Your Article Marketing Strategy Equals Money

It would seem rather obvious wouldn't it. But if not to make money then why have one at all? Oddly enough many 'marketers' out on the internet don't seem to have a plan they follow. An article marketing strategy is just the overall view, or 'big picture' of what you plan to accomplish by writing articles. This may be any number of things.

While you may shoot for name, company, or product recognition, it is entirely possible that the more experienced marketer will be able to do all three at once. If you sell your ebook on your company website and your name is in the resource box of your articles then you just did.

There is now an article called Money Made from Your Article Marketing Strategy over at
http://www.articlemarketingstrategy.com/ that covers this subject in a little more detail.

Your Article Marketing Muse

Some days your article marketing muse just doesn't show up at all or only for a limited time. Try as you might and staring at a blank screen or piece of paper the ideas just won't come to you. This is when we all need to find a way to reverse the situation if we are to get on with our article writing. After all some writing is usually better than none at all and can be edited later, time permitting.

Leaning on others at this time can help. Such as looking up the problem on Google, or searching the article directories. The advantage to this approach is that someone else may have already done all of the work for you in coming up with a way to get started. Their is little sense in reinventing the wheel as they say.

As it turns out our sister site just put up an article for you which is titled Article Marketing Muse aimed at helping to solve this troublesome problem.

Start An Article Marketing Strategy

Starting an article marketing strategy is not a do or don't type of thing. Whatever business you're in it pays to have a good plan and strategy. Granted some can be better than others for different times and places but they are all better than having none at all.

And so the budding young marketer might think something like "I'm going to write articles, submit them all over the web, and make money". That's the plan and in general is correct. But it could use some clarification and to that end our friends over at Article Marketing Strategy just put up an article for those just starting out and in need of a strategy.

Article Marketing Blog Work Never Ends

You may think that you can just put up a blog on Article Marketing and then just walk away and let it sit there. Or on any other subject. And in fact you can. And it will oblige you by following your example, and just sit there. It won't grow, draw traffic, climb in popularity, or make any money. It is for the most part the same or worse as if you did that with a website.

But on the bright side where else can you find a place where you are in charge and you get to give your opinion whether anybody likes it or not. Everyday and even twice or more if you like. If it is on a subject that you like then it is nowhere near work. It's play. And websites can be too.

The new website is almost finished and should be a lot of fun. But really though it's just a reworking of the older one. In a way that will allow for much more expansion and growth as it ages. It will be ready in another day or so and of course is called Article Marketing Strategy.

Article Marketing Update

Work on the new site is progressing slower than thought but is coming along just fine. It took a little while for the Domain Name change over to: Article Marketing Strategy which looks like this if you need to copy and paste: http://www.ArticleMarketingStrategy.com/
and now there is only some redesigning to do and some moving around as well as making additions. The grouping of articles into categories should help quite a bit with speeding up your finding of needed information. It shouldn't be much longer now until it is done.

Article Traffic Study For You

How about a traffic study to see what each article we submit at each chosen directory is generating in the way of traffic. Soon you'll have the answers to a lot of those questions you've been asking yourself. Our friends over at our sister site
Article Marketing Strategy are building a new site and it will contain this information as it builds and accumulates. If need be, this is the URL itself:

http://www.ArticleMarketingStrategy.com

Shoot Yourself In The Foot With Article Marketing

Why not, everyone else does. In the pursuit of a free link to their website or opportunity they teach all kinds of other people how to be their competition. Does it matter that they may get a link on a website or in an ezine and they may not? They already gave out the information before they know. But although they gave it out they didn't give it away as they are bartering for some easy traffic. It wasn't exactly no-cost.

And that is not only the beauty and simplicity of it but also the natural course of events. This friendly sharing has kind of evolved into the web 2.0 where we social network. Same-same, win-win.

A better and further explanation of this effect has just been put up in an article entitled "Article Marketing Shoots Itself In The Foot" over on our sister site:

Article Marketing Strategy

Getting Ideas For Article Marketing

Getting ideas for article marketing articles is not the easiest thing to do sometimes. In fact in the day to day trenches that can be a lot of the time. Some people never even start at all because they just don't know how to get going.

And the matter can be even worse when they've bought and paid for some ebook and the author touts that you should write and submit at least one article a day. And many of these books say many more than that which can just be crushing for a fresh new beginner. Yet so few of these authors give more than a clue as to how to come up with topics to write about.

Usually the best way they can recommend is to purchase their other ebook on 'How to Come Up With Article Topics'. And on and on it goes like that for many trying to break into the area. But some no cost solutions have just been posted for you to read over at our sister site: Article Marketing Strategy

The article title is "Ideas For Article Marketing".

Does Article Length Equal Money?

Does the length of your article equal the money that you will generate from it? Regardless of whether directly or indirectly linked to your product, affiliate site, or squeeze page? Most would agree that in fact it does.

The main reason for this is because ezine and website publishers only want and need a certain type of 'free content'. For the ezines it needs to have an optimum length which for most is what will comfortably fit on one page.

And neither of them want content that is full of links leading away from them or have spam words. Such as the phrase 'f_*e content' at the start of last paragraph. Email readers may never even see it due to the filters.

Having just looked around at some of the article directories there seems to be a general consensus that 200 to 250 words is the going rate for the minimum article size. With the upper limit around 2500 to 3000 or so. But if you want ezines to reuse your article and make it a bit viral 400 to 700 is better. It will vary depending on the amount of open 'white space'.

Even webmasters will want it about this size so that it is not to scary to read from the looks of it and it will fit above the fold. But then again some webmasters have nothing but adsense and other ads above the fold. Even so 400 to 700 and maybe 800 maximum is the better bet.

Prior to this sentence and without the title this article was 251 words. More on this subject was just posted to our sister site at: Article Marketing Strategy

Their Own Guidelines And Article Authors

With rare exception article authors and their own guidelines don't really go together when they tell you how to write. Did you ever notice that the article by them that you are reading doesn't apply what they tell you to do?

Perhaps there is a logical reason for this. It's because they have just taken someone else's advise and rewrote the article calling it their own. But they sure didn't learn much from it, did they. Is the use of article marketing just degenerating into nothing more than 'article spam'?

Is it going to become like the high school diploma? Where having one doesn't really mean anything but not having one is considered a large demerit. With Web 2.0 and everything becoming auto this and self that and how many friends is it soon to be required to have X number of articles published on-line?

An interesting article entitled "Article Authors Break Their Own Guidelines" just went up over at our sister site at

Article Marketing Strategy

and it shines a little more light on the subject. The situation really is becoming a blight on the article marketing system and technique. And by the way you'll notice that at least this isn't a rewrite.

Article Writing Problems

Article writing problems can come in many variations and of all different types, for both the experienced and the newcomer to the field. Although they most always share one common bond; which is that they revolve around the content itself. Solving these issues is the problem.

Such as having to have enough content, and of good enough quality. When and where do you post it and how often? Is it unique, does that really matter, and where do you get all of this content? These are just a few of the first ones encountered.

But perhaps even more important is where to find the answers to these problems. This is what the money making marketers out there are aware of and capitalize on. Solving these problems and many others like them are rapidly becoming a fast growing 'niche' of their own. Like ebooks and courses.

There are already many ebooks and courses available right now and more coming out all the time. But much of this can be learned with a little bit of work on your own part for free. Such as at our sister site at Article Marketing Strategy where you will pick up on one little trick almost immediately you read the first article.

There are also others that can teach you for free at forums and groups, besides looking at websites. This way you can keep up with what is going on in the industry right now and what you need to know. A search on Google for 'article writing groups' or 'article writing forums' can show you these.

However time is often one of the problems and if you have a little spare money on hand you can always buy one of those ebooks, programs, or courses. (if this article was used for marketing the pertinent url would be here) A lot of them are well worth the modest price and looking on the forums or groups you can find them.

Article writing problems and pains can be a hassle and can also be fixed; which is what this article was intended to be a start of. As a rule the main ingredient of the solution is either time or money and sometimes a little of each. With persistence it's just a matter of getting yourself to start.

Topic Title And Tutelage For Article Marketing

Does your title and tutelage match the topic for your article marketing? As obvious as it is, some marketers will submit articles that cover things different from the title. In the topic "article marketing" and the title of "How To Submit", why would you want to write about something else? However close it is to the title it isn't what they clicked on to read about; how to submit their articles.

Oddly perhaps, if you cruise the article directories and read some articles you will see that more than a few authors will do this. The problem seems to be that they just stray 'off topic'. Because this is so easy to do one needs to pay constant attention to the article writing process during the entire time they're engaged in it.

An article on the matter has just been put up over at our sister site
Article Marketing Strategy called "Article Marketing Topic Title And Tutelage".

How To Come Up With Unique Topics

Sometimes the blank screen can make it seem impossible to come up with any topic to write an article about, let alone unique. But what if you could invent one just out of what you already know?

True it may just be your twist on a topic into a new one, but it can produce an article fairly quickly and easily. And what you don't know you can do a Google Search on to takes notes from two or three sites and you're set. "How To Choose A Unique Topic" is on our sister site at:

Article Marketing Strategy

9 Marketing Article Writing Tips

Marketing article writing would sure be a lot easier if you had some tips to go by, and likely a lot faster. Here are nine tips to help you stay on track and get better results. No fluff, no filler.

More than just the standard fare of headline, introduction, body, and conclusion there is some advise on sentence lenth, keywords, and the resource box. You will find it very useful. These tips are in an article on our sister site that was just put up today. They're just a click away at:

Article Marketing Strategy

Your Article Marketing Resource Box

Tonight brings a good article on the Resource Box included with your articles. While there are many things to know on the subject some of the more obvious mistakes can be easily overlooked.

Probably an entire ebook could be written on the subject of mistakes made in the resource box, but you will find some very useful information in this article over at our sister site:

Article Marketing Strategy

How Can You Learn To Write Articles Fast?

For free that is. Sure you could pay if you had the money and wanted to. Or you could learn through trial and error with a lot of practice. But how can you learn to write articles fast for free?

One way is to approach the problem just like researching an article. A good place to start is with a search on google. Read the free advice in the articles that you find and get ideas for other related searches.

Some articles will advise using time tested easy to learn techniques like the list, the opinion, or the review. These can help by having a direction to follow but the help is minimal towards the speed of writing it.

Some others will of course tell you about the formula of Title or Headline, Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. Again this is direction but not much help with speed. What you want is a whiz-bang right now type of solution.

Another very good system is the "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them". This is another way of saying Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. It will provide direction and speed if you learn to view it this way.

Suppose you pick a topic. Come up with a title. A solution to a problem is one of the best titles. Decide on 3 or more key points. There is not only your "list", but also part of your title. Such as "3 ways to...", "3 tips for...", or "3 solutions to..."

Write about 3 to 5 sentences about each point. Try to keep the paragraph down to 7 lines or less if you can. If not just write another 2nd paragraph instead of having just one big one. It's easier to read.

After that do the introduction and the conclusion. The Introduction just tells them what the 3 points or so will tell them about. Then the Conclusion reminds or summarizes what the 3 points just told them.

But this all assumes that you already know about the topic that you are writing about. If not you may go to blogs, forums, websites, and article directories to find out about it. This will help you come up with those points that you want to cover.

With Copy and Paste for note taking (not plagiarism) this really can be done in very fast time compared to your norm. For instance two or two and a half hours normally can be whittled down to 45 minutes or an hour with very little practice.

It's all in the system. And the truth is that a list article doesn't need to have an introduction or a conclusion. The paragraphs about each point can even be only 1 line.

This way you can adjust the number of points made to fit the desired length of the article, and how you can learn to write articles fast. Fast in minutes per article and fast in days until you are good at it.

Can You Write Two Articles a Night?

To hear some so called authorities in their articles, 'that's easy'. To write two articles a night you just... But the problem is that just happens to be what works for them and it is easy. But what works for you?

Many will tell you something like this: get the rough idea, come up with a title, write the introduction, jot down the basic points to cover, fill in the basic points and spell check and proof read it. On occasion they will suggest that you let it sit for a day or so before the final edit. Fine if you can stay two days ahead.

But this leaves out a few choice elements that we might call "how-to's". Like where did you get this rough idea? Did someone give you the title? How many basic points, how long are the paragraphs and how many do you use to fill in the basic points?

Where do you get a spell checker if you don't have one and what is a good way to proof read your rough draft of your article? And where on earth do you find the time to stay two days ahead so that you can just let it sit and then have a fresh look?

So many writers just tell you what to do and don't give you so much as a clue how to do it. Let's try this: Read other articles to get the rough idea. Come up with a title and search for it on google. If you don't find it, use it. Write your introduction last; it takes all of the pressure off of you to "color within the lines".

They left out the conclusion in their advice. Write one, last, right after you write the introduction so that they match. Use your main keyword in both.

Now it is just a matter of the basic ideas and filling them in. These can be 3, 5, or how ever many you want. Do one or two paragraphs for each main point with 3 or 4 sentences each. Let this depend on the desired length of your article.

Why the title of this article? Why one for your site, and one for the directories of course. Link bait, a place for your resource box, and a page to send them to for a redirect to the affiliate site. Now you're cooking!

Find a online spell checker on the web. That's one of the things that Google can be good for. Or forums, or groups. Please note that this article has no introduction or conclusion written for it.

You could consider this a rough draft and see just how easy it is to write the introduction and conclusion now that the article is done. As opposed to writing the intro first and having to write the article to fit it. Prior to this sentence, this article had 475 words.

Can You Learn to Article Market From Articles?

For the most part you can get a very good idea about it. The actual bits and pieces might take a while to fit together but eventually you'll have the whole thing pretty much figured out. As far as the basics go anyway. That's why a new article was just put up for you called "Can You Learn Article Marketing From Articles?" over at the our sister site "Article Marketing" which is located here:

http://www.articlemarketingstrategy.com/

Writing for Article Marketing

Here is a simple breakdown of 3 of the steps that you need to take to write an article for marketing your product. This can greatly assist in your efforts to earn money as an affiliate. At the very least it can get you off to a good start.

Finding the Market for your products. First find the market and then find the products. Knowing what is hot right now and is needed gives you a big advantage. Look in Clickbank, Forums, and Newsletters for good ideas of what's needed. Who is selling what? Who needs what?

Researching to write your article can partly be done while you search for the product of choice. This not only saves you time, but allows you to take notes and gather ideas. Once you have enough of an idea to begin, you can just Google Search for the websites to read for more information.

Posting can be a whole subject all of it's own as there are so many factors involved. A general directory or specific, Page Rank number, categories available, and many more. The right mixture makes all the difference. If you can't find a list already made of directories to suit your needs, you will have make one yourself.

A surprising amount can be accomplished just by trying out these 3 steps toward writing for article marketing. They can not only boost your readership or number of views your articles get, but lead to greater profits. The simple way to do this is to just begin trying it and improve as you go.

How Did You Rewrite Your Articles?

It can make a lot of sense to rewrite your articles but how did you do it? The actual mechanics of it seem to open to discussion by most everybody. Many say that a 30% change is enough to avoid the dreaded duplicate content filters.

Let us presume that you have researched your 'keyword', words, or phrases. And that you have them in the title of your article. Then you also have them in the introduction of your article.If then you also have placed these 'keywords' in the conclusion of your article, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that the introduction and conclusion must both be rewritten.

This strategic placement of your 'keywords' is to entice the search engines to give you better position. So while you want them to look, finding duplicate content for the introduction and conclusion would just be a waste of time.

That would mean that if the body consisted of three short paragraphs you would only need to change one of them for roughly 33% different content.

But the introduction and conclusion also had to be altered. Maybe the best way is to go straight down the page and rewrite about every third sentence. In the intro and conclusion maybe 2 out of 3 sentences.

The rewrite of this article is just going up on a new website with the title "Have You Ever Rewritten Your Articles?" at http://www.freewebs.com/article-marketing/

Help Finding Ideas For Articles

Sometimes in our endeavors even the most experienced article marketer draws a blank. No matter what you do it seems that no article topic will come to you. Here below are some places that can help you in such matters.


Here at Dogpile Search Spy: You find searched for items in live time. This can help just watching a bunch of phrases go by. If one comes by that fits in with your line of articles then you've just gotten your topic. Or at least the keyword phrase for it. They offer filtered and unfiltered. Here's their link in a new window:


Dogpile Search Spy

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy/


Webcrawler Search Spy: Again, filtered and unfiltered. Sometimes a bit too much but it's in real time and if you can afford it you get to see a lot of the misspellings for keywords. Perhaps you could even do an article around or based on webcrawler it's self. Check it out:


http://www.webcrawler.com/info.wbcrwl/searchspy/


Webcrawler Search Spy


Google Zeitgeist: Offers a weekly list which can also be dated by a month or year in the past, or search by country. Maybe a useful trend that last one, if you sell English as a Second Language. Here's the new window:


http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Google Zeitgeist


Google also offers Google Trends: These are in real time also, so every time that you refresh your page you get a new list of keywords. Since they are in real time, you don't get any more current trends on the internet. Here's their link in a new window:


http://www.google.com/trends

Google Trends


Groups and forums in your niche can be an excellent source of topics. In fact whatever the 'buzz' happens to be today one can research on it and write the article. Then post in the forum or group that you have just posted an article on the subject. You are after all helping with useful information that they were all buzzing about.


Depending on your niche or product in general, sometimes you can read the local magazine rack to see what is 'hot' right now. For instance in the summer it may fit into your 'health and or fitness' niche. This is a huge market right now.


And the news is much the same. Either on TV or right their on your web browser. After a few tries at rummaging around for it you'll get the hang of it.


These days an RSS Feed Reader is just about a must. Just imagine that if your niche is dogs and you get news on dogs. And the freshest articles posted by other webmasters on dogs, how much easier you could come up with topics.

A Very Simple Article Writing Formula

This article will now teach you how to write an Article using a very simple formula. Starting with the title and introduction, laying out the body, and using the conclusion. The Bio or Resource Box is the subject for an article all it's own and would follow the conclusion of the article.


First start with a catchy, informative, or curiosity producing title. How to's, tips, and lists also work very well in the title. Ideally it should solve a problem for the reader so that they will want to read it. If you struggle to write articles then that is likely why you've read this far. Or you were just curious.


The basic system is to have and introduction, body, and conclusion. And just like giving a talk to an audience you just tell them what you are going to tell them (the introduction), tell them (the article body; which you are now reading), and then tell them what you told them (the conclusion).


The introduction: You may wish to cheat or bend the rules just a little and write this last, in much the same way that you would the conclusion. That way they'll match and you are rarely wrong.


The Body: List 3,4,5 or however many points that you wish to cover. For each point write two or three sentences about it. Try to keep the sentences below 30 words long. Keep the paragraphs short. Use 2 blank lines between paragraphs to make "white space" for ease of reading.


The Conclusion: This one is fairly easy. Just summarize the article, such as
mentioning the title, intro, body, and conclusion (in this articles' case). This can also be a good place to start the pre-sell which the Bio or Resource Box will do in hopes of causing them to take an action.


Now you have learned a very simple article writing formula. You just need the right title, an introduction to the article, the article body, and a conclusion; like the one that you are reading this very moment. You can just write those four words down in order; title, intro, body, conclusion, and then fill in the spaces under each one.


This is where you would put your resource box.


This article is intended to be an example of the formula for you to follow.

Tried and True Writing Tips for Article Marketing

Even if you already know these writing tips do you use them for your article marketing articles? Seeing them all of the time is true of a lot of authors but using them doesn't seem to be. They really can help you get the edge over the competition for readership.


1. Attention Grabbing Headline: With an article you would call it a "Title". Still though, "Over 50,000 Killed in Single Battle" is almost certain to draw more readers than "Analysis of Gettysburg".


2. It is best to know your topic and make a crisp, clean, and clear presentation of it. Even if it is the history of typewriting they wouldn't read it unless they had a reason. Curiosity or a need for information are two examples.


And they usually won't stop reading and leave unless they have a reason. If it is boring, dull, unorganized and or unclear you may have just given them all of the reason they need to leave. Worst is a lack of information.


3. No spelling errors. It is also good to avoid grammatical and punctuation mistakes, but on the web writing is different. Depending on your topic and your style the rules can be stretched pretty far.


4. Get all that you can out of your Resource Box. An entire article could be written on this subject. Stick to plain text until you are comfortable with HTML. Try 1 or 2 lines of bio on yourself including of course your name.


You'll also want to work in your company or website name. Put in a call to action with an incentive to get them to your website. Such as "To learn more useful tips on article writing get your free report at www.yourdomain.com"


5. Tip number 5 is to have a conclusion to the article. It is also to point out the use of either a numbered or bulleted list. Had you noticed how it broke up the article for easier reading? Along the same lines are the short paragraphs. All of that white space makes it a bit less "scary" looking to read.

The Article Internet Marketing Strategy

Let us define "strategy" as: An elaborate and systematic plan of action.


The term "article internet marketing strategy" got 122 searches last month according to inventory.overture.com. It had 50,700,000 results on Google.


At the time of writing this article title in quotes (" ") had 4 results. That's four. Yet without them it had 53,700,00 results.


What is the big secret conclusion here? For starters, not many articles named "The Article Internet Marketing Strategy". In fact only this one. Which wasn't written and put up yet.


It seems like a good idea to have this the case with all of your article titles.


The others on the page are with slight variations of the words in front. Or have the phrase somewhere in them. With this article title change "The" to "An" and you will get 13 results.


Conclusion: Maybe you can't compete with the big boys for your favorite keywords due to their Page Rank. But the right title to your articles can put you right up there on some results.


Not as many searchers, but you get them. And note also that it is a "long tail keyword phrase". Now get yours up there. It's another link to your site. And if it was on an article directory with a good Page Rank you'd really get some mileage out of it.

Review of EzineArticles Review

This is a review of the review of EzineArticles by Yaro Starak on March 8th, 2006. It is entitled: "Is Article Marketing Worth Your Time?". And not really a review so much as a summary for you to see if you would like to pursue further. It can be found here in it's entirety:

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/405/ariticle-marketing-ezinearticles-review/

It starts off almost as a promotion for EzineArticles and then goes into what he
calls his Marketing Test. It turns out that he only half-heartedly did 20 articles, and even then they were done every few weeks or so. Most submitted to EzineArticles.

He also twice mentioned the 80/20 rule or some such but never said what it is.

Then come the numbers. The bottom line is that with 20 articles submitted he claims about 5000 views. Impressive.

It is a little weak on the Right Article Titles saying basically to include good
keywords in them.

Then comes the idea of "Short N Sweet" which means that the articles should only be somewhere in between 400 and 600 words. With some of the reasoning behind that idea.

The Vital Few is that every once in a while one of them will go Viral. This comes from the combination of Good Title, correct word count, and currently hot topic.

Quantity Over Quality is next and mentions that only a few get republished on good sites with decent PR Rank. Most end up on "SPAM BLOGS". (this is from
article-marketing-blog: don't use those two capitalized words. They will trigger the filters. The first one is about guaranteed to) So "Quantity over Quality" is the recommendation.

Duplicate Content? Modify your articles before submission if you have them on your blog or website.

Automated Article Distribution and Article Announcer by Jason Potash: A little week and really not much there but it can save you a lot of time and hassle which is the name of the game.

Is Article Marketing Worth The Time? He just missed a great opportunity here with that question. By one word. Can you see it. But this is the best part of the whole article and is worth the reading. Maybe saunter on over there and read it. The conclusion is mostly what you are after anyway.

And here is the best part. It's May 2nd, 2007 and he still shows up number 19 in a Google search for "article marketing", without the quote marks. Which is how most people would search for it. Something's right don't you think?

Article Marketing-How Many Articles to Succeed?

In a niche like Article Marketing it can require quite a commitment, and you might think "all you can" and that would be true for a lot of people. The real answer is, "as many as you need to dominate whatever niche you are in".

If you knuckle down and do this all at once right at the start then after a while you can take some time off and still be covered. But the internet moves fast and there is some pretty healthy competition around. So don't take too long off.

Article Marketing ideally would have unique, one of a kind material every time you write. But the truth is most writers just sort of copycat and rewrite things that they've read elsewhere. This is all well and good for most purposes.

The main thing involved here is to give the readers what they want when they are reading your article. Which is information. And it is a very good idea to have the information match the Article "Title".

If this rambled off on some other tangent would you still be here reading it this far?

Remember that you aren't writing a paper for school. Write in a normal conversational tone as if you were talking to a friend. And write to one person. As if this friend were sitting there with you, or reading this.

It doesn't have to be new information. If it was you would be selling it. In fact a lot of the stuff that is being sold and claims to be new is questionable. New to who?

So write, write write. Put your angle on it. How you view it; or see it and cast it out there on the net. See what you catch. If discouragement sets in you may wish to ask yourself if "all of these other marketers are writing about new ideas".

And if not then why are they doing it? Because it works. So write, post, repeat.

One Day Blog Silence

Do You Know Your Blog Community?

After about a week of downtime with the computer, it seemed like a good time to get about the business of finding some more blogs to read and comment on. But then it got late this evening.

So a quick search turned up this site to hurriedly rush over to:

http://www.blogopreneur.com/2007/04/28/10-surefire-ways-to-increase-your-blog-traffic/

Which then caused a natural progression over to this site:

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/

Where it was suggested that a bloggers' day of silence was in order tomorrow on April 30 for the 33 dead at Virginia Tech and could be read about here:

http://www.inspirationbit.com/can-silence-say-more-than-a-thousand-words/

Which will explain it all to you and send you to get the proper displays to participate here:

http://www.onedayblogsilence.com/OneDayBlogSilence.com.html

This Blog will observe silence tomorrow for this occasion.

Which once again brings home the importance of "cruising" the other blogs just to see what is going on in your niche community. And if you have something useful to comment, do so. But no Spam.

Some Major Mistakes in Article Marketing

Right from the start in Article Marketing one needs to learn the proper use of their main tool, the Article.

You may realize that most marketers agree on using a researched Keyword. When it comes to keyword density in your article the so called experts seem to vary a little on their advice, but let's go with 3 percent for now. That's workable.

Did you know that placing it in the correct areas has a lot to do with it's effectiveness? Here's a pretty good rule of thumb, which is true for a single word or a keyword phrase. Place it:

Once in the Title.
Once in the Article Body.
Once in the Bio or what some call the Resource Box.

As for the "once in the article body" it can be a good idea to use it in the first sentence, or the first paragraph at least. Take a look up top at this one that you are reading now. How would it look in the search engine results?

The article listed by title with the usual first few words or sentences would have "Article Marketing" twice. And "Article" 3 times, with the title and first sentence shown in the listing.

However, telling about it here as was just done has raised the percentage and could almost seem a little spammy. Note also the Keyword "keyword" has worked itself in there nicely. Both of these can or could be adjusted to suit you with a little work.

So one would need to plan ahead just a little bit as it will be occurring again in the resource box here at the end. If you set the "Anchor Text" in your link to your website to read as "Article Marketing" instead of the website name. Which is another useful tactic.

Did you ever hear that ignorance of the law is no excuse? And where are these mistakes mentioned in the title? These mistakes are not being aware of what you have just learned by reading this. Many new to this form of traffic generation are making them. Good hunting.

Better Headlines Improve Article Marketing

Better than what? Better than most. As the idea is to get the reader to read your article out of all of those that are presented. No matter if it's on a search result or at an article directory. It has to stand out and grab them.


One effective way to do this is to point out a problem. If they have it then they will read on to find the solution. And this helps to "pre-qualify" them as potential customers. You could flip this around and state a solution such as "Learn to Write Killer Headlines".


Some people like to use the "List Article" and so will often use the "How To..." Headline. However many there are in the list becomes "How To Yada Yada (x) different Ways". Or "(x) Different Ways How To Yada Yada".


And sometimes you can even make your guarantee in the Headline instead of down at the bottom. Such as on a Sales Page. "This Is Guaranteed To Improve Your Article Marketing by Up To 300% or Full Refund!"


It is a good idea to join and or read the Forums in your niche and also look around on the internet to see who's doing what. Today looking for Headline advice turned up: "allwebcontent.com."

To Submit Your Article or Not?

That is indeed the question. It would seem odd to ask such a thing on a blog about Article Marketing, but then there may be more than one way to go about it.

Cruising around on a forum or two brought up some interesting points. Such as "it's a waste of time and you're better off to put it on your site".

But even better advise might be "put it on your site and then social bookmark it". If it is any good this would be great. Traffic and no duplicate content worries.

In addition, there is none of the chance of a new webmaster or ezine publisher leaving off your link out of ignorance of how to include it. Or otherwise leaving it off.

All of your "Bio's" linked to one site looks "SPAMMY". That could be worked around any number of ways. A friend or two with a site of their own and point at each others with your "bio".

Perhaps the biggest lesson out of all of this is to join the forums.

Should You Have An Article Marketing Blog?

The answer is almost certainly yes. And bear in mind that it can be named and aimed at almost any niche market. Consider some of the positive aspects of the idea and what you can do with it.

To start with there is no outlay for you, at least as far as money goes. There are places to get a blog all over the Internet without the outlay of funds. You can actually take your pick from a large selection.

You can have it set up fast. In an hour or less. This is days faster than a normal website.

You avoid needing a web host or a domain name. This saves you both time and money right from the start.

You can put Adsense on it right away if you have an account and if you don't it is one of the fastest and easiest ways to get one. So instead of putting out money you might actually bring some in right from the start.

You can put links on it to your other sites if you have any. If not maybe you can trade links with others in the same niche. After all, an article marketing blog can cover a lot of ground.

You can sell affiliate products from it. Just do an article or a review on the subject matter of the affiliate and point a link to your sales page.

You can also put up a sign up form for your newsletter or ezine. If you don't already have one this may be the time and place to start.

So all in all it is pretty hard to argue with the idea of getting yourself a blog, if it's on article marketing or not. It just seems to make so much good sense when you take a look at it.

Mass or Selective Article Submission?

That is indeed a good question. And the answer is it depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your Article Marketing.

Mass submittal will get you a lot of backlinks to wherever you are pointing them in your resource box.

BUT: The backlinks can and will come from many places that you have no control over.

Such as unrelated websites, and or websites with zero Page Rank.
Traffic is traffic maybe but the afore mentioned will only serve to lower the page rank of your site if that is in the resource box.

In this case it is better to use selective submittal to 6 or 8 high Page Rank directories. You can even rewrite the articles enough to make them unique as well as alter the titles.

What about affiliate sales? Mass submit. You don't need Page Rank really. Although it wouldn't hurt in the long run.

A good way to go about this is to put up a small inexpensive website just for this one product. Put (5) or so articles on it related to the affiliate product. Point your resource or "bio" box links at this website. Where your affiliate product is featured.

This of course would hold true of your autoresponder opt-in page for list building. With a lot of articles out there does it really need to worry about Page Rank or duplicate content? They see and read your article and for more information or a freebie they come to the opt-in page to subscribe.

And as for duplicate content don't let the "Guru Crud" scare you into buying their product. Unless you put the same thing on the same website it really isn't that big an issue; yet. But try to be original as a standing habit. The search engines are getting smarter all the time.

Do You Need a Submission Service?

With the increasing number of article directories popping up everywhere, it is becoming quite a difficult task to know which of them to use. To the best effect that is.

This brings to mind the idea that as soon as your article marketing pays off enough to justify it an article submission service would be in order.

However some people can do quite well without the use of one because they have taken the time to select the directories that they use.

Selected not just by page rank but also by the quality of the articles there. And if there are enough of them relevant to the site they are article marketing. This draws in readers looking for their work.

With all of the advantages of article marketing it is sometimes amazing to the newcomer just how much effect it can produce economically.

So the whole idea of write, write, write is true, but write one submit to 10, write another submit to 10 and so on just may be the better bet. Like they always say; test, test, test.

As a side note: Two words used here in this article are a little bit "iffy" because they can sometimes trigger the spam filters. This means that Ezine publishers "in the know" may not want to use your article. The (2) are "best" and "amazing". Simply use similar words instead.

Your Article Writing Guide

Article Writing is a good way to promote yourself or any services that you might offer. By writing articles about the positive aspects of your product or service you help to bring awareness of them to your readers.

How Article Writing gets you traffic is not to hard to understand.

If you submit your article to directories and people come to read it they will see in your resource box the url to your site. Other webmasters may publish your
article to their site. Ezine publishers may use your article in their mail outs to their list. These all add up to more exposure for your site and a lot of backlinks to it. This can improve Page Rank.

This all assumes of course that your article writings produce quality good enough to be accepted into the article directories. Most are not too hard to get into, but a few can be a bit more difficult. Shop around and try them.

The following tips should help with your chances. Please follow in the order in which they are listed.

Write around a "good" keyword.

There are a number of free keyword tools on the web. If the keyword isn't being looked for then nobody is interested in the subject that you are article writing about. This will not result in many readers.

This may still cause your article to appear in the search engines for the keyword, but nobody is typing it in so it will not be seen. And other websites will be less than interested in using your article. The same for Ezines. So use a "good" keyword (one that has enough searches for it).

Use this good keyword in your title for much better exposure:

As in the last tip, if people are looking for it then they may find your article. It may show in the search engines when people are looking for it. Other websites may desire to use it. Ezine publishers will have more cause to want to use it.

Search for your title in quotes like this:

"Your Article Writing Guide" in Google before using it. If no results are returned then it probably is a good title that nobody else is using. So now before you even start your article writing you have a good title, with a good keyword in it. On a good subject of interest since it is written around the keyword.

About the Title:

We know to use the keyword; which could be a phrase such as "Article Writing". But it should be a unique and interesting title. One that draws the reader in, either with curiosity, or by offering some benefit to them.

Such as how to make them more money, make something easier for them, or solve some nagging problem of theirs. Such as not knowing how to write an article that will show more of the desired effect. Think of your readers point of view and "what's in it for me".

Using Bold or Italics:

These can be good for drawing the readers attention and helping to skim or just to focus in on, as well as helping with the search engines. Check with the article directory that you are using first to make sure they're allowed. The same with"Bullets", or numbered lists.

Using Links in your article:

Don't. Some article directories allow for some links in the article, if they are relevant to what the article is about. Such as a link to a similar article or a website for that subject. But most don't like it.

You can have one link in your "Bio", or "resource box" as it is called that leads to your site, blog, autoresponder, or whatever. Only a few directories allow you to put in a link straight to your affiliate site. Again, shop around.

If you intend to write and submit many articles to many directories this matter of links can quickly become a hassle. While you can make two, three, or several different "Bios" (there's another tip for you), it is really going to become a lot more work if you want to produce different versions of the same article.

Article Length:

Usually between 300 and 700 words according to most opinions around. The point is that if it's too short there just isn't enough "meat" in it, whereas if it is too long readers might be scared off from it.

Also, Ezine publishers may not want to use it if it takes up more than (1) page. Finally, each directory may have different higher and lower limits and so for mass submittal it is better to hit the common "mid-range" in length. This one is over-weight at 811 words before this sentence.

Another Look at an Article Marketing Article

1. Find An Affiliate Product

It must match your business. You wouldn't want to have an affiliate product for fishing or cat food (although those two might go together) on this website for Article Marketing. And also remember that with a blog or a website your link can point directly to the affiliate site when you write something. In addition to just putting up the supplied ad.

This is true with buying an Ad in an Ezine but did you know that there are also some article directories that allow you to link directly to the affiliate? Perhaps for the totally new to this it would never have occurred to them that you couldn't at all of them.

2. Write 2 articles a day and submit them all over the web.

The research and article writing itself does take a lot of time, or a little bit of time. It depends on who is doing it and what kind of tools they have. But in general the better; the longer. Having a unique title is not only so that people might have an interest in reading it, but so that it will show up in the search engines readily.

How you know if you have a unique title is to Google it with quote marks around it like this "A Look at an Article Marketing Article". The theory is that if it doesn't show up anywhere then nobody has used it.

But you're reading it right here right now. Try it and see that it doesn't show up here on April 12th, 2007. So maybe it really boils down to whoever gets it listed on the search engines first has it. The point is if it is searched for will they come to your article.

How and where to submit is just by looking at a few directories, finding maybe 6 or 7 that you like. And then develop a system for doing all of your submitting assembly line fashion in one sitting for an hour or two. More likely only about 20 minutes. Many directories have certain things in common, but they also each have their own little quirks so you have to read the rules before using them.

3. Include your Resource Box.

Basically it should be as big as they will let you. Four to six lines is the usual. Say something true and positive about yourself. And one (1) link only seems to be becoming the trend. The links will be covered another time. To get them to follow your links, just leave something out of the article, such as the way links weren't covered here but will be at ...

A Look at an Article Marketing Article

Here is a summary of a recently viewed article that was supposed to tell you all about how to article market broken down into the three subheadings that were used.

Below each heading you will find only some of what could have been included in the article but wasn't offered.

1. Find an affiliate product

Pick an affiliate product that you like or at least know something about the subject that it deals with. Pick a product that matches your present business situation such as blog, website, newsletter, etc. After all you intend to write about subjects related to this product and then hope to send the readers somewhere of your choosing.

2. Write 2 articles a day and submit them all over the web.

This can take a certain amount of research. And time. Usually the better the research and article the more time. Have a unique Title. How do you know if you do?

How and where to submit. Submission of your articles can also take a lot of time unless you have automation for it. All of the research, writing, and submitting requires a lot of time or resources.

3. Include your resource box.

How big should it be? How many lines? What is the correct number of links to include? Along with links straight to the affiliate sight or not, what type of links, and the different kinds of links there are. What and how much to say about yourself. What to say to bring them to follow your link or links.

Clearly these are issues that need to be addressed before you can hope to "Article Market" successfully. One need spend some time searching around on the internet for some good and reliable sources of information before starting.

Which is what brings them to read Your Article.

Does Your Article Marketing Suffer From This?

Many would be article marketers shoot themselves in the foot by making too many common mistakes. Are you doing some or all of these and then wondering what is going wrong or why it isn't working?

Preparation: Do you know who your target market is? This is very important. It is doubtful that you would be here still reading this article if it was not about article marketing but instead wandered off of the topic to something else. You would just click away.

Usefulness: Did you write your article to be useful to the reader, or yourself? Again, if the reader is not finding useful information they will just click away. After all, that is what they came to your article for.

Keyword use: Assume that you know who your target audience is. Now you should have a list of keywords or a good idea of the keywords that you want to use. Are they in your article enough or too much? Are they in the Title or not?

Then general consensus seems to be that about 3% is the magic number. About is the term used because some say as high as 5 to 7 percent. Less is more. Go with 3. "Article" was 2.96 percent before this sentence.

Researching With Ease

When writing your articles it may be necessary to do some research about the topic if you are not already knowledgeable enough about it. One of the best places to do that research is an Article Directory.

There you can search by topic various categories to find useful information. This will greatly assist in your article marketing. You will be able to produce articles that have something to offer to the reader, the directory, and ezine publishers. That's the name of the game.

If it does not serve the reader well, why would the directory want it? And even if the directory went ahead and posted it would anybody read it? Or would any ezines publish it? Would it serve your purpose? Regardless if that is traffic to your blog, website or otherwise.

But sometimes what is more useful because it is more in time with what is "buzzing" right now is to read other blogs and visit forums. There you can get all manner of ideas and information. Then if you have to you can do some other kind of research.

However you go about it, it's a good idea to have your topic well thought ought and researched before you try to sit down and write. Just reading the articles by other people will help.

The List Article

One of the easiest and therefore most popular types of articles to write is the List Article. All that you really have to do is pick a keyword for the subject and decide what you would like to list about it.

Such as "Cats", and "things they like to ...". Then number them. An example article might be "The 5 ways Cats like to bother their owners". Then use a numbered or bulleted list to show them. Like this.

• Run around the house
• Wake you in the middle of the night
• Ignore you
• Refuse whatever you pick to feed them
• Claw the furniture

That is if the directories that you submit to will allow numbered or bulleted lists. They aren't really an absolute must. Of course you would still need to use the basics of using an introduction and a conclusion for your article now that you have the title. That's it!