The more hours you can bill as a virtual assistant, the more money you’ll make. Ideally, the goal will be to fill your schedule on a regular basis with ongoing clients whom you enjoy working with.

Here are five marketing strategies to attract more clients online.

1. Offer Memberships. Memberships are a great way to motivate clients because they hold the promise of having a virtual assistant on call and they give you an ongoing commitment. For example, you could offer a 5 hour a month, 10 hour a month, or 15 hour a month membership level. People can sign up for whatever meets their needs, pay each month and then send you their work as they have it.

2. Offer referral bonuses. Ask your current clients for referrals and give them a bonus (an hour of free work, for example) in exchange for every client they refer to you. You can even offer a structured affiliate program on your website with commissions, affiliate links and marketing materials to promote your services.

3. Consider advertising special promotions. One great way to attract new clients is to give them a break on rates. For example, a $25 coupon for first time customers helps new customers feel like they’re not taking as big a risk. And it also takes advantage of the law of reciprocity which states that we tend to want to give back to people who give things to us. We want to reciprocate. You can offer these promotions on social networking sites, as PPC ads, and on your website to attract online attention.

4. Specialize in an industry or with a particular task. Specialization is a spectacular way to differentiate yourself from other virtual assistants and it gives you an extra edge when seeking more online customers and attention. You can optimize your website for your specialization, making it easy for new customers to find you.

5. Partner with other service professionals,such as a ghost writer or a web designer. Partnering with other service providers is a great way to broaden awareness of you and your services. And it doubles your opportunity to attract online customers. You can swap advertisements with partners, each posting an ad on the other’s site, you can guest blog on each other’s blogs and you can refer each other when talking to clients.

Social networking, article marketing and other traditional marketing tactics will also help increase your awareness online and attract new customers. Offer free reports, and position yourself as an expert.