The Importance of Articles in Web Promotion

No doubt you have come across this time and time again; to improve your websites popularity, search engine ranking etc., you need to write articles. You will also probably think, as I did, that I can't do this.

There are ways around this. You can purchase the rights to articles that will allow you to add your own resource box to the bottom. The content may not be the freshest and the newest, and many others may be using the same content or variations on it, but it is still content with your resource box tagged on at the bottom. There are numerous article submission directories and sites on the net, such as the biggies like ZapContent.com, to small ones like http://articles.directorygold.com. You will be able to submit your article, even if it isn't original, to some of these without duplicating existing content on the article directory. This is what I did first.

The next possibility is to go somewhere like http://www.elance.com, and pay someone to write articles for you. This is more expensive than the first option, but has the benefit that the article is original, so it is more likely to be copied and published elsewhere. Also, make sure you have the complete rights to the material you commission, so that you may modify, relabel, or amalgamate into an ebook if you desire. Usually, you should get several decent articles for the amount of money you spend.

Finally, are you sure you can't write your own article? That you haven't found out something in your life that will be of interest to others? There is a huge list of possible article subjects at ZapContent and other sites, and you will be amazed at what you do know if you sit and think about it. After all, as I said earlier, I didn't think I was capable of writing an article, yet this is one I wrote myself, and it isn't my first. If you've made mistakes, an article describing how NOT to do something can be just as useful as one describing how to do something. If you still have problems coming up with a coherent article, jot down your notes and pay someone to ghostwrite it for you. Again, check sites like Elance for ghostwriters.

Why write and distribute articles in the first place? Free advertising and promotion. I submitted several articles to a handful (under five) of article directories. Several days later, after Google had done a recent crawl, I did a number of phrase searches on the web. If you enclose your search phrase in quotes, Google will search for that specific phrase. I searched for some of the article titles I had posted, and my own name (admittedly, this is only useful if you have a rare name that doesn't bring up pages of search results for other people of the same name). I found the articles I had published showing up on several websites. What made this even better was that a number of the places where I found the articles weren't places I had submitted them to. Other people had taken my articles and published them on their own websites. So the benefit is, lots of non-reciprocal links pointing to your website, that frequently you didn't have to do anything beyond initially publishing the article to get. Free traffic, advertising and promotion for a few minutes work.

A final note. Make sure the articles are useful, and not just promotional sales letters. They don't have to be long, 1-2,000 words is usually adequate as a maximum length for an article, but don't just publish sales blurb. Your article won't get syndicated elsewhere, and your reputation will suffer. Get known as a source of decent quality articles, and you will become known as an expert.

Happy Writing!

The Importance of Article Submission

Many website owners find the task of creating a website and then promoting that website a daunting prospect. This is especially true for anyone who is creating their own website for the first time. Although they may have great knowledge about their website niche, this is not enough when it comes to generating traffic to the site to get the information read. Unless a website owner is creating a site on an obscure topic, the likelihood is that there will be millions (or sometimes billions!) of websites to compete against for search engine traffic. This means that the site needs to generate the all important backlinks that play a significant part in many of the top search engines algorithms for high search engine placement. This is where writing and submitting articles to article directories can be very rewarding, but this is not the only benefit that article writing possesses:

- Aswell as the backlinks that are provided to a website, an article also provides an opportunity for an author to display their expertise in a particular field. The hope is that readers would then be encouraged to find more of your articles and to visit your website for further information that would be of interest to them.

- In all probability the visitor to the article directory who has decided that an article is of interest to them is reading the article because the article topic interests them. This means that any visitor that chooses to then visit a website in the resource box can be described as a highly-targeted visitor. It’s one thing getting a visitor to a site, it’s another getting a targeted visitor - they are already interested in the topic your website represents!

The level of success that one can achieve from article submission is largely dependant on the article quality and the value of the information it contains for the reader. The article topic will also determine the success and readership of that particular article. For example, it is likely that there is a greater audience for marketing related topics than there is for a niche like coin collecting. This is certainly not to say that an author cannot reap great benefits by submitting such an article. In fact it could be argued that an article written about a topic such as coin collecting has less competition within the article directory sites, allowing the possibility for a potential targeted reader to find it easily.

Article writing and submission holds benefits for all authors, no matter the topic of the article. Concentrating on the quality of an article and how informative it is for a prospective reader is important, but sitting down and actually giving article writing a go is essential for all webmasters in order to drive targeted traffic to a website.

Article submission should not be underestimated - it is one of the best promotional tools a website owner possesses.

Happy Writing!

The Importance Of Article Marketing

When most people think of advertising and promotion, they think about the expenses involved and how, for most new business owners, there isn't a large amount of cash sitting around for use in an aggressive marketing campaign. Luckily for online entrepreneurs, there are plenty of ways to gain free publicity for new websites. One such way is through article marketing. While this new method is steadily rising in popularity, many are still unaware of it's many benefits. But, the truth is that thousands of website operators, business owners and Internet traffic specialists have found article marketing to be a very valuable tool in their success.

If you've ever read an article on a website and noticed a brief paragraph, located at the bottom of the article, detailing the author's name and website, then you have already experienced the success of an article marketing. An entrepreneur prepares an article, which is centered around their niche and submits it to an article marketing submission directory. Other webmasters are constantly in search of new material for their website, so they often visit an article marketing submission directory for information. They may see an article and decide to add it to their site with the condition that the author is given full credit at the bottom of the feature. The credit will likely include the author's name, brief bio and link to their website.

For each individual who reads these types of articles, there is added potential for new customers. If they weren't interested in the noted specialty, they wouldn't be reading the article. So, the author has already reached someone who has a direct interest in their product or niche. Once they are finished reading the article, they are likely to visit the noted website if they found the information to be valuable. In addition, they may tell friends and family about the new informative website.

Article marketing submission services are free to writers, as well as webmasters. Consider that you are opening an Internet clothing store and need to gain interest, spread the word and find customers for your new business. Well, you are obviously a clothing expert since that's your chosen business, so write about it. Start by choosing a topic, write a brief feature, offer advice and submit the final copy to an article marketing directory. At the bottom of the article, always be sure to include a brief paragraph with your name, some information about your company and a link to your website. When other webmasters stop by the article marketing directory in search of news for their site, they may be inclined to use your work on their website. If they do, they will also include a link back to your site.

Article marketing directories offer website owners the possibility of increasing their traffic dramatically. Whether it's a new or already existent website, there is no better way to gain free publicity while gaining respect in your profession than with article marketing. If you are an expert in your field, it will show through in your work and people will be drawn into your site in search of even more useful information. Article marketing services are one of the most powerful new tools available to online entrepreneurs and, best of all - they are free!

Happy Writing!

The Four Elements Of A Nifty Marketing Article Like The Gurus Do It

You may think that the key to article marketing success is writing a good article. While this is true, there is much more to it than this. You will also need to consider your headline, your article description and your resource box. In many ways, these can be more important than the article itself.

The Headline

By far the most important part of your article is the headline. It is the first thing your reader or potential publisher will see. If you can grab their attention and get them to read your article you are on the road to success. Your headlines should only be between five and ten words, but these few words can be the difference between success and failure.

Write a few headlines, not just one. Also, once you have written a few headlines put them aside and come back to them later. You will then be able to better judge which is the best one.

There are a few tricks you can use to grab the reader's attention. One is to play to people's desires and offer a solution. Examples of this could be:

How to get rich in one month
How to retire before your 50

Headlines that offer to show a reader how to achieve something in easy steps also lead to a good click through rate. So, these could be something like:

10 top tips for getting rich quick
5 easy steps to early retirement

As you submit more and more articles, you will get a better idea of what is working for you both in terms of headlines and content.

The Description

Almost as important as the headline is the description. The description of your article will appear under your headline in the article directories. There is a temptation here to take your first paragraph and cut it into the description box when submitting to directories. This is a grave mistake.

While it is not as powerful as a headline, the description gives you another opportunity to sell your article so word it carefully. Describe what the article sets out to do, how it does it and hint at the great solution it is going to provide. A powerful introductory paragraph in the article may achieve all of this, but it is not always possible so generally you should write your description separately.

The Article

If you have grabbed the reader's attention with your headline and they are reading your article you are almost there. However, your work isn't done yet. The article has to be good, if not excellent. At least good enough to hold the reader's attention for its entirety.

In general, your article should either entertain or inform. Writing entertaining or funny articles is a skill most professional writers struggle at and is very hard to achieve, so you should aim to inform. Either tell the reader about something they want to know about, or tell them how to do something. Also, write about something you know about. "How to" articles are particularly popular. If you can show a reader how to complete a task in 500 or so words you are on to a winner.

When you are writing the article, keep it simple. There can be a temptation to use flowery language but this is a definite no-no. Keep your sentences short, your words simple, and avoid complex grammatical structures. One trick is to read the article aloud to yourself when you have finished. It it sounds good to the ear and flows smoothly it should also read well.

The Resource Box

Ah, the resource box. The forgotten child of article marketing. If you get someone to read your article it is a fair achievement. So do not scupper your efforts by writing a poor resource box, as so many people do. The whole point of the exercise is to get people to click through to your website, so your resource box content is key.

If you wrote a good article related to your website or product your reader will already be interested so you have a lot of the work done. The text in the resource box should include your name but for the most part should be about the reader, not about you.

You need to tell them why they want to buy your product and how it can help them. Remember, you are offering the solution to their problem. Also, be sure you can deliver on your promises. Do not offer something you can not provide. Finally, it can be a good idea to include a plain address for your website as well as a live link.

So, when you are next preparing a marketing article be sure to give each of the four steps the attention they deserve.


Happy Writing!

Target Your Advertising With Free Articles

You need to take advantage of targeted advertising, frequently to help make your online business profitable and successful. Targeted advertising means that you are advertising primarily to those who may actually purchase your product or service and those with a genuine interest in what you have to offer. You only want to advertise to those that may already be interested in what you have to offer instead of spending your advertising budgets on trying to reach everyone. One way to achieve targeted advertising is to use free reprint articles or custom written articles that will ultimately reach your targeted audience.

A lot of times when a new tv show comes out on tv there is a target market that the tv program is shooting for so they also search for advertisers who would fit with that audience. Also along with the target audience often times the show will be tested with the target audience and other audiences long before its even allowed to be shown on tv to make sure that they know what market to advertise to or that the show would even be successful. Also often times when the show has been on for a little while they will do studies to see who watches the show and advertising and then will adjust the show and marketing accordingly.

Why have advertisers been doing this for years? Because it is shown to be effective and cost efficient. Billboards have long shown to be very ineffective and expensive. A billboard advertises to everyone that drives by it instead of focusing on a target audience.  It would be silly to advertise products targeted towards women during cartoons, it would also not make sense to advertise children's toys during the overnight hours when most of the children are sleeping. Advertisers want to advertise to those who may actually have an interest in their product or service.

How all this can be applied to your online business? You need to start hitting your targeted audience with your advertising in order to find true success online and offline. One easy, effective, and inexpensive method of doing this is through free reprint articles. Free reprint articles are articles that you write and then have distributed in ezines and newsletters. You write the article offering information that the reader will find useful or entertaining, and the hope is that the reader will then use the author’s resource box at the bottom of the article to visit your website. A distribution service can help you get one of these free reprint articles placed into dozens of ezines and newsletters if the article is well written. You will include a small text box at the bottom that offers information about yourself and a link back to your website.

These free reprint articles will go out to all of these ezines and newsletters and the publisher of each of those will decide whether or not to use your article. This is where the targeted marketing comes into play. A publisher will determine if the article is relevant to his or her subscribers. If the publisher decides that it is relevant, the publisher will include it in their next publication. This is a very easy and effective way to reach your targeted audience. It is also relatively cheap considering that all you have to pay for is the distribution service if you write the article yourself.

Some people do not feel comfortable with their own writing or simply do not have the time or energy to do the writing. If you are one of these people there are always ghostwriters for hire who will do the work for you. You can then publish this work as your own, with your information in the resource box and the link back to your website. Ghostwriters know that you will be placing your name or a pen name in the article as the author, and they agree to surrender to their client's any and all copyrights to the article.

If you want to reach your targeted audience in an easy, inexpensive, and effective manner, then consider the use of the free reprint articles to reach your potential customers. Whether you write the articles yourself or pay a ghostwriter it will be a worthwhile investment. Even paying a ghostwriter and the distribution service, you will still be getting more bang for your buck than if you were to simply place an ad that is targeted to everyone. Remember, these ezines and newsletters that carry your articles will be going to people who are already interested in the topic that you deal with. Get started today and watch the new customers roll in.

Happy Writing!

The Future Of Article Marketing - What 2011 and 2012 Reserves For Article Marketing

Before I get into the future of article marketing, let me first talk about the past history of article marketing. In fact, let me go back even further. Over the last few years, as the internet has made many people millions of dollars each, people have tried to find easier and better ways of making that money. For example, when email marketing became popular, people began to abuse email marketing, sending millions of unsolicited emails daily, raking in large fortunes doing so. Now it is practically impossible to do that, and it is even more difficult to be an honest email marketer.

Next came advertising – when pop up and then pop under ads came out, many people made fortunes advertising using them, then they became overused and their effectiveness fell apart. The same thing has happened with the pay per click programs – my opinion on those right now is that the people making the most money with ppc programs are the ones who are selling templates for web sites!

Another area of incredible profits over the years has been search engine marketing – taking different measures to get your web site into the top ten for a particular keyword. The search engines have done an incredibly effective job of eliminating junk and computer generated content from the top ten results.

Now, people online are often looking for good, original content, since they cannot computer generate it and make it pass for search engine worthy content. Enter article marketing. Many web sites are willing to take your content, personally written by you, and use it as content for their web sites. Because this was an incredibly easy way to get around the content problem, article directories popped up like crazy over the years, with their peak proliferation in 2006. Literally hundreds of article directories popped up, trying to get people to submit content to them.

The result of that has been interesting. Most of the web sites that were created for that purpose, are in my opinion, only good for creating multiple back links to your own web sites. Of course, since that is highly important, the web sites continue to grow with original content. But what has happened is that a few article directories have kind of risen to the top of the article directory chain, achieving pageranks of 6 or 7, creating an interesting place in terms of search engine optimization techniques, and an easy way to get your own url listed on a pr 6 or 7 page. Even more important than that, I think, the opportunity to have your personal content on the top ten pages of search engines, due to the page ranks of the directories to which you submit. This means that, without any optimization on your own web pages, you can achieve top ten rankings for your own content, and of course you have links back to your own web page on each of these article pages.

Now, why do I think that this is so interesting for 2011 and 2012?  Because the article directories that have page rank 6 and 7 are somewhat careful about the content on their web pages.  What this means is that the only way for someone to play in this game is to write their own great content.  That means that you are on equal ground with everyone else out there, except perhaps the person who is willing to pay a team of people to write their content – but even this content would probably not be as effective as great personally written content.  You see, writing compelling copy is a skill that is learned, and I think that most internet marketers will not be willing to go through the process of teaching that skill to paid workers.

I think that another thing that is going to be very interesting for 2011 and 2012 in article marketing is that since article writing is such a laborious task and cannot be reasonably automated, that only the hardest workers of all will be involved in it.  This means, in my opinion, that it cannot become abused, at least not with the highly ranked article directories that are responsible for most of the profits derived from article marketing.

I think that for 2011 and 2012, if you are willing to work hard and write consistently for a few hours a day, you can achieve incredible wealth through article marketing. Now, the income itself will not come directly from the article marketing – it will come in whatever field of internet marketing that you are promoting and driving traffic to in your article marketing.

So, for example, you might be a list builder – I think you can grow huge lists online in 2011 and 2012 using article marketing. Maybe you are a pay per click marketer – I think that 2011 and 2012 are going to be great years to send traffic via article marketing to your ppc web sites, and I think article marketing can generate huge returns for you their. I think that anything you do online that requires traffic can be maximized in 2011 and 2012 using article marketing.

Happy Writing!

The Clash Of Titans: Article Directory Owners Vs. Automated Article Submission Services

Article marketing has been considered a useful method of promotion on the Internet, since the very early days of the Internet. By writing an informative article, writers have been able to get their sales message read by millions of online consumers, through their resource box that follows their articles. Until 2005, the whole point of article marketing was for the purpose of attracting huge numbers of readers as a result of the articles being published in ezines that had a large reader base.

A New Kind Of Article Marketing For Link Popularity

In 2005, Jason Bradley, owner of Article Dashboard, released his free article directory software. Websites that use his software are commonly referred to as AD sites.

During the same time frame, people began turning to article marketing in droves, based on its promise for building link popularity with Yahoo, MSN, and primarily Google. Most people who jumped on the bandwagon in 2005 to endorse article marketing for link popularity purposes promoted a very limited view of this promotional technique.

Their thoughts went along the lines of "the only purpose for article marketing is link popularity." There was no other role for article marketing, they said. And since one only needed to type enough words to get a link into an article directory, the most common recommendation was that articles should only be 300-400 words in length.

It was also commonly recommended that most article directory owners do not review the content submitted to them, so it was not important that the article made sense or pleased the article's readers. After all, the recommendation being made was not for the possibility of generating traffic from articles; it was only for the purposes of influencing the search engine algorithms, which are not capable of actually reading articles for grammar or understanding.

People flocked to this new kind of article marketing, and they were more concerned with "quantity than quality" – quantity of links that is.

Software Developers Rallied

With the mass deployment of websites under the Article Dashboard software, and others since, programmers jumped through hoops and developed new article distribution systems that relied on computers instead of people for the distribution process.

Soon, these programmers had systems in place to mass submit articles to the new breed of article directories. They told the new article directory owners that if they would add a simple script to their website, then the submission service would populate their directories with article content.

Hundreds of directory owners flocked to this new kind of article distribution system.  Early on, people who used article marketing to promote their businesses were elated. They were getting links all over the place.

The Realities Of Article Directory Management Sank In

In September of 2005, one company bought nearly 200 domains and installed the AD software on all of them. By May of 2006, their operation had never actually gained a foothold in the profit sector of the Internet, so they sold their domains to another company. In early 2006, I had documented a list of 180 websites owned by this operation. On a recent review, I was unable to locate a single one of these 180 AD sites still running the AD script, and most were offline completely.

In order to fully understand the job of the article directory manager, the manager must manually approve or reject every article submitted to an AD site. Many AD directory owners realized that the approval process was a long and tedious affair, especially when they were receiving hundreds of articles per day from these automated distribution systems. For testing purposes, I had set up my own AD site and subscribed to receive articles from these automated systems. I let go the approval process for one week and returned to find 800 articles waiting for approval. It does not take long to get overloaded with articles that require manual approval.

After only a few months of operation, many Dashboard sites stop approving articles for one of two reasons: 1) it took too much time to manage their article directory website, or 2) the amount of income generated from the process did not match the time requirements of the directory.

The Clash Of Titans

Things really began to change in the AD directory ownership game a few months into the project. Directory owners began to realize that in order for them to profit from their article directories, they must do something that brings readers to their websites and encourages loyalty from their site's visitors.

Since most article directories rely on advertising to drive their revenue stream, the directory owners had to do something that the other directory owners were not doing. They had to distinguish themselves from the masses.

The AD owners who have survived the early explosion of AD sites have generally taken the attitude that they should focus on "quality over quantity".

This one step has set the goals of the software developers' article distribution systems and their customers (quantity over quality) in conflict with the best interests of the article directory owners (quality over quantity).

Directory Managers Began To Implement New Submission Rules

Early on, many of those article directory owners who were intent on survival took actions to reduce the garbage flowing into their directories. Directory managers noticed trends in the articles that consistently failed to measure up to their new standards.

The owner of Invisible MBA, an educational article directory, told me that he had to review ten articles to find one he wanted to use. He also regularly complained about people who did not follow even the simplest instructions about appropriate content on his website. He eventually resorted to banning 70% of the people submitting articles to his website, including the automated article submission services, because they simply could not follow his category guidelines for submission.

His whole issue is a common complaint among the article directory managers. They insist that writers should take the time to appropriately categorize the articles they submit. Since it takes so long to approve articles manually and to select the correct category, directory managers have resorted to deleting articles instead of categorizing those articles for the writer.

Article Dashboard, Article Garden and many others have taken the step to prohibit the submission of articles that only point to affiliate websites. Article Express had gone one step further to prohibit affiliate links, even if the affiliate programs are advertised from the writer's domain.

Across the board, directory owners have stomped on Private Label Rights (PLR) articles. When article directory managers began to realize that their websites housed dozens of copies of a single article, each of which had been signed by different people as the stated author, they realized that they had a serious quality problem. They instinctively knew that those PLR articles created a trust problem with their readers. When one article has been claimed to have been written by twenty people, it makes one wonder how the website owner can claim to have a quality website. And if the trust factor has already been raised as an issue, why would the reader want to trust anything else on that website?

Lee Asher who owns Articles-Galore and a couple of other AD sites was one of the first to come down hard on software submissions to his website. His guidelines state in no uncertain terms that if someone uses software to send articles to his websites, the person will have all of their articles removed from his website.

Some AD site owners have implemented minimum word count guidelines as a measure to break some of the junk article peddlers. After all, the people focused on writing articles for link popularity are driven by the concept of 300-400 word articles. I have seen word count restrictions that include the minimum of 500, 600 and 700 words. 80% of what is submitted to my AD site does not even have the number of words I require.

Proper Category Placements Is A Consistent Issue For Article Directory Managers

Article directory owners want to impress their readers and the search engines. But, they need the properly categorize articles primarily for their human readers, who are looking for specific information on their website.

In order to help their website visitors, the directory managers frequently update their category arrangements. For example, on my AD site, I provide several well-defined subcategories for the health category. In the cancer subcategory, there is a wide range of cancers that needed their own child categories. Since the AD software only shows 30 articles per listing page, and since there is one writer who has written more than 400 articles just on the topic of mesothelioma, it made sense to subdivide my cancer category so that it was not an advertisement for only one writer.

One of the main problems with the auto-submission software is that the software does not accurately address the up-to-date category hierarchy for each article directory. This creates a real quality issue for the directory owner and managers. In order for the directory manager to stay true to the formatting of his or her directory, he or she must either complete the category selections for the auto-submitters or delete the articles submitted through them. Manual deletions take as much time as manual approvals, unless the manager has to choose the category for the article, then it takes longer.

Article Marketing Still Works For Those Who Care About Quality Over Quantity

If you still like article marketing for its ability to get your business seen by ezine readers, then it is as effective as it has always been. If you only like article marketing for its ability to influence your link popularity, it can still be effective, if you do it right.

It is true that those automated article distribution services can get your article to a lot of websites, but on a percentage basis, how many of those submissions are getting approved?

For my own use, I use my own article distribution service to reach ezine publishers. And for mass directory submission, I prefer to submit articles to the directories by hand, because hand submission permits me to get the category right every time, which in turn permits my articles to get approved more often.

In the end, it is a karma thing – if I treat the directory managers right, they will treat me right by approving more of my articles. Since it is not uncommon for me to spend six to seven hours to write an article like this one, it makes a lot more sense for me to spend the extra time to get a wider reach for my articles, by honoring the desires of the more substantial article directories.

Happy Writing!

The Best Ways For Writing A Great How-To Articles

There is no end to the subjects you can write about and you can use any style you wish. However, it has to be something that people will want to read. "How to" articles are very popular with both website owners and readers and can be a great way to get your article marketing campaign underway. Basically, the purpose of a 'how to' article is to explain to a reader how to do something.

If you are using article marketing to help drive traffic to your website you will need to come up with ideas for articles that people will want to publish and read. The quality of articles found on article directories can vary significantly so it is important that yours are among the best available for your article marketing campaign to be successful.

So let's get started. When you are writing a "how to" article remember that you are the teacher so write in an authoritative tone. You are sharing your expertise with someone who may have little knowledge of the subject at hand. So keep your writing style simple and your instructions clear.

Of course, you will have to have a good knowledge of how to do the task yourself before you can think about instructing anyone else how to do it, so stick to what you know. There are many possibilities. If you have experience in networking you could write a 'how to' article on how to set up a router at home, or if you love cars you could write an article on 'how to service your car'. There are endless possibilities for 'how to' articles, in fact you are reading one right now.

Also, you must start at the beginning and work through the task step by step. Sometimes it may be beneficial to use bullet points to help give the impression that it is a step by step process. Alternatively you can link the steps with words like 'next', 'and then' or 'now'. If you are new to writing the bullet points option might be best for you as it keeps things simple, and helps you avoid complex grammatical structures.

As you write, re-read your text every few paragraphs, and try to read it from the reader's point of view, assuming they know nothing about the task at hand. As an expert on the subject it can be too easy to make things over-complex because the task is second nature to you. Try to imagine you are doing it for the first time and instruct the reader accordingly. Going back to our previous example, will the reader actually know what an ethernet cable is, or what a router is for that matter?

If a particular stage in the task is complex you may want to repeat the instruction, or ask the reader to check their progress so they are sure they have followed your instructions successfully.

With longer articles it is important to do this regularly so the reader does not lose track. Summarize what they have done so far, tell them what should have already been achieved and ask them to check that everything is as it should be. If a reader finds that the project does not look like what you have described, they can then retrace the last few steps and see where they went wrong.

If you work through your article in this manner you should be left with a clear, concise 'how to' article that takes the reader through each step of the project to completion. Read it again, at least twice, to make sure that it is well written and that instructions are clear. Wrap up with a concluding paragraph congratulating the reader for a job well done.

And finally, the icing on the cake, the headline. This does not necessarily have to be done at the end. It can be done before you write the article but you may find that headline ideas will come to you as you write your content. Be sure to spend some time perfecting your headline as this can be the difference between the success and failure of your article.

Happy Writing!

The Amazing Power of Articles to Drive Traffic to Websites

Most experienced marketers are in awe of the amazing power of articles.

Distributed in a consistent and structured submission pattern, they provide a force to drive insane amounts of traffic to any website.

And yet some online enthusiasts shy away from article submission in the mistaken belief that the process is tedious and time consuming whereas nothing could be further from the truth.

Certainly there is something of a learning curve to be negotiated in the matter of creative writing but with the amount of assistance available online nowadays, that is not a problem for anyone requiring tuition.

A sound practice for beginners is to examine how knowledgeable writers tackle the procedure.

1. How they craft compelling headlines
2. How they relate the story seamlessly from the start to the finish
3. How they interlace the text with core keywords
4. How they break up forbidding blocks of copy with bullet points and numbers
5. How they use short chunky paragraphs for ease of reading
6. How they couch the all-important resource box

Studying the output of experienced practitioners opens the gateway to the prime source of creative writing in its application to article composition.

Twenty six funny looking little characters that come together to provide 1984 pages of The Chambers Dictionary with 300,000 word definitions and 215,000 references; they are the fodder for countless millions of letters, books, poems, plays, and articles down the ages and in perpetuity.

They are the colors in the virtual paint box that can be mixed and matched to produce hundreds of thousands of words to communicate and illuminate thousands of online articles.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

No one can steal a march on beginners when they use these characters creatively and wisely; no one can cheat by adding to or subtracting from the list. And no one can staunch their creativity when beginners capitalize on the amazing power of words to compose articles.

There is no gain without some pain but here is what is in store for beginners who take the trouble to master article composition and distribution:

- Articles establish writers as experts in their particular areas of skill

- Articles help increase sales

- Articles generate floods of website traffic

- Articles increase Google Page Rank

- Articles to boost Alexa ratings

Of equal significance to the aspiring article writer is the choice of submission software; choose the right one and success in attracting traffic is all but guaranteed; chose the wrong one and the result could labelling as an amateur – or worse still, a spammer.

Jim Green is an online enthusiast and bestselling author with an ever-growing string of niche non-fiction hard copy titles to his credit. He has thousands of articles circulating in cyberspace. http://articlesubmitter.howtoproducts-xl.com

Happy Writing!

The 3 Mistakes That People Do In Article Marketing

Here are 3 of the most common mistakes made in article marketing.

Mistake #1 is what I call marketing resistance. Some people hear that word ‘marketing’ and they just kind of pucker up. They get all tight inside. 

“I can’t market! Marketers are used car salesmen or people on the internet who say ‘Buy my new product today or your family will starve.’”

I don’t think I’ve seen anything exactly like that, but some of you are laughing out there or smiling because you’ve seen things that are close.


That’s not what I mean by marketing. Again, that definition of marketing that I titled the call with and started the call with is – Article marketing is simply getting your expertise in front of as many eyes as possible in as many consumable forms as possible.  Another way of defining marketing is seeing it as simply letting other people know what you do. That’s all it is!

Marketing is letting other people know what you do.

There are lots of ways to do that with class and integrity that can be congruent with who you are. You know the way I approach things in my programs is that not one size fits all. One of the things that I’ve been told I’m good at, and I think people are right, is that I’m pretty good at meeting people wherever they are in their business journey, in their internet journey – meeting them where they are and helping them move forward. So it’s not one size fits all.

Mistake #2 is believing there’s only one way to let people know about what you do. Some people who make that mistake get very very wed to how they see it, to how they do it, to their way, to ‘the’ way.  That’s understandable. People get territorial and invested in things and that’s ok. I’ve always thought there’s lots of ways to do things, so there’s lots of ways to market your articles to get your expertise in front of people.

Mistake #3 is inconsistency in marketing your articles or getting your expertise out there.

Most people, when it comes to marketing anything, do what I call ‘marketing a la carte.’ Marketing ala carte is waiting until things get bad, you’re feeling desperate, and you just grab something from the marketing menu and do it. You throw some money at it, hoping it will work.

No, no, no, no, no.

I’ve got a pop quiz for you tonight. What’s the most important piece of a jigsaw puzzle?

Now the answers I often get when I ask that question are things like ‘the straight pieces,’ ‘the corners,’ etc etc. ‘The solid colors.’

Now all of those are good answers, but they’re not the best answer because the most important piece of a jigsaw puzzle is the box top, because there is the blueprint. To be consistent you need a blueprint. You need something that you can do over and over again with success.

Inconsistency is part of being human. Back in graduate school and days after when I was playing racquetball two or three times a week, we had a little saying among us. “Consistency is the key.” You could go along and play well for a few minutes, and then play horrible for a minute.

So consistency in marketing, especially in article marketing, is to write regularly. If you’re going to be serious about this and really use article marketing to build your business, you want to write and submit two articles – “Oh my gosh, is he going to say a month? A week? A day? What?” – a week.

Two articles a week. That gets the fresh content out there and keeps you in the flow.

Happy Writing!

Write & Submit Articles To Promote Your Business And Get Targeted WebTraffic.

Many of the newbies that are being exposed to the Internet on a daily basis have dreams of running a website and making it successfully.  For some, this is a grueling task and leaves them short-winded trying to do so.

There are numerous marketing techniques that can be used to generate traffic on a regular basis which is the life blood of your webiste success. Out of all of them I have tried, writing qualuty articles seems to work the best (content is still truly king).

Writing articles for ezines, newsletters, websites and forums in addition to using other marketing strategies keeps your website visible.

The Internet has turned out to be a publisher's paradise. Never before has the chance to publish your ideas and insights been this easy. In some cases all it costs is some of your time. You can write an article this morning and have it published in the evening.

Writing was once a secret weapon for many marketers, but now it has been thrown in the open and is now being used by many successful online marketers.  It has work wonders for me since I started doing it the right way.  My articles have appeared in ezines, newsletters and on websites with varying degrees of success.  Here are some guidelines on how I have gained great results writing articles:

A. Write about what you know:  Make sure it’s related to your business (so you can use the keywords you want to rank with) and helpful (so it gets published).  Once you get thinking about it, you'll probably find there are hundreds of articles you could write that are helpful. You may even have some of them partly written already in your instruction manuals or installation guides, etc. Another good idea is to think of all the questions you get asked by customers and potential customers. These questions show you what people are interested in. If you write an article answering every one of these questions, you'll get published, and you'll also show yourself to be a credible expert.

B. The best articles are only as long as they need to be:  Keep it short and sweet – there’s nothing wrong with a 400 word article. By the same token, if you need 1500 words to say all you need to say, that’s fine as well

C. Simply write in a style that your audience will be comfortable with: If they’re from the old school, don’t write like I am. Don’t use contractions, don’t end sentences with prepositions, and don’t start sentences with “and” or “but”. But if they’re not old school, just use conversational English. In fact, the more of yourself you include in the article, the more engaging it will be. The key is to make it readable.

Once you've written your article, you'll need to develop a list of publishers that may be interested in publishing it. The best way to accomplish this is to display your articles on your website. Place a subscription box on each of your article pages to enable your visitors to subscribe. This list should be used to send your new articles to your list of publishers. "Submit Article" in the Google search will give you many sites where you can submit your articles.

Happy writing!

The Benefits Of Article Marketing As A Form Of Website Promotion

I have been reading recently about the benefits of article marketing. A recent post to the ezinearticles blog asked if writing articles was worth wasting time over. I have been writing articles for quite a long time and in my opinion it certainly is. I will explain why I think it is in this article.

Around a year ago I wrote my first article and posted it to ezinearticles, which many people regard as the best article directory/website. Looking back I have to admit that I did not really know what I was doing, and in truth the article was not that impressive. I continued to write more articles and continued to make mistakes.

Unlike other directories who seem to accept any old article, ezinearticles check what you are submitting. In these early days a guy called Wally would regularly e-mail me with advice on how I could improve my articles. At that stage my articles were too short, not thought out, and basically rushed. I did not realise the value of writing articles and did not make the required time available for this form of web promotion.

I found it difficult to keep thinking of new material and fell into another trap of re-submitting articles I had already written. I would change a few words or would re-word paragraphs. I was not aware that this was against their guidelines, however Wally soon informed me that it was. Tip, always read the guidelines.

I am now spending a lot more time when I write the articles and feel that they have gradually improved, this has been confirmed by Wally himself I am pleased to report.

As for the benefits of writing articles and is it worth your time and effort? I have had e-mails from all around the world from people who have enjoyed reading my articles, maybe I am a bit sad but this gives me a little buzz. Some of these people have included the article in their blog or on their website, thus creating an additional backward link to my website(s).

The people who read the article are potential visitors to your site, a visitor you would not have had, had you not written the article. That visitor could of course turn into a client or purchaser of your product(s).

For me search engines are going down the path of seeing one-way backward links as by far the most powerful form of link. Many people are offering link exchanges with other websites to boost their page rank or search engine position. There are many automated link building programs which make link exchanges even easier to obtain. Search engines have realised that this is taking place and place a much lower value on these type of links. One way links are not as easy to obtain, however writing articles has the potential of creating many one way backward links to your site and therefore is a must for any serious webmaster.

I have not written nearly two hundred articles and have seen huge increases in traffic to my websites as well as increases in their page rank.

People may disagree with my belief that article marketing is worth the time and effort, I do not really care as it works for me.

Happy Writing!

Success Starts With Articles

No one can logically argue against the fact that content is king. Web sites that are nothing more than glorified link farms or ad spiels must work harder and invest more money to gain visitors—almost none of them return. To keep users returning, there must be a reason. Articles can serve two major roles in maintaining a successful website—content and promotion. Just minutes from now you could be on your way to building a more successful business. Article creation and submission is one of the greatest promotional tools ever.

CONTENT

Every web site that wants to succeed at competing for eyeballs must have solid content to offer. Otherwise, the visitor is off in mere seconds—never to return. Make the visitor glad they visited and you have potentially created a loyal user.

Think about some of the more popular web sites on the Internet. Why would you visit them? Why would you return? Let’s look at a popular news site, FoxNews.com. I visit Fox News to read the latest news stories. I go back because I know there will be fresh articles waiting for me. I visit my favorite writing web site because I know there are great articles there and new ones appear often.

Do you see a theme? I am not going to a web site that is about other web sites or is a link farm—I am going to the source of what I desire. These sources not only receive my attention but have a good chance at selling me something. Over time, my trust in these web sites increases and I am more open to what they have to offer. It is important to offer quality content to hook the visitors in and update often to give them reasons to return. Your web site is an extension of you and your company. How visitors perceive your web site is how they will perceive you. This is why it is important that articles be well written. Anything less will compromise your perceived image.

PROMOTION

There is no easier way to establish links and incoming traffic to your web site than writing articles—or having someone write them for you. It could take months or longer for a web site owner to gain a significant amount of relevant links on other web sites. However, it can take days, with no effort, to accomplish the same feat with one well crafted article. The process is extremely simple.

1. Write the article or have it written for you.
2. Submit the article to article distribution services.
3. Start working on the next article or have a writer do it for you.

Once your article is out there it will work itself onto web sites across the Internet, which will end up generating incoming links for your web site. Moreover, this will increase your link popularity, which is very important for great search engine rankings. It would be wise to write articles that pertain in some way to your own web site. The odds of people, who are reading an article on engine rebuilding, being interested in your web site about quilting is rather slim. There are many article submission web sites and groups on the Internet. Some good article submission web sites are: ContentTycoon.com, articlefactory.com, ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, and ideamarketers.com. Don’t forget to use the article on your own web site.

The promotion world is waking up to this article creation technique and in time the competition will be fierce. The time to get started is right now. One well crafted article can easily be worth thousands of dollars in promotional efforts. Don’t let not being able to write great articles keep you from getting ahead—visit PromotionalArticles.com to have articles written for you. You simply can not put a price on the possible results from article distribution. Just wait until you experience it for yourself.

Simple Tips on Using Private Label Articles For Your Marketing

Article marketing is by far the best free method of promoting your business and increasing opt in subscribers and your sales. Content is truly king. You can say that again! That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today.

But how, if you are not comfortable writing your own articles?

Many marketers just do not know how to put their thoughts into words. Many of them need more than just little assistance, whether it is because of lack of writing abilities, time restraints or they need a writer with knowledge of a topic they aren't familiar with. 


That is why there are high demand for private label articles these days. Although you cannot claim copyright to the articles and there are a few other restrictions, they are free for you to use as you wish. 
Depending on how these articles are used, the results can be good, bad, or downright ugly.

Private label articles can increase your website traffic, sales, and subscribers, as long as you use them correctly. By using them, you can gain a big advantage over other marketers.  Unfortunately, many marketers simply copy and paste the article and submit it to article directories, as is, with no personalization.

There are some reasons why you should alter a private label article.

1. Most directories require you to submit your own unique article.  At the very least, you should change the title.   Most directory software will search their database automatically for duplicate titles. If the title of your article matches one in their database, yours will be rejected.

2. If you want to use them as content for your own website, remember that search engines don't really appreciate duplicate contents. Don't forget, unique content is also important to people who visit your website. They look for fresh information.

Here are several tips you may use to make a private label article becomes unique:

1. Change a word or phrase with another one that has similar meaning:  You may consider to use a book with title "Dictionary of Appropriate Adjectives" to find similar adjectives for particular noun. For example, "famous writer" can be changed into "top writer" or "well-known writer".

2. Add more items on a list:  If on a private label article you find a list that shows something like tips, examples, steps or facts, why don't you add more items on the list?

3. Change the structure of a sentence:  This technique is very simple. For instance, if there is a sentence like this:

• "Forums are one of the best places to find writing ideas".

• Change the structure of the sentence above so it becomes:

• "The best places to find writing ideas are forums".

4. Change the position of two sentences or paragraphs: Another similar technique is by presenting a list of items in a different order.

5. Combine two different private label articles:  The easiest way you can do is by putting the opening or the closing paragraph of a private label article to another one.  You may combine the methods above. Don't limit yourself. Use synonyms, thesaurus, add a sentence here, subtract one there, add a quote and so on.

Many marketers load so many links in their article that it becomes one long ad. Not only you will get rejected, but eventually banned if you do it often enough.  Finally, consider being a member of more than one PLC site.

With $150 a month, you can get quality, no-strings-attached content from 3-4 sites. Even if you can use only 50 articles, you're getting them for $3 each. That is a great bargain.

So You Want To Be A Web Guru?

Trying to write articles may be hazardous for some people but it all depends on the way you see and do it. There are tricks to help you become a better and faster writer. Here's your jump-start...


Guess what my fast-start recommendation is? You got it - write articles for other publishers. Why is this such a common suggestion? Could it be because - it works?  This is the fastest and easiest way by far to get a following of people who recognize your name and listen to what you recommend.

When I was newly online and learning about online business, clicking on the links in articles, forums, and discussion groups signatures was my primary method of finding good information.  I reasoned that if the person was published, odds were that they were somewhat of an expert on that subject. And, if they were experts, the products and services they sold or recommended were likely to be good. Those were the people whose products I bought and whose lists I joined.

If you include a signature with each article, including a line or two about your business and your website URL and/or email address, you may be very amazed at the traffic it will generate for you - the best kind of targeted traffic, too!  Are you having trouble just getting started? I understand.  And I can't tell you that writing isn't hard work.  It certainly is for me. But once you write the first article it gets much easier. In fact, you may discover, as I did, that you have a hard time stopping!

Here's a "jump-start plan" to get you going:

1. Get a notebook and pen, or if you are a "cut and paste" writer like me - a word processor or computer, and just brainstorm ideas for articles. If you are at a total loss, go and read some articles in other's e-zines or websites.  That may spark an idea for a different approach to the same subject or remind you of your own experiences in that area.

Think about what You need or want to know. What have you learned from experience that might help others?  Once you get started you will come up with many ideas.  Write each one down. If you think of a good title for that article, write that down too. Make it catchy."

2. What you should do next depends on you. There are several ways writers work, depending on their personalities. You may like to order and organize your points first by making an outline of the information you plan to include or the points you intend to make. Then all you have to do is go back and "flesh out" the points, adding useful facts or links to more information.

Or, you may be a natural teacher, and write just as though you are explaining the subject to the reader in person. Either method is fine, just do what is comfortable for you. One method may work best for one kind of article and the other for another kind.

3. In either case, don't forget to add "personality" to your writing. Share some of yourself with your readers, make your writing uniquely your own.  It's fine to read e-zines and others' articles to see what people may be interested in and spark your own ideas, but don't pattern yourself after someone else. People want to feel that they know You - Your knowledge and personality. This is what builds loyalty.

If it fits with your subject, don't be afraid to mention your product or service and give the URL or email address, but DON'T write a "glorified ad" and call it an article! That can offend a publisher so that they won't even consider articles from you in the future.

4. After you've finished writing your article, read it through aloud, preferably to someone else who will ask questions if they don't understand some point.

5. Run a spell checker! If you own Microsoft Word or something similar, run the grammar checker also. Have someone else proofread it for you.  Even professional proofreaders will tell you that they try to have someone else proofread their own writing, because it is next to impossible to catch your own mistakes.

6. Once you finish your article and make any necessary changes, you will need to submit it to as many websites and e-zines as you can.  Search the web for "article directory" and you will find many places to submit your article for free. There are also, of course, paid services and software that will do the submissions for you, but you may want to wait until you have successfully written a few articles before you choose to pay.

As I said earlier, writing is hard work for me, and I reworked my first article many times before I was satisfied. But if you persevere you may discover that it can be loads of fun as well as a great promotion method and a quick path to "web-guru-ness."

Happy Writing!

Submit Your Articles and Increase Website Traffic

Advertise with article directory submission.

If you are trying to find an inexpensive, yet effective way to promote your website and business, whether it is online or not, you should consider an article directory submission. An article directory submission is a chance for you to write an article about a topic relevant to your website and business, rich in keywords, and get the link to your website out there for potential viewers and customers to see.

Before you start looking for websites that offer article submissions, make sure that your article is ready. Aside from keywords, make sure that your article is formatted correctly, your grammar (spelling, punctuation, word usage, etc.) is correct, it is the appropriate length (generally 250-500 words—if it is longer, try dividing it into different articles), and that it offers useful, organized information.

After you have proofed and edited your article, write a brief summary for your article to present with your article directory submission and prepare a resource box. A resource box is what is going to get the traffic for your own website. Keep it short and include the most important information—your name, title, business, a catchy tagline and the main address for your website.

Once you have that taken care of, start searching for websites that will allow you to make an article directory submission.

A few good ones to get you started are

JustArticlesOnline.com (http://www.JustArticlesOnline.com),

BellaOnline (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12838.asp),

and Ezine Articles (http://ezinearticles.com).

Each website may have its own rules, regulations, and requirements, so be sure to read up on all their information regarding submissions.

People are always looking for content for their websites, so by using an article directory submission, your article is sure to be read, thus your website traffic and sales will increase. Write your article, prepare it for submission, submit it to the best sites for your website, and watch the your website traffic and sales skyrocket.

Successful Article Marketing Strategies

Are you thinking about starting to write articles as a way of promoting your website? Are you looking for some advice about how to write a successful article? Have you a lack of belief in your ability to write an interesting article? Around a year ago I would have answered yes to all of these three questions but have now learnt quite a lot about article marketing. In this article, I give tips and advice to help other people to become successful article marketers.

I have now had around three hundred articles accepted at what I consider to be one of the main article directories, ezinearticles. At times, I have to admit that it can be quite a choir to think of a subject to write about, to then write the article and also to then submit the article to all of the major article directories. At other times, the words seem to just flow and it can be quite easy and even enjoyable.

The benefits of article marketing can be huge and I am happy to report that a lot of my articles have been included on many different websites, this of course creates a lot of important one-way backward links to my websites.

I have seen a large increase of traffic to my sites, which is partly no doubt down to this writing of articles. As a rule I try to write around seven to ten articles per week. If on one particular week I am not able to for whatever reason, I do not stress about it, I just see it as a break.

I try to make each article interesting and they are written from the heart, in my own style. Some of them can be quite funny, for example, I have written an article about dieting which has the title of, Have You Ever Seen A Fat Postman?

I try not to make each article too long as people may become bored half way through. At the same time I believe each article should not be too short as there is likely to be little value to the reader. My articles are normally anywhere between four and seven hundred words in length.

Most of my articles will give the reader some form of advice about the subject I am writing about. This advice of course, is my own personal opinion and comes from my own personal experiences.

I have received many e-mails from people who have enjoyed reading my articles and I have also had requests from other people who have asked if I would be willing to write articles for them.

I am sure if I can write a number of articles that everyone else can. Give it a go, you might surprise yourself.

Once you have written the article, you then need to submit it to some of the article directories. In my opinion these are the best, ezinearticles, articledashboard, goarticles, articlealley and searchwarp.

Submitting Articles to Article Directory - Simplest Way to Get Visitors To Your Site

There isn’t a simple way to get visitors than submitting articles to article directory. Submitting an article to article directory is the most simple and effective way to gain quality traffic to your website. Many Search Gurus have considered Article Marketing to be the most effective method of gaining traffic to website.

The process of submitting article to an article directory is also very simple. All you need to do is write an informative article and submit the same to the Article Directory. Make sure the article is small and effective. It makes no sense to write a thousand word article and put the readers to sleep. Keep the article small, informative and simple. Your article should convey the effectiveness of your website in the best possible way so much so that it will grab the readers attention, without getting too bored.

How can my website get visitors by writing article?

To have visitors you need to promote your website link. Every article directory allows its authors to promote their website link in the resource section of the Article Directory. Resource box is the place where you can speak about yourself, your website and your product. Keep the resource box simple as you can. If your article is informative enough then get ready for a click on your website link through the resource box of the Article directory.

Do I need to submit my Article to just one Article Directory?

If your looking for good traffic and visitors to your website you have to make sure you submit your website to many Article Directories. Just submitting article to one Article Directory will not help. You have to exhibit your website link to visitors so as to encourage them to visit your website and finally buy your product. You can get best results by writing multiple articles and submitting the same to multiple Article Directories.

By submitting multiple articles to different Article directories you are actually marketing your website in the best possible way. My advice to you would be to take the initiative of submitting at least one article to a group of article directories everyday. I understand it can be a bit boring to submit article to different article directories. If you do not have the time you can hire the services of professional Link builders who can not just help you in writing quality article but also submit the same to thousands of Article Directories on the Internet.

The effectiveness of Article Marketing is increasing everyday. Many people have started to realize the importance of submitting articles to article directories. If you’re new to the concept of Article Directory, I hope this article must have provided you with a basic idea about the subject.

So if you’re worried as to why you have not been generating sales of your product. It’s high time that you start building links to your website through Article Marketing. To keep it simple you are not just getting back links to your website but most importantly getting quality traffic.

Starting Points In Affiliate Marketing

Several internet marketing experts have been at the forefront of affiliate marketing in Singapore, and one of the most popular people in this arena has been our own home-grown talent, Ewen Chia. As anaffiliate marketer, he has not only achieved amazing results, he is also among the millionaire elite in internet marketing. Rosalind Gardner, another very popular affiliate marketer, has also produced powerful results, often making in excess of $50,000 in a single day as an affiliate.

If you plan to achieve the same kinds of results as they have, you will need you focus on several starting points.

First, you need to have a group that can support you technically. It is literally impossible for you, especially if you are not technically savvy, to start off affiliate marketing without webhosting and technical support. To do this, register for a cheap webhosting account, and then hire a decent technical support person to assist you in various matters. As a beginner, you probably want to have your pages
uploaded and your server backed up in case anything happens (sometimes, servers do get hacked, and the only way to protect yourself is to have regular backups).

Second, you need to start off being able to find great products. If you know how to find products, you’d be amazed at how much you can sell. After all, half the battle is already won, and now you only need to focus on the marketing aspect of things. If you plan to sell anything as an affiliate, one of the two best-known products on the market that will give you a great headstart on affiliate marketing are (1) Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook. This is a really good guide on how to get
started on affiliate marketing and has been very well organized and updated. I believe that if you are looking to start off affiliate marketing, you will need this handbook. (2) Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon. This product is a real no-brainer, because it is filled with information about how you develop your internet marketing capabilities utilizing some very interesting approaches. I consider this of strategic importance, and should be used when you want to increase your sales. I’m talking about a product bundle that probably costs you no more than $60 for your education, and $100 for webhosting for a whole year.

How many businesses can you really start off on such a shoestring? This is probably one of the fastest growing businesses in any arena, and to start off, plough through everything you read, and work at it on your computer. Remember that if you need to run a website, you don’t need to set up pages one at a go. You can have a blog to manage your affiliate program, and one of the optional (but very powerful) systems is Wordpress. If you are ready to start on this, you really should get yourself a copy of this Wordpress guidebook that can help you to accomplish a lot more with a lot less.

Smart Marketing - Submit Your Articles To Article Directories

There are a lot of benefits of submitting your own articles to article directories but before we go into the benefits, what actually are article directories?

Article directories are simply database websites that collect, compile, sort the articles to their own categories and make these articles available to the public. The public can then read these articles for free or reprint them based on certain guidelines.

There is countless number of article directories nowadays. Most of them are offering free membership to authors to submit their quality articles.

In short, this should be good news to webmasters too, who are looking for content to share with their mailing lists, as these article directories provide a great one-stop resource to deposit and find articles.

Now, if you are an author, you shouldn't just write articles and keep them to yourself if you want to get tons of readers to read them.

You want to get your articles distributed across the net. One great way to do it is by submitting your articles to various article directories.

Let's see why you should submit your articles to these article directories:

1. You will establish yourself as an expert in your area.

For example, if you are a doctor specializing in cancer treatment, you could write 500-word articles about mesothelioma or breast cancer and how to prevent them. The more you write, the more exposure you'll get and people will look at you as a knowledgeable person in your area.

Some article directories list top contributing authors and when people see your name among the top, indirectly and subconsciously, they'll have a perception that you know what you talk about.

2. You don't have to pay for advertising anymore.

Web publishers and ezine owners are hungry for fresh, quality contents. Simply give them what they want.

Where do these publishers look for articles? Many will find them from article directories.

If you write good articles, these publishers will be more than happy to forward your articles to their mailing lists. With a single article blast, you could potentially reach tens or hundreds of thousands of readers for free.

Article directory owners, at the same time, are also actively marketing their article directories. This means your articles go along with their marketing campaign as well.

3. Your articles can be your viral marketing tools.

There are article directory owners who partner with other webmasters to distribute articles to many other websites. You submit one article to a directory and that same article appears on many other websites at the same time. This technology is called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). If you didn’t know yet, the power of RSS is simply amazing. Big websites will potentially pick up and post your articles on their sites.

Some webmasters will pick up your articles and forward them to others, who forward them to others again. Soon, you'll discover your same article has been published on hundreds of websites within days. It's that possible.

4. You can generate massive traffic to your website.

Search Engines love article directories due to their contents and, often, established directories receive massive hits from Google and Yahoo. You could piggyback the traffic received by these directories by depositing your articles on their databases. Those who visit these article directory websites will potentially read your submitted articles.

Just make sure you have a website to promote and you've already placed a link back to your website in your signature file at the end of all your articles.

5. You can generate sales even if you don't have a website.

If you are an expert in your area, people will read your articles and listen to you. Now, if you refer your readers to any product you recommend, your recommendation won't look like a sales pitch to them anymore. It simply is a solution to their problems, but be very careful with the way you recommend products in your articles. Most article directory owners don't like blatant advertisements in the articles.

Here's the best part. If you don't have a website, guess what? The article directories will be your websites. Your articles will be hosted on these article directory webservers for free.

To get website visitors to contact you, leave your phone number, email address or any special instructions to contact you in your signature file.

To sum up, the 5 reasons above are a few good ideas on why you should submit your articles to various article directories. You will discover more benefits once you get involved in article submission actively.

In case you are looking for websites to publish your articles, below are a few Online Article Directories you can visit.

www.BigArticleDirectory.com
ZapContent.com
www.EzineArticles.com
www.GoArticles.com
www.iSnare.com

Happy Writing to Smart Marketing!

Submit Article 101: Get Free Publicity With Article Marketing

If you are looking to gain exposure and increase traffic for your website, there's a terrific new way to spread the word about your new spot on the world wide web. A submit article directory is one of the best, free ways to promote your business. The bottom line is that not everyone has the advantage of being able to afford a large marketing campaign, print or television advertising.

If you've ever been browsing through a website and found an article with a brief paragraph at the end, which shows the author's name and a link to their website, then you have already experienced the success of how to submit an article in exchange for free publicity. An internet entrepreneur prepares an article, which is centered around their niche and submits it to a submit article directory. This process begins to work when other webmasters visit the submit article directory in search of articles for use on their own websites. Everyone wants interesting content for their website and this is a great way to find it. They may see this article and decide to add it to their site with the condition that the author is given full credit at the bottom of the feature. The credit will likely include the author's name, brief bio and link to their website.

For each individual who reads your article, there is added potential for new customers. If they weren't interested in your specialty, they wouldn't be reading the article in the first place. So, you've already reached someone who has a direct interest in your product or niche. Once they are finished reading the article, they are likely to visit your website if they found the information to be valuable.

Submit article directory services are completely free for writers, as well as webmasters. Consider that you are opening an internet collectibles store and need to gain interest, spread the word and find customers for your new business. Well, you are obviously a collectibles expert since that's your chosen business, so write about it. Select a topic, write a brief feature, offer advice and submit the final copy to a submit article directory. At the bottom, always be sure to include a brief paragraph with your name, some information about your new company and a link to your website. When other webmasters stop by the submit article directory in search of news for their site, they may be inclined to use your work on their website. If they do, they will also include a link back to your site.

Submit article directory services provide the potential for a large amount of increased traffic and exposure for a new, or existing, website. There is no better way to gain respect in your profession than by being knowledgeable about what you do. If you are, it will shine through in your work and people will be drawn into your site in search of even more information. Submit article directory services are one of the most powerful new promotional tools available to online entrepreneurs and, best of all - they don't cost a penny! It's true what they say - the best things in life really are free.

Stop Working for Google and Start Making Google Work for You

You need traffic, and Google can give you traffic. There are two ways that Google can send traffic to your site: an expensive way and a way to get traffic for free. I'm going to show you how to make Google give you traffic for free.

You don't want just any traffic, you want TARGETED traffic. For those not familiar with the terminology, targeted traffic refers to clicks to your website from people who are actually interested in the topic of your site.   Your marketing will be much more effective if your clicks are targeted.   Here is an example of targeted marketing. Imagine a salesman who is trying to sell dental chairs.  He puts together a flyer describing the great benefits of his particular brand of chair, and he decides to give the flyers to people.   Which group of people do you think will respond better to his flyer - a group women at a scrapbooking convention, or a group of dentists at an American Dental Association meeting?   It's a no brainer!   But better yet, what if he went to a seminar called, "How To Start Your First Dental Practice From Scratch." These guys are already in the mindset to buy dental chairs. That’s targeted traffic.

When I started my first online business, I went straight to Google Adwords.   This is one of the fastest ways to get targeted traffic.   Basically, you pay Google to have your ad appear on the right side of the browser.   You do this by bidding on keywords.   When someone types your keywords into Google, the ad appears.   Just go to Google and type anything into the search box.   If you look on the right side of the screen, you will see little three-line ads.   You probably didn't even know these were ads.  Not only are they ads, but people are paying every time you click on those ads.  This is the perfect kind of targeted traffic because people are actually searching for your topic.

So when I started my first Adwords campaign, slowly but surely I developed a targeted marketing campaign that was sending 40 to 50 visitors to my site.  These people were ready to buy what I was selling.   And they did; but at what price!  I was spending $80 per day in advertising. Way too much! I was only making about $100 in sales per day (and not that each day), so after subtracting advertising costs, my net income was only $20 per day. If I could only get traffic without paying for it, my yearly income would increase from $7,300.00 per year ($20/day x 365 days) to $36,500 per year ($100/day x 365 days). By now you’re probably wondering how you get free targeted traffic – well I'm going to tell you in the next few paragraphs.

When I realized how much I was spending on advertising, I started to research methods of getting free targeted traffic; often referred to as search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. If your site appears on the first page of results for a Google search, then you get free traffic. Not only that, it is targeted traffic because someone has just typed in the phrase or keyword related to your site. So how do you get on the first page? In order to understand this, you need to know a little about how Google ranks their pages. It all comes down to one principle: Google wants to provide high quality search results, so they want to rank relevant links higher than irrelevant links. One of their methods of determining relevancy is to count how many other websites are linked to your site. These are called "back links." The assumption is that, the more links to your site, the more relevant your site must be.

Armed with this knowledge, I went out and bought some links. You may not know this, but there are actually companies that will allow you to buy a link on their web pages. I bought one link for $20 per month, another for $75 per month. It was much cheaper than Adwords, but it didn't get me ranked any higher, and it didn't get me much extra traffic. Two links was just not enough links to rank me higher on Google. What I needed was a way to get LOTS of back links. Then I heard about an intriguing idea: article marketing.

Article marketing is simple. You write an article, you put a link to your website at the bottom of the article (in the author information area). Then you post your article to an "article site." That's it. For every article that you post, you get a link to your site. And not only that, it's a targeted link because the content of your article will be related to the content of your website. It is best to post to as many article sites as you can. Every time Google sees a new targeted link to your site, it will rank you a little higher. There are literally hundreds of article sites and they are all looking for fresh content. Post your article to as many as you can find. Presto! Now you have tons of back links. That is article marketing. It's that simple. And it's free.

At first, I manually posted to about seven article sites. This was fairly time consuming. I immediately notice a few extra hits to my site. But in order for article marketing to be cost effective to me, I needed a way to post to hundreds of article sites quickly and easily. Then I heard about article submission software. Basically, this software has a list of article sites in it and it guides you through the process of mass posting your article to multiple sites. So I posted the article to about 200 sites. Bam! Now my site is ranked #2 for a certain keyword combination. This is effective search engine optimization. This is article marketing.

That's it. Now you know how to make Google work for you. You no longer have to work for Google by paying for Adwords. Plus you can contribute a helpful article to the internet and make tons of money doing it. Put article marketing to work for you today. Write an article, post it, make a link, and make more money!