All Entries Tagged With: "writing"

You Know… If You Can Speak It, You Can Write It

So often, I hear people say that they do not have the talent or skill to write their own articles. Yet, they speak the English language fluently and can convey a message in a way that not only makes sense, but it is also very convincing.

People seem to make the mistake of believing that writing is somehow different than speaking. It is not.

Where most people make their mistake when trying to write is that they seem to think they need to add a bunch of fancy words to their written words, but it just ain’t so. (smile)

If you write exactly as you speak, then you can be a writer too.

If you can organize your thoughts in such a way as to convey a message to another, then you can be a good writer.

Even if you can’t spell, Microsoft Word and many other applications have built in spell-check. Use the software with the Spell-Checker and you can be sure to sound like you actually can spell.

The worst case scenario should be for you to do your own writing, and then ask someone to edit your work for you.

In the end, the only reason you should consider having someone else do your writing for you would be because you don’t have the time to do it yourself, or you find yourself constantly at odds with writer’s block, unable to decide what story to tell.

If you decide that you simply need or would prefer someone else to do your writing for you, then consider hiring the ghost writers that you can find at both http://www.articlecontentprovider.com and http://www.thephantomwriters.com . These two companies are competitors, but their owners are friends. Both could do you a nice job if you are interested in having someone do your writing for you.

Bill Platt, Stillwater, Oklahoma

Read more of what Bill has to say, by tuning into his other blogs: Karma SEO Blog or The Phantom Writers Blog.

Article Marketing Secrets: The Secret’s Out Of The Bag!

I like finding article marketers who know what they’re talking about. This article from Hendry Lee is a good example of an article that does just what it’s supposed to do:

Article Marketing Secrets – The 4 Components of a Good Article That You Must Not Miss

By Hendry Lee

Not all articles are written the same. Just because you have 1,000 articles submitted around the Internet doesn’t mean that you will get better results than others who only have 500 articles. Lots of factors matter, but here are 4 components that you can’t afford to miss.

I don’t recommend that you sit down in front of the computer trying to make the article perfect so it works better for you. No, far from that, you also need to write lots of articles. Find a balance between quality and quantity. Good article is enough.

My take is you give away good information, one at a time. Here are the 4 criteria for good articles:

1. Good quality
The content must be of good quality. Remember, the key is to have the readers read through the end of the article and see what you have to offer in the resource box. Poor quality content will turn them off before they reach that point.

2. Having personality
Writing conversationally matters. Readers only buy from people they know, like and trust. There are no way you can build that directly online, especially through indirect communication medium such as articles. For that reason, you need to write as if you are having a conversation with the a reader at a time.

This method allows you to build credibility and convey personality instantly via the article.

3. Be able to represent yourself
Articles are your salespersons. They need to be able to represent yourself or your business well. They are communicating with your prospects and customers, so lousy articles are simply not an option.

4. Offer them something to take away
The body content is the place you give away useful information. In the resource box, you offer the readers something to take away when they visit your site. My favorite method is to give them access to special report in exchange for name and email address.

Just because you can sell something in the resource box doesn’t mean you have to do it. Focus on providing value at this point. You want to build the relationship first because that is going to pay multiple times later.

Do you want to learn the secrets about article writing and marketing? If I can drive more than 12,688 unique visitors to my site each month, you can do it too if you know the secrets.

Download your free article marketing strategy guide plus 2 free article templates and other goodies from http://successloop.com/templates.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hendry_Lee

Notice how the title of the article tells you exactly what the article is about. It’s not cute. It’s straightforward, pulls no punches, and you know exactly what you are about to read.

Notice also the writer uses his keyword right off the bat. Right in the first sentence. Then he uses it several times throughout the article. But he always uses his keywords fluently. They aren’t stuffed. They appear in the article naturally. That’s exactly what you want.

Thirdly, the article covers just what the title tells you it will cover. Nothing more. No extraneous excursions into what his pet cat likes or information not related to the article. It’s short enough to hold your attention and not too long. All good qualities of a well-written article.

I also like what the author says about quality versus quantity. You aren’t Ernest Hemingway. Don’t try to write your magnum opus. You are just giving away good information that your reader can use. Giving, then getting. Give before you expect to get and you won’t be disappointed.

Finally, the author doesn’t go for the jugular in the author resource box. He tells you about a free offer. He’s giving you something else before asking you for something. Good marketing. Plain and simple. Article marketing works if you do it the right way.

Start An Article Brainstorming Notebook

Where do you get your ideas for articles from? If you carry a notebook of some sort with you and jot down ideas as they come to you then you’d be able to come up with more ideas for articles. It really isn’t hard. You can come up with article ideas based on every day occurrences that happen in your world.

You can surely come up with an article idea related to your business just talking to people – friends, family, customers. Witness an accident? How can you turn that into an article? See something interesting in your neighborhood that you’ve never seen before? Write it down and come up with a way to tie it to your niche in an article.

If your articles are interesting to read and you are able to creatively communicate how every day events or unusual occurrences and conversations relate to your niche then you will build your credibility and traffic with each article you write.

Article Marketing: How Long Should It Take?

We live in a fast food society. You can drive through McDonald’s and within a few minutes have a burger, fries, and a drink and be on your way to that all important business meeting. E-mail is at your fingertips and you can shoot a message to an associate on the other side of the country that will result in a billion dollar sale within minutes. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?

Yes, it is amazing, but article marketing is not McDonald’s and it isn’t Outlook Express. It does take time. How much time? Well, it depends.

If you write five articles a day for 30 days you’ll do a lot better than if you write one article per day for 150. Same number of articles, but a shorter time period. On the other hand, if you write one high quality article, it will go a lot further than five mediocre articles. So quality is important too.

The most optimized article marketing strategy relies on a combination of quality and quantity. You want your articles to be high quality articles. But you want to write enough of them that they get you some attention as a credible expert within your niche. How many articles is that exactly? I can’t say. But what I can say is when you do it you will know it.

What you need to know about article marketing is there are no short cuts. There is no fast food window that you can drive up to and order instant success. You have to be willing to spend the time to write quality articles, and quality is more important than quantity by the way, and spend the time to write a lot of them. If you are patient and you work hard, or hire someone who is patient and works hard, and has the ability to write quality articles, then your article marketing efforts will go a long way.

Is Keyword Research Necessary For Article Marketing?

Do you really need to do keyword research to conduct proper article marketing? It depends. Do you want your article marketing to succeed?

If you already have a list of keywords for which your website has been optimized you may not need to do additional keyword research, especially if you are writing your first batch of articles. What is important is that you marry up the keywords for your articles to the proper landing page that you intend to promote through them. Optimize each article around a specific keyword or keyword phrase then include that phrase as anchor text at least once in your author resource box and link it to the landing page. You should do that for every article in your marketing campaign.

But what if you are on your second or third phase of article marketing and you’ve gone through all of your keywords? Then you might need to do some fresh keyword research. Keep in mind that search behavior changes over time. Key phrases are searched often today may not be the same phrases searched for six months from now. It’s important that you use the latest data on keyword research and search behavior or you could be writing articles that are outdated and irrelevant. When you write articles based on the latest trends in search behavior you’ll make your articles more relevant and targeted toward the type of consumer that you want to reach. Just be sure to marry up the most appropriate key phrases in your article with the keywords used in your landing pages. You don’t have to rewrite your landing pages, but relevance means search behavior relevance as much as it does optimization relevance. Keep both in mind for the best article marketing strategy for your campaign.