All Entries Tagged With: "articles"
Promote Your Local Business With Articles
There are a number of ways to promote your local business online. Article marketing is one way. But to promote a local business with articles is slightly different than promoting a web business with articles. Your local business has a physical presence and you expect to get new business walking into your storefront. Well, how can articles help with that?
There are a few ways. Here are some ideas:
- Find other local websites and offer to write guest articles. When your articles appear on those sites you’ll get a short bio and a link back to your site from the other local site. Make sure that the link uses text that associates your business with a specific keyword and a geographic term. This will help you with your local optimization efforts.
- Write articles and mass distribute them through article directories online. You are not really concerned that these articles deliver more traffic to your website. You are concerned that the articles be top-notch quality and usable by others in your industry no matter where they are located. A website owned by a business 3,000 miles away could use your article because they know that you are not a direct competitor. But the link in your author resource box (bio) pointing back to your website will provide you with search engine marketing benefits. Again, use a keyword-rich anchor text that is locally and geographically targeted for maximum optimization.
- Guest write articles for other websites within your niche that are not in the same area as you. This method is a combination of the above. Since the other website is not in the same local area as you it likely will not deliver much new business to you, but you will get the inbound links from the other site, which helps you in your optimization. As always, use geographically matched terms along with the proper keywords in your link anchor text.
- Use blogs within your industry, both local and non-local, to build links by commenting on blog posts that you find interesting. This isn’t article marketing, but it does help you build links.
- Put up an article page on your website. If you publish your articles first before you mass distribute them then your website will appear first in search results for key phrases in those articles. You can then point links to those articles when you do any blog commenting. The best way to do that is to link to an article that is relevant to a post on the blog.
- Forum posting is another often overlooked marketing strategy by local businesses. You can network with others in your line of business in other geographic locations. Just like with blogs, you can link to your articles in forum posts. The danger is in being seen as a spammer, but if you do it right then you won’t be spamming the forums or blogs and you’ll get real value.
- Publish your articles on your Twitwall. If you use Twitter, and I recommend that you do, then you automatically have a Twitwall. You can publish your articles on your Twitwall and link them back to your website.
There are numerous ways to employ article marketing for local small businesses. Use your imagination and I’m sure you can come up with a way to market your business through articles.
Can Free Content Make You Money Online?
Every now and then I read an article that is so astoundingly off the mark it’s incredible that someone took the time to write it. Today’s featured article is such an article. Here’s a real gem with my commentary:
Make Money With Free Content
Many webmasters will turn to free content directories to get traffic and earn money with their articles. If you are a new affiliate for companies, you might consider building small niche websites to draw visitors to your site and help you make revenue.
This will not effectively build a website or revenue. It may be the only viable option if you don’t have a big budget, but it can be harmful to your business efforts for several reasons.
We’re off to a rocking start. Free content is just that – free content. And you usually get what you pay for. But there is a distinct purpose to it that serves a well-defined benefit. It’s a benefit that this article fails to elucidate.
The author here is attempting to make a point that gets lost. Only passingly does he mention affiliate marketing while trying to warn of a dangerous method of promoting your affiliate links. His principle is one that I agree with – don’t use free article content to promote your affiliates. That’s ineffective. But that isn’t what he’s saying here. It appears that this article is saying don’t use free content at all, which is reallly bad advice.
The idea to build small niche websites to promote affiliate programs is a solid concept. That Sakamoto patently rejects the idea as a revenue generation model is quite precarious because there are many successful affiliate marketers doing just that. But not with free content. That is the point I think he is trying to make, but his manner of communication makes it difficult for that message to get across.
Problem #1: Search engines punish sites that have content that duplicates other sites. If you have your content on multiple sites, your search engine rankings will suffer.
This just isn’t true. The search engines don’t punish sites that use duplicate content. They just don’t reward them. And there’s a difference.
Let this point stick in your head: There is no duplicate content penalty.
Google’s policy clearly states that it will attempt to identify the original content and index only that. If the original article appears on your website or blog and is dated such that Google can clearly identify it as the first publication then that content will get indexed. You can then submit your articles to directories and have it appear on other websites. If you are a publisher of an article that has appeared elsewhere before you won’t be penalized. Just don’t expect that article to gain search engine rankings while on your site.
It is important to have a high ranking in search engines to increase traffic flow to your site. Without visitors, you can’t earn revenue. Improving the search engine optimization of your site is the key to getting a high enough ranking that brings in lots of customers.
There are a variety of ways to drive traffic to your website. Using search engine organic rankings is only one of them, a highly recommended one, but only one. Savvy marketers use all the tools at their disposal to drive traffic and rank websites. That includes search engine optimization, but don’t be fooled into believing that’s the only option you have.
Problem #2: It is hard enough to get visitors to click on your site, but getting a high ranking on search engine results is only part of the way to get customers to your site. The other half of the problem is getting your visitors to click on your affiliate links. Unoriginal content lessens the chance that people will want to click on the links on your site. People are more likely to buy things from a reputable and knowledgeable source on the subject.
OK, this is true. Your visitors are less likely to click your affiliate links if you use unoriginal content. But if you use article content from directories as additional content, not your main content, you can still build credibility. Don’t let the free content overshadow your original content. Use it sparingly and discriminately.
Originality is crucial. If you just copy material from other sites, you will be revealed as a fraud and lose any credibility on the subject. Fewer website visitors will want to click on your links.
That’s a little harsh. If you have no original content on your site then it will be difficult to convince readers to click your links. But using free content as an adjunct to your original content won’t cause you to lose credibility if you do it the right way.
Problem #3: Free content is often distributed with the requirement that you place the author’s byline under the article. Most author bylines include links, though, creating a problem. If a reader reads something interesting, they may decide to click on the byline of the author, and not your affiliate links. This is why sites offer free content – so they can put their name out there and gain popularity. Don’t use this content, though, because it may cause you to lose profitable visitors to your site.
The author here clearly understand the purpose of article marketing, but that last sentence is laughable. I nearly fell off my chair. The author is distributing his own articles freely through article directories in hopes that other publishers will use them and give him back links, but he tells you explicitly not to use those kinds of articles. Including his? Including this one? Does he lose credibility with that statement? Yes. But not because it is free content, but because he wants you to ignore his own advice and make a special case just for him. That’s a big no, no.
These three problems can cause a significant decline in revenue, just by using free content out of article directories. If you can afford to buy original content, do that. If you can’t afford it, write your own content and then seek the services of professionals after you’ve made enough money.
I agree. If you can write your own articles then that is the most preferred way to get content on your website whether it is an affiliate site, a service site, a site that sells its own products, or is a made for AdSense site. Original content is always best.
BUT, if you can’t write your own or don’t have the time then hire a ghostwriter. As a third alternative, free content can be useful, especially if you are putting together an AdSense site. But for affiliate sites, original content is the best.
Do you have your own original articles or rewrite contents? Submit your original content or article for free. Visit us online at Article Directory Online or Article Fan
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenji_Brian_Sakamoto
I really don’t know what to make of an article directory owner that tells you not to use free content from article directories. But that’s what this article is. I’m scratching my head.
There are a ton of article directories you can submit your free content to. Don’t be afraid to use them. And don’t be afraid to use free content for your own site if you make it work for you. Do it smartly it can pay off.
Should Sales Reps Use Articles For Promotion?
Sales representatives have a myriad of ways of promoting themselves, online and off line. Savvy sales professionals can and should consider all the ways that Internet marketers use to build their incomes. And that includes article marketing.
How can an independent sales rep use article marketing to increase their business? The same way real estate agents do it. Start by building your own website.
Your website should be a presentation of what you have to offer your target audience. It need not be branded with your company’s branding images and messages, though it can be. Many real estate agents do this quite well. That’s a decision that you’ll have to make for your own individual situation, however.
But let’s say you decide to build a website around your product niche, widgets. You sell widgets, all kinds of widget. Automatic widgets, manual widgets, dual widgets, widgets with wheels, widgets with training wheels, circular widgets, and about 15 other varieties of widgets. Why not just build a widget website? You could, if you were really enterprising, build one around your company brand that also presented you as a sales rep and built another one that focused on generic widgets without the company branding element. But let’s keep this simple.
So you build a website about widgets. You don’t have to mention your company on this website. You are trying to help your target audience decide which is the best type of widget for them. So you have a page featuring each of the types of widgets you have to offer where each page tells your site visitors what the features of the widget that page is designed to highlight. After the website is built you need to promote it and you can do that with articles.
So you sit down with your list of keywords related to widgets and you write articles. Lots of articles. Or you could have a ghostwriter write them for you. But once they are all written you begin to distribute them to article directories. Over time, those articles will build inbound links to your website and drive targeted traffic. The next thing you know, your selling widgets online. Sound good? Learn more.
Article Title Optimization
There are three really important things to consider for writing article titles:
- Getting the reader’s interest
- Search engine optimization
- Keeping it short
None of these are more important than the others. They are all important. You must get your reader’s attention or they won’t read your article and visit your website. Use words that will spark a reaction. Trigger words, I call them. These are words that convey an emotion and elicit a response from your reader. Promise a benefit that you deliver on in your article.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is really simple for article titles. Use your keyword in the first three words of your article. That’s about it.
Keep it short. Don’t just write your keyword and stop there. An article titled “Basket Weaving” isn’t going to attract any readers. What about basket weaving? You have to tell your reader why reading your article is important. Remember Rule No. 1?
The key to keeping your article short is to focus on SEO and reader interest in as few words as possible. Tell your reader why he should read your article, make it optimized for search engines, and keep it short. If you can do all three then you can write good article titles.
Can Articles Generate Leads?
Articles are one of the best lead generation tools online. Most companies doing business online are overlooking the opportunities provided by article marketing. You’re not just writing articles that sit out there in a vacuum.
Article marketing works because well-written articles that are written as lead generation tools are written using keywords that are important to your business. Because they are well optimized for search engine traffic they will attract targeted visitors to your website and generate new leads for your business.
But it isn’t enough just to write one article and be done. A good article marketing strategy involves writing articles for a long term strategy of lead generation. It is best if you can submit one article a day. Ten is better, but you have to do what you can afford for your budget. That means, the more you do it the more effective it will be for you. Articles are great lead generation tools.
