And I find that, again and again, I recommend the same blogs and websites to them. Because I believe that those sites are of the top quality that you should associate your business with. Some of these sites are targeted to specific markets, others are broader in their approach.

If you want more guest posting opportunities, search on Google for your strongest keyword +  the phrase ‘guest post’ or ‘guest post guidelines’. If you want to know where the superstars of your niche have left their mark in form of a guest blog, search on Google for ‘guest post by [name of niche superstar]‘ and see what comes up.

Are you ready for internet fame?

Here is my top 10 to get you started:

1.) Huffington Post

“The Huffington Post is an American news website, content aggregator, and blog that offers news, blogs, and original content, and covers politics, business, entertainment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women’s interest, and local news.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Pitch a blog post.

2.) Brazen

“Our goal is to be different – more exciting, forward-looking and outside-the-box – than the dozens of other career blogs out there. If your post idea could work for all of those other blogs, it’s probably not right for Brazen. Content should appeal to the demographics of our readership: ambitious young professionals in a variety of industries around the globe.”

Become a Brazen Life Writer.

3.) She Takes On The World

“She Takes On The World accepts guest posts on a variety of topics relating to business, career, and entrepreneurial lifestyle.”

Write for She Takes On The World.

4.) Laura Roeder

“Want to write a rockin’ guest post about running a small business, entrepreneurship, personal branding or online marketing? Review our requirements and submit your proposed article along with your details and we’ll get back to you on whether it’s a fit!”

Click here to get all the deets.

5.) Life By Me

“We ask one question to all sorts of people: “What is most meaningful to you?” We feature one original answer every day.”

Get featured!

6.) Positively Positive

“Positively Positive’s audience comes here to be uplifted. Thus when thinking of post topics please keep in mind the overarching theme of the page: Positivity. Our tagline is “Your Attitude + Your Choices = Your Life.” The objective is to elevate, motivate, and, importantly, inspire.”

Submit your story.

7.) She Owns It

“Behind every successful woman is her story and that’s what She Owns It is all about. Empowering women to write their own success stories! A gathering place to find the “spark” that helps turn your dream into a reality.”

Find out more.

8.) Tiny Buddha

“Tiny Buddha is a place for community–where people come together to share what they’ve learned and how they apply that knowledge to their daily lives. Anyone, of any age, from any location can submit an original post (not previously published anywhere online) with a bio for inclusion on the blog. This is not an elite space, reserved for experts, thought leaders, or professional bloggers. This is a blog for real people who are willing to share themselves vulnerably and authentically.”

Get featured.

9.) The Daily Brainstorm

“We bring you only our most compelling posts, from over 140 contributors, on topics including personal growth, simplicity, health, cooking, science and medicine, art, productivity, fitness, blogging, travel and so much more.”

Become contributor #141.

10.) Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Life

“Founded by Kris Carr, New York Times Best Selling author and wellness warrior, Crazy Sexy Life is an award-winning wellness site with daily tips, articles and programs for building vibrant health and happiness.”

Check here after 1 July 2012 to find out how to submit a guest post.

Got a site you can recommend? Leave the URL in the comments below.

If you don’t know why you’re in business (other than to make some serious cash), then you might have some success along the way but in the long-run we’ll all be sitting on the sideline watching you burn out and fade like a falling star.

There are times when things are pretty darn tough. When you don’t know where your next client will come from. When you have a million bills to pay and no money in the bank. When you’re facing your most ingrained fears of not being good enough, of impending failure, of financial dependency.

Due to the nature of my work as a virtual assistant, I get to peek behind the scenes of online businesses of all shape and size. Every new client has their own individual setup and set of preferences. And they have their own personal way of doing business, too. I have worked with people who just started out and others who were in business for 2 years and longer.

What I find, again and again, is that clients with a strong sense of clarity and purpose create better content, are happier with their business and – most importantly – consistent.

So here’s the thing: when you are clear about WHY you’re doing what you’re doing and WHO you’re helping with your work, then this sense of knowing ensures that you’re consistently showing up to do the work.

It ensures that you sit down to write your weekly blog post. It ensures that you will recognise opportunities that are aligned with your purpose and propel your business forward. It ensures that you have money in the bank because your clients are happy to pay your invoices because they sense that your work, your marketing, everything you do comes from a place of love rather than struggle.

So it pays to take time to get crystal clear, then act from this new place of being in an authentic and transparent way. The results will astonish you, I promise.

{Photo credit: Javmorcas via photo pin cc}

Instant Subscriber Reward Delivery
Do you offer new subscribers a reward in form of an eBook, a mp3 or a secret link containing some valuable freebies? When people subscribe to your list, you can automate delivery by setting up an automated response which is sent as soon as someone subscribes. This automated email response is called ‘Follow Up’ in AWeber and you can set up as many as you like. You can decide when each ‘Follow Up’ message is supposed to be sent by specifying the amount of days between each response. This enables you to set up a series of automated email responses which is great for establishing a relationship with your new subscriber. Another thing I always recommend is the setup of a Thank-You page (with special offers, your social media links etc.) which your new subscriber will be directed to automatically after they confirmed their subscription. This is easily set up in AWeber as well.

Instant delivery is important because people want what they sign up for fast. If you wait until tomorrow, I might have forgotten already that I subscribed to your blog or website and ignore the email with the confirmation link. No click on the confirmation link, no subscriber. Another thing is this: you could collect email addresses and manually send out the reward. But consider the time and effort required to keep up with these requests that can be automated so elegantly using AWeber.

Another added bonus: Using an automated system like AWeber conveys to the outsider that you take your business seriously, you are doing this professionally. Big trust factor if you’re selling products or services.

AWeber is the tool to use if you want to earn continuous and passive income
If you take time to think about your ‘Follow Up’ sequence, then you can potentially set yourself up for passive income success. Let’s say that ‘Follow Ups’ #1, 2 and 3 are jam-packed with highly valuable, free content (first 3 chapters of your 10 chapter eBook) and are sent out to your subscriber at a 7-day interval. Follow Up #4 contains the offer to purchase your eBook at a price of $79. Chances are high that your subscribers are hooked and will purchase the eBook because you showed them it’s good and adds value to their lives.

Integration with PayPal
So let’s take this a step further. In ‘Follow Up’ #4 you provided your subscribers a link to click if they want to purchase your eBook. This link takes them to a sales page with a PayPal generated Buy button. The subscriber hits the Buy button and completes the transaction on PayPal. How does your subscriber get their eBook?

Before you set up your Buy button in PayPal (or even after, it doesn’t matter), you establish a link between AWeber and PayPal. Here’s the step-by-step guide for that. Make sure you set up a list for your eBook in AWeber and create a ‘Follow Up’ series for it. When your subscriber successfully completes the transaction on PayPal, they are automatically added to your eBook list in AWeber and receive the eBook in ‘Follow Up’ email #1. Create a whole series of ‘Follow Ups’ to ensure your customer stays engaged with you and your brand.

Professional looking web forms & email templates
It’s easy to create a professional looking web form in AWeber. You can choose from a wide range of templates or create your own. You don’t need any coding experience and I find that using AWeber is quite intuitive, so creating a web form can be a fun experience. Same goes for the preloaded email templates. You have quite a few to choose from. Having said that, I have seen it again and again that people don’t use the templates and opt for the blank email instead. The reason for that is that they don’t want a stylised newsletter but an email that looks like it’s coming from a friend. One of the best online marketers, Marie Forleo, uses this technique and it serves her well.

Testing
AWeber allows you to test all your emails before you schedule them to send. I wholeheartedly recommend using this feature to be sure that your formatting is right. You can also create different web forms for different locations on your website and track which one brings you the most subscribers.

+++

All in all, AWeber is a great email marketing tool with many more features that you can explore for $1 USD for the first month.

Here is the link to Marie’s blog post.

1) Social Proof

The most obvious out of the three. Social proof means you can show that others are talking about you in their sweetest tones. So make sure you display testimonials. Video testimonials are best but often hard to come by. Steer clear of putting written testimonials on your website that aren’t accompanied by a photo and a link back to the person’s website or social media profile (if it’s not a business). If you want to protect your clients’ privacy, ensure that the testimonials read like a mini case study. Most people will declare a too general sounding testimonial as fake. Not a good look, so ask your clients to be as specific as possible.

Other forms of social proof are loving comments on your Facebook business page (and show a Facebook box with your page stream on your website) or Twitter testimonials in your website’s side bar. How do you get them there? If you have a WordPress website, you can install a plugin called Tweet-stimonials. Activate it and then head over to the widgets section of your WP dashboard. Find Tweet-stimonials and drag it into your side bar. Now enter your Twitter username (e.g. mine is katcsengo), select how many tweets you would like to display, tick some of the other boxes and save. Done! Powerful social proof added to your website in less than 5 minutes!

2) Claim To Fame

Have you got quite a few published articles or interviews on noteworthy websites or in well-known magazines and newspapers? Display them! The best way to do this is to add a “As Seen On…” section to the home page of your website. Here is how: Compile all logos in Photoshop and create a JPG. Upload the image to your WordPress media gallery and copy the URL. Then head to your WP widgets section, drag a new text widget into your side bar, title it “As Seen On”, copy the following code into the widget box: <img src=”paste image URL here”> and hit Save. Voilá!

3) Free High-Quality Content

Yes, that’s right. The more high-quality content you have on your website (in form of blog posts, videos, audios, infographics, ebooks etc), the better. A first-time visitor to your website is very unlikely to get in touch with you to book a session or even buy a 6-months coaching package during their first visit to your site (it will take a few more visits to get to that point). So instead of focusing on getting people to book a session or make a purchase, you should allow them to get to know you and your level of expertise first. This is where the free content comes into play. The more high-quality work you offer people for free, the more likely they are to book and purchase. Another handy tip here: Set yourself a schedule and stick to it. Do what you said you would do. If that means post a new blog post every Thursday, do it. People love consistency, it adds hugely to your credibility and trust factor.

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If not, it is about time you both got together. Because there is nothing worse than losing your entire website (incl. blog posts, Google and Alexa rankings) and not being able to restore it from a backup. I know what I’m talking about because it happened to me one month ago!

It was the typical case of not walking your own talk. I knew how important it was to implement this gem of a WordPress plugin and recommended it to all my clients. However, I never invested in it myself. A couple of days after I got off the plane in my new home country New Zealand I found my entire website to be gone, including hard-earned Google rankings. Bluehost could not explain the mysterious disappearance nor could they restore the site with their backups.

It goes to show that you shouldn’t trust your web hosting provider to do your backups for you!

Backup Buddy costs $79 for a 1-year license (at the time of writing) and you can install it on 2 different websites. You can tell Backup Buddy to store your backups on Dropbox or Amazon S3. In the event that your hard drive or server crashes, your files will be safe off site. You still have the option to back up all your blog’s data – including media and themes – locally and via FTP, but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. And here is why I love Backup Buddy even more: you can schedule your back ups in advance so you don’t have to remember to back up regularly!

Automation, baby!

And should you ever want to move your website to a new domain name and database, with Backup Buddy you can!

Watch the video to get the full scoop:

Click here to find out more or purchase Backup Buddy (not an affiliate link).