SVA’s Favorite Helpful Desktop Apps or Extensions

To successfully multitask in the VA industry you have to be able to work smarter not harder. Here are some of our favorite applications & extensions for business. Just about any & all small business owners should take advantage of these great sites, especially if you work from a home office. The best thing about most of them…..they’re FREE.

LastPass: Free Password Manager / www.LastPass.com

Description: LastPass, a password manager that saves your passwords and gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device.

• How we use it: LastPass is a VA’s best friend. For my Virtual Assistants to work with our clients, we need to have access to our clients’ websites, social media, & etc. LastPass preserves our client’s privacy when it comes to log in information. Our client sends us the links to their log-ins through their end on LastPass. What we actually receive is Log-in: ######## Password: ############

Check My Links / Chrome web store

Description: Check My Links is a link checker that crawls through your webpage and looks for broken links.

• How we use it: We use it on all our clients’ sites. We also use it for email marketing. How many times have you sent out an email with dead links?! We send numerous emails out for our clients and it is vital to our clients’ identity to have a good email. Repetitive broken links will lead to a drastic decline in readership.

Hootsuite Hootlet / www.hootlet.com

Description: Quickly share web pages to all of your social networks using the Hootsuite Hootlet.

• How we use it: Another great tool used for all of our clients. While logged in to a client’s Hootsuite account, we are able to auto-schedule or send immediately, any content we find online. Best practice tip – Have your auto-schedule parameters set-up prior to using. When sending via auto-schedule Hootlet will schedule separate your postings for various times, saving more time

MozBar from Moz / www.moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar

Description: MozBar provides easy access to SEO tools and data while you surf the web

• How we use it: Basically we check all of our clients’ sites. We do not in any way claim to be website designers but we do create content for sites & do up keep for our clients. This is a great tool we use to check the sites before and after.

Page Analytics (by Google) / Chrome web store

Description: Allows you to see how customers interact with your web pages including what they click and don’t click.

• How we use it: Another one where the usage is self-explanatory. We use it for each of our clients’ sites.

Pin It Button by Pinterest / Chrome web store

Description: Pin the things you find on the web

• How we use it: This pretty self-explanatory but we try to be our clients’ advocates & we love saving & sharing our clients content. We are pretty new to using Pinterest ourselves but we see and understand the awesome potential it has.

Pocket - Save to Pocket / www.getpocket.com

Description: Easily save articles, videos and more for later. Pocket Extension for Chrome - The best way to save articles, videos and more

How we use it: We save tons of good content for our clients and for ourselves. Sites providing industry news, free stock photos, & good blogs. All saved content can be reviewed or read offline at our convenience.

RiteTag Social Media Optimizer / www.ritetag.com

Description: Millions of free pics & influencer-tagging. Total post grading as you type in Facebook, Twitter, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Buffer & more.

• How we use it: Awesome social cheat used with Hootlet. Click your Owly to bring up Hootlet. In the Hootlet window you’ll be able to find and use the best hashtags(#) and include stock photos if there are no pictures included. Another “totally cool” feature of this tool is it will tell you if your post is strong enough & give you tips on how to make it stronger.

ASANA / www.ASANA.com

Description: Asana is a web and mobile application designed to enable teamwork without email

• How we use it: There are a few others but we find ASANA to be our preferred project management tool due to its ease of use. It is very user-friendly and has an easy to use mobile friendly app. Our clients are able to log in at any time of the day schedule a task or upload pictures. When we log in we are able to check due dates, new assignments & exchange messages with our clients. We have become completely virtual by using ASANA. No need for phone or emails.

MightyText / www.mightytext.net

Description: Text from your computer, sync'd with your Android phone & number

• How we use it: True it’s only for android but I’m sure there is one for the iPhone out there. Now we tell all of our clients text in to use is completely unprofessional because let’s face it, it is. When conducting business with our clients, we do get friendly and at ties personal but business is business. Even though most VA’s work from home office’s, we really do not have the time to constantly text our family & friends back while we are in our “work zone” but MightyText lets us reply without touching our phone.