By
allen on September 30th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | 2 Comments »
Article marketing takes different forms. It’s most effective when the writer understands the purpose of the article and where it best fits in. You don’t necessarily have to publish every article on an article directory. Sometimes it is best to submit an article directly to the publisher of a related website or magazine. This type of article marketing is akin to trade journal writing, which was popular in the 1980s and 1990s and which is still effective.
An example of good article marketing can be found at CRM Buyer. This article is effective for several reasons:
- It is targeted to the right audience
- The author is a member of the target group he is writing toward
- The article is well-written without spelling and grammatical errors
- It is written with a voice of authority
- The author, Louis Columbus, uses SEO tactics effectively
- Visual elements such as bold text and bullet points make the article easy to read
- There is a clear beginning, middle, and end to the article
- The article writer limits his points and states them succinctly
- Each point is backed up with a source, verifiable data, or philosophical brevity
- Louis Columbus effectively manages an opening and a final summary; the article is not boring
And one final point to grow on: Columbus’s author bio resource box gives a short description of his background, establishing him as an authority on the subject and provides several links to important websites where more information can be found on the subject for people who are interested. Great job, Louis!
For more information on how to effectively write articles for article marketing purposes, visit Article Content Provider.
By
allen on September 29th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | No Comments »
Sean R. Mize knows article marketing. I agree with all of this advice, but as a small business owner you may be thinking that you can’t increase the number of articles you publish because you have a limited budget. I totally understand. You have to think about your budget, obviously. But if you can increase your article distribution efforts as he suggests and do so within your budget then I highly recommend it.
Powerful Article Marketing - Revealed - 5 Fresh Ways to Accelerate Your Article Marketing
By Sean R Mize
Gone are the days when small ebusiness owners did not have the means to popularize their website without hurting their pockets. Today, thanks to the advent of article marketing, anyone have a fair chance of making it big online. As long as they do the process right, they can be assured of great page ranking (due to the increased number of inbound links), expert status online and improved sales and revenue.
Here’s how you can accelerate your article marketing:
1. Know your readers. Having a solid idea about your potential clients will help you quickly realize your marketing goals. Through this, you can easily adjust all the elements that you are using to ensure that your content is targeted to their needs and demands.
2. Impress your readers. You will need to do this as it is the only way to make sure that these people will click on your resource box. Make them feel that you are really good on what you do and that you are an expert on your chosen niche by giving them information that are highly relevant to their needs and demands.
3. Be confident. One of your main goals in distributing your articles is to gain the trust of your potential clients. This will not happen if you sound skeptical about the information that you are sharing. That is why, it is very important that you always talk in an authoritative manner. But be careful not to alienate your readers. You must still write using friendly and conversational tone.
4. Volume is the key. If you want to speed up the process of realizing your marketing goals, I highly recommend that you consider multiplying the number of your articles. This is not only to offer your readers with more information but also to dramatically boost the number of your backlinks that can help you in securing a great page ranking on major search engines.
5. Keep it short and simple. Most online users are not willing to spend their precious time reading articles online. They will be happy if you can offer them the information they need in as little time as possible. You’ll generate more attention online if you can make your articles relatively shorter but loaded with useful information. Ensure that they are easy to understand so your readers will be able to grasp the message that you are trying to get across the first time that they read your content.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide’
Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building
Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_R_Mize
Many of our customers use a double-marketing strategy. They start a blog to promote their website and compliment that effort with article marketing. This approach allows the business owner to build solid links and drive traffic to their website quicker and more effectively over time.
At any rate, we agree that article marketing is one of the most effective online marketing techniques and I wouldn’t undergo any online marketing strategy without it.
By
allen on September 26th, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing, Article Writing | No Comments »
Before you start writing articles you should do a little keyword research first. You want to come up with a good list of keywords - at least 200 or 300. That’s because you’re going to write a lot of articles. You might as well have your list laid out.
After compiling your list of keywords, start writing. See if you can write 10 articles a day. If you can write 10 articles a day and distribute them to as many directories as possible then you can drive traffic to your website. Can’t do 10? Do 5. Can’t do that? Do 3. Or 1.
The point is, the more you do the more you increase your chances of success. But before you can write you need a keyword list because each article needs to be optimized around a single keyword. Make your list first then check it to make sure your keywords are good ones. Never be afraid to add more keywords if you have to, or take away any that aren’t relevant. It’s important that your keyword list be a good one.
Learn more about article marketing from the pros.
By
allen on September 25th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing | No Comments »
NameCritic says, “Gotta love a good blog contest.” Actually, I love a bad one, but I’m just trying to be funny.
Seriously, his example of John Chow is a good one. John Chow built a blog media empire essentially by throwing contests, offering blog reviews, and hyping up his celebrity status. I don’t know if John Chow uses articles to promote his blog contests, but it’s a good way to get the word out about your contest and it’s not as expensive as PPC.
Learn more about article marketing.
By
allen on September 24th, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing, Article Writing | 1 Comment »
The following article marketing practices, if you engage in them, can kill your article marketing efforts. Engage in these practices at your own peril:
- Write articles that are obviously blatant advertising messages. Articles are not to be straightforward advertising articles. If they are, many article directories will reject them out of hand.
- Include links within the body of your articles. Some directories are OK with this, but most are not. You shouldn’t promote websites within the body of articles, particularly if those sites are yours.
- Don’t include too many links in your author resource box. You’ll be rejected for sure.
- Excessive profanity. Profanity, if used, should be very sparingly, but you should probably stay away from it altogether. Some article directories will not publish articles with even light profanity and for most businesses just a little bit is too much. Think family friendly.
- Trashing the competition. There’s no need to go negative. Trash talk might work in politics, but in business it will just give you a bad reputation.
- Articles too short. If you go below 300 words, and 400 words for many directories, then you’ll be rejected.
- Writing too long. Many directories will reject articles if they are too long. 700 words is usually enough, but you should never write more than 1,000 words for an article for mass distribution.
- Excessive HTML. Some article directories frown on any HTML, but those that do allow HTML in the body of article will only allow so much of it. Don’t go overboard with your HTML.
Article marketing should be about what you know, not getting the sale. You are not offering a sales pitch, you are offering your knowledge. Give it away and they will come. Article marketing builds trust.
By
allen on September 23rd, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing, Article Submissions | No Comments »
There are two ways you can make the best of article marketing opportunities. The mass marketing way and the quality backlink way. There are pros and cons to doing it either way and I recommend them both depending on your own personal goals and the nature of the website you are promoting.
Mass Marketing Through Articles
This is the most popular method of article marketing and has been around for a long time. With this method you essentially write as many articles as you can and distribute them everywhere you can. You are simply going for numbers and the goal is to get your articles picked up by as many publishers as possible in order to build solid back links to your website. The problem with this kind of mass marketing with articles is that it takes a long time to build real quality back links. Even if you distribute 10 articles a day to hundreds of article websites over an extended period of time, if you are in a specialty niche then it will take a while to build good links. The more specialized your niche, the longer it will take. If your product or service has broad mass appeal then you can benefit from this method tremendously.
The Quality Backlink Method
When it comes to backlinks, quality is better than quantity. The mass marketing way of article marketing is good for building quantity and while some of your links will undoubtedly be high quality links, it is sheer logic to assume that many of them will be mediocre at best. Still, a mediocre link is better than no link at all. But if I had my choice between having 10 rock solid optimally awesome links and 100 mediocre links then I’ll take the 10 awesome links.
The way to go about building quality links through article marketing is to spend a lot of time constructing great articles. You should do that with the mass marketing method as well, but too many marketers simply write mediocre articles and then distribute them through directories and wonder why it doesn’t work. Great articles get published.
When you write a great article then it will get published no matter what method of marketing you use. But with the quality backlink method of article marketing you are targeting the publisher directly. Instead of using article distribution services or uploading your articles to directories, you find high quality websites with a strong reputation and authority in your niche and submit your articles to them for publishing. When those websites publish your articles then you get high quality backlinks. You don’t need as many of those links as you do the mediocre mass marketing links you build through directories, but it does take more concentrated time and energy to do this right.
For The Most Effective Marketing,
Use Both Methods
While I would recommend the quality backlink method over the mass marketing method for sites with a narrow specialty niche, you still should use both methods for the most effective marketing. No matter how narrow your niche is you will still need backlinks. Yes, quality backlinks are better than mediocre backlinks, but mediocre backlinks are better than no backlinks and a good mixture of both high quality and mediocre backlinks will propel your site in the search rankings much more quickly.
Want to ensure a good marketing plan? Use both article marketing methods and be aggressive.
By
allen on September 22nd, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Submissions | No Comments »
Do you use automatic submission software to distribute your articles to article directories? There is a huge problem with this software, namely, that you run the risk of your articles being rejected by a number of the directories that you submit to.
First, you have to program your username and password into the software for every article directory. That takes time. But if the script in the software is just slightly off in any way then many of the passwords won’t work or you won’t get signed in properly. But the significant issue with using most automatic submission software is that many article directories are capable of detecting submissions from the software and automatically reject them.
You are must better off distributing your articles manually as you have total control over the distribution process. If you are going to use any type of automated process then you are better off using a service like iSnare, which charges a nominal fee to distribute your articles to thousands of sites simultaneously. The sites that are on iSnare’s distribution list all had to sign up to be on the list so you know they are good sites. If those sites go down for any reason then iSnare deletes them from the list. Your automatic submission software will not do that.
Learn more about getting your articles
submitted to article directories.
By
allen on September 19th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | No Comments »
You know you need articles. You don’t have the time to write them all. You decide to hire a ghostwriter to help you. How many articles can you afford to write?
If you’re looking for a sure-fire formula to help you know how much to spend on article marketing, I’m not sure there is one. You can determine a marketing budget then allocate a percentage of your budget to article marketing. A lot of it based on assumptions. Some things you need to consider when coming up with an allocation number for your article marketing budget are:
- How much does a single unit of your product or service sell for?
- What is your profit margin per unit sold not including marketing?
- How many units do you need to sell to justify your total marketing expense?
- How much traffic can you reasonably expect to get from your article marketing efforts?
- What percentage of your traffic converts to sales through organic search?
- What percentage of your traffic converts from paid search?
- Can you afford to take a loss on your article marketing to stay competitive? If so, how much can you afford to lose?
If you are a marketing agency or PR firm and you have clients who want to consider article marketing along with their other marketing programs then you’ll already have a handle on how to measure some of these stats.You just have to take the step of incorporating article marketing into the mix. If you are a small business owner who handles his own marketing then there may be more of a challenge for you in measuring your stats. Remember, it isn’t all about how much money you make, but what are the aggregate effects of your brand in the marketplace?
By
allen on September 18th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Google Knol | No Comments »
Since its inception, Google Knol has been billed as article marketing. But is it?
While there are similarities to article marketing, Google Knol is a bit different. First, it’s not a directory so publishers don’t typically go there for articles to publish in their e-zines and on their websites. But you can build links through Google Knol.
Some marketers have compared it to Squidoo and HubPages. That may be more accurate, in which case, it isn’t article marketing so much as it is reputation marketing. The purpose is to establish yourself as an expert on a certain topic by providing links and resources about that topic. Those resources could be your own or someone else’s properties, but they’ve got to be helpful resources for your target market. But Google Knol is different from Squidoo in one aspect - you don’t really want to include resources from other people too much.
With Google Knol, you’re better off making your links point to your website so that you can get the inbound link juice from them (not to mention the traffic). That’s the real benefit to Google Knol and I think it’s a great benefit.
To read a great Google Knol on article marketing, click here.
By
allen on September 17th, 2008
Posted in Article Writing | No Comments »
What’s the deal, anyway? Closing the deal with article marketing means one of two things:
- Click throughs from your article resource box
- And a publisher picking up your article for their website or e-zine
Here are 4 article structures that you can use that are sure-fire ways to get at least one of those results from your articles:
- Top 10 list - People love lists. Provide a top 10 list of _____________. Fill in the blank for a niche appropriate topic.
- How To … - Everyone wants to learn how to do something. You have the answer. Share it.
- Why ________________ Works Better Than _______________ - Contrast two ideas, strategies, or products and tell why one is better than the other. This works really well when the one you recommend is not as well known as the more popular one you don’t, or is new on the market. For instance, “Why Product X Works Better than Microsoft Excel.”
- ____ Ways To … - Numbers work. They’re specific. They tell a story. It doesn’t matter what number you use, but pick a number and make a list of ways to do something that is important to your niche.
Now, go and write those articles you’ve been thinking about. When you’re ready to distribute them let us know.
