Google+ has over 90 million users. While some marketers consider Google+ small or inconsequential, marketers at the top of their game know that’s not the case. Google+ is one of the largest social networks on the planet. And with Google’s new “Search Plus” features, Google+ has truly become a force to reckon with.

Google+’s “Search Plus” feature essentially uses Google+’s data to help change how your search engine results are weighed. For example, if you’re in someone’s circle and you publish a piece of content, they’re more likely to see that piece of content ranked. If several of someone’s friends like a piece of content, that piece of content is more likely to rank higher.

What’s astounding about “Search Plus” is just how much weight is being placed on these ranking factors. A page that would otherwise never show up on the front page can beat out much more credible sources. As an SEO tool, Google+ now holds unprecedented power.

Now that Google+ is a significant player, how can you harmonize your Google+ efforts with your SEO, your Facebook and your Twitter strategies?

Start by Focusing on SEO Fundamentals

The best Google+ optimization in the world won’t make a difference if your website isn’t properly optimized. Google+ can get you a long way, but you still need to handle at least the basics first.

Start by carefully choosing what you’re targeting with your keywords. Use tools like the Google Keyword Tool to figure out the best keywords to target.

Optimize your title tags. This is by far the most important tag on your site. It tells Google what keywords you’re trying to rank for. It’s also your “headline” in the search engine listings.

Write a compelling meta description tag. This tag is what tells the search engines what to put below your title tag. It won’t help your rankings, but it’ll help you get clicks.

Tag all your alt tags in your images. This helps your images rank in Google Images, which in turn helps your rankings in organic Google. It also helps your Google SEO independently.

Develop a strong internal linking structure. Put copious links from your own content to other pages on your site.

Finally, make sure you link to your social media pages from your home page. This helps tell Google that these social media pages are legitimate. That they’re your official page.

Develop a Comprehensive Social Media Strategy

Assess both your own social media strategy and your competitors’. Look at:

• Where are your social media pages ranking right now?
• Where are your competitors’ social media pages ranking right now?
• How many fans do they have?
• How many Twitter followers do they have?
• How many people do they have in their Google+ circles?
• How many comments, likes and shares are they getting? What percentage of their followers actively engage with their posts?

This will help give you a sense for where your competitors stand in the social sphere right now. In addition to looking at your competitors, you should also spend a bit of time looking at your own in depth stats.

This will help pinpoint what’s working and what’s not working in your own social media strategy. Take a look at:

• What kind of content gets the highest virality rating in your posts?
• What kind of tweets get retweeted?
• Who’s in your audience? Is it different than the audience of your primary site? Do they vary from Facebook to Twitter to Google+?

Once you have all this information at your fingertips, it’s time to reformulate your strategy. Figure out a purpose for each and every social media platform you’re engaged in.

For example, Facebook may be used for virality and for having two-way conversations with your fans. You can also use Facebook ads’ connection targeting to remind your Facebook fans of your offers.

Twitter on the other hand may be used to answer questions and to build a connection with your audience with quick and fun tips.

Google+ on the other hand should be used with an eye towards SEO. Google+ doesn’t have the same kind of audience that Twitter and Facebook have, but has enormous power in terms of ranking. Take advantage of this power.

Making the Most of All Networks

Learning to merge your Google+ strategy with your Facebook and Twitter strategy is essential for your long term success in the social sphere.

In order to do this, you need to know how each network is performing for you. You also need to know the strengths and weaknesses that each network offers you. Then you can effectively form your own unique and tailored social media strategy.

Here are four ways you can use social listening to enhance SEO.

#1 – Learn the Slang

On websites, people tend to write in a very proper and formal tone while on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites however, people tend to just write the first thing that comes to their heads.

One great thing about the spontaneous nature of their messages is that people tend to use casual language rather than carefully considered language. That can really help you pick up slang that you can use in your own messages and your own copy. You can also incorporate this slang to help you pick up longtail search traffic.

For example, in the marketing industry, marketers call email submits “subs.” On websites, most authors will just call them “email submits.” However, on Twitter and Facebook you’ll find people using “subs” more than “email submits,” as it’s shorter and more catchy.

#2 – Observe and Predict Trends

Twitter and Facebook are great ways to predict a trend. If you notice that all of a sudden people are talking about one subject, you can jump on that bandwagon early.

It takes time for webmasters, websites and even bloggers to catch up. However, social media websites like Twitter and Facebook are more or less instantaneous.

This moment a coherent thought is formed within a community, it’ll be visible on Twitter and Facebook. People will make offhand comments, people will share resources and the idea will take off like wildfire.

Pretty soon, hundreds of web pages will pop up talking about whatever topic is hot right now. However, if you can get in on the game early by noticing it first through social media, you’ll have a big leg up. Get there early and you can become a major player in the conversation.

#3 – Use it to Inform Keyword Research

Social media can inform your keyword research. A lot of people tend to treat social and search as two completely different marketing mediums. In reality, they have a lot of overlap.

Use social media to inform your search marketing keywords. Look on Twitter for new trends, new products, new ideas, new competitors and check out how the search volume is going.

Google Trends can give you a good idea of whether a search term is going up or down. The Google Keyword Tool can give you a good idea of how much traffic the term gets today, though it isn’t useful for predicting future traffic.

If you only use traditional tools to do keyword research, you’ll always be playing catch-up. You’ll only be optimizing for terms that others have already beat you to. When you use social media as well however, you can get ahead of the curve and be one of the early players.

#4 – Optimize for Blended Search

There’s a lot of traffic to be had in blended search. Blended search refers to Google’s practice of placing videos, images and local results within the search results itself.

Trying to rank on Google for a main keyword term can be very tough. It could take months, even years of work.

However, if nobody is targeting the blended search results, you can often skip all that work and jump all the way to the top.

Pay as much attention to optimizing your videos, your local results and your images as you do to your website. Make sure you have the right keywords, make sure you have a great title, a great description and get backlinks to your videos and other media.

These are four ways social listening can help improve your SEO.

Your blog is an asset, just like any other asset. If you had a stock portfolio or a couple pieces of cash producing real estate, you’d probably put some attention into making sure what happens to those investments after you pass away, right? If you have people you care about, that’s the only way you can ensure that the work you did when you were alive will still care for them after you pass. A blog is no different.

Will Your Blog Continue to Run?

One of the biggest questions to ask is: Will your blog continue to run even after you pass?

Generally, this only works if you have a blog that’s rather independent of you. In other words, it can’t be “Joe’s Personal Blog.” However, if you have a blog that’s run by multiple authors and is run more like a business and less like a personal website, then there’s a good chance you can keep it running.

As long as the blog produces enough revenue to keep paying writers, the blog can keep running even when you aren’t there. All it needs is an operator who understands the intricacies of the business.

This operator could be your business partner. It could be a manager you hired, or a senior employee that can be promoted to managerial status after you pass. It could also be an heir or family member who knew the business well.

The Liquidation Option

Another option is to sell the website. If you have a blog that’s earning $5,000 a month, $60,000 a year, your heirs might be able to fetch as much as $120,000 to $200,000 for it. A lot of people don’t think of blogs as assets. In reality, that’s exactly what they are.

Selling a blog should be handled by someone who knows what they’re doing. First, you need to find a buyer. A buyer could be another website owner, it could be a larger corporation, it could be a competitor or it could be an investor. You need to handle the transaction using an escrow service that guarantees safety for both sides.

It’s slightly less complex than buying or selling a brick and mortar business, but not by much.

How to Direct the Switch

What you want to happen with your blog should absolutely be written in your will. Otherwise, how will people know?

The agreements about what should happen if you die should also be written into the operating agreement of your corporation, if you have partners. This is a separate discussion from who gets your shares in the company. Essentially, your business partners should know what rights and responsibilities they have if you pass away.

Use a service called “Dead Man’s Switch” online to help manage the transitions of sensitive passwords. This service allows you to store passwords and other valuable information and only give it to people upon passing away. It knows you’ve passed away if you stop replying to emails.

Will Your Blog’s Value Plummet When You Die?

One big concern of passing a blog to heirs is that the blog’s value will drastically decline upon your passing. This is one of the big disadvantages of running your blog as a personal site.

If you’re worried about passing away without leaving anything to your family, now’s the time to start thinking about automation and about turning your blog into more of a real business.

Start hiring other writers. Start inviting guest authors. Disconnect the blog from your name. While this can be painful at first, it’s necessary if you want to create a real asset. Best of all, often time’s this shift will actually increase your revenues while giving you more time to live and enjoy your life.

What do you want to happen to your blog when you pass away? Should it keep running, or should it be sold? Who has authority – Your former partners or your family members? Discuss and plan for all of these questions today.

These are ten of the most important elements to a well optimized page. Get these ten things right and your chances of ranking well are exponentially higher.

Title Tag

Your title tag is the most important tag on your entire website. Google uses it to determine your primary keywords. It’s also the “headline” in your listing in Google, which users use to determine whether or not to click.

Have an attention catching title tag that also contains your main keyword. Make sure you optimize the title tag so that it is different on each page.

Header Tags

Your H1 and H2 tags carry more weight in Google’s eyes than any other text on the page. Make sure your keyword is in your H1 tags and that related keywords or LSI words are sprinkled throughout the H2 tags on your site.

The Page URL

Your page’s URL should have your main keywords in it. It should also be short and should tell people something about the page. For example, “/posted=39048” is not a good URL. On the other hand, “how-to-build-quality-backlinks” is.

Description Tag

Your description tag contains the text that appears below the title tag in your search engine listing. Again, people use this information to decide whether or not to click on your site. This tag won’t actually improve your rankings, but can help improve the number of people who click on your site once they see your listing in the search engines.

Facebook and Twitter

Social media metrics are playing an increasingly large role in SEO. Google takes many factors into consideration. They consider how many fans you have on your page. They consider who shares your content, as well as the authority of the people sharing your content. A share from Bill Gates is weighed much more heavily than the average person.

They can also “read” the content of social media posts about you. If people are complaining about your product rather than praising it, search engines can read that to a certain degree.

If you don’t already have Facebook and Twitter setup, now is the time to do it. It’s not just for social media traffic, it’s also for SEO.

Highly Targeted Web Content 

The quality of your website’s content is becoming a larger and larger factor. While Google bots still can’t “read” a website and independently determine the page’s quality as a human could, they do come close.

The Google Panda update utilizes artificial intelligence as well as hundreds of different metrics, including ads to content ratio, overall design, many linguistic patterns and so on to determine the quality level of your site and content.

Nobody knows what all these metrics are. Instead of trying to game the system, it’s best to focus on providing high quality content that people want to link to.

Multi-Media

Google loves multi-media. If you’re not using images, videos and audio in your website, you’re probably missing out on a large amount of ranking power.

User Generated Content

Having a lot of content generated by your users is one easy way to take the pressure to create content off your shoulders, while giving Google all the more reason to place you higher in the search engines.

If you have a blog, try to cultivate active discussion. If you have a normal website, try to make one section of your site a wiki. If you have a high traffic website, try creating a forum. Try to create as much crawlable user generated content as possible.

Embedded RSS Feeds & News Content

Google loves to see websites that are updated regularly. One easy way to add a constant cycle to your website is to embed an RSS feed.

Keep in mind that this RSS feed should consist of only a small portion of your website. Google doesn’t like sites that use “automated content,” meaning using only feeds to fill a site. Instead, Google likes high quality content sites that supplement their content with feeds from other people’s content.

Diverse Internal Linking Structure

Try to have an internal linking structure that makes it easy for users to navigate from relevant page to relevant page. By linking to relevant pieces of content, you also make it easier for Google to do its job.

There are two main schools of thought in internal linking: Silo structure or flat structure.

A silo structure means separating your site into different keyword categories and interlinking sites only within those categories. This keeps the link juice separated, almost like mini-sites in your website.

The flat structure setup means linking to relevant content across your entire website.

There isn’t a set consensus on which method is better. The key is simply to make sure that you are linking to other relevant pieces of content across your website.

Just writing your blog posts is not enough. It’s a common saying among journalists and bloggers alike that Content is King.” While this is true, just having great content isn’t enough. You also need great marketing to get that content in front of customers.

At a certain point, the quality of your content matters more than your marketing. However, in order to get to that point, you need to first have a very solid reader base. A solid enough reader base that a truly spectacular piece of content can go viral.

In order to do that, you need thousands of readers. To get that kind of following, you need to promote your blog posts.

Here’s how to do it.

Promote Each of Your Posts Individually

One big mistake marketers often make is promoting just the home page of a blog, rather than promoting their sub-pages. What they fail to realize is that Google ranks web pages rather than web sites.

If you want your pages to rank in Google, you need to work on getting each and every one of those pages to rank, rather than your website as a whole.

Develop a Per-Post Marketing Strategy 

Try to come up with a marketing strategy that you can execute every time you make a new post.

For example, let’s say you have a posting schedule of 2 posts a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

In addition to writing and posting the content, add promoting the content to your schedule. You should have an exact sequence of promotion tactics you follow through on each and every time you post a new piece of content.

Ways of Promoting Blog Posts

Once you’ve written a piece of high quality content, how can you promote it? There are several ways.

One of the easiest ways is to use article marketing. Article marketing involves posting articles on other sites like Squidoo, HubPages or EzineArticles and having a link in the article pointing back to your site. If you publish a few articles with backlinks to your content every time you publish a blog post, you’ll soon have hundreds of links coming into your site.

Another way of promoting your blog posts is to use fairly established systems of back linking, such as directory submissions or social media profile links. You can often get some pretty decent PR links back to your site using these methods.

You can also pay to get backlinks to your site. This is viewed with a little bit of apprehension by some bloggers as Google frowns upon the practice; but it can also be a very fast and easy way to get backlinks.

You can use social media and social bookmarking to get backlinks. Posting your new content on StumbleUpon, Reddit or Digg can be a great way to get new audience participation. If you have a small following already, you can just post the new content to your Facebook and/or Twitter to get people to link to you.

You can write a guest post that links to your new article. Contact other bloggers and see if they’d be interested in having you write a piece of content in exchange for a link.

Also, you might want to consider commenting on other blogs where they have posted similar content to your topic. Such comments on popular blogs can lead to a substantial amount of traffic, if done well.

These are all different ways you can promote your blog post. The most important thing isn’t necessarily how your promote your content, but that you have a solid and consistent plan to do it.

It’s true that it’s important to have high quality content. However, in addition to quality content, you need a quality marketing plan. Create the plan first, then you can focus on writing top notch content.

Mobile SEO is a common misnomer in both the search and mobile industries. It simply doesn’t exist.

Why? When most people say “Mobile SEO,” what they really mean is local SEO. They’re talking about optimizing your website for users on their mobile phones doing searches on the go. For example, if you own a pizza shop and someone types in “Pizza” when they’re in your city, you want your result to show up first.

Is Local SEO the Same as Mobile SEO?

Yes. 

These are some of the most powerful, impactful, viral and moving social media events of 2011.

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Japan’s earthquake and tsunami touched the world. The resulting chaos at Fukushima and the nuclear radiation brought increased concern about nuclear power globally. The world pooled together its resources to help Japan recover.

An hour after the quake hit Japan, there were reports that Twitter was experiencing 1,200 tweets posted every minute. And at most times today, eight or nine of Twitter's top 10 Trending Tropics — such as #prayforjapan, #tsunami and #japan — were directly related to the earthquake and tsunami.

On Facebook, people not only posted thoughts and prayers for the people of Japan, but also used their updates to tell friends and family where they are and how they are doing. Facebook pages related to the disaster, such as Japan Earthquake, also popped up, grabbing nearly 3,000 followers in about 12 hours.

Death of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was one of the most iconic and influential people of the Silicon Valley. He revolutionized three different industries: The PC industry, the music industry and the animation industry.

Steve Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak, created the first personal computer to have an integrated keyboard. They were the first to create a completely workable all-in-one computer. He created the iPod, the first mobile device capable of holding over 1,000 songs. He created iTunes, the most popular music store on the planet. He also helped found Pixar, which created the first computer generated full picture movie in history.

Internet users likely broke records as they jammed Twitter with tweets marked #iSad and #ThankYouSteve and flooded Facebook's news streams, swiftly spreading the news of Steve Jobs's death. Twitter activity hit 10,000 tweets per second following the announcement about Apple's co-founder death.

UK Riots

The riots in the UK were blamed in large part to social media. Riots were organized and incited through text messages, social media sites and other forms of Web 2.0 communication.

During the riots, questions of how much control governments should or shouldn't have over mobile communications became a central concern.

Here's a video that reveals how English rioters used Social Media.

Death of Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi, died on 20th October, 2011 during the Libyan Civil War 2011. He was fired at by the NTC and captured alive but wounded after taking refuge in a large drainage pipe with his loyal bodyguards. In a video published soon after, he can be seen draped with a cloth and his body being paraded and kicked by anti-Gaddafi protestors.

On Twitter, many users expressed joy at Gadaffi’s death, including tweets in Arabic saying things like “God is great” and “Libya is now 100% DEGAFFINATED”.

Social Media IPO’s

Pandora IPOed at $2.56 billion, LinkedIn IPOed at $4.2 billion and Facebook’s IPO is estimated to be at over $50 billion, creating over 1,000 millionaires overnight.

Social media has taken over the web sphere and social media sites, which hardly had any attention at all just five years ago, are poised to take center stage of both the internet and the business worlds.

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene had windspeeds so dangerous that President Obama declared an evacuation of New York City. In addition to whipping up the seas and the winds, Hurricane Irene also whipped up the twittersphere.

Tweeters were using social media to keep one another up to date on danger zones, safety tips, family information and more. It put social media to a humanitarian use. More than a million Twitter messages were posted about Irene.

A Facebook page was created to help strangers try to return found items to their owners. As of today, more than 98,600 people had "liked" the page and many had already posted images of items they've found.

Wikileaks Scandal

Wikileaks is an organization that collects leaked intel from private companies and governments and published them free of charge. Wikileaks has caused scandals which spread through social media amongst the US government, worldwide governments and Fortune 500 companies.

Many equate Wikileaks to being the social sphere’s underground news source. It’s not for profit and doesn’t have their own publication. Instead, they let readers and users spread the news for them.

Middle East Revolution

Social Media played an important role in organizing protests, revolutions, build public support, and government crackdowns. The year 2011 saw uprisings in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya etc.

The usage of social media was extensive. One Egyptian activist had tweeted during the protests, "We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world."

British Royal Wedding

The British Royal Wedding in 2011 was the first royal wedding since social media took off. The wedding was streamed live on the internet and users commented on the wedding alongside the event.

In addition to the television audiences, the ceremony attracted 72 million live streams and a reach of 101 million streams on YouTube across 188 countries. The wedding has been listed in the 2012 Guinness Book Of World Records for the record of Most Live Streams For A Single Event with its 72 million streams.

The British Royal Wedding was an occasion that the whole world talked about, not just the British.

Rebecca Black’s “Friday”

Rebecca Black’s “Friday” ignited a storm of controversy in the social sphere and quite a bit of all-out bashing. As of today, the video has more than 95,000 likes and 380,000 dislikes which is almost four times more “dislikes” than “likes” on YouTube. The video raises questions about both youth and fame, as well as the direction of the music industry in general.

Why This Kolaveri Di

Why This Kolaveri Di was the most downloaded song on mobile devices in India within just 18 days of its release. The song was the first song in Tamil, rather than Hindi, to be shown on MTV India.

The Twitter hashtag #kolaveri quickly hit Twitter’s top charts after its launch. The kicker? The song is a soundtrack for a movie – And the movie hasn’t even been released yet.

The song spread through radio and press, but many believe that its fame and popularity was caused primarily by social media. Till date it has more than 30 Million Youtube views.

Launch of Google Plus

Google Plus was the fastest growing social media network with 62 million users within 6 months of its launch. It introduced innovative new features, such as “Hangouts,” which allowed people to create impromptu video conferences. It introduced “Circles,” which allowed you to easily control who gets to see what on your social network.

Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing protest movement that quickly took hold on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and many other social media networks. Bloggers all over the world took up the cause and helped spread the movement.

It started off with a poster in the middle of Adbusters magazine and #occupywallstreet with the hashtag on the cover. The Twitter feed started going crazy with that hashtag. The idea quickly spawned protests in other parts of the world: Occupy Dublin (Ireland,) Occupy London, Occupy Melbourne and more.

Occupy Wall Street clearly demonstrated the power of social media for organizing groups and moving the world politically.

These were some of the most powerful social media events of the year. Each of these events reached millions of people and further established social media as a dynamic way to spread ideas and information.

If you’ve been working in the internet industry for some time, it can be easy to underestimate how much specialized knowledge you actually have. Before teaching someone how to build links, you’ll often have to go over a lot of things that you consider basic.

All that said, here’s how to take a brand new link builder and turn them into a pro.

Basic Training

The first step to teaching someone link building is to teach them the fundamentals.

What is a high quality link? What is PageRank? What is anchor text? What is the difference between an in-body link and a footer link, the difference between a no follow link and a do follow link?

The best way to teach them the basics of link building is to expose them to concepts gradually. Don’t just dump a 200 page eBook on them or send them to read 50 articles. Instead, teach them one concept a day or have them read one article a day while they’re learning the rest of what they need to know.

Software and Procedure

Next teach them about all the software they’ll need to know how to use, the basic procedure and linkbuilding techniques that you plan on employing.

Have them watch you do it several times before asking them to do it for themselves. A few of the most important things to cover include:

• Data gathering tools. Tools to check PageRank, tools to check traffic, tools to check nofollow status of backlinks and so forth. Make sure they know how to use the tools and have the tools installed on their own computers.
• Status of current projects. What kind of links are you targeting right now? What are the bottlenecks and what are the next steps? What was the mentality or philosophy that went into cultivating these links?
• Linkbuilding tools. Make sure they know how to use any tools necessary in the actual link building process. The exact tools depend on your methodology, but can include social media submitters, backlink checkers, content spinners, etc.
• How to find and make contact with websites. Walk them through the process and make sure they understand what it’s like before trying it themselves.

Teaching Them the Sales Sequence

The first 30 days on the job will usually give you enough information about the candidate that you’ll be able to tell whether or not they’ll succeed in the long run.

Though technical skills can be taught to a lot of people, the most important skill when it comes to linkbuilding is sales. The ultimate question is: Can this trainee convince other people to link to your website?

Within about 30 days, you should be able to find out.

Teaching your candidate the sales sequence depends should be part theory part practice. In the beginning, you’ll want to hold their hand through the process. Once they know what the process looks like, you’ve got to let them go to see whether they sink or swim.

The most important aspects to cover in the sales sequence include: 1) Finding potential sites to get links from, 2) Researching those sites, 3) Making the initial contact and 4) Closing the deal.

Throughout the whole process your trainee needs to be keeping great notes. If they hit a block in the road, it might make sense to have another team member take over the correspondence. If that happens, they need to know exactly how to pick up where the first person left off.

Do several links together in the beginning to make sure they understand everything from front to back. Then give them a few assignments and have them report back. Finally, once they’re up and running, create a set of metrics that you want to track and let them do their job, using you as a resource if they have any questions.

Launching an eBook is much like launching any other product. You first need to do extensive market research to make sure you’re creating a product that people want to buy. Then you need to spend a lot of time creating a good product, so that people who buy it will buy again in the future. Finally, you need to market the product well so that your target audience knows about its existence.

Here’s how to write, launch and sell your informational eBook.

Before You Write a Single Word

Before you write a single word, you need to do your market research.

Doing your market research involves figuring out exactly who your target audience is. Once you know your audience, you then need to figure out what they want.

Your audience should be a very specific group of people. For example, if you’re selling a weight loss product, “women” is far, far too generic. Instead, you might want to go for something like women in their 30’s who are about 40 pounds overweight. You might even want to go more specific than that: Housewives in their 30’s, 40 pounds overweight.

This gives you a very specific market to cater to. It allows you to market to your highest ROI market segment.

Once you know who you’re talking to, the next step is to figure out what they want. There are a few ways to do this.

You can do your research online. Find message boards, chat rooms and website dedicated to your market segment. Look for repeat questions and pain points that seem to come up often.

Also read magazines that cater to your market. What kind of hot buttons do they continually push?

Once you’ve figured out what your market really wants, you can then write an eBook around that topic and know you have a fairly good chance of hitting it out of the park.

Writing the eBook

Creating an eBook is quite a mission. An eBook is typically at least 20,000 words, often a lot more. That means a lot of time in front of the computer.

At times you may question whether or not you’re really committed. At times you might wonder if the eBook will sell, and whether you’re just putting all this effort into something that might just go down the drain.

Staying motivated is a big part of success when it comes to writing an eBook.

Perhaps the best way to write an eBook is to set a daily goal. Instead of trying to write it all at once, just set a goal for yourself. That goal might be 500 words a day, it might be 1,000 words a day. It might be one page a day or three pages a day. Whatever the case may be, just set a daily goal and try to stick to that goal.

At 3 pages a day, in 30 days you’ll have a 90 page eBook. It might not seem like much progress at first, but it very quickly snowballs.

Launching & Selling Your eBook

If you already have an audience, start by launching your book there. Announce your new eBook to your blog, your email list, your Facebook friends and your Twitter followers.

If you don’t already have an email list, the going gets a little bit harder. First, start by seeing if you can find other people who have an audience to promote your book. If you’ve been in the industry for a while, chances are you know some other people who might have some influence.

You can also try paid marketing. Using tools like Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter or Facebook Ads can be a powerful way to make an impact.

Finally, try SEO. Create an informative website about your subject and create top notch content about that topic. This method takes more time, but can generate consistent traffic.

Getting an eBook off the ground takes dedication. Once it’s off the ground however, it can generate a lot of revenue for years to come.

Guest posting allows you to get in front of an existing blog’s audience. Unlike just a standard backlink you actually get an entire page to demonstrate that you know your topic.

How do you guest post on someone else’s blog? Let’s take a look.

Finding and Selecting Blogs to Approach

The first step is to find blogs that you’d like to guest post on and approach them about doing the post.

There are two main ways you can do this. First, through getting to know all the relevant blogs in your sphere. Use, Google, Technorati and blogrolls to find relevant blogs and figure out which ones you’d like to appear on.

Alternatively, you can use MyBlogGuest.com’s forums to find blog owners who are actively looking for guest bloggers.

Once you’ve chosen a blog to approach, how do you pitch the blog post?

Making the Pitch

There are two different trains of thought when it comes to pitching posts: Either email the website owner first with a list of potential topics; or just write an entire guest blog and email it to them.

If you’re emailing them a list of potential topics, make sure you include a brief bio and a link to your blog so they can learn more about you. Make it short, or you risk your email not being read.

Make sure each topic suggestion is compelling and targeted specifically towards their audience.

If you’re sending an entire written article already, just send a brief intro in your email. Your whole email should be no more than two or three short paragraphs long. Let your article speak for itself.

How to Write a Successful Post

There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to writing posts that other people’s audience will love.

First of all, spend some time on their site and get to know their audience. Know what kinds of topics they like and what writing styles they respond to. Write your guest post so that their audience feels like you’re talking directly to them.

Make sure your blog post answers a burning question in their mind or answers a popular question. If you can take a unique angle to something that’s been discussed in the past, so much the better.

Spend as much time on a guest blog post as you would on a post that goes on your own website.

After The Post Goes Live

A lot of the work in guest posting actually comes after the post has actually been published.

The first thing you want to do is help promote the post. Use Twitter, Facebook and your own email list to promote the post.

Why? Because if the post is successful, you’ll have a very good chance of having another chance to guest blog in the future. Also, if more people see your post, that’s more people who’re going to end up learning about you and seeing your content in action.

Also, having many successful blog posts on different sites will help build your reputation among the blogerati, further increasing your chances of getting more guest blogging gigs in the future.

Another thing you should do after the post is live is check the comments section religiously.

Remember: The people who read and post in the comment section are the site’s most loyal and active readers. If you win these readers over, they’re likely going to turn into active fans of your site as well.

Make sure to respond to every single comment that was posted in response to your article.

That’s the long and short of how to succeed in using guest blogging to promote your blog. Guest blogging can be an incredibly powerful way to get in front of audiences of people who may end up loving your content. It’s not the easiest link building method on the planet, but it’s very, very effective.