By
allen on March 31st, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Submissions | No Comments »
Jim DeSantis has some excellent tips for article marketers. His four mistakes not to make is a must read:
- Mistake 1. Writing with the wrong motives.
- Mistake 2. Failing to take advantage of article marketing as a promotional tool.
- Mistake 3. Publishing content that is mediocre or that attempts to redirect your reader to a sales page.
- Mistake 4. Submitting illiterate articles.
There’s not much I can add to that, but I’ll try.
On mistake No. 1, your motive for writing, as Jim says, should be to provide useful information. If you don’t have useful and valuable information to provide then you shouldn’t engage in article marketing.
Article marketing does have advantages for publishers, however. You aren’t just giving information away for free. You are using information to sell more information. Your links in the author resource box allow you to drive traffic to your website to sell the information or sign people up for an e-mail list. Take advantage of the tool for all it worth.
Mediocre content doesn’t sell. Outstanding content sells. Provide your target audience with the best information you can, in your articles, on your website, in your e-books, and everywhere you publish.
Finally, if you are going to engage in article marketing, do it intelligently. There is no excuse for bad grammar and oodles of misspelled words. It’s your image. Protect it and it will serve you well.
Learn More About Article Marketing
By
allen on March 27th, 2008
Posted in Article Writing, Reputation Management, author resource box | 1 Comment »
Article marketing is about two things:
- Building Links
- Driving Traffic
In both cases, the best tool for accomplishing the task is your author resource box. That’s the area at the bottom of your articles where you get to talk about yourself. It’s best not to write a book. If your author resource box is as long as your article then it’s too long. It just needs to be a couple of sentences. But what should go in it?
Obviously, you need your name. Also, a one sentence explanation of what you do. Follow that up with a call to action. In those two sentences, you should have two links. One of those links should be an URL - spell out your URL. The reason you want to spell out your URL is because your anchor text, which I am about to tell you about, may not be activated by some publishers. If a publisher doesn’t activate your URL then readers of your article will still be able to see your domain name and copy/paste it into their browser windows.
The second link in your author resource box should be your anchor text link. Whatever your important keyword is - the keyword around which you optimized your article - include it again in your author resource box and link it to the page on your website most appropriate for that anchor text. Hint: It should be the URL you spelled out in the other link.
If you do it this way then you are promoting one landing page for each article, but you are also using an important keyword phrase for that landing page to build inbound links to your website. Every time a publisher publishes your article, you’ll get a new inbound link. The most of those, the better. Even more importantly, the more high quality and relevant inbound links you build through article marketing then the better off your rankings will be. Anchor text helps you build your reputation online.
Learn More About Article Marketing From
The Article Marketing Experts
By
allen on March 25th, 2008
Posted in Article Writing | 1 Comment »
Do you have a problem coming up with ideas for your articles? You don’t have to. You should spend about 30 minutes once a month coming up with ideas for articles. When you do this, brainstorm as many article ideas as you can in that 30 minutes. Don’t think about whether or not those ideas are any good. Just write down every idea you can think of.
Here are some prompts to help you generate ideas for articles:
- What are some of the most frequently asked questions you get from your customers?
- What things are you most proud of about your company?
- How about your industry?
- What are the tools that you need to be effective in your area of expertise?
- Name some well known people in your industry that you can interview
- What current events related to your industry can you write about?
- What other resources can your customers turn to for information about your niche?
- What are some things that need to be fixed about your industry?
- What changes or developments have occurred in your industry in the last 5-10 years?
- Where do you see your industry headed in the next 5-10 years?
If you can come up with three article ideas for each of these prompts then you’ll have 30 articles - that’s one article per day for an entire month. Then it will be time to brainstorm again.
Need help with article marketing?
By
allen on March 24th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | 1 Comment »
Some people say your articles for aritcle marketing should be 250-300 words long. Is that long enough?
In some cases, I’d say that’s long enough. It really depends on your topic. For most articles, I’d say 500-700 words is better. There are two principles you need to weigh against each other for the optimal article length.
On one hand, e-zine publishers want shorter articles because if an article is too long then people won’t read it. You have to hold reader interest and shorter articles do that better.
On the other hand, you want articles that are highly optimized. Shorter articles tend to be under-optimized. As more and more people use the Internet for marketing, there is an increased level of competition for every niche. More content gives search engine spiders an easier time of ranking the content for the right keywords. To be sure, a 1,000-word article is better for SEO than a 200-word article.
So how do you take these two principles and get them to work together for your marketing good? You compromise. You take the principle of shorter is better for reader interest and the principles of longer is better for SEO and you write an article that is somewhere in the middle. Most people will read a 500-700 word article. Anything more than that and they’ll lose interest. And you can increase your chances of people staying with you for the full article if you include a couple of subheads in your article. But an article of 500-700 words will be short enough for most readers and long enough to get you adequate exposure for your SEO efforts.
Learn more about article writing.
By
allen on March 20th, 2008
Posted in author resource box | 1 Comment »
When it comes to article marketing, the most important part of your article (for you) is the author resource box. This is where you will put your author bio and links back to your website. But how many links is enough? How many is too many?
Most article directories will allow you up to three links in your author resource box. But that doesn’t mean you should include three links in every resource box. You should include as many links as is necessary to promote the specific product or service you are marketing. In many cases, that could mean just one link.
Whether you use 1, 2, or 3 links, you should always include one instance of your URL hyperlinked. The reason you want your URL spelled out is because some publishers fail to hyperlink your anchor text or use bots to pick up articles and the bots do not activate the anchor text links. In that case, you at least have your URL spelled out so readers of your article can just copy/paste your URL into their browser and visit your web page.
My best recommendation is to promote only one web page in your author resource box. You can do that by using an instance of anchor text hyperlinked to that page and your second link should be the URL of that page linked with an a href tag. If that specific page’s URL is real long then only spell out the main body of your URL (www.websitename.com) and link it to the specific landing page that you want your site visitors to go to. Your author resource box can drive traffic to your website fast if you don’t overload it with useless URLs and links. Don’t try to promote everything you do in one resource box. That will water your marketing down.
By
allen on March 18th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | 1 Comment »
There is no limit to what you can promote through articles when you engage in article marketing. Online marketers use articles for a variety of purposes in promoting all kinds of products. Here are just a few ideas:
- E-books
- Memberships to a membership site
- Local business services
- Marketing products and services
- Home appliances
- Electronic equipment
- Affiliate program opportunities
- Home business opportunities
- Business investment services
- Financial products
- Mail order items
There are a host of products and services that can be marketed online through articles. But are there any products and services that cannot be marketed through articles? Yes. If you are in any of these businesses then you shouldn’t be marketing yourself through articles:
- Underground services like terrorism and tax evasion
- Prostitution
- Drug trafficking
- Local services like auto repair and pickup delivery
- Violence and war-related activity
- Halliburton
- Anything illegal
Article marketing is very effective for the right business. I highly recommend it unless you engage in illegal activities or your business is unpopular in any way.
By
allen on March 17th, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing | 1 Comment »
Don’t let anyone tell you article marketing is dead. It isn’t. This master article marketer has three very useful tips that you should listen to:
- Always Build A List With Your Opt-In Page - This is great advice. Build a list using an opt in newsletter page or free information. Free reports work great. Offer a free report in exchange for e-mail addresses and drive traffic to that page with articles.
- Submit Only To The Top Directories - This is another bit of useful advice. Don’t submit your article to every article directory online. Stick with the top directories. Fabian Tan suggest five directories. I say no more than 10. How many is up to you, but stay with the best directories.
- Write In A Conversational Style - Another bit of useful advice. People like people who are conversational. People online don’t like marketing-speak. Just be genuine, be yourself, and be conversational.
Article marketing is one of the best methods for generating leads online. It’s a great way to attract targeted traffic to your website and I highly recommend it. When looking for directories to submit your articles to, pay attention to directories with a lot of articles in your niche. Those will be the best directories for your niche.
Learn more about article marketing at ACP
By
allen on March 14th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | 1 Comment »
Did you know you can use articles to market and promote a joint venture? You can also joint venture with your articles by co-writing them and sharing the marketing burden. A recent article at EzineArticles.com shares three ways you can joint venture your way to profit:
1. Coregistration
2. Ezine Publishing
3. Product Creation
All three of these are great ways to joint venture with someone in your niche, but these aren’t the only three ways to joint venture. You can also joint venture with your niche partner in building a third website that you will use to market each of your primary sites. You can sell advertising on that third website and split the revenue, then use articles to promote that website. I’m sure you can put your head together and think of other ways to joint venture. It’s not hard and the rewards are tremendous.
Learn more about article marketing
By
allen on March 13th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | No Comments »
Article marketing is not sales. It is pre-sales. Successful article marketers understand this and use that knowledge to gain trust and win readers over to customers. I recently found an article online that illustrates this perfectly:
Advanced Article Marketing Strategy Reveals A Short Way To Sell Products Like Crazy
By Mark A. Abrahams
Let me ask you a very important question. Are you experiencing the results that you want from advertising your product. If you are not getting the results that you want you need to seriously consider promoting your website using articles.
As the famous sales trainer Jeoffrey Gitomer once said people only buy from people that they like, know and trust. If you write articles consistently and submit them to the major article directories you will find that people will build a relationship with you by reading your articles. Over time they will come to like and trust you because some people will like your writing style.
Now these people are the perfect candidates and if you treat them right will become your paid customers. This is the process that you need to follow. You have a link to a squeeze page in the bio of your resource box. On this squeeze page the reader can download a free report. This will build an additional layer of trust because if they like this they are very likely to purchase your product.
Once they have been added to your autoresponder this becomes your sales funnel where you will weed out the tire kickers from the serious buyers. I suggest that you have a valuable 7 day email course first before you try and sell to your subscribers. This will substantially improve your responsiveness. After this you need to have a few emails presenting a hard sell for the product that you are promoting.
Let us look at why this technique works so well with getting sales even if you have never gotten any before. Your subscribers will trust you because they know you very well from your articles. You first build up rapport with them and later on present a hard sell once you have established rapport with them
Try this and see how the sales of your product goes through the roof.
Are you really interested in driving massive traffic to your website?
Here’s the answer:
Secrets Of Article Marketing - Download your free ebook now.
Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_A._Abrahams
This article draws attention to three very important article marketing principles:
- Trust
- Landing Page Optimization
- Giving Something Before You Expect Something
Your first obligation to your article readers is to provide value. This is where you build trust. They will not buy from you until they trust you. Article marketing is a time-tested way to build trust with your potential market. By writing and publishing articles online you ensure that your target market understands what you are promising them before they ever visit your website. Once you’ve hooked them with your knowledge then they will want to visit your website. Until you build that initial trust, you can’t expect to make a sale.
Even when your target market visits your website, don’t try to close the sale right off the bat. You are still building trust. But you can take your relationship another step. Instead of going for the jugular right away, offer something else for free. You’ve already given away a little tidbit of your knowledge for free. Now, give away a little bit more - a little bigger slice of pie. Let your target audience salivate over your generosity. Remember, you are still building trust.
If you expect your target audience to respond by giving you their credit card number then you’ve got to give them a reason to trust you. You’ve got to pre-sell them before you can ever sell them anything. After you’ve built up and earned their trust then you can ask for the sale. Give them something for free before you ask them to give you something. Map out your plan then through article marketing work the plan until you see the dividends.
By
allen on March 12th, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing | No Comments »
EzineAticles has has an article widget for some time. Now, ArticlesBase has joined the widget club. If you write and submit your articles to article directories, you can place a widget on your blog or website to let your visitors know that you write articles and publish them at these article directories. How that benefit you?
For starters, if other webmasters within your niche visit your website and see your widget, they may be interested in your articles. If so and they publish and e-zine or use guest articles on their website then they could pick up and publish your articles. That’s more exposure for you and potential traffic to your website.
Wanna see what your ArticlesBase widget could look like?
Pretty snazzy huh?
