By
allen on January 31st, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | 1 Comment »
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of article marketing is social bookmarking. Most article marketers don’t even think about bookmarking their articles. But why wouldn’t you?
Social bookmarking gives your articles more reach. You can get your articles in front of more people in a shorter period of time and reach people you may not reach otherwise. Remember the purpose for article marketing in the first place. You are writing articles and distributing them to the various article directories so that webmasters and e-zine publishers can use your content to help grow their businesses and help you promote yours. How will those webmasters and e-zine publishers find your articles if you don’t point them in the right direction?
As the Internet grows, your content is more likely to fall to the scrap heaps of the SERPs. You need every edge you can get for getting your content into the hands of the right people. Social bookmarking is another tool to help you do that. Some of the benefits of social bookmarking include:
- Inbound link building
- Driving traffic where you want it to go
- Increased exposure for your brand
- Greater influence upon your market
- Networking with others with similar interests
When you write an article and distribute it through your network of article directories, you are marketing your business. After you have given your article enough distribution, head over to half a dozen well-trafficked social bookmarking sites and bookmark your article at each of those sites. Many article directories now have bookmarking icons on the articles. Just click on that icon and bookmark your own article. Encourage others to do the same.
By
allen on January 30th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | 2 Comments »
Listen closely and I’ll tell you a way to turn your 500-700 word articles into cold, hard cash. And I’m not talking about using them as marketing tools to drive traffic to your website and closing sales. That’s so overdone.
Some people are saying that article marketing is dead. I say they’re dead wrong. Article marketing is very much alive and getting better.
I’ve discussed article repurposing before. You’re familiar with it. If not, then hold onto the seat of your pants because I’ll share with you a repurposing strategy that you can use to make yourself real money.
But first, let’s talk about who you’re going to sell those repurposed articles to: The traffic that you gained from article marketing in the first place!
Sound tricky? It works like this:
- Write 500-700 word articles and submit them to article directories
- Other webmasters and e-zine publishers use them as content
- End users read the content and visit your site
- You’ll have an opt-in box on your website to take down e-mail addresses
-
Send out a weekly newsletter to keep those subscribers “on a string”
Are you with me so far? You’re building your list. After you get about 1,000 names on your list and you’ve been sharing useful, valuable free content with them over time, they’ll be primed to buy your premium products. But you have to build up their trust by giving them powerful, valuable free content over a period of time.
Now why would they pay for repurposed content they’ve already seen? Because you’re going to go into more detail.
On January 16, 2008, I shared with you five ways to re-use articles that you’ve distributed to article directories. One of those ways was to put them into an e-book. The catch is, you’re going to totally rewrite those articles and include more detail. Every article you write for article marketing should be the tip of the iceberg on your knowledge. Write articles that you can easily expand into full chapters of an e-book - say 3,000-5,000 word articles.
So you’ve built up your list and you’re ready to sell. Take about 10 articles that you have distributed to various directories - pick your 10 most popular articles - and repurpose them into chapters of an e-book. Go into much more detail on those chapters than you went into in the articles and sell your book to your list. If you sell books to just 10% of your 1,000 member list for $20 each, you’ll have made $2,000.
Some other ways you can repurpose those articles and sell them as premium content is to convert them to:
- Podcasts
- Video content
- Slideshow presentations
- Multimedia content
- E-courses
Can you think of other ways to repurpose your article content?
By
allen on January 29th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | No Comments »
According to this SiteProNews article, only 20% of Internet users intentionally read RSS feeds. That’s surprisingly low, but it does make sense. Most people are still attached to their e-mail and still piddling around online. But I predict a day when RSS will be the tool of daily use. Even for article marketing.
Already, article directories like EzineArticles provide RSS feeds for publishers who want to use content for their websites and e-zines. But if you are an article marketer, you must upload your article content to EA, and every other article directory, manually, or submit through a mass submit service. There are problems with doing it either way. Those problems can be solved through RSS.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It really is simple. And that makes me wonder why very few people have started using it. If it’s so simple, what’s the hold up?
I think a part of the problem is information. Techies understand it, Internet marketers know enough about it to use and employ it in their research, a few business people have realized the value, but for the most part, most people have not made the full transition to online information publishing.
RSS is great because nothing gets lost. E-mail can end up in the junk mail folder, circulate around cyberspace for a couple of weeks, be inadvertently deleted, or overlooked. RSS is delivered 100% of the time. It never fails.
Another problem most people have, though they don’t know how to solve it, is spam. One slip up and your e-mail address can be all over the Internet and you’ll be spammed a million times. Sure, you can filter your spam into your junk mail folder, but you run the risk of losing good mail that you want or still having to filter through some spam that wasn’t caught by the filter. It’s a time waster. I know business people who have opted not to use e-mail for that very reason.
Information published by RSS doesn’t have these problems. One reason is because someone has to subscribe to your RSS feed before they can use your information. If they don’t subscribe, they can’t read it. Plain and simple. Another thing, they need a special reader in order to receive the RSS feed, and most people aren’t familiar with the technology are afraid to try it or haven’t received the proper motivation. The day will come, I believe.
When the day comes that people can open up a reader and have it download all of the information that they like to read and be as user-friendly as Outlook, and as accessible, then RSS will flourish. Instead of distributing articles through directories, people will be able to subscribe directly to your articles. They can now if they understand technology. All you have to do is put your articles on your website and insert code that will allow people to subscribe to them. Every time you publish an article, they’ll receive that article in their reader. If they want to republish it, they simply do so as you’ve sent it to them, complete with your bio. I can even imagine that you can program your content so that it won’t even publish if they try to alter it. Now that’s what I call article marketing.
By
allen on January 28th, 2008
Posted in Audio Articles | No Comments »
Do you publish articles on your website? Why not make a digital recording of yourself reading an article and publishing it on your website along with your article. Call it a podcast or an audio article, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a powerful medium nonetheless.
There are some things you need to know about audio articles, though, before you make one. No. 1, practice before you do it. You don’t want to come across sounding like a thirteen year old boy asking a girl out for the first time. Uh, ah, will, you, hmmmm … you know what I mean.
For professional audio recordings, you want it to go as smooth as possible. The first way to ensure that is to practice reading your article until you’re sure you can read it through without gaffes. Secondly, the editing of the actual audio will make a big difference as well. You want to make sure that you can edit out any background noise before your audio article goes live. It would help if you record the article in a quiet setting so make sure you get rid of any background noises before you start recording.
It doesn’t cost much to make a digital recording. Chances are, you’ve got everything you need right there at your fingertips. And you’ll be surprised at the number of people who will opt to listen to your article instead of reading it.
By
allen on January 25th, 2008
Posted in Newsletters | 1 Comment »
When it comes to article marketing, directory submissions are not the only game in town. For sure, you can submit your articles through iSnare or one of the many article directories online. In fact, you can submit to several directories and you’ll be doing yourself well. But that’s not all you can do.
If you have a company newsletter, you might publish your article first in your newsletter. One thing I like to do is publish the article on my website then run a summary or the first paragraph of the article in my newsletter with a jump to the web page where the article sits. I do this to drive traffic to that page and if you run Google AdSense on your articles pages then you have a monetization plan for that content. After a couple of weeks you can submit that article to the articles directories and start circulating it online.
Publishing your articles first gives you a couple of advantages. First, you claim first publication rights. By waiting a couple of weeks before submitting the article elsewhere, you ensure that the search engines have ample time to crawl your website and give you credit for the article. It’s not that you’re worried about duplicate content. That’s not the issue. You are really ensuring that a higher PR site or a site with more authority doesn’t rank higher in the search engines for your content. That can make a big difference where traffic patterns is concerned.
Another advantage that gives you is credibility. By publishing your content first, you are essentially saying to all the other publishers that your content is good enough to publish. If you don’t publish your own articles, why should they?
By
allen on January 24th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | No Comments »
I’ve been following Matt McGee’s SEMMY Awards competition with one eye since I first heard about it. I know I’m not in the running for an award and have no real reason to expect that I would be. But I do like to keep up with what is going on in the SEM arena since that is what I do. Many of the articles in all of the categories are great articles. In fact, I’ve noticed that the finalists in all the categories have one thing in common (they may have more than that, but I haven’t read every article) - they have titles that grab your attention.
Without fail, the article titles of the finalists are excellent, attention-grabbing titles that, even if they weren’t finalists in a contest, would make me want to read them. Obviously, that’s one of the criteria for judging (and it should be). Here is a sampling of those article titles, just to show you what I mean:
- Five Reasons To Aim Low When You’re Just Learning SEO - SEO Category
- SEO Linking Gotchas Even The Pros Make - SEO Category
- How To Lower Your AdWords Minimum Bid - PPC Category
- NUDE: AdWords Keyword Data Exposed With Google Analytics! - PPC Category
- The 10 Second Rule: How To Write For Diagonal Readers - Blog and Blogging Category
- 10 Ways To Hurt Your Blog’s Brand By Commenting On Other Blogs - Blog and Blogging Category
- Help! I’m New, I Need Links, What Can I Do? - Link Building Category
- Social Media’s Direct Influence On Search Engine Ranking - Social Media Category
- How A Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away - Online Marketing/General Category
-
Google Punished My Site For Selling Links - NOT! - Google Category
Honestly, if you weren’t asked to vote on these articles and pick a winner, would you click and read them based on these titles? I would. Without exception, they are attention-grabbing titles, which passes the first rule of good writing. Of course, that says nothing about whether the articles themselves are worth reading or as high a quality as the titles that got me to read them.
My Beef With The SEMMYs
My beef regarding the SEMMYs, of course, is not with the articles, the authors, or even the categories, although I do wonder why Google needs it’s own category. Why doesn’t Yahoo! have it’s own category?
I understand the idea behind the SEMMY Awards is to recognize authors who have contributed to writing articles on SEM. I also understand that SEM has different definitions depending on who you talk to. Many people narrow the field simply to paid search methods, which would eliminate SEO. Obviously, that’s not Matt McGee’s position. Others have a broader view of SEM and include SEO. But I would think that the broad view definition would include article marketing, which gets to the heart of my beef.
Why isn’t there a category for article marketing? There’s a category for SEO, a category for social media, a category for small businesses, a category just for Google, a category for reputation management, a category for link building, a category for viral marketing, and even categories for local search, rants, and funny stuff. Why not article marketing?
Article marketing is one of the earliest search engine marketing strategies there is. It’s been around longer than blogging and even longer than Google. It was here before PPC and will likely still around long after PPC has run its course. It’s older than social media marketing and even was used by Internet marketers before anyone ever used the term SEO. Article marketing is useful for all sorts of purposes related to every one of the categories listed in the SEMMYs, but it doesn’t have a category of it’s own. People have used, and still do, article marketing for:
- SEO
- Link building
- Viral marketing
- Reputation management
- Local search positioning
- Social media marketing
- Small business branding
- General online marketing
- And blog promotion
Heck, I’ve also seen articles used to exploit powerful rants and to make people laugh. And I’ve even seen PPC links right smack dab in the middle of articles used for marketing purposes. Yet, there is no article marketing category in the SEMMYs. I’m sure it’s just an oversight, but I urge Matt to include an article marketing category in next year’s SEMMYs. Even if I’m not one of the nominees.
By
allen on January 23rd, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing, Article Submissions, Article Writing | 1 Comment »
When it comes to writing articles, too long can be as big a killer as too short. There is an optimal length to articles, but it largely depends on what the purpose of your article is.
If you want to publish your articles your article directories for mass distribution then I wouldn’t go less than 400 words. Probably 400-600 words is best, though you can get away with up to 700 words. I wouldn’t go beyond that. The reason is because you are targeting those articles toward e-zine and newsletter publishers. Those publishers are generally looking for well-written articles that are short and optimized around a specific keyword. Anything less than 400 words is probably too short to provide any real SEO value. Anything longer than 600-700 words is too long to maintain reader interest and will likely be rejected by the publishers who can help you the most due to space considerations.
If you are targeting website publishers - third-party news sources, content publishers, and other such sources where your articles will likely be converted into HTML and enhanced by graphics then you might get away with a bit longer. But the 400-600 word length is still a good rule of thumb unless a specific publisher has their own guidelines. If you are targeting your articles toward specific publishers then you should follow their guidelines if they are different than the norm. If all else fails, contact the publisher directly and ask them what they prefer. You should always tailor your article content to the publisher you are seeking to publish your content if you can.
By
allen on January 22nd, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | 1 Comment »
Back before RSS and before blogging became popular, savvy Internet marketers wrote articles and published them online to drive traffic to their websites. Article directories sprung up to give Web publishers a place to publish their articles so that they could have them distributed to other webmasters and e-zine publishers in the same niche area. Many a successful webmaster relied on article marketing for traffic and sales. It worked.
Then blogging came along. Now, the hottest item on the planet is a company blog. Everybody, it seems, wants one. I still think there is a lot of room for growth in the business blog arena, but you don’t hear too many companies new to Internet marketing talking about article marketing. They all want a company blog instead. Does that mean blogging is better?
I don’t think so. I think the best online marketing plan for most businesses includes at least one company blog and a consistent plan for article marketing and distribution. Just how many articles you need to publish every month may be different for every company, but I’d say at least one or two articles per week is right for most companies. And that should be done in conjunction with blogging.
When it comes to blogging and articles, it isn’t a matter of which one is better for your business. It’s really all about how much of each is the right combination.
Get more information about article marketing at ACP
Learn more about company blogging at the BCP blog
By
allen on January 21st, 2008
Posted in Article Writing, Press Release Writing | No Comments »
Some people come to us asking for an article about their business when what they really want is a press release. There is a big difference between an article and a press release and how we write them depends a lot on your goals, both for your business and for the article or press release.
A press release is generally used to create short-term buzz for a particular event or promote a certain aspect of a business for a specific purpose. Articles are simply information pieces that you use to market your business through distribution to various article marketing directories. Those directories are not your real goal, though. Too many marketers think submitting to article directories is enough. But what you really want to happen is for other publishers to find your article and publish it on their website or in their e-zine.
You might write a press release for your company if any of the following has occurred within your company:
- Your company has won an important industry award
- A key employee has been promoted
- Your business is moving in a radically different direction than before
- A scientific finding has affected your industry in ways that will change how you do business
- New government regulations will change your business
These are not the only reasons why you might want a press release, but these are some are some good ones. You can also write articles about some of these topics. I would not write an article about your company getting an award. That’s better left for the press release.
Another key difference between articles and press releases is that press releases are usually a one shot deal. Something happens and you write a press release. While you can write an article about a particular event that is important to your industry, one article over a period of time is not going to do much good for your business. Article marketing is a strategy. To be effective, you want to write articles on a consistent basis and publish them over a period of time. That will get your name out there so that people interested in your type of service will recognize it when they see it.
There is one thing, though, that article marketing and press release distribution have in common: Neither are sales letters. It may seem funny saying that, but if you’ve seen the number of times that a person writes their own press release or article and wrote it like a sales pitch then you’d know why it needs to be said. While both tools can be used to drive traffic to your website in order to close sales, they are not in and of themselves sales tools. But it doesn’t mean they can’t make you money.
By
allen on January 19th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Reputation Management | 2 Comments »
Reputation management is the process of monitoring what people are saying about you and responding to any potential public relations problems before they happen or in a timely manner as they happen. Here at Article Content Provider, we like to engage in what I call preventive reputation management. It’s much better to avoid a problem than it is to deal with one after it has happened. That’s the idea anyway.
Just for the record, I’m not talking about pre-emptive strikes. I’m talking about marketing your business with the end in mind. You should know what perception you want people to have of your business and act that way at all times. Articles can be your best tool for developing that perception.
Many new article marketers think that writing 5 or 10 articles and sending them out to hundreds of article directories at once is a neat trick. All their problems are solved for the rest of their lives. Well, not quite.
Article marketing relies on a persistent strategy of delivering a valuable and positive message that keeps your company in the spotlight and associated with helpful content. You want people to perceive you as an expert in your industry. By writing valuable articles that help them understand your business better and the concepts that you want them to know, you can present yourself as that expert.
One of the most important aspects of article marketing is your author resource box. That’s where you tell your readers all about you. Think through this section carefully. You only have a little bit of space - about 300 characters. You must be concise and tell potential customers why they should visit your website. While your article is the place where you give freely, the author resource box is the place where you ask your readers to “give” back to you. Give them good enough reasons and they won’t let you down.
