The online competition is steep. Online business owners need all the traffic they can get just to turn out few actual customers. And, gathering website visitors is what article marketing is really good at. And it gets even better because if you have the proper background and ample time to spare, you could even do the entire marketing campaign by yourself free of cost.

Unlike TV or print ads, article marketing campaign can bring you customers in steady stream for a long, long time. When you publish your article on article directories, it doesn’t get deleted. Online article directories archive the older articles, which is still accessible by readers, instead of deleting them. So your archived articles still have the potential to invite visitors to your site. That’s when Article marketing ends paying off for website owners and online business
managers.

Articles are also accessible 24/7. When they are properly optimized, they have a chance to appear on search results, and the power of building website traffic is there.

At the end of the day, an online business has different needs for advertising compared to an offline business. To get more people to visit your site, let alone make your site known on the Web, you have to share what you know about your niche to your potential customers first. That is why you need to employ article marketing because its main aim is to educate people. The number of visits you get through the resource box you place at the end of your article is only secondary to the thought of helping people online first.

Written by Stephen Chua.

It takes a lot of articles (in the hundreds at least) to get consistent traffic to your sites. Whether you are a billionaire or factory worker, you only have 24 hours a day. If you do all by yourself, you will reach the burn-out state pretty fast, even if you love writing articles.

Outsourcing is solution to your time-limit problem. At the initial stage of your business career, this may be difficult due to budget constraint. But when your income become consistent, you definitely want to source some of your article writing or/and submission works to other.

This frees up your time to do the things you enjoy (playing with your kids, take long vacations, etc). It is rather pointless to earn truckload of cash if you don’t have the time to use them for your enjoyment.

There are many sites such as eLance, which offer writing services. Each good article will cost you $5 or more, depending on the length of the articles and the volume required. Do ask for samples to see if their writing standards meet your requirements.

Alternatively, you can go to your local college and find students who can help you write articles. Many college students take up part time jobs to fund their tuition fees, so you should have no problem finding them.

Talk to your neighbors and find out if they are stay-at-home moms, or have teenage kids staying at home doing nothing, or anyone who has been laid off and looking for a job.

You will have to spend some time to train these people if you want them to produce the type of article your want, especially if they have no experience writing articles. You can also provide some video tutorials to show them how to do article submissions and resource box writing.

Build a good relationship with these freelancers and soon you will have a small team of writers that write exclusively for you as well as submit the articles on your behalf.

Many people are overwhelmed by the article submission process and don’t know where to begin. I have outlined below the ten steps I take with each article submission project. Having a process in place makes organizing submissions so much easier and removes the confusion of where or what to do first.

1.Proofread your articles first before submitting to article directories. A clever title is imperative as well as a by-line that pushes readers to act.

2. Use a text to html tool to format your by-line so that your URL will appear live when your article is posted on a site.

3. Collect the information you’ll need for most submission sites including: title, author name, address, phone number, e-mail, website URL, topic, two line summary of the article, word count, line count, article URL, auto responder address (if available), document file names and 12-17 keywords.

4. Make a list of the type of submission sites appropriate for your article.

5. Begin submitting to sites that accept articles by e-mail. Never send an attachment unless asked. Incorporate the entire article into the e-mail and include an option for the recipient to opt-out of your list.

6. Your next step should be to sign-up for all new submission sites on your list that require registration. Typically, you have to wait for a confirmation e-mail before submitting. While waiting, so other things you need related to article submission.

7. Submit to all sites you have registered for and to all sites not needing registration but offering a submission form, remember that this is key for a a smart an article marketing strategy.

8. Check your e-mail, confirm your new accounts and visit those sites to add your article. Keep track of your login and password for each site.

9. Update your submission list by removing or correcting bounced e-mail addresses and URL errors. Update your list of article submission sites as soon as you find relevant one.

10. Create a report to keep on your computer with the name and URL of the sites you used for submission. Update this list when you submit your older articles to newly discovered sites.

Create your own submission process by building on the steps I have provided and you will find your submissions taking less time while helping you to become more organized.

Now that you have read all of this, which is really good info. I like to Automate things!! If you want to automate your article submission process, Click Here and you will have this whole process completely automated!!

Enjoy!

This article was written by blissama

1. Not knowing the main reason of writing the article

The 3 key benefits of writing article are branding, lead generation and promotion. Most people will write for one or all of these reasons.

But the true reason why you write an article is to inform or educate your audience. The 3 benefits mentioned earlier will not be achieved if no one reads your article.

Write with your target audience in mind and the benefits will followed.

2. Not maximizing the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

Submitting good quality articles will gain you valuable backlinks. But that is only one aspect of article marketing. You should also incorporate basic SEO tactics into your article.

Mention keywords at strategic places. Make sure not to overdo them. Make use of your main keyword or secondary keywords for anchor texts. If the article directories you are submitting do not support anchor text, make sure to include a full URL to your site.

Make sure there is an opt-in form on your site to capture name and email address of your visitors. If not, you will lose them forever.

3. Writing content that does not benefit your readers.

If all you want are backlinks from the article directories, than you are going to leave a lot of money on the table. The true power of article comes from its viral effect. The more other website owners publish your article, the more visitors you will get and potentially an increase in profits if you have a strong sales funnel.

All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight.

Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you. Do not let basic stuffs like poor grammar and wrong spelling prevent your article from getting distributed.

In the end, the choice is yours. You can take the easy way and get little exposure. Or put in some extra up front and watch the avalanche of targeted visitors coming to your site.

If you would like submitting your articles to alot of directories at one time, you may want to try this submitter!

Enjoy and Happy Writing!

Are you having writers’ block? Don’t tear out your hair yet. Here are some ways you can get your creative juices flowing.

1) Carry a notebook with you wherever you go

Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into your notebook and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard. You can use other people’s ideas to develop your own ideas. Place a notebook next to your bed as well. Sometime the best ideas come when you are just about to sleep or upon waking up.

2) Relax and keep a clear mind

A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Creativity comes to you naturally when you have a clear mind. Try to get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity.

Set time aside for relaxation or do meditation. Yoga is another good way to relax.

3) Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness

Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind. A messed up or disorganized workplace will causes distraction and is not conducive in firing up your creative flow.

Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures or objects that inspire you. Keep your workplace clean and well organized. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.

4) Set the mood

Creativity comes easily when you are in the right mood. You may want to put on some light music, turn on the soft lighting or even a sip of red wine.

5) Go do something crazy

Don’t sit in front of your computer the whole day. Break the routine. Go for an short adventure tour. Do something that is unusual from your daily routine. This can take the rut out of your schedule. These unusual experiences can fire up your creativeness and shift your imagination into overdrive.

Note that there is no need to go to far away places. Maybe you have not seen a movie for a long time. So go do it. You probably come back with some good ideas after the movie. Just make sure you are relax and having fun.

3 Ways to Write Articles Fast

If you are struggling to write one single article, here are are few ways that can help you get that article out quickly. And they do not cost you a cent.

Writing articles and submitting them to online websites and offline publications is a surefire way to generate targeted traffic
as well as build your creditability.

Not all of us have a flair for writing, so it can be a pain to sit down and write something, even for just ten minutes. Here are three ways you can use to speed up your article writing skills.

1. Make use of articles with private label rights

Articles with private label rights allow you to put your own name as the author without changing a single word. This may seems like a good idea for busy people like us but doing so will not get you the result you are want, which are targeted traffic and creditability.

The reason is because these articles are being sold to many other people. There is simply no uniqueness if everyone just slaps their name on the article and submits them to the relevant websites and offline publications. In fact, these unmodified articles are likely to be rejected.

All websites and offline publication owners are looking for original content. So to get the most out of these articles, you should modify them. You can add in new paragraphs, change the wordings to reflect your personality or combine a few articles into one.

Another way is to use these articles as ideas for your own articles. Well-written articles usually went through a thorough research process, so you can just tap the ideas without spending too much time on researching.

2. Use software to guide you

There is software
that can help you write your article quickly. What they do is ask you a series of questions and you just supply the answer. The software will then compile your answer into an article. You just edit the article for better flow and uniqueness. If you do this often enough, you can write your own articles within minutes.

There is also software on the market that claim it can write the article for you if you supply a seed article. They are commonly known as article spinner. Most of the time, this type of software will produce unreadable article. So it is best to avoid them.

3. Fix a time to write your articles

Designate a time of the day where you will write your articles. This would preferably a time where you are relax, such as 7 am in the morning. The key here is consistency. Once you pick a time slot, stick to it and write something. As long as you do your writing on the same time slot consistently, your mind will shift into writing mode each time you site behind your desk during that period. You will be amazed how much and how fast you can write.

There are other ways that you can also speed up the writing process but these three is simple enough to get you started. Once you generate a good income from your article marketing efforts, you can hire someone to write for you, which is probably the fastest and passive way of promoting your business.

If you are interested to use software to guide you, this 8-mInute article write is just right for you. It doesn’t cost you dime and you can get it by filling in the form on the right.

This article was written by Stephen Chua.

If you want to create original materials without taxing your brain too much, public domain
materials are a good source to get your creative juice flowing.

In a nutshell, public domain
materials are those that are no longer copyrighted. A full explanation of public domain will require the length of a special report but you can easily google about the term ‘public domain’ online. There is no risk of getting sued for copyright infringement because they are public domain, meaning that anybody can use it. Writing articles by using public domain won’t require as much work as writing one from scratch would. This will save you a lot of time too.

You are probably familiar with Walt Disney line of products (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc). But do you know Walt Disney create those characters from public domain materials?

The Grimm Fairy Tales was very popular in the 1800s. When it went into public domain, Walt Disney saw the opportunity and adapts it for his movies. Of course, he did not use it as it is. He changed the names of some of the characters and give them a modern touch, so that it appeal to those people in his generation.

Yes, you can adapt those public domain works and turn them into motion pictures, audio or other format that you desire but our focus here is to get ideas to write our articles.

With public domain materials, you can simply edit them to your own style and rewrite them as you please to make it suitable for your needs. And you will want to rewrite them because their style of English is a bit different from what we use today as most of the public domain materials were published prior to 1923.

Now, where do you find these public domain materials?

The online search engines
are probably the easiest way to do this.

The other way is to visit the Project Gutenberg site where you can find tons of public domain in ebook format that you can download for free. This is my favorite because many ‘volunteer’ authors also publish their ebooks for free distribution here.

This is one of the easiest way to get ideas to write your articles. You don’t need to scour around the library or the internet
for hours for information and start an article from scratch.

With just one ebook, you can create 10-50 articles easily. This is a free resource
so you can try it out without any risk at all.

If you are serious enough, you can even repackage these public domain works and sell them as your own infoproduct. If you like to know how to leveage the Public Domain in your business, then you should check this out immediately:

Click here to Profit from Public Domain

Enjoy the Free Content!

Make Your Resource Box Click-friendly

A resource box is a little “classified-ad” that you usually find at the end of an article. For most article directories, this is the only place that the authors can place a link to their website. And thus this is the most important part of the whole article that you submitted.

In general, the resource box contain the name of the author, a brief description of the author, a brief description of the author’s website and a link. If the readers like what they read, they would tend to click the link to find out where the article came from to read more. Thus it is worth putting the time and effort to create a good resource box.

Having read through many articles as well as written quite a few myself, I realized that having the author’s name and bio in the resource box does not generate a lot of clickthrough. Most of the time, when I clickthrough to any site from an article resource box, it is mainly due to 2 reasons:

1. Curiosity
2. Benefit

As an example, consider this:

Free report reveals how one man from India earned $15,691 of Adsense
commission in one month without prior success. Grab your free report at http://xyz.com and discover his secret strategies now.

This resource box will make me curious and want to know more about the secret strategies. I will most likely click over to the website to get the report so that I can also improve my Adsense income (which is a benefit to me).

There is space limitation for the resource box and so it may be necessary to re-write the resource box a few times to get the length right without sacrificing the curiosity and benefit factors. I once heard an article marketing expert said that he spent less than 15 minutes writing his article, but he will spend 30 min to 1 hour to get his resource box right. That’s how important the resource box is.

For SEO
reason, include your main and secondary keywords in the resource box if possible.

Just like writing actual classified ads or PPC ads, a lot of practice is required. Whenever I browse the article directories, I will copy the resource box of those articles that I’ve read and click through. They will go into my swipe files folder and will help me generate ideas on how to create my own resource boxes.

Check out Article Marketing on Steroids !!

Enjoy!

6 Hot Tips to Get your Articles Read —

Article writing requires a some amount of effort and time on your part. If no one is reading them, it is a waste of time and effort. Here are six tips to get your articles read and enjoyed by others.

1) Use short paragraphs

Long paragraphs can make your article difficult to read. Keep each paragraph short. 3-5 sentences should suffice. In fact, a paragraph can be a single sentence or even a single word!

2) Make use of numbers or bullets

Numbers and bullets can make it easy for readers to digest the information. Format you bullets and numbers with indentations so that your article won’t look like a single block of square paragraphs.

3) Use sub-heading

Use sub-heading to grab readers attention. This can also help connect the paragraphs and make it easy for the reader to move on from one point to another; the transition would be smooth and easy.

4) Use a good attention-grabbing title

If your title can entice a person’s curiosity, you’re already halfway in getting a person to read your article. Use titles like ‘Tips on making her want you more’ or ‘How to make her swoon and blush’.

5) Keep them interested from the start to the finish

From your opening paragraph, use real life situations that can be relate by the reader. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point but don’t over do it. Use of graphic metaphors and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about. Make the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.

6) Utilize figures when necessary

Using specific facts and figures can heighten your article because they make the article looks authoritative. But do not make it too formal. The content should still be light and easy for your readers.

A well-written article can drive significant of targeted traffic to your site. It will catch the eyes and interest of your customers and keep them coming back for more. Here are 4 factors that can affect your article effectiveness.

1- Keywords and Keyword Phrases.

An article must should be centered on one main keyword and keyword phrase. This serves as the main theme of your article.

Besides the main keyword or phrase, there should be 3-5 secondary key-phrases related to the main keywords. This gives your article more room to expand without deviating from the main theme.

For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you have articles about cars and their parts. The main keyword will probably be ‘auto parts’. The secondary keywords could be ‘cheap auto parts’, ‘original auto parts’ and ‘Honda auto parts’.

There are many free keyword research tools online you can use online to do this. Here is one that is free:

Nichebot Classics

2 – Keyword Density

Although this factor has been de-emphasized over the last few years, it can still help your article rank well in the search engines.

Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used on an article. The number varies depending on the number of words used in an article. An effective article must have a keyword density
that is not too high or too low. Too high, the article will lose its naturality. Too low, the search engines may ignore it.

A 3-5% density should be good enough. This number is not cast in stone and should be tested.

3 – Good Article Content

Even though keywords are important, you cannot just riddle an article with keywords. They must be reader-friendly. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good and relevant information. Correct spelling and good grammar is also important.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to incorporate as many facts as you can in to your article. But do not over do it else your article may become meaningless. It is just a number-filled article that no one understands.

4 – Good resource box with a valid link

If you are going to submit articles to ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, remember to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and you should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site.

Even better, offer a free report or bonus in the resource box so that more people will click through to your site to get the bonus. Make sure you have an opt-in form ready to capture these visitors’ name and email address.

If not, you can sign up with any of the following autoresonder service:

Aweber
Getresponse

Article Marketing is a great way to increase your traffic to your site.

Enjoy

Both will provide you with the instructions and codes to create your own opt-in forms.