All Entries Tagged With: "article distribution"

Article Distribution – What do you use?

The days of writing an article and submitting it to thousands of article directories is gone. Now we have Squidoo Lenses, Google Knol Pages, HubPages and more. What are some of the ways you distribute the articles you write?

Article Highlight: The Importance of Article Distribution Services

A Look At Article Writing And Distribution Services

By: Art Penz

Article distribution services are becoming quite popular and lucrative businesses on the internet. Thousands upon thousands of articles move around the web daily, from the writer to the services to the buyers. These buyers, generally website owners, spend thousands of dollars a year to buy the services, most of which, if not all, are posted for reading and viewing by the general public.

But those articles just don’t materialize out of thin air, like the unknowing might think. Instead, those articles that support every aspect of internet business and information are written by people like us – the “internet writer”. Take pride in what you do because not everyone can do what we do. If they could there wouldn’t be such a huge opportunity for us.

Those of us who do write material for the internet work very hard to produce quality content for the millions of people who read it. We can sometimes spend hours researching and learning things we know nothing about, but have an interest in the subject and sharing it with others. And then, we can spend even more time writing the thoughts of what we learned, shaping words, grammar, and punctuation, into a linguistic work of art that brings clarity to the world around us. Funny thing is however, for all that effort and care we invest in our craft we rarely receive more than pennies in compensation for a single piece. But we can change that.

As every writer knows, the more material you write and circulate the more money you will make. Each of us also knows that we make very little money from only one sale of an article, especially when it comes to internet article writing as compared to article writing for a magazine. However, we also know that we can increase that amount when we get exposure and sell many articles. If you are an author wanting more exposure, along with getting your material widely distributed to increase revenue, then article distribution services may be the answer for you.

There are many different article distribution services that a writer of any subject or target audience can find useful. For writers just starting out who don’t have much of a budget, there are companies that offer free distribution services. Most of these free distribution sites have an extensive list of categories to which you can submit your articles to. In addition to the distribution of your articles being free, some will also provide proofreading, SEO critique, and a biography page, and other services as well.

For authors who don’t mind spending a little cash to increase their revenue there are article distribution services that you can subscribe to. Some subscriptions can be purchased for less than twenty dollars a month for unlimited submissions, while others are much more. Many of them boast an article directory listing in excess of 500 directories with a fully automated system for submitting your articles along with status monitoring tools.

Distribution services are another way for us writers to get more visibility and generate more compensation for what our material is really worth. But please, before signing up for any marketing solution, check the company out as there are some who are copycats of other companies and may not deliver on the services they say will.

Article Source: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit

The Author is the owner/operator of several successful article distribution services. Also offering a completely automatic article submitter. More info and resources can be found at www.article-hut.com

Read more great articles just like this about article marketing.

Article Marketing Secret: Who Is Your Target Market?

Many people question as to what topic they should choose to write their articles… Fortunately, the short answer is simple… Write articles that appeal to your target market. But what does that mean exactly?

I always pose this set of three questions, when I am talking to clients about what they should write about:

1. What do you sell?
2. Who is most likely to buy what you are selling?
3. How can you “answer a question” or “solve a problem” to help those people who are likely to buy what you are selling?

What Do You Sell?

Maybe you sell widgets, cell phones, car parts, or marketing services… It does not matter what you sell… There will always be a topic that you can write your articles about.

Do keep in mind that the point of article marketing is not to directly sell your products, but rather to educate, inform, or entertain your reading audience. So long as you stick to the idea of educating, informing, or entertaining your readers, you will never have a shortage of people who want to read the articles you write.

However, if you keep your focus on trying to overtly sell your products or services in your “article” copy, then it will be difficult to find publishers who WANT to publish what you have written.

This is important to note, in that publishers NEED content, but publishers tend to be very picky about the content that they want to share with their readers. In order for a publisher to become or remain profitable, he or she must always serve the desires of his or her readers. And readers do not want to be sold to, preached to, or criticized. Instead, readers want to improve their lot in this life and solve the problems that they face.

If you keep the needs of the publisher foremost in your mind, and the wants of the reader, then article marketing is a great tool that can help you to earn thousands of dollars.

If you lose focus of what publishers and readers want, then all you can hope for is a few links from your articles, from a few websites that very few people visit or read.

Who Is Most Likely To Buy What You Are Selling?

Just because you sell cars does not mean that anyone who has a drivers’ license is in your target market. Let us put this statement in perspective.

• If you sell $2000 cars, most of the people in your target market are the poor – including those in poverty and students.
• If you sell $10,000 cars, your market is mostly families in middle-class America. Occasionally, you will find the college kid coming to your store to buy a car for college, and sometimes you will see a bunch of tire kickers who can only pray to get financed.
• If you sell brand new cars, your target market will again differ by what kinds of vehicles you sell. A Cadillac-buyer is different from the SUV-buyer and the economy-car buyer.

There is not a car dealership anywhere in the world that tries to target its advertising to everybody with a pulse and a drivers’ license. It just does not happen. Either the dealership talks about its available cars and the benefits of owning a specific car, or the dealership points out that they can finance anyone.

Once you understand who is most likely to buy what you are selling, then figuring out what to write about has been made much easier.

Help Your Readers Solve A Problem

Before you start writing your article, you should try to get into the heads of the people most likely to buy what are selling. Those people as a general rule have common problems for which they seek solutions.

One way to get a handle on what those problems might be is to review the email correspondence and phone calls you have taken from your clients. If you read that email all at the same time, certain questions will be asked over and again. In fact, you might even have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website that you can reference at this point in the brainstorming session.

Your email and phone correspondence and the FAQ page on your website can lead you to a better understanding of the kinds of questions your customers are always needing to be answered for them.

Once you have achieved the understanding of what problems your customers seek to have solved for them, then you have to come to the magic formula for writing articles that find wide publication and a large readership.

In your article, present your readers with the questions that people have, and then present answers to the questions and show people how to solve their problems.

In doing so, publishers who have heard the same questions you have heard will be strongly inclined to publish your articles. And when publishers agree to publish your articles, you will be able to reach the publishers’ readers and a huge network of already targeted people who are very likely to buy what you are selling.

Understanding The Mechanics Of Article Marketing

When you write your articles, it is important to remember a few key points while writing the articles. Those key points are:

• The title serves to get your article opened, so it needs to be good.
• The body of the article answers questions and sells readers on your credibility in the marketplace.
• The article should be easy to read, and it should easily carry the reader to your About The Author information at the end of the article.
• Once at your Resource Box (About the Author information), the role of the Resource Box is not to sell your products or services, but to get the reader to visit your website, where the real selling will take place.

Using the formula that I have outlined here, you are sure to find success with your article marketing endeavors.

Sure, I know some people might be thinking that the only reason for article marketing is building links, so all this extra effort would be unnecessary. But let me tell you something that I learn from time-to-time…

Did you know that if you write an article that gets published in a large newsletter that you can in fact earn $10,000 plus in sales from that single article? This is a lesson that I have learned more times than I can count. And to be honest, it is a lesson I like to learn.

Consider this… You can spend a few dollars and very little time to create an article that will generate a few back links, hopefully helping you to rank in the search engines for your target keywords. Or, you can spend a few more dollars and a little more time and create an article that could generate back links for the search engines AND find a wider audience for your article in newsletters – newsletters that could potentially deliver thousands of visitors to your website and generate thousands of dollars in sales in the next couple weeks. Which strategy makes more sense to you?

If you are wondering if I practice what I preach, then read this article again and then see my resource box below. I provide article distribution services to my customers, and my customers frequently ask me what they should write about in their articles and how to best construct those articles to reach a wider audience, and more specifically, their target audience. If I have answered these questions to your satisfaction, then visit my website and let me help you to promote your articles too.

About The Author

Bill Platt has been writing about article marketing and SEO for a number of years. If you have written an article that you feel is good enough to get publication in a major newsletter or website, then you owe it to yourself to use Bill’s article distribution service at http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ If you are interested in learning about coop article marketing, then visit Bill’s newest website: http://www.sponsorarticles.com/

The 2 Ways To Go About Article Marketing

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.

The Problem With Automatic Submission Software

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.