Being a virtual assistant certainly beats doing administrative jobs sitting behind your desk for eight hours. The biggest advantage is the flexibility that it affords. Since its a stay at home kind of job you don’t have to go through the hassle of traveling to work, you will have a lot more time on your hands and finally you can couple it with another job to increase your earning potential. Most employers are waking up to the benefits of hiring people virtually to complete administrative tasks. 

 If you have a fairly acceptable academic background, experience being a virtual or full time assistant can make a decent income out of this money making opportunity. The normal remuneration being offered is $5 to $10 depending on your qualification, expertise, experience and the type of work involved. However this can go up to as much as $40 - $60 per hour. Also eventually you may forge ties with regular clients or those who need your services for an extended period in which case its certainly possible to make $1000 - $1500 per month. As a virtual assistant you are not exactly the employee of the firm that takes your services instead you are generally being hired on a per assignment basis or for a fixed period of time. It is equivalent to owning your own business offering various services. You will be using your resources such as a computer, telephone, fax machine etc to complete tasks for the client. Normally the duties of a virtual assistant entail but are not limited to: 

 Planning Events, Secretarial Services, Administration duties, Data Entry, Accounting, Transcription (Legal, medical, business), Writing editing and proof reading, Translations, Correspondence, Customer Service, Web Designing and Internet Marketing, Mailing Service, Database Management, Setting Client Itinerary, Designing business literature like brochures, emails, flyers, handouts etc, Setting travel plans, Answering business messages, Researcher, Business plan writer, and so forth. 

 Even if you don’t have any experience being an assistant you can still start by reading information related to it online. However you will need equipment like a computer with internet access, a phone, fax machine, printer, copier and scanner. Since most people have these machines casually lying around their houses there is no start up cost as such. 

 There are two ways of getting assignments but if you are fairly new to online money making it’s recommended that you start by visiting the numerous freelancing sites. For US virtual assistants a staffing and recruiting establishment called virtualassistantjobs.com will help you to get a freelance projects and jobs. Other sites include freelance websites like guru.com, odesk.com and getafreelancer.com 

 Once you have gained substantial experience you can invest some money to open your own website offering various services. Several cheap web hosting providers like Godaddy.com and hostgator.com offer websites for as low as $5 per month. Your website should contain information about the services you offer, your qualification, experience, prices of the services and contact details. It is also best to draw up a client contract in advance. This is as much for your protection as your clients. It ensures that both parties understand the business deal and agree with the terms and conditions. There are several ways of accepting payment for services rendered online like Moneybooker and Paypal. A Paypal account (premium) will charge you for every transaction. 

 If you want to offer your service professionally through your own website, here are some tips that you can apply to start running a virtual assistant service and make money online: 

 The first tip is to register and obtain a professional e-mail address. As you will begin meeting some potential customers, a professional sound email address such as your name at your website will be more convincing to your potential clients instead of free email account like Yahoo mail, Google mail, MSN mail, and others. 

 When you become your own boss, then you need to plan what time until what time you will work, where do you want to work whether in your own room, reading room, basement, etc, how much will you charge whether per hour or per project basis and anything else that your potential clients should know about your virtual assistant service. Most of the time, the potential clients usually do not know what to expect when they want to work with a virtual assistant. So, it is better for you to get ready to explain to them how you are going to work together. 

 One of the best and effective ways to spread out the words about your virtual assistant service is by building a network. And an easy way in doing so in by joining free online networking websites such as FaceBook, MySpace, Hi5, Twitter, Friendster, and so on. There are other virtual assistants hang out on those networking websites so that you can exchange information, experience, contact details as well as potential customers’ contact details, current opening projects or project opportunities. There are also lots of online business owners and internet marketers for you to meet and who are looking for virtual assistants to outsource various types of tasks of which you can take in. 

 Once you set up your website you will have to put n some effort to advertise your business. You can do so through web listing sites like Craiglist, article marketing and link building. You may also want to advertise in your local yellow pages. If you offer good service at reasonable rates there should be no reason why your business should not flourish. 

 Its best to start by keeping your rates low whether you have your own website or your working through the freelancing sites and once you do a few jobs your reputation will spread through feedback and word of mouth and then you can increase your rates. This is a fantastic and genuine online money making opportunity. You may not make millions through it but you can be sure that it is real unlike many of the internet get rich schemes and that you can certainly make a decent living through it.