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Posts Tagged ‘article marketing’

Article marketing is a fairly new, very effective internet marketing tool that allows you to promote yourself, your product, website or service. But, this seemingly simply marketing technique can have explosive results!

As a business owner or marketer, you simply write articles about your product, service or website. In other words, you write about what you know. Once you’ve written your article(s), you start to submit those articles to directories and sites that accept them. From that point, your articles will be spreading across the internet like wildfire…wildfire with your name, site’s name and usually a link to your site included! You see, whenever you submit an article, you include an “author resource box” that includes any information about yourself, your experience, your business and your site’s URL. Anytime that article is published, including on the directory sites, your information must appear along with it!

As a webmaster or publisher, you know that one of the keys to keep your site popular with search engines and to keep your visitors coming back is to have fresh, new, relevant content. Article directories can be the answer to your prayers! You simply search the articles or browse the site and you will find as many articles as you could want to add to your site or publication. All articles submitted to these directories are free to re-print as long as they are reprinted exactly as presented and include the author’s information. There can be site-specific conditions on the reprinting (so be sure to check the terms of each site), but for the most part just stick to the article as presented with all author info included and you’ll be safe!

Some people can get put off by the idea of actually writing something for publication. It can send them back into freshman English class-like anxiety attacks. But, don’t worry most people that use article marketing aren’t Pulitzer Prize worthy writers! In my experience, the best articles and the ones that are picked up and spread the most are the ones that are written in a very reader-friendly manner. Yes, grammar and spelling are important, but what’s most important is that your information is easily accessible and helpful or interesting to potential readers.

If you simply don’t have time or really dislike writing, you can always hire a copywriter or ghost writer to do the work for you. Just make sure that the terms are very clear from the beginning as to whose name will appear on the article, the links to be included, the keywords you’d like the articles to focus on, etc.

If you’re looking for a new marketing strategy, and you don’t have a huge budget…write a few articles! Get your name out there and start getting recognized as the expert that you are. And best of all get mass distribution of the all-mighty links to your website.

I see this everywhere and still cannot believe that people do not get it. Content is still king on the web. The most important thing you will ever do for your website is to put in good content. Great content will get you links and your position in the search engine results will be because of the content you put into your website.

Hundreds of back links will not get you ranked well with poor content. Great content will get you good keyword positioning with or without back links, therefore, content is still the most important aspect of your website. Great design, flash, graphics, and a cool banner will not get you ranked well for your keywords and phrases. Great content will!

Let’s first look at the content in your website. Images are great with alt tags. That helps. But it is the text on the pages that, when done correctly, will help your search engine results. This text is also what will convert your customers into sales.

This text is what your customers will read or not read based on it’s quality. This same text is what the search engines will analyze when they decide how relevant your WebPages are to the search phrase you wish them to send you visitors from.

Now, let us talk about article marketing. If you know about article marketing at all, you know you will be submitting articles all over the web. The links in the author bio at the bottom return visitors to your website if they read and like the articles, you write or have written for you.

Just having your articles in thousands of article directories is not the goal of article marketing, although there are article-marketing gurus out there who think it is. The goal is for webmasters to find those articles and place them in their blogs and websites. If they use your article, their website or blog is likely related to the same topic as your website.

You are looking for these quality links. The links for just being in the article directories do not hurt you, but they do not help nearly as much as those from related websites do.

Your other hope is that thousands of people read your articles. Do you really want people to read poorly written articles and associate that poor quality with your website? Well-written articles get people to read them all the way to the bottom where your links are located. Well-written articles reflect well on your website.

If the articles are of great quality then likely your products and services must be great as well. The reverse is also true in the reader’s minds. If the articles are written poorly, then likely your products and services are of little or no value as well. It is not only about the number of keywords and phrases placed into the article folks.

With all of that being said, I still find all over the web, especially at freelancer websites, people going in and saying things like; “I need 400 articles written for SEO and I’m willing to pay $1.50 per article.” Or they say something like; “I need someone to write content for my website and I’m only willing to pay $10 per page.”

I really try to refrain from telling people they are, well . . . stupid, but I am finding it harder and harder each day when I read this stuff.

They will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have their website designed so it looks really pretty, but the text, the stuff that will actually get good search engine results and sales, they don’t want to spend any money on.

Writers that know how to write text that not only is appealing to the reader, but that is also written with the keywords and phrases in mind, are worth being paid well. The moment you start hiring better writers and paying for text that converts sales, you will begin to be successful on the web. That cheap content is not going to make you any money.

A website that is beautiful but gets no traffic and sales may as well be an ugly website. An ugly website that ranks well in the search engine and that makes sales gets more beautiful by the dollar.

Article writing has become popular recently. Search engines have changed the way they rank web sites and have begun to place a stronger value on good content. Correction: they have become better at filtering out commercial content, sales pitches, and advertising posing as content.

One incredibly good method of achieving a web presence with good content is that of article writing. Why? It provides the content that the search engines are looking for. It provides meaningful content for the individual searching the web for good information. And it provides an avenue whereby the article writer can be noticed on the web.

Where does niche marketing come in? First of all, lets define niche marketing as marketing that is designed to meet the needs of a small group of individuals (a niche), rather than the mass needs of individuals. For example, a particular type of pet owner, a particular type of web user, or a particular religious faith might be considered niche markets.

For niche markets like these, traditional forms of mass Internet marketing, such as banner ads, classifieds, and traffic generation programs, are not as effective. The mass advertising forms are much more effective, cost-wise, when promoting a product that has wide market appeal.

So what does the niche marketer do? Assuming he has a web presence, and provides a quality product or other solution to the niche customer’s needs, he can become involved in article writing. The articles would be of a particular interest to the niche customer. They would contain valuable information that the niche customer cannot find anywhere else.

Sometimes article writers will write generic articles that really don’t provide any real benefit to the reader, thinking that an article is an article. That is simply not true. Think about yourself. When you read an article, if you do not learn something new when you read the article, are you disposed to learning more about the person, company, or products represented by the article writer?

The key to writing articles for a niche market and effectively gaining web presence by doing it, is to write quality. Fill the article with useful information. Show the reader that you really are an expert in your niche. Give the reader a burning desire to want to hear more of what you have to say about their need. And the only way you can create that burning desire is to give them quality information in the first place.

Good, well-written, articles are the key to niche marketing in today’s Internet marketing environment. Write articles, submit them to the most-used article databases, and watch your web site traffic grow.

Note: You have my permission to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in its entirety, including all links.

How to get started

First off, some points about money. People pay money, a valuable, in exchange for a product or service you provide – another valuable. It’s really barter, with a commodity called money. People buy things which will improve their lives, which gives them some benefit they feel they need. You aren’t really in it for the money, but to provide better service to people so that they can improve their lives. That’s a perfect fit – they want to spend money to improve their lives and you are more than happy to accept money to enable them to do so – with your product and services.

Money is really just an indicator of how much you provide real service to others – and how valuable they think that service is. We’ve gone over how you can increase your income by giving it away, as well.

Now, down to the brass tacks of what to do when and why.

Before we start -

Don’t quit your day job. Rome wasn’t built in a day, God took seven to create this world – so don’t figure you are going to become a millionaire overnight. I’ve heard some talented people got rich in 90 days, but we’ll take the conservative approach here.

Until your Internet activities start bringing income to you, that day job will be providing the seed money for your online business.

Consider all your online activites a second job. This is much better than going to get a second job at some company. Then you are spending 60 hours a week just working for a fixed wage – away from your family and giving a large proportion of it to the government and insurance companies with very little return.

So your online business is your second job. Set it up with a specific workplace and a schedule. Treat it like a business, not a hobby. Show up on time and ready to work – not late and hung over or taking constant breaks for food – or having the TV running so you can “catch the game”. Arrange for your spouse and kids to keep the noise down – or set up your garage so it is comfortable all year round and you can easily work there with no distractions. (Remember, setting this up as an actual business means you can deduct these expenses from your “day job” income tax.)

Work out your finances. See if you can get by on only 80% of what you currently earn in income from your day job. Means you are going to have to set up a budget and find out what you are spending your money on. Or – you could simply have your check deposited directly, 80% going into your checking account and 20% going into your savings account (preferably) or another account.

What you do with that 20% is to set half away for savings – never touch this for anything except, perhaps, a real emergency. The other half (10% of your income after taxes) goes to investment. This is what you are allowed to spend on your online business. But the idea again is that you are investing in your own business – not just blowing it on nice stuff for your home office.

Once you have your home business set up, you are then – an only then – ready to really start in on Internet Marketing, Sales, and Delivery.