October 31, 2009 by 1 Comment

Marketing Articles – Benefits of Submitting Blog Posts to Article Directories


marketing articles
If you have an online business you need to constantly market it to attract web traffic. Article marketing is one of the best strategies for creating content that produces a constant stream of traffic. For example if one article achieves a top ranking in the search engines it will keep driving traffic to your site as long as it maintains its rankings.

If you’ve been blogging for a while you probably have blog posts (articles) written years ago that can be submitted to article directories. Look through your blog archives and select articles that contain valuable content for your readers.

Benefits of submitting blog posts to article directories

1. Reach a larger audience

Content on your blog gets read by people finding your blog through your newsletter, RSS feed, search engines or social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. The top article directories such as ezinearticles receive over one million visitors a day. Submitting your blog article to them enables you to receive some of that traffic. If an ezine publisher selects your article from the directory and publishes it in an ezine with 1000s of subscribers you’ll receive an instant boost in web traffic.

2. Build backlinks to your web site

Receiving quality backlinks boosts your search engine rankings. Including a link back to your web site in the resource box at the end of your article redirects visitors from the directory to your site.

3. Increase presence of low ranking blog articles

If you check your web site statistics you’ll find certain keywords attain high rankings and get lots of traffic whereas many of them don’t rank at all. This is because blog posts generally have little or no links pointing to them. To help them get better traction in the search engines link to those articles within your article resource box using anchor text (hyperlinked keyword). This will improve the traffic to your blog.

Action step
Find 10 blog articles, submit them to ezinearticles and link back to your blog in the resource box then monitor your statistics for a month.

You will be pleasantly surprised.

*************************
Learn how to attract a continuous stream of NEW visitors
to your website by picking up a copy of Article Writing & Marketing Strategies

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Web Design, Hosting, SEO.

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
September 12, 2009 by 4 Comments

Article Marketing – “He Who Fails to Plan, Plans to Fail”

article marketing fail to planSo you’ve decided to write and publish lots of articles but don’t have a clear plan how to go about it. Without creating a clear plan for writing and marketing your articles it will be difficult to fulfill your objectives.

Before writing your first article ask yourself this question:

What’s the purpose of my articles?

Get more subscribers

If you want to get more subscribers for your newsletter write informative articles that leave the reader wanting to get more information. Include a link to a free report or software in exchange for their email address. Make it clear during the sign up process they’ll be receiving your newsletter.

Build link popularity

If the purpose of your articles is to get incoming links to your web site or blog, include 2 links in your resource box. One will contain anchor text (ie “article marketing” will be a live link to your site), the other will be your full web site address (ie http://www.domain.com).

Article directories also make the article title a live link. This is what appears first in the search engines so make sure you include your main keyword in the title and place it near the beginning.

Get top rankings

If you want your article to appear on the first page of the search engines you need to optimize it correctly. This means researching the keywords people are entering in the search box to find your article or web site, then include those keywords in your article title, content and resource box.

If you want to get top rankings for your web site you need to write multiple optimized articles targeting the keywords contained in your meta tags and web copy. By creating and submitting lots of articles to article directories and ezine publishers you’ll see your rankings increase.

Attract 1000s of visitors

Visitors will naturally gravitate to your articles if they contain information they want, need or desire. The methods mentioned above will attract readers however if you want them to keep coming back your content needs to be compelling. Each article should contain at least one nugget of information they can take action on right away.

If you consistently write unique content your visitors will recognize you as the leading authority on the subject.

Make a goal

After deciding on a clear purpose for writing and publishing articles, make a goal how many articles you intend to write and when they will be completed. Recently I joined the challenge of writing and submitting 100 articles within 100 days. Having a goal helped me to focus my mind on churning out one article per day.

Create a schedule

Decide how many articles you’ll write/submit each month, week and day, what time of the day to write and how many minutes you’ll spend writing and submitting.

Now that you have a clear purpose, goal and plan of action you’ll achieve success in your article marketing efforts.

********************
Learn how to drive attract 1000s of visitors to
your web site by getting a copy of my ebook:
Article Marketing Strategies

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: ,
September 7, 2009 by 2 Comments

7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

There are 100s of methods of traffic generation however unless you master these 7 highly effective habits you may only receive a trickle of visitors to your web site.

1. Learn multiple traffic generation methods

Don’t rely on one method of generating traffic. You never know when one strategy will lose it’s effectiveness. Different products often require alternative or a combination of methods. For instance optimizing your articles for the search engines before publishing them uses a combination of SEO and copywriting.

2. Become an expert in one method

Online marketers often spend to much time and money trying several methods to generate web traffic. They keep purchasing new ebooks and software hoping this will be the secret source for boosting their web traffic. They don’t become an expert of any marketing method so they continue to fail in attracting many visitors. Select one traffic generation method that works well and become an expert on it.

3. Tracking

If you don’t monitor your traffic generation method, you won’t know how effective it is and how to improve it. Regularly check your web site statistics to see where your visitors are coming from, what keywords they are using to find your web site and monitor the number of unique visits you receive each month. If it increases every month you know the method is making an impact.

4. Consistency

You need to promote your products or web site consistently to produce a never ending stream of visitors. Create a timetable for yourself. For example if you do article marketing, write and publish 3 articles a week and stick to it. If you need more traffic increase the frequency of your promotions by writing and publishing more articles.

5. Set goals

Make a goal how many visitors you want to attract to your web site. If you are currently getting 1000 visitors a month, build it up to 2000 a month. The more traffic you receive the more sales you’ll make…it’s a numbers game.

6. Stay focused

If you’re the sole proprietor of your online business it’s easy to get distracted by other duties such as web design, copy writing, email, blogging, etc. These are all necessary to run your business however if you slow down or stop marketing your products your sales will decline. Stay focused on your marketing goals by taking action on them.

7. Be ready to adapt

Technology can change very quickly. If your main marketing method ceases to work well, look for an alternative marketing strategy. Don’t place all your eggs in one basket. For instance if all your traffic comes from getting and maintaining top rankings in the search engines, then suddenly your rankings disappear due to a change in search engine algorithms, your sales will decrease dramatically. For example video marketing has become popular recently. Be ready to adapt and learn other marketing technologies.

********************
To become an expert in Article Marketing pick up a copy of
Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies

Filed Under: Web Site Promotion Tagged With: ,
September 5, 2009 by 3 Comments

Article Marketing – How to Create Short Reports from Your Articles

write that reportShort reports are a great way to share your expertise and make money as well. A short report consists of 15-20 pages and is usually sold from $7 to $17 whereas ebooks may be over 100 pages and sell for $27 and up. Short reports are easier to sell because they don’t affect the pocket book as much. Your visitors will buy them without thinking if they can afford it.

So how do you create a short report?

1. Select a topic you are interested in

It’s easier to write on a topic you know a lot about than one where you need to do a lot of research. It will take less time and the content will come easier.

2. Create a list of 7 tips

Ideas for the tips may include, 7 top reasons, 7 benefits, 7 ways…you get the idea. Write a paragraph of 5 to 10 lines on each tip to create your 7 tips article. You now have created your first article. Use the content of this article for the introduction to your short report.

3. Expand each tip into an article

Write as much as you can on each tip. If you get stuck for content visit article directories, forums and blogs that contain content on the same subject. This will stimulate your create juices to flow. Once you’ve completed your 7 articles you’ll have 8 articles altogether (including the 7 tips one you wrote in the beginning).

4. String the articles together

Create an attractive title for your short report. Use the first article as your introduction followed by the main body of your content. This where you simply string all your 7 tips articles together. Remember to include your bio and a link to your web site at the end of your report.

Use Microsoft Word or Open Office Software to create your report. Open Office is a free download at openoffice.org. It allows you to quickly convert your document to a PDF file which can be read on any computer with any type of browser.

After you’ve completed your first report it becomes easier to create many others. Use them as free bonuses to promote other products or sell them for a small fee.

This can be the beginning of building your own information empire.

Also read Make Money With Your Blog – Write an Ebook or Report

***********************
Pick up a copy of Write That Report
to learn a quick-and-easy method for creating high quality reports in no time and how to build an army of affiliates to sell it for you.

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Ebook Creation Tagged With: ,
August 29, 2009 by 1 Comment

Article Marketing – 3 Highly Effective Ways to Generate Article Ideas

Do you sometimes have difficulty finding a topic to write about?

You feel the pressure to write fresh content to feed your blog, article directories and social media sites to attract an ongoing flow of visitors but you’re stuck for ideas.

Here are 3 great resources to generate article topics:

1. Visit ezinearticles dot com

Select a topic you are interested in then enter that keyword in the ezine articles search box. Click on the first (or any article) that appears then scroll down to the bottom.

Below the article appears 15 Other Recent Articles on the same topic.
Below this appears 15 Most Viewed Articles on the same topic.
Below this appears 15 Most Viewed Articles on the same topic.

Reading several of these articles will help generate new ideas for your own content. Make sure you don’t copy any of their content. Instead rely on your own unique writing style.

2. Blogs and Forums

Enter blogs + keyword or forums + keyword in the Google search box to find blogs and forums related to your field of interest.

People visit online forums to ask questions or leave comments about their specific topic. Join in the conversation by answering questions or adding a valuable comment.

3. Google Alerts

Google Alerts sends automatic email updates of the latest Google results related to your topic.

For example if you select “Article Marketing” as your topic you’ll receive the most recent news from web sites and blogs about article marketing. This helps you to keep tabs on what’s happening plus it helps generate new content to write about.

You can create a Google Alerts account at: http://www.google.com/alerts

Tip
If you ever get stuck for a topic to write about just start writing and ideas will begin to flow. This is how this article was created.

***********************
Learn how to attract continuous streams of traffic to your web site by
getting my complete step-by-step guide for
“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Web Design Tagged With: ,
February 14, 2009 by 7 Comments

Traffic Generation – 7 ways to generate web traffic with article marketing

If you don’t attract visitors to your web site you won’t make any sales. One of the best free methods for traffic generation is to write lots of articles related to your business then distribute them through multiple channels on the Net.

1. Write highly effective content

There’s lots of content on the web which is not uniquely written. It may be copied from other sources, contain lots of spelling and grammar mistakes or doesn’t provide information the reader can use. A uniquely written article stands out from thousands of others on the Web. Find your own unique style of writing so you’ll naturally get people looking for more of your articles.

2. Attract the search engines

Search engines spider keywords contained in your article. Include them in the headline, body and anchor text. Use the h1 tag for the title of your article if it’s for a web page. Search engines place more emphasis on this tag than the body tags.

If you’re writing about dog collars, include the phrase “dog collars” in the link text (anchor text). of your web site. Your site will rank faster than if you just used the URL of your web site in the text.

3. Link building

Links are crucial for attracting web traffic. The quantity and quality of links determine how high your rankings will be. Links can be included in the resource box at the end of your articles, so the more articles you write and distribute on the Net the more links you’ll receive.

Links from high traffic web sites, directories, or search engines will raise your rankings faster than low traffic sites. Therefore look for web sites that already get tons of traffic. Offer exclusive rights to your article. Web site owners know they need to consistently write unique content but often don’t have enough time. You can help them out.

Article directories such as Ezine Articles already receive millions of visitors per day. Submitting articles to this directory on a constant basis will produce a constant flow of traffic to your web site.

4. Repurpose your content

Not all people like to consume content in written form. Some prefer to listen or watch. Take the articles you’ve already written and repurpose (convert) them into audio or video files. You can also use your articles for e-courses, teleseminars, web site and blog content etc. By repurposing
your content you’ll attract a wider audience which means more traffic.

5. More articles = higher traffic generation

Not every article will attract visitors but some will attract thousands. You never know which one or ones will generate the most traffic. Your chances increase by writing more articles. As long as your articles remain on the Net they will keep sending traffic to your web site for years to come.

6. Become a guest writer

Offer to write an article for an online publication, newsletter, blog or web site owner. If your article gets published in a very popular publication you’ll receive lots of traffic.

7. Create a list of ezine publishers

Ezine publishers are always on the lookout for unique content. Enter ezines+keyword or newsletter+keyword in the Google search box to find and contact ezine and newsletter publishers you can send your articles to. Often individual newsletters will attract more visitors to your article than submitting it to general directories.

Get my complete step-by-step guide for
“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies“
to boost traffic generation to your web site.

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Ebook Creation Tagged With: , ,
February 9, 2009 by 16 Comments

Starting a Free Online Business with Article Marketing

Starting a Free Online Business with Article Marketing
All online businesses constantly require content. If you can write an article, you have the capacity to start and build a profitable online business. Choose a niche or topic you are passionate about then start writing.

7 Strategies for Starting an Online Business with Article Marketing:

1. Web Site Content

An online business needs a web site to sell your product or service. You need content for these web pages that persuades visitors to purchase from you. An article can easily be converted to a sales page or content for web pages. For ecommerce websites selling many items write an introductory paragraph or two before displaying the item images.

2. List Building content

Building an email list is essential for building relationships with your visitors. Your newsletter helps you to stay in touch with your visitors so they will trust your recommendations for purchasing future products and services. Offer your audience your best written articles first before distributing them on the Net. If you build a large list of 1000s of subscribers you can send one email to this list that generates instant sales.

3. Traffic generation content

For your web site to succeed it needs constant traffic. Writing lots of articles, submitting them to article directories, blogs, social marketing sites and including them on your own web site will attract lots of visitors. The amount of traffic you receive is proportional to the number of articles you write.

4. Multimedia content

Content on the web these days is not confined to text only. Video and audio is being used to appeal to a wider range of visitors. Some folks prefer to listen or watch to consume content. Some prefer all three methods… read, listen and watch. You can satisfy your customers’ needs by repurposing (converting) your written articles into video and audio then distributing it all over the web.

5. Search engine friendly content

Search engines spider content containing keywords people are searching for. For instance if you write a series of articles on “dog training” that includes keyword phrases such as dog training equipment, dog training collars, dog training collars, search engines will find your content and deliver visitors to your web site.

6. Autoresponder content

Autoresponders are essential tools to keep in touch with your visitors. A customer sometimes needs 7 exposures to your message before purchasing your product. Offer an email course from your web site or to newsletter subscribers by writing a series of 7 short articles. Load these up in your autoresponder then send a different message for alternate days of the week. Each message should conclude with your product offer.

7. Link building content

The number and quality of links pointing to your web site determines your ranking in the search engines. Include your web site links in the resource box at the end of the article. People reading your article will link to it or place it on their web site, blog or in their newsletter. If your article gets placed on many web sites your rankings will increase dramatically because there are many links pointing back to it.

If you apply these 7 strategies consistently, you can dominate any niche. Now go ahead and choose the niche you are passionate about and start writing lots of articles.

***************************
Learn how to start and build a profitable online business with

“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Affordable WebSite Design

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Ebook Creation, Starting An Online Business Tagged With: ,
October 20, 2008 by 2 Comments

List Building – 7 Strategies for Building Your List With Articles

You’ve probably heard it said “the money is in the list.

Let’s say you’ve built a list of 10,000 subscribers that opted in to receive your newsletter. This means they are interested in receiving information from you that helps their businesses grow. If you have a high quality product your subscribers want, sending one email to your list will generate instant cash. You didn’t have to rely on the search engines or spend money on pay per click campaigns.

7 Strategies for Building Your List With Articles

1. Write a high quality article

Your article should illustrate a large problem people are having in your niche then offer them an effective solution. For instance, in this article I am offering a solution to the problem of building a large list.

2. Create a call to action in your resource box

Direct readers to an opt-in page on your web site by offering a free report. The free report is to nudge readers to take action. If you don’t offer something for free, you may only get one or two people to click on the link to your opt-in page.

3. Write an effective opt-in page

Your opt-in page should integrate well with the offer you made in your resource box. Don’t trick people by offering something different to what you promised otherwise you will lose their attention and trust. Outline several benefits people will receive by giving you their contact information.

4. Create an effective opt-in box

Design a professional looking opt-in box because many online users are visual learners. The fields should ask for the person’s first name and email address. This helps you connect and build a relationship with your subscribers. Test your opt-in form before it goes live. I’ve subscribed to many opt-in forms that didn’t work so they lost a subscriber.

5. Create high quality free report.

Create a free report by combining some of your best articles. For example, if you’re writing about traffic generation you could offer a report titled “My 10 Top Evergreen Traffic Generation Strategies That Always Work.’

6. Create a series of follow-up messages

Sign up for an autoresponder service such as Aweber so you can touch base with your subscribers several times after they sign up. Your first message will include your report. The following messages can include some of your best articles. Remember, you are doing this to build an ongoing relationship with your list so you can offer new products and/or services.

7. Take good care of your list

The relationships you build with your list can last for a lifetime so make sure you continuously offer high quality unique content. As a reward for being a subscriber offer your articles to your list first. It’s a well known fact that people buy from people they trust.

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: ,
September 26, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Article Marketing – How to Increase Your Article Presence and Attract More Visitors

The main reason for starting my blog was to quickly and easily display my articles and to attract visitors from search engines and other web sites. Readers have the ability to interact with my articles by leaving their comments. This has worked fairly well, however there is one limitation. Visitors can’t see all your article titles without scrolling through the Sitemap page.

A solution to this problem came from Jeff Herring..more intimately known as the Article Marketing Guy

Here’s the solution for people to easily view all your articles on EzineArticles

Register the domain name…Articlesby(yourfirstname).com then redirect it to your EzineArticles Bio Page e.g. articlesbyherman.com

Benefits

1. Display all the articles you’ve written on EzineArticles

Whether you’ve written 100s or 1000s of articles, visitors can easily view all the content you’ve written according to article title, category, date and comments.

2. Display your author bio

Your bio is displayed at the top of the page before your articles. Be sure to include a nice photo of yourself and a well written bio so people know who you are and what expertise you have.

3. Display Business and Social Networking links

Here are the links you can include under your bio:

Author Links
Blog URL
Business URL
Personal URL
Ezine URL

Business/Social Networking Links
LinkedIN URL
FaceBook URL
Twitter URL

This gives readers quick access to all your other business properties.

4. Show people what you’ve accomplished

When people ask what do you do or how do you market your business, send them to Articlesby(yourfirstname).com They’ll automatically get redirected to your profile page on EzineArticles.

Registering a domain name that is easy to spell and remember, allows you to quickly direct people to all your articles. This increases the presence of your articles and attracts more visitors.

My next post will show you exactly where to register your domain name, and how to correctly redirect it to your EzineArticles profile page.

###
Read more of my in-depth articles by visiting ArticlesByHerman.com

Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , ,
September 17, 2008 by 1 Comment

Increase Web Site Traffic – How to Squeeze Out More Traffic From Your Articles

Do you want to squeeze out more traffic from your articles?

If you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com (and you should if you want to attract continuous visitors to your web site), you can check which articles received the most views.

To do this login to your account-author tools-view my article reports-views. You will see a list of your articles in descending order based on the number of views they received.

The articles that received the most views indicate the topics your readers are most interested in.

Write a similar article or articles on the same topic (with different title and content) then submit them for publication.

After your article has been accepted you will receive more traffic in the days and weeks to come as your article(s) gets picked up by ezine publishers looking for unique content to feed their subscribers.

Learn how to create sets of articles to drive 1000s of information hungry visitors to your website. Pick up a copy of “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »