Monday, January 30, 2012

Ideas for Your Article Marketing Strategy

Make your articles interesting. Many of those marketing products online have turned to article marketing because it works.In order to stand out from your competitors, though, you need to be sure you have the best content. If you have shoddy, inaccurate, and unprofessional articles, what will this say to your customers about you and your product? Put words like "How to" and "Why" in your title. They make the reader curious about your subject matter and draw them into your piece.In Network Marketing "You" are the primary product. People will be attracted to you as the expert and leader they are looking for. Never forget this fact. Do your best to produce quality articles of value.

Utilize Authority Sites. Authority sites are one of the best publishing platforms to use for your article marketing campaign. Contributing to authority sites is a great way to gain exposure. Authority sites rank well on the search engines. Remember to check the requirements before submitting your articles, these requirements can be tough and can change frequently. Here's an important tip, review the terms of service before you send it your first article, and go back to check it for changes regularly if you continue sending it material.

Learn Key Word Research. Keyword research tools are powerful aids in any article marketing campaign.While keyword research tools and services are available for sale - most costing over 100 dollars - you do not need to spend money. The free tools available online (many from search engines themselves) are more than adequate for the article writer's needs. I use Google key word tool. The goal for your article marketing strategy is to rank on the search engines. Learn keyword research, pick your keywords carefully and you will indeed reap the benefits of ranking on the search engines.

Use Links in Your Articles. Providing links to other websites in your articles is a great way to market your own. How? By showing readers all the other resources they can use to learn more on a topic, you're providing a central directory that they will return to check out time and time again. You may not have all the content on your site, but you definitely provide all the answers.

Dress it up, make it interesting. To get a lot of short, straightforward ideas into you article, use a bullet-pointed list. Varying sentence length is important to good writing, and a string of short sentences can bore readers. If you break your brief ideas out into a list with bullets, though, you vary the overall structure of your article and add interesting novelty. This will hold the reader's interest.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Five Effective Ways to Driving Internet Traffic to Your Website

If you have not yet done so, article marketing should be an integral part of your online business' growth plans. Not only does it give you more exposure in cyberspace, but it helps compound success with success by continuous traffic flow to your website.

But how do you ensure that the traffic flow is converted to real customers and business growth? How do you turn your online business into a source of income-passive or main? The answer lies in how effectively you drive the traffic to your website:

1) The keyword is the key: You are competing against many other authors and their articles. Therefore, ensure that you are selecting key words based on some research. Use only key words that have demand and are advertised profoundly. However, it is equally important to be aware of your competition- trying to penetrate a certain niche with a few keywords that are already extensively used may not always pay off large dividends!

2) Using multiple income streams: Using simply one article directory and hoping for the traffic to arrive like a Monday morning rush hour may not be the best strategy. Instead, focus on posting your article on multiple directories that will all act in a cohesive manner to:

(a) give you more exposure to a wider audience of readers across different sites
(b) with your online URL specified on each of the directories, traffic will converge onto your main website.

For this sort of traffic, you will not need to have a traffic cop regulating the flow! High traffic directories you should consider include EzineArticles.com, Buzzle.com, ArticlesBase.com, iSnare.com and squidoo.com amongst many others.

3) Don't sell, paint a picture: If you come across like you are selling a product or service to your reader, it could put them off. This can be difficult a task, since the whole reason why you are writing is so that readers will visit your website and ultimately buy your service- the measured approach is to inform rather than sell. However, if you project yourself as confident in the service or products you're writing about, your confidence and enthusiasm could rub off onto the readers.

4) Fonts: Using bold or italicised fonts, or underlined words helps your reader to be drawn into the important thoughts and ideas in the article. It gives the readers a clearer image of the topic and focuses their attention on areas of importance. If your article is lacking in a well-formatted structure, it fails to seize the benefits of successfully driving traffic to your website.

5) Know your territory: Try to focus on a specific Niche, instead of providing a general overview of a topic. This will help you not only to win the respect of your readers for your expertise in the niche area, but will also generate enough curiosity to utilise your services/products further by going to the link specified in your Resource box.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Is Marketing Articles a Thing of the Past?

I'm sure we all know about the panda update that Google initiated last year. It was Google's goal to destroy any content that was of poor quality. You've probably seen content online that was rehashed or rewritten. Have you noticed that your articles aren't doing as well lately? The panda update has made things very difficult for online marketers. They are now pushed against a wall, forced to come up with new article marketing strategies. The old ways are dead! It's up to you to adjust to these new changes, if you ever hope to succeed with article writing and promotion.

Articles that once shined in the top ten search results are now being eliminated with ease. But there is good news for you. These article directories are fighting back! They will be conducting new methods of gaining the trust of Google once more. With approval of article becoming much more strict, it's important for you to bend with the times. In fact, you are going to see articles that are much higher quality in the years to come. So, is this the complete destruction of article marketing? I don't think so. You see, I've always written my article to please the search engines. But, if you are currently using old marketing techniques, you must change. You need to adjust accordingly. You can still get great results from marketing articles if you follow these rules:

Write longer articles. Now that the search engines are used to the old ways, you need to write content that is at least 510 words. These articles need to be very useful and extremely high quality. You need to inform your readers with the best information. Gone are the days of rehashed content! If you hope to succeed, people need to love your articles. They need to feel that you have over delivered. In fact, if your content isn't one hundred percent unique to you and your readers, Google will know. This means that you cannot copy other writers work! Google is getting smart, so write 110% original content.

The recent update will ensure that all content be looked at in great detail. In fact, one little phrase that appears to be used somewhere else can trigger the duplicate content warning. And you don't want this to happen, right? One thing that has always stood the test of time, is quality content. This content is king when it comes to driving traffic. So, if you think that you can just write dozens of rewritten articles and see awesome results, you are gravely mistaken! Your articles need to meet the needs of the online users. Google can tell if your content is garbage... and I personally won't let this happen to me.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Trends Online Article Writing in 2012

Well, I'd like to thank you very much for reading this article in my 2012 Trends series. There will be 700 articles in this particular series, and as an online article writer I feel it is most appropriate to start with this one. You see, each and every year as I study all the trends in all the various industries for our think tank, I find tidbits of information, and through a little bit of cross-pollination I can spot how different trends in different sectors and areas of the human endeavor in our present period are slowly evolving.

You see, although many people believe that things change quickly, the reality is things do not change very quickly in any given sector of our economy or in any industry. Rather every industry has three or four significant changes, and perhaps one or two paradigm shifts every decade. The interesting thing is sometimes you never know when they're going to come along, that is to say you cannot know when the black swan event will occur. Having been involved in the online article writing sector, I have seen some trends in this category, and I'd like to discuss them with you.

First, I see that a couple of the top online article directories have banned PLR articles, and any articles created with derivative type software. This will surely clear the debris, and uplift the industry for everyone. There are still a few article authors out there who are putting out significant volumes of articles, albeit often nearly the same, I see this trend as ending, because the readers do not like these types of articles, and neither do the search engines. Therefore, they will not be pulling for online article marketers, so we should see them slowly diminishing along with the individuals who put this debris out on the Internet.

We are also seeing the makings of a new trend whereby article authors take their articles and put them into e-books as collections, selling them on Barnes & Noble or Amazon's Kindle website. I expect this trend to continue and to accelerate. One trend which has been going on a while and is also accelerating is the concept of repurposing articles, using them as blog posts or vice versa.

Another new positive trend which is quite enlightening is how many new article authors who are not writers are getting into the swing of things. They are using productivity tools such as speech recognition software, and the use of templates to speed up their writing, and to improve the quality. Indeed I hope you will enjoy your 2012 year, and I hope you will make it a great one by only submitting top-quality articles and only to only the best online article websites.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Marketing Can Be Made To Be Easy

Article marketing can be a very effective way to promote your website and attract more visitors. Below are some useful tips that can help you maximize your article marketing efforts.

Try thinking of your audience as friends when you write. This method will make readers relax and not feel that they are wading through a formal dissertation intended to manipulate you. Use a relaxed tone in your articles, creating conversation with the reader.

It's important that your content is a clear match to the specific topic. If someone comes to your site seeking information about article marketing and all they see is a page that is trying to sell them something, they will most likely close the site and not return. This is bad business, and can ultimately have negative consequences.

Organization and discipline are important when actively creating content for articles to market. Get everything you'll need together before you start. Committing to a specific time frame daily will provide the gradual but measurable amount of progress toward creating the site you desire to have.

Article distribution services can prove helpful if you want maximum exposure. Your strategy for marketing your articles benefits from the use of this type of service. Outsourcing these efforts can help spread your articles to a larger market. Crunch the numbers and make sure that the service is worth paying for.

Make your article content rich and interesting. Find information for your readers at any trusted website. The best articles will contain information that's not already available from other Internet sources.

There are no real secrets to article marketing anymore. No one holds the magic key to unlocking new territory. Doing your own research can really make a difference. Just note that it's simple, marketing that is handled through any content distribution is article marketing.

Make your articles accessible to your target audience in order to improve their marketing power. Write your articles with accessibility in mind, or you risk your content not being read. Use wordings that are familiar and paragraphs that are short in your articles.

Before starting your article marketing plan, see what's already out there by visiting all of the major article directories and typing in your keywords. This will help the writer's to be effective when marketing their own articles.

Include a brief summary, which should engage the reader to continue to the end of the text. You can do this by asking challenging questions or promising to change someone's life. By enticing the reader to select your article, you are demonstrating the power of article marketing.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Four Best Tips for Marketing Your New or Existing Business

Marketing a business, no matter if it's new or has been kicking around for years, takes a fair amount of creativity. It takes a lot more than just designing a website in a day and submitting it to as many spam directories as you can find. If you want to increase your traffic and find people who are genuinely interested in the product or service you are offering, then you need a unique marketing strategy. The right strategy will get your website noticed by tons of targeted traffic each day.

These are four of the best tips to remember when you begin formulating your own marketing strategy for your business:

Write articles that go viral.

Writing an article that follows all of the SEO guidelines you can squeeze into it is an easy task. Writing an article that your readers actually want to share and pass along to all their friends is a whole different ball game. Get creative. Be conversational and entertaining. Write your article for the readers and not just for the search engine spiders. The readers are what really matters in the end. If you feed them a stuffy article that puts them to sleep, then your content isn't going to get you very far.

Encourage interaction with readers.

You want your potential customers to know that there is, in fact, a person behind the website. Encouraging them to interact with you on the website is an excellent way to create a bond between your business and the customer. Get them to respond to your blog posts with comments (and be sure to respond in kind!). Interact with them on a forum or on social media sites.

Give them honesty and they will reward you with loyalty.

You don't want to give your website's visitors any reason to be disappointed. Instead of blowing their heads full of false expectations, give them honest answers. You want your customers to be realistic when they sign up for your offer or buy your product. If you can't absolutely guarantee that their hair will be lush and luxurious in a month, then don't promise it. This is a fast way to lose the respect- and repeat business- of your customers. Be honest and give them the facts and your customers will keep coming back.

Give, give, give.

Everyone, customers especially, love free stuff. If you have things to give away with a purchase, throw it in the box. If you have an eBook that you can offer for free when someone signs up on your website, hand it over. Give your customers a coupon towards their next purchase and that just increases the chance that they will come back again and again. When you go that extra mile to make your customers feel valued, they will become long-standing customers and spread the word to everyone who will listen.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Online Article Marketing Considered

It is amazing how many articles are out there on the Internet about online marketing. Many of them aren't that good are they? Certainly I'm sure you've noticed as well. In fact, I've seen some article authors who have created thousands of articles on online article marketing worth, just above let's say absolutely nothing, and then they expect the reader to click on the link to come to their website only to get some sort of a splash page that makes the reader put in their e-mail address? Why don't we talk about this for a moment shall we?

Why would someone want to put their e-mail address to get on a mailing list to get more nonsensical information? They wouldn't, and generally they don't, so consider if you will how many people they are turning off, who are clicking out of the website by using this methodology. There is a right way and a wrong way to write articles on Internet marketing, or on article marketing online.

Yes, there are probably four or five things that you might specialize in, and be able to help folks with who are selling goods and services on the Internet, and listing those three items might be relevant for perhaps one article, but not for thousands of articles on the exact same topic, and in that case you're just cluttering up the Internet. How is cluttering up the Internet helping the online article marketing community? It doesn't, and I would submit to you that it is destroying it.

Now then, I suggest what you do is you present articles which contain a challenge or a problem that some online entrepreneur might have, along with the solution that you provide - a viable solution which help them through their issues. Do you ever wonder why very few article marketers are doing this? I don't, I know why, and let me tell you. You see, very few of these people have ever helped anyone increase sales online, they don't have a lot of stories to tell, as they are too worried about getting money coming in rather than actually helping the people using their expert knowledge, or they don't have any real knowledge that isn't already out there. Their big secret is; they don't have any big secrets to help online marketers.

With all the articles on this topic out there on the Internet, I would submit to you there are very few people that can tell you anything you can find on your own by searching online. So what exactly are they selling? Hype, why do you want to buy Hype, and why would you want to put your e-mail address into a website from an untrustworthy source hyping their ability, and unwilling to give you any information of value in the article?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Marketing Computer Software - Can You Compete?

Today, the evolution of online article marketing is advancing and the game has changed. It's not just human knowledge being distributed in this informational marketing motif, but rather it has been turned into a game by folks who care more about SEO schemes, incoming links, and putting up so many articles that they own the category, regardless of the knowledge they have in the industry, or information they give to the reader.

Luckily, most article marketers aren't like that, and rather they deliver on the article titles they create, and give important information to their readers, adding credibility, and valuable content to the array of human knowledge on the internet. But now a good number of article marketers find it difficult to compete with the onslaught of computer generated articles.

The question with Article Marketing Computer Software is; Can You Compete? The answer is yes, and let me tell you why. You see, so far the articles created by these computer programs are less than to be desired, and those who use them for online marketing aren't using the best technology, more like third grade'sih 1996 versions with a few extra algorithmic tricks, but certainly not state-of-the-art.

The good stuff is being used by intelligence agencies to change the narrative online and assist in bringing down corrupt regimes in the third world via online media. However, you can bet that since there is a profit motive here, that one day, perhaps soon these upper-end technologies of article and literary work AI programs will hit the scene in the online article marketing venue, just give it a few more years, and a creative genius to come around and put us all to shame with their massive abundance of volume.

Now then, there have been some less-than-intelligent human online article composers (posers) attempt to use derivative article creation software and take PLR vomit articles or cheaply written articles from India ($1-5 per article) - but the quality of these articles is so underwhelming and so obvious that even with that mass abundance, no one is so impressed. Besides that the top article sites won't even accept them, which is a good thing, and very positive sign.

I have an interesting derogatory term I use for crummy content creation, I call it the "Yawn, Rise" method (a term I coined). First, the articles are so bad they make you "Yawn" as you read putting you to sleep, and definitely nothing that you'd re-Tweet. Secondly, the article composers appear to be brilliant and hard-working and we all watch their meteoric "Rise" in quantity, but under closer scrutiny the quality of course has been left to rot in the sun - and the fast "Yawn Rise" technique they use, proves what goes up must come down.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Marketing Techniques To Generate More Traffic

There are lots of article marketing techniques you can use to generate traffic to your site or blog, these are a few that have generated a substantial amount of traffic for me and resulted in me getting leads consistently.

You will never get people to see your articles and content if you just write an article and post it on your blog or website unless your site or blog has aged and it already ranks high on the search engines.

Even if your site or blog has gained authority over time it can still be hard to get your articles on the first page of the search engines using your specific keyword.

Okay firstly what you can do is write your articles and submit them to free article publishing sites like EzineArticles as an example, if you find the right keyword for your niche that does not have much competition you might be lucky enough that when they publish your article it luckily enough makes the first page on Google, but most of the time this will not happen.

You should have your article posted in at least two places, like one unique copy on an authority site and another unique copy on your site or blog, it is quite possible that you may rank twice on the front page of the search engines with your two unique versions.

So when your article gets published what you need to do now is promote it and get back links to your article, you can get back links from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and a boat load more that are available.

You can also get back links from other article and blog directories, some of these directories are human reviewed and some are not but either way you should make sure that your articles are presentable.

There are certain tools available some are free and some that you must pay for, but these tools can get you a serious amount of back links and you should use them as part of your article marketing techniques.

The same techniques apply to you even if your site or blog has some authority, you still need to promote your articles and get back links because if you don't you will never reach the first page of the major search engines and even if you do reach 1st page how are you going to get your content to stay there if you do not promote it and get back links.

The next thing you should do when you are starting to get traffic and your business starts to grow is to get other people to write your articles for you, there are loads of people and business that will write your articles for you for a certain fee.

You should look for certain people who can write them for you for about $1 per 100 words, so a very good 500 word article that has good value to it will only cost you about $5, and this article marketing technique is very good because it will free up time for you so that you can continue to promote and expand your business in other different ways and also gives you more time together with your family or whatever else you want to do.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Seven Ways to Write Great Headlines Every Time

Unless your headline stops your reader in his tracks, makes him think, relates to some problem, pain or desire he has you might as well not write it.

According to Copyblogger, "On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of your title, and why it absolutely determines the effectiveness of the entire piece."

Your headline has just one purpose - to grab the reader by the throat and drag him to the next sentence - and the next. Unless it has that power, you might as well not bother writing anything else.

How do writers come up with ideas that will pull readers in? They cheat. Not copy - just cheat. Every writer worth his or her salt has a "cheat sheet" of great attention grabbing headlines that have had proven results. They use these as patterns or idea triggers for their own headlines.

Magnetic headlines follow certain patterns that you can use in creating your own. Here are seven effective types of headlines that have been proven to work time and time again, with examples.

Question-based headlines trigger curiosity in the brain. They appeal to your reader's problems and frustrations. Well-written ones that use trigger words force you to want to know more.

    Do you make these mistakes in English?
    Are you paying too much for your auto insurance?

How to headlines are among the most effective - as long as they include a strong benefit that's related to the problem of your reader.

    How to clear up your ugly acne in two weeks.
    How to write a killer blog post that gets attention and buzz.

The Benefit headline is successful only when the benefit is measurable and specific. You can find lots of examples in magazines and adapt them.

    Sexy abs in minutes a day!
    Grow bigger tastier tomatoes with this organic fertilizer booster.

News headlines are another winner - especially for the early adapters who want to get in on all the new stuff before anyone else.

    Just released - 6 top marketing geniuses share their top strategies.
    Revolutionary new machine shapes up your thighs and flattens you stomach - regardless of your age or weight.

List headlines start with a specific number and appeal to the curiosity or needs that people have. This is one of the most common types, since it's also one of the most effective - if used properly.

    10 powerful reasons why PPC attracts the best leads for your business.
    7 surefire headline formulas guaranteed to work

Command headlines are direct, compelling and work because they direct the reader to take a specific action.

    Sick of losing your shirt? Get our Contrarian investment newsletter free for one month.
    Don't lose out. Sign up for this free webinar right now.

Teaching headlines offer to make you an expert.

    Discover the little known stock strategy that picked 42 winners and no losers!
    A Newby's Guide to Simple SEO Strategies that will make your blog posts rock.