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Has anyone used VA's before?

by Magnatolia
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi guys,

There's a couple of VA's on Fiverr from India, etc that seem pretty cool. I'm thinking of giving three or four of them similar tasks. Maybe the same task but with a different keyword, that way I get an idea of the output they each provide, while also ending up with useable data from each one. I can combine the results together to ensure there's no double ups.

Let's say I have a brand new blog site. I spent about 2 weeks optimizing it, and it now loads in about 2-3 seconds. Added my mailing list options, etc. It's got 8 pages on it. I now want to hire a couple of these VA's to do SEO tasks, but I'm not sure what tasks would be beneficial. I assume at this stage I need to focus on backlinks.

What sort of tasks would be good to get a VA to do, and what should I get them to actually do?

I'm thinking I could get them to either present me with a list of blogs that have written an article within the past three weeks, based on specific keyword/s, and provide the Alexa ranking. Or I could take it a step further and have them comment on the blog as well, but I'm hesitant to go to that step.

Thanks!
Maggz
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Why do you keep starting these fiverr threads looking for a reason to use fiverr? You think your saving money but your not. What your doing is wasting time.

    You want a fiverr India VA but you don't know what they should do?

    Skip all that & learn SEO, then later on If you want to outsource repetitive work find a qualified person for each specific task, not some 3rd world hack just because it's only $5. At least learn the basics of SEO.

    BTW, Alexa has nothing to do with SEO.
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    • Profile picture of the author Magnatolia
      Hi Yukon, I'm not looking for a 'reason' to use Fiverr. In fact I gave a very specific example use.

      Also, please advise how searching for blogs related to, say, personal growth, and only recording them in an Excel spreadsheet if they have written a blog post within the last 3 weeks, is specialized. Then going to Alexa to record the rank. Skills required: Ability to use Google, mouse, and keyboard, and Microsoft Excel. I hardly call that specialized.

      Perhaps my understanding of Alexa is wrong, but I was under the impression that their ranking determined the popularity of a domain, hence why I would focus my blog commenting effort on sites that have a better Alexa ranking. To me, posting a comment on a blog from a 15,000,000 Alexa ranked domain is less valuable than posting a comment on a 150,000 ranked domain. Is my understanding wrong?

      I have basic understanding of SEO, and I'm certainly not implying that I will hire a VA and then tell them to 'do SEO on my site'. I know that's stupid, and I know I need to give them specific instructions.

      btw, Implying that someone who is willing to receive 5 USD for their services musn't be an expert isn't very smart. You do understand global economics enough to know that the minimum daily wage in Philippines for example is 2 USD per day. Average I read was 6 to 8. Not to mention that most western based call centres now operate from places like the Philipines, and we rely on them to answer the questions so they must actually have some knowledge.

      Oh, and I also have it on good authority (aka. a very wealthy personal growth business owner) that the output of work he gets from his overseas employees is far better than he ever got from local people. And that the reason he hired overseas was because Western workers don't stay in a job for long enough to make the cost of training (and training the next person) worthwhile.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Magnatolia View Post

        Hi Yukon, I'm not looking for a 'reason' to use Fiverr. In fact I gave a very specific example use.

        Also, please advise how searching for blogs related to, say, personal growth, and only recording them in an Excel spreadsheet if they have written a blog post within the last 3 weeks, is specialized. Then going to Alexa to record the rank. Skills required: Ability to use Google, mouse, and keyboard, and Microsoft Excel. I hardly call that specialized.

        Perhaps my understanding of Alexa is wrong, but I was under the impression that their ranking determined the popularity of a domain, hence why I would focus my blog commenting effort on sites that have a better Alexa ranking. To me, posting a comment on a blog from a 15,000,000 Alexa ranked domain is less valuable than posting a comment on a 150,000 ranked domain. Is my understanding wrong?

        I have basic understanding of SEO, and I'm certainly not implying that I will hire a VA and then tell them to 'do SEO on my site'. I know that's stupid, and I know I need to give them specific instructions.

        Alexa has nothing to do with SEO authority domains/pages. Alexa is owned by Amazon.

        Alexa gets their data from traffic browsers that run their apps/scripts which again has nothing to do with SEO authority domains/pages. The further down the Alexa list you go you'll see what I'm talking about.

        You could have an Alexa site ranked 500,000 (example) that's an awesome source of backlinks & same niche traffic. That same 500K ranked Alexa site could just as easily dominate a niche in Google SERPs. A backlink from that 500K example site could boost a 2nd domain to the top of Google SERPs for their same/similar target keyword.

        Keep in mind that 500K Alexa example site could just as easily be a 1 million ranked Alexa site. Alexa isn't a sign of SEO authority, it's a sign of traffic browsers running in house Alexa/Amazon scripts.














        Originally Posted by Magnatolia View Post

        btw, Implying that someone who is willing to receive 5 USD for their services musn't be an expert isn't very smart. You do understand global economics enough to know that the minimum daily wage in Philippines for example is 2 USD per day. Average I read was 6 to 8. Not to mention that most western based call centres now operate from places like the Philipines, and we rely on them to answer the questions so they must actually have some knowledge.

        Oh, and I also have it on good authority (aka. a very wealthy personal growth business owner) that the output of work he gets from his overseas employees is far better than he ever got from local people. And that the reason he hired overseas was because Western workers don't stay in a job for long enough to make the cost of training (and training the next person) worthwhile.
        Spare me the economics lecture, that's where everyone goes that tries to justify 3rd world hacks selling $5 junk. Besides, If the only difference was cost of living the work standards would be identical to the rest of the world which isn't the case. Fiverr just sucks for anything SEO related.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          VA's generally suck, even easy tasks they easily mess up.

          Even if you have trained ones, give them something new and guaranteed they mess up the first few times.
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        • Profile picture of the author Magnatolia
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Alexa has nothing to do with SEO authority domains/pages. Alexa is owned by Amazon.

          Alexa gets their data from traffic browsers that run their apps/scripts which again has nothing to do with SEO authority domains/pages. The further down the Alexa list you go you'll see what I'm talking about.

          You could have an Alexa site ranked 500,000 (example) that's an awesome source of backlinks & same niche traffic. That same 500K ranked Alexa site could just as easily dominate a niche in Google SERPs. A backlink from that 500K example site could boost a 2nd domain to the top of Google SERPs for their same/similar target keyword.

          Keep in mind that 500K Alexa example site could just as easily be a 1 million ranked Alexa site. Alexa isn't a sign of SEO authority, it's a sign of traffic browsers running in house Alexa/Amazon scripts.
          Awesome, thanks. I'll keep that in mind. I wasn't aware that was how they worked, although I would assume something over 10 million probably wouldn't be that useful, right?

          Spare me the economics lecture, that's where everyone goes that tries to justify 3rd world hacks selling $5 junk. Besides, If the only difference was cost of living the work standards would be identical to the rest of the world which isn't the case. Fiverr just sucks for anything SEO related.
          Come on, that's just a standard response to try and dodge factual evidence. And no, in most cases it's not the cost of living that's the only issue. There's famine, disease, supporting your family, etc. Not to mention that most first world countries have systems in place so if you lose your job/can't afford your lifestyle, you won't hit rock bottom because the Government will give you a handout in a lot of cases. These third world countries don't have these sort of systems so they are a lot more focused in what they do.

          I agree with what you're saying in that Fiverr does have a lot more junk in terms of obvious shit. Essentially if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. There are obvious types of services that only a person with no knowledge would even consider. For example I just searched on one of them 'traffic'. Pretty much every result offered the impossible. Unlimited traffic, x traffic, promote your video with some software program, etc. I did discover a few different ideas though. There's a person willing to put up 10 flyers in LA. Seeing as most of my traffic and my competitors traffic comes from LA that's a pretty sweet deal. Something that doesn't require too much skill.

          Generally I go with services that don't offer a promise they can't keep. I like services that point out that what they offer does not guarantee sales, clicks, traffic etc. For instance submitting my RSS feed to a bunch of directories. That doesn't guarantee traffic.

          There were actually a coupe of interesting sounding SEO services until they promised to deliver traffic for 2 months. Not interested. Anything that promises lots of backlinks I don't want. I'd be happy with a service that offers a list of possible backlinks that I can then check.

          I won't accept any ad placement service that doesn't tell me exactly where it's going to be placed, so I can do my own research. Although there are a number of radio ones popping up. Having a 10 second spot on a radio can't hurt.

          In my searching I also discovered website critique services. Looks like some interesting opportunities there. Sure it's most likely just an individual user who isn't qualified to offer 'professional' advice but let's face it. The real information is that of our customers. If I order 5 of these services, I then have a bunch of split-test opportunities to try out.
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  • Profile picture of the author IMLab
    Few notes to add on the above answers:

    1. Focus on your quality content before building backlinks
    2. Learn Internet Marketing (SEO, SEM and SMM) properly before starting any website.
    3. If you want to scale up, then you "might" need to hire some employees to do those systematic tasks.

    Hope that helps!
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    Our SEO Website: Labinator.com
    Complete Link Building Guide For 2016: Click Here
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    • Profile picture of the author Magnatolia
      Thanks IMLabs, really appreciate the input. Definitely focusing on quality content. No amount of traffic will equate to anything if the content isn't up to par. I have pushed some of my articles out to friends who were very impressed. One being a psychologist and my content is on personal growth. The other two compliment me on the content whenever they see me.

      I know the basics of SEO and obviously there's a lot more to learn though.

      I figure, if I hire people to do those other tasks then that frees up my time to focus on other things.
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  • Profile picture of the author jgant
    You get what you pay for. I've tried saving money on outsourcing and cost me nothing but time.

    Now I use a service that charges fees people can make a decent living on and the work is second-to-none. It's worth every penny.
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    How I hit $10,000+ per month very fast w/ 1 niche blog - Click Here to learn more (no opt-in).
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    • Profile picture of the author Magnatolia
      Well seeing as the work is outsourced, I can't imagine your time loss would be massive. Not all, but most, of the servives I use are automated. RSS feed submission (probably uses an automated software/service that they pay for). Competitor backlink analysis (uses three of the major services) which saves me probably at least 1-2 hundred per month. With these sorts of services, if there's a quality issue then it's not with the seller.

      Let me give you an example. I got into the idea of writing a book ages ago. I found this gig that offered to critique my writing. I thought for $5 I will give this a shot. Unfortunately, she stopped offering her gig, but she was incredible. So much detail in her critique. There was another one that offered up to 10 possible story ideas. She gave me six but every single one was at least I would say 3-4 lines long.
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  • Profile picture of the author Carlos Stratton
    I never used VA's from Fiverr and will not use in the future.
    I got better results with VA's from ODesk and Freelancer.com

    Carlos
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    • Profile picture of the author Magnatolia
      Hey Carlos, you do realize you can't claim that you got better results from ODesk and freelancer if you've never used Fiverr before right? Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the results would be better, just found your reply amusing.

      PS. I've had writing services through ODesk and Fiverr before, but not enough to justify the price difference. Admittedly, I'm happy getting a product that I may need to do minor rework on. That's something I'm happy to do. Most of the changes are to better suit my style anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author LJKrooker
    Just thought I would mention my experience, I am using a VA for some very specific tasks that are just repetitive (not SEO related) and time consuming for myself. I use oDesk and if you use a "recommended VA" you get a two week trial, where if you are not happy with the VA you get your money back. I pay under $5 per hour.

    I use Fiverr for very specific tasks that give me a tangible product (graphics, voice overs) and have great experiences, but that said I also feel that it's too hard to distinguish quality workmanship on Fiverr and due to the commercial/popular nature of the site. Good ratings might be from people who know absolutely zero about SEO and where happy with very basic stuff... On the other freelancing websites you tend to get slightly more detailed reviews and you can see the name of the job/task they completed which might give better indication of their level of skill / experience.

    Taking for example "I'm thinking I could get them to either present me with a list of blogs that have written an article within the past three weeks, based on specific keyword/s, and provide the Alexa ranking."

    I feel from my VA experience you'll literally get the top 10 results in google in a spreadsheet if you asked them to do that task you mentioned. Not enough value VS the time it would take you in my humble opinion.

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