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.