performing updates, and frequent maintenance. The task of managing a website is overwhelming, but if tech is your jam, the benefits of offering this service to business owners are huge.
9. Mentor Other Virtual Assistants
If you’ve been a virtual assistant for a while now, and you’re overloaded with work, you could think about imparting your wisdom, coaching other VAs, and helping them launch and grow their businesses. The well-known Abbey Ashley from The Virtual Savvy did precisely that. When she started a family, she didn’t want to give up her dreams of becoming an entrepreneur, so she launched a VA business. Within one month, she was sold out of her services and had to bring in subcontractors. Over the following years, she gave tips to women and now operates a successful business mentoring other virtual assistants.
Interested in learning more from Abbey Ashley? Sign up for her free 60-minute virtual assistant training here.
Conclusion
I hope these stories and insights from nine virtual assistants—some of whom are just starting out and some who have made it big—have inspired you and given you food for thought. I think the takeaway is to find out which service you’re passionate about, skilled at, and can easily market. And that’s going to be your best earner as a VA!
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