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 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.
By
allen on September 16th, 2008
Posted in Article Writing | No Comments »
I just love articles that make outlandish claims. Claims that make no sense. Claims that are easily refuted. Claims that can’t be backed up by the facts or with logic. Why do I like these articles? Because I don’t write them, but my competition does.
I found an article online about article creation software and, of course, the author is extolling the virtues of such software. Word to the wise: This kind of software has no virtue. Seriously. None.
Besides the fact that article creation software doesn’t work the way it promises to (I’ve never seen one that could write half as good an article as the worst human writer - unless that writer is Trent Dixon), there are other problems with Trent Dixon’s article on the subject. Firstly, don’t get sucked into the false claim that article creation software will save you time. If you have an ounce of self respect, it will cost you time. Otherwise, you’ll be distributing the crappiest articles online.
But take a look at this claim and tell me what you think is wrong with it (besides bad grammar):
Article creation tools is certainly and probably the best software that I have bought. Downloading and using article writing software to automate the writing and create unique content is easy. This software is reducing my research time and effort by at least 1000%.
Really? 1,000%? See, how much would that be, exactly?
Let’s suppose it takes me 1 hour to research an article. It doesn’t. But let’s pretend. If I reduce that 1 hour by 50%, I’ve now spent 30 minutes researching the article. If I reduce it by 75%, I’ve now spent just 15 minutes researching the article. If I reduce my research time by 100% (the maximum allowed by law and common sense) then I’ve effectively reduced my research time to 0. But what if I reduce it by 1,000%? Let’s see, what’s 60 X 10? 600. Subtract that from 60 … figure … think … figure … think … double-check math … yes, that’s right … a whopping negative 540. So Trent Dixon spends -540 minutes - that’s 540 minutes below 0 - researching articles? Wow. Sign me up now please! I’d love to have a product that not only saves me time, but gives it back to me as a rebate.
Do you want to buy Trent Dixon’s software now?
Don’t make outrageous claims in your article that anyone with a brain can figure out are ridiculous faster than it takes you to write them. You’ll just look like an idiot.
By
allen on September 10th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article SEO, Article Writing, Author Resource Box | 4 Comments »
Some folks are still under the false impression that keyword density is important. It’s not and it never has been.
The Definition Of Keyword Density
Keyword density is defined as the percentage of targeted keywords to your total number of words in content. So if your targeted keyword is “bacon bits” and you write a 1,000-word article using the targeted keyword 20 times, your keyword density will be 2%. Many gurus say the optimal keyword density is somewhere between 1% and 7%, the optimal varying depending on which guru you speak to, but 1% is the low and 7% is the high end of the advice given.
There are several problems with this approach to article writing:
- No. 1, if you write naturally then any well-written article will fall within that range of keyword use
- The focus on keywords seems wise because search engines rank pages for keywords
- Note that search engines rank pages for keywords, not according to keywords - not a semantic delineation
- Search engines give weight to a number of factors on a page and off-page and the weight given to each of the factors is different and could fluctuate from one day, week, or month to the next
- No one knows the weight given to all the factors on any given day
In short, search engine ranking factors are a mystery. No one knows what they are completely. We can guess what they are based on past experience, but since the search engines are always changing their ranking algorithms we can never fully know the complete picture.
On ranking pages for keywords vs. according to them, when you type “bacon bits” into the search field at your favorite search engine and get a list of web pages for that keyword, you will likely get results that are close, somewhat close, and not even close to what you are looking for. Even a web page about interstellar space travel could show up on the results page if the keyword is used on the page. Inbound link anchor text is as important a ranking factor as actual keyword usage and all you have to do is Google “About Us” to see this in action.
Click on the search results for PCWorld’s About Us page. There are 279 words in the body content of that page. Exactly 0 of those words are the phrase “about us”, yet the result is the fourth from the top on the Google search results page. If I use the browser find function for the phrase then I’ll find only one usage of that phrase on the page and it’s on the bottom menu bar, which means it will appear on every page of the PCWorld website. This page’s keyword density is - drumroll - 0. Pretty important, huh?
So How Does Keyword Density Apply To Article Marketing?
So how does this relate to articles that likely won’t appear on your own website. First, you have to understand the goal and importance of article marketing. The goal is to promote your website, building inbound links, and drive traffic to your site. You are not building on-page SEO benefits. Furthermore, your link building benefits do not exist within the article itself, but in the author resource box at the end of the article. This is where you’ll put your inbound links.
Let’s assume you write a bang-up author resource box with one good anchor text link to the page that you want to benefit. Does that mean the rest of your article is not important? No, not all.
You want your article to be well-written and reader-friendly. That is, you want readers to be able to get some benefit out of it. Otherwise, it’s a pretty useless article. It can be SEOd to the hilt and have perfect keyword density, but if readers within your niche don’t find the article of any value then it’s a perfectly useless article. The article, above all, must have value. Even an article with sub-optimal keyword density can drive traffic to your website and build you solid inbound links if it provides real value to readers within your niche.
Any article that is deemed a quality article by e-zine publishers, bloggers, and webmasters within your niche may be used by them. Every time a publisher uses your article you’ll get a new inbound link. If your article is SEOd well then the publisher will get the benefits of on-page SEO. You, however, as the writer, will get the benefit of off-page SEO. Neither on-page nor off-page SEO is more important; they must work together to achieve the same benefit for your website. Obviously, on-page SEO must come first or any off-page SEO you strive for will be in vain. Article marketing uses the age-old principle: Help yourself by helping others first.
That said, you should write articles that provide publishers with the best on-page SEO benefits as possible. If you do that then they’ll use more of your articles. You’ll get more links to your website, their readers will get the benefit of your knowledge, and the publishers will get the benefit of highly optimized web content. But what does that mean?
What Highly Optimized Article Content Means
Remember those ranking factors? You aren’t trying to build inbound links to your articles so forget about link building for a moment. A highly optimized article is good “on-page” SEO. That means keywords are important - very important - but not the most important thing. You also need to think about your article title - which is critically more important than keyword density - as well as subheadings within the article, ordered and unordered lists, and font characteristics (bold, italics, etc.).
You don’t want to bold or italicize your keywords just for the sake of adding characteristics that you think the search engines will love. You want to do so when it’s important to the reader. For instance, I like to bold the first sentence of long bullet points in my lists. Or, if I list bullet points followed by an explanation of each point, I like to bold the list item before the explanation to make it stand out to the reader more. While doing that I like to see if I can squeeze a keyword into a couple of those bullet points. Just a strategy that I’ve found that works.
Bottom line: Keyword density is a fake panacea for article optimization illnesses. It is infinitely more important to write an article that is beneficial to the reader, but while doing that it is important to look for ways that you can increase your on-page (ie. internal article) SEO. Density is a small measure for that goal and one that won’t give an accurate telling.
By
allen on September 9th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | No Comments »
Rarely do I ever agree with everything in an article I find at an article directory. But this article is pretty doggone good (and, yes, it IS one ugly website):
Article Writing - Writing Great Content When You Don’t Have Anything to Say
By David Hardin
So, you would love to write great articles, product reports and e-books, but you don’t have anything to say?
Don’t worry about it!
The “talking heads” on TV earn megabucks giving us more news than we can handle and they don’t know anything. They are reading words written on a teleprompter, probably by someone just like you.
So, how do you write an article, report, or product review without really being an expert? Do what reporters do.
- Ask questions.
- Find the answers.
- Write them down.
I am not being silly here. I am dead serious. On any given day, reporters on every newspaper in the world face this same dilemma. They must cover stories on subjects they know nothing about.
They have to:
- gather information,
- separate fact from fiction,
- put the facts of the story into a logical sequence,
- write the article so a sixth grader can understand it,
- submit that article before the deadline,
and do it all over again the next day.
How do they do it?
First year journalism students learn about the 5 Ws”
- Who?
- What?
- Where?
- When?
- Why?
Answer those five questions and you will have written a terrific article, review, or report.
Here is exactly how this applies to your niche market.
Information seekers - and that includes pretty much everyone online, are not looking for eloquence. They are looking for easy to understand answers to their questions. Don’t try to dazzle them with your vocabulary, just talk to them in plain English.
If you are writing to your subscribers, ask them what they want to hear. That may sound obvious, but a lot of marketers seem to have ego problems, or insecurities that will not let them admit that they don’t know everything.
You can ask your subscribers what they want to learn, even if you have a list of thousands. You don’t have to go to each one, individually. Send an e-mail broadcast to some, or all of them, asking for their help.
Another, even better way is to send them a survey. There are several survey programs available including an excellent, FREE one on GOOGLE docs.
Just type in http://docs.google.com . Not only can you ask your subscribers questions, you can analyze the results, just like the big boys do.
Your subscribers will respect you for it. They will appreciate the fact that you are interested in them as real people, not
just names on a list.
Here is what you will probably find…
You will find that about 50% of the people will all be asking the same question. 25% will have another question and 10% will have a third. The remaining 15% will be coming from left field, but will still have some interesting questions.
Now, go to work. Do your homework. Research the top question and respond to your subscribers. Then research and answer the second question and then the third.
By answering your subscribers questions, you will look like a genius. You will build incredible loyalty among your followers.
Then, organize all of those questions and answers and you will have the basis for a lot of good articles and product reports.
Put those articles and reports into PDF format and you will have an e-book entitled “The Answers To Your Top 10 Questions”, that you can sell, or give away.
Everything you write can be recycled this way. You don’t have to start from scratch every time. You can even “steal” from other sources.
Here is how I do it.
I do a lot of Google research. I don’t read every word on every page. If the information looks promising, I highlight, copy and paste it into a word document.
I do this until I think I have enough information to write my article.
Then, I go to the page where all of the clips are stored. I start moving the segments around until they are in a logical order.
Then I rewrite, using my own words. It is easy. Try it, you’ll like it.
Free web design, free audio/video programs and free list building tools are some of the subjects David Hardin covers in his “Write Yourself Rich” program at The Ugly Web Site at http://www.davehardinonline.com Go sign up for his FREE “Not Just A Sales pitch” newsletter.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Hardin
Our ghostwriters employ these same techniques to write articles for our hundreds of clients every day. If you don’t write your own articles then we’d like to write them for you. Find out how to save yourself oodles of time by having a ghostwriter write your articles for that ugly website of yours.
By
allen on September 3rd, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing, Google Knol, Hub Pages, Squidoo Lenses | No Comments »
Here’s a good article on Hub pages. If you want to get banned from Hub pages, this is real good advice.
Hub Pages - Here’s a Sure Way to Get Your Hub Page Banned
By Donna Abreu
Hub pages are similar to Squidoo lenses and blogs. There are differences though, so let me outline those for you as well as give you some tips to save you time and effort of learning the long way!
1. When you first publish your Hub (from the Edit mode, there is a Publish button), it takes a couple of days for them to approve it. It was not super obvious to me that the page was “in review” and not yet published.
So when you start wondering what happened to your Hub page, it’s probably still in review.
2. When you “test” your hub, you have to be sure you are logged out of your Hub pages account to perform a “true” test. I was logged in after I first created my Hub page.
And so when I went to my hub page, it appeared as if it was published. But it really wasn’t! Others could not see it. I could only see it because I was still logged in without realizing it.
3. You can’t have many links going out from your Hub page. One url at the beginning to your domain, and one at the end. That’s about it, or it won’t be approved!
4. Overall, building a Hub page is not as easy to build as a Squidoo lens. The interface is not as easy to use, and you can only insert pictures in between the other modules (such as a text module). So, your picture can’t be to the right or left of your text.
Also, the image module will only support one picture. So to have multiple pictures, you need to create multiple image modules. This limitation makes it harder to get the layout that you desire.
5. Squidoo lenses and Hub pages can be thought of as blogs on steroids. Try to get in the habit of updating them regularly with new content, such as adding (or replacing) a new video, adding a new post/comment. Ping the site every time you make a change (do it immediately after the change). You can use iPings to do that. The frequent pinging will bring traffic.
For those of you newbies to internet marketing, creating a Squidoo Lens or Hub Page will be much easier and faster than creating a blog. You can do a Word Press blog later on, when you’ve gotten your feet real wet.
If you’re interested in learning about these effective online marketing techniques, I invite you to sign up for my free 7-day bootcamp, where I’ll teach you strategies that you can apply to any online business including network marketing businesses.
To sign up, visit my website: http://NetworkMarketingMastered.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donna_Abreu
I’ve never built a Hub page or Squidoo lens, but the comment above about them being “blogs on steroids” is quite questionable. I highly doubt it. For one thing, if you own a domain name and have a blog on it that is infinitely better than creating content on someone else’s website. The advantage to Hub pages and Squidoo lenses is that those sites are very popular and you might initially have more traffic from those sources than you would from a new blog. The links from Hub pages or Squidoo lenses may or may not be as valuable or more valuable than links from your offsite blog pointing to your website. That depends on several other factors, which we won’t get into here.
I’m not saying that Hub pages and Squidoo lenses don’t have value. They do, but starting out with the idea that they are more valuable than a blog isn’t accurate. You can use these tools in lieu of a blog if you wish, but I would recommend them in addition to your blog. In fact, if you incorporate an offsite blog with a company blog that sits on your company website in conjunction with a Squidoo lens, a Hub page, a Google Knol, and article marketing then you’ve got yourself a pretty good marketing strategy there.
We have clients that have their own Hub pages. If this is something you’d have an interest in pursuing for your company then let us show you how you can incorporate Hub pages, Squidoo lenses, and Google Knols into your article marketing strategy with well-written articles by a ghostwriter.
By
Bill Platt on September 2nd, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | 1 Comment »
Haha! I got you to read this post didn’t I? But really, Geraldo Rivera can teach you something about article marketing… He can teach you “what not to do”.
I don’t know if you took the opportunity to follow the Hurricane Coverage on Fox News or not, but I did. Everytime I watch Geraldo, I am torn between trying to appreciate what he does right, cringing at his commentary, screaming at my TV when he is being a moron, and frankly, being embarrassed for the poor folks he interviews sometimes.
Today’s “Geraldo At Large” program was one that left me embarrassed for Billy (the Corp of Engineers fellow who dove into the Industrial Canal to retrieve the diesel tank floating in the canal at the height of the storm).
Geraldo was simply gushing about how Billy was the newest superhero, while Billy tried to play down his comments. Geraldo talked too much, as usual, and he tooted horns to the point of utter embarrassment, suggesting that he would recommend to President Bush that Billy be given a medal by the President.
The lessons are two-fold.
One, when your audience is too embarrassed to keep paying attention, then you have gone too far. Your audience should never squirm to read what you have written or to listen to what you say. There comes a time in every article where the best thing you can do is to shut up.
Two, no one wants to hear you toot your own horn for the entirety of your presentation, as Geraldo is always quick to do.
The third lesson has nothing at all to do with article marketing. The third lesson is that if you have any sense at all or any fear at all, then you should say “no”, when Geraldo asks you to be his guide or camera man or anything else. Did you see how he sent his camera man right to the edge of the canal, when water was blowing heavily over the wall? OMG. I feel for his support team… That guy is flat nuts! It is one thing when he is a danger to himself in the field, but he pushes his crew into the danger zone far too often.
—
Bill Platt
P.S. Read some of Bill’s other blogs at: Karma SEO and The Phantom Writers Article Marketing Blog.
By
allen on August 27th, 2008
Posted in Article SEO, Article Writing | No Comments »
Keywords, keywords, keywords. Everyone knows what they are, but very few article marketers really know how to make them work. You don’t want to stuff your articles with keywords. Too many article writers are doing that. Instead, you want to stuff your articles with great content and pepper that content with the rose doses of keywords.
What’s that mean exactly?
There’s no optimal keyword density. Let’s just shatter that myth right now. There are good articles and there are lousy articles. Most articles online today are lousy. But just a little bit of work can turn most of those lousy articles into good ones. But how?
First, stop putting your keyword into every sentence. That doesn’t help. If you can’t write a good article without keywords then you’ll write a good one with keywords. The most important thing for any article you write is for it to be a good article with valuable content aimed at your target market. Keywords are there for optimal performance in the search engines.
I’m not saying don’t include keywords at all. I’m saying use them sparingly, but aggressively. Make sure every instance of your keyword counts. Instead of using your exact keyword phrase every time you plop one down, alter it just a little so that you give a variation on the keyword. The search engines will still recognize it as a keyword and your human readers will enjoy the article more. It’s called semantic language optimization, or semantic search metrics. Whatever you call it, it works.
By
allen on August 26th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | No Comments »
It may come as a surprise to some readers that the most important aspect of article marketing is not your list of keywords. Yes, keywords are important of course. You’ve got to optimize your articles to make them useful to publishers. But that’s not where the magic is.
The best articles in the world are articles that convey a sense of authority. The magic is in your authority. The voice behind the words. That’s why it’s always best if you can write your own articles. But what if you don’t have the time or you don’t consider yourself a writer? Well, you can still market yourself through articles.
A quality ghostwriter can help you hone your voice. You can actually enjoy success as an article marketer by having someone else write your articles for you, which you approve before distributing. You get to look over the articles to make sure that they reflect your philosophy. By giving ghostwritten articles your stamp of approval, you are essentially signing off on those articles and every word is an extension of your authority. Successful article marketers understand that and that’s why our business is growing.
By
allen on August 21st, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing | No Comments »
This is what we’ve been teaching for years:
4 Easy Ways You Can Optimize Your Written Articles Besides Article Directories
By Kelvin Lee
Do you know that they are so many things you can do with your articles to drive you traffic?
Do you know that your articles are the most original content provided by you and only you?
Is your articles resting in your computer now after they are submitted to various article directories? (I bet it is for most of you)
Why don’t you put them to best use if it is your most original content created through your hardwork.
Here are the 4 Ways you can optimize the use of your articles
1) Small Reports: You can in fact select some of your articles that are related and compile them into small reports that can be given away to your prospects if they opt-in to your list. All you have to do is to create some links in your report and it will boost your website traffic like crazy.
2) Newsletter: You can also add your articles into your autoresponder as newsletter for your subscribers as it can provide them with great value and eventually build credibility for you.
3) Blog Post: You can use your articles as blog post and then submit your post to social networking site like digg.com to get more exposure. Do not worry, your blog is not going to be penalized by Google for posting articles that you have submitted to article directories.
4) Your product promotion tools: You can use some of your articles as your product promotional tools for your affiliates. You can instruct your affiliates to add one or two of your articles into their autoresponder and send to their list with their affiliate link on. This can in turn help your affiliate boost their sales.
These is what I usually do to my articles after I have submitted them to the article directories and I think you should do the same.
Now put this into practice and you will see the result soon.
Kelvin Lee is the founder of Internet Success Hub and Internet Product Review Club, a platform that provides informative help for internet marketers of all levels. For more Internet Marketing Strategies, audio mini courses as well as internet product reviews, visit us today.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelvin_Lee
Why wait to get started on your article marketing campaign? Drive traffic to your website with well-written articles that are optimized for your keywords.
