What is a Virtual Assistant?

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What is a virtual assistant? A career as a virtual assistant is one of the best ways to freelance in the world. It’s estimated that there are anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 virtual assistants worldwide, but the number is probably higher.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant (VA) is someone who assists one or more individuals or businesses with work that they need to accomplish online.

There are hundreds of types of work you can do as a virtual assistant. Just a few of these are:

Pinterest management
website content creation
editing
transcription
email management
proofreading
customer service
social media management
video editing
graphic design

Most virtual assistants freelance, but some work as employees. Some virtual assistants concentrate on one specific skill and offer their services in that area only; for example, managing Pinterest accounts, optimizing website content or handing technical work on WordPress sites. Other VA’s offer a wider range of skills.

Virtual assistants may also choose to work in one field such as the real estate or legal field, and offer a variety of services within that one field. For example, a real estate VA may freelance for a real estate company, handling all of their social media accounts and website content creation.

Freelance virtual assistants can work for as many individuals or companies simultaneously as they wish.

Download a list of more than 275 different types of VA services here.

Virtual Assistant Salary

Freelance virtual assistants can work for one client or multiple clients. They can work as much or as little as they want or need. This is a great freelance career to work at either part time or full time.

Virtual assistant salary varies quite a bit. VA’s can earn as little as a few dollars per hour to upwards of $60 per hour. According to PayScale, the average pay for a virtual assistant in the United States is $15.70 per hour.

You will find a comprehensive guide to how much virtual assistants should charge here.

Freelance virtual assistants have the opportunity not only to assist others in their online work; virtual assistants can get so much work, become so busy and build their businesses so large that they themselves need to hire one or more virtual assistants to help them!

Virtual Assistant Training

There is a lot you need to know in order to be a successful virtual assistant. Once you’ve acquired a skill, or once you’ve chosen a skill that you would like to acquire, you need to know what you can do with this skill so that you can earn money with it as a VA.

There are many different online courses which teach people how to become virtual assistants. Two of the best virtual assistant training courses are:

Virtual assistants are becoming more and more common as more and more of the world begins to work online. This is an amazing freelance career in which so many people from so many different backgrounds can easily succeed.

Want to learn more about becoming a freelance virtual assistant? Here’s 10 free resources which will help you start on your way.

Image by Christin Hume

Sabina Lohr

Sabina Lohr is a lifelong freelancer turned entrepreneur who created World of Freelancers to help others discover how to work for themselves online and live the freelance lifestyle. She’s always really enjoyed the freedom that freelancing brings, including several years on and off of working online while traveling and living abroad.

virtual assistants

What is a Virtual Assistant?