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By Steve Shaw in Article Marketing

Once you’ve done the keyword research for your website, you can then use those keywords strategically in your article submission campaign. By creating keyword focused articles, you’ll get much better results from your article marketing efforts by helping search engines to associate your website with particular keyword terms.

This article gives some quick article marketing tips on how to appropriately use your keywords in your article submissions:

1 – The Headline:

The purpose of your headline is to indicate the topic of your article.

Try to place the keyword phrase that you’re targeting at the beginning of your headline. This takes some thought – the goal is to create a headline that would capture the attention of your potential reader, but that also prominently displays the keyword phrase. The title also has to be grammatically correct and contain correct spelling.

The best SEO-friendly titles just look like a great title – no one should be able to tell that you have specifically crafted it with your keywords in mind.

Please note: In addition to the keywords you researched for your website, it’s a good idea to also do keyword research for the topics of your articles. The phrases associated with your article topics will naturally be longer, say 3-8 words long. They are more specific than the keywords that are associated with your website, but that makes them perfectly suited for article topics.

The main difference between these two types of keywords is that the ones you use in your title and article body are what you’d like the article to rank for, and the keywords you use in your resource box are the ones you’d like your website to rank for.

2 – The Article:

The topic of the article is determined by the title.

Try to repeat your keyword phrase in the first 5 sentences or so of the article, in a natural sounding way of course.

Then, just write naturally about your topic. Since the keyword phrase is closely related to the topic of your article, then variations of the phrase should appear naturally in your article. Don’t try to force it too much, and by all means don’t pepper your article with the keyword phrase.

The most important part about the article is that it is easy for a reader to understand and that it provides helpful information. So, focus on writing a well-written article that teaches your reader something. After carefully placing your keyword phrase in the 5 lines, don’t worry too much about how many times the keyword phrase appears in the article. It will show up every once in a while as you naturally write about your topic.

Also, it’s okay for the phrase to appear in different forms, for example, ‘race cars,’ ‘racing cars,’ ‘race car gear’, etc.

3 – The Resource Box:

The resource box is where you can tell a little about yourself and your business and where you can encourage the reader to click the link leading back to your website. This is also a great spot to put one of the keyword phrases that you’d like your website to rank highly for.

Many directories will allow you to create an anchor text link in your resource box. With an anchor text link, you can use your keyword phrase to form the link that leads back to your website. This helps search engines to associate that phrase with the topic of your website and can influence the search engine ranking for your site for that phrase.

Be sure not to use the same phrase each time though – you should have a list of keyword phrases for your website, and you can alternate those in your resource boxes. If you use the same phrase as anchor text each time, it can look suspicious to search engines, which could have negative SEO consequences for your website.

Let’s recap the main things to remember when creating an SEO friendly article:

=> Do your keyword research, and find phrases to target in your articles as well as phrases that you’d like your website to rank for.

=> Write naturally. The phrases that appear in your article should not be conspicuous or awkward sounding. They should just be a natural part of a helpful article.

=> Be sure to use proper spelling and grammar. This is necessary for the article to be published and also for readers to be able to understand what the article is saying.

After doing this a few times, writing an SEO-friendly article will be like second nature. You’ll become very skilled at creating content that’s useful to your readers, while at the same time crafting an article that will attract the attention of search engines.

Steve Shaw has helped thousands of business owners worldwide build traffic, leads and sales to their websites, and he wants to help you do the same – grab his free report giving you a blueprint for attracting sustainable, dirt-cheap, long-term, targeted traffic to any website…including yours! Go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report – some people have used the same information to boost their traffic by up to 600%!

By Charles Kiyimba in Article Marketing

videomktgWhen I wrote the article “10 Proven Benefits of Converting Your Articles into Videos” the first comment I received from one of my followers was “How do you turn your articles into videos?” This prompted me to come up with this simple explanation on how to go about it.

There are several options of converting your articles into videos. For instance you can use PowerPoint to create animated slides and convert them into a video format. You can use a flash program to create your videos. But these options really require technical know-how and most people may find it a little bit difficult.

The easiest way to convert your articles into videos is by using an article-to-video-converter software that turns them into videos in the shortest time possible. It is user friendly and it doesn’t require much technical know-how. But you need to select a good program that allows you to edit your article in any way you want. Secondly, you need to spend some money to use the service.

Normally a good program will have a variety of free images you can choose from to use as a background for your videos, with an option to upload your own images. A good program should also have a variety of free background music and a provision to distribute your videos to major video sharing websites like YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo Video, Daily Motion, Metacafe, Revver, Sclipo and many others at no extra cost to save you time and money.

Converting your articles into videos, using an article-to-video converter program, is a three-step process that involves copying and pasting your article into the program, converting it to video and uploading it for distribution to video sharing websites. It’s as simple as that.

Copying and pasting your article into the program takes just a second. After pasting it into the program, the software automatically separates the paragraphs, which then become your video screen descriptions. Each screen description corresponds to a specific paragraph.

To effectively convert your articles into videos, you need to edit the article. Editing entails making changes on your video descriptions. When you add so many words, you risk having very small words on the screen. It entails transforming your text into audio, using the voice-over tool. The program already has prerecorded voices of varying tones for both men and women. You just have to pick the voices that best meet your needs and use them. You also have the option of uploading your own voices.

The process of converting your articles into videos also entails adding background images and music that you consider to be good for your videos. After inserting the background image and music, make sure you preview your video to see whether it’s showing properly and is as you want it to be. If there are any changes to make, you can always go back on specific paragraphs to make your changes.

After converting your articles into videos, you are left with the task of uploading and distributing them to video sharing sites. There is an option of uploading them to your blog and to your Twitter and Facebook pages. If you have a website, you can still copy and paste the HTML code to your website. You can also adjust the settings to resize the width and length of your video on your site.

While turning your articles into videos, you need to optimize your keyword phrases in your video titles and high to enjoy the benefit of getting organic traffic. Secondly, you need to be creative enough to spice up your videos and to make them unique. When you do that then you are assured of getting a steady flow of traffic to your website. Does that help you?

Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn’t. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

By Rick Quatraro in Article Marketing

articlewriting 2Have freezer eye? You know, you stare at the computer long enough hoping to figure out which article ideas to write about only to have your eyes freeze. You ask yourself, “What do visitors want to read? What do I like writing about? What have I already written? What pertains to my website or blog? What will help sales? What will help people sign up for my newsletter?” And the main question most people ask, “What am I an expert on so I feel confident enough to write about?”, so on and so on.

Well, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert on anything for your article ideas. Yeah, that’s right.

Instead of feeling like an expert why not take a journalistic approach. Are journalists experts when they report on an event or when they conduct an interview? No, most likely not or someone would be interviewing them, right? But in many cases they have discovered a problem and are looking for a solution. It just so happens that the solution is found somewhere else.

How do you find the problems? How do you find the solutions? Well, here’s how I do it.

I. Questions People Ask Online

1. Search Engines

Plug in different questions into Google and other search engines. I would use at least 2 for each search. Play with word combinations.

- For example, there is a big market for my site’s theme on how to make dessert cupcakes. I admit cupcakes are not something I make a lot, so by no means am I an expert on cupcakes, but I have good content about the market and different niches on some of my pages. I found that many people were asking “how to deliver cupcakes” in Yahoo questions and in blogs. So after much playing with word combinations I found that, “how to transport cupcakes” wasn’t quite as competitive as, “how to deliver cupcakes”. In this case I created a written interview for another webmaster that has a website for cake and cupcake decorating. I took her answers and wrote up an article and plugged in backlinks to both our sites.

2. Your Site’s Statistics Dashboard.

What are the long tail searches people are typing in the search engines to find your site? For me many people ask “how to” questions looking for solutions: “how to send chocolate covered strawberries in mail”, “how to package chocolate covered apples for delivery”, “how to make colored chocolate lollipops”, “how to make filled chocolate candies”, etc. This is a great source of knowledge about both your current visitors and potential visitors.

3. Google Adword Tool.

Find the exact number of monthly searches for different questions. Again play with different word combinations and you will get back a big list. This is one of the best free tools for keyword and phrase searches. Type “Google adword tool” into a search engine to find it, if you haven’t ever used it.

4. Blogs and Discussion Boards.

Practically any market or niche market will have these and they provide a wealth of insight. Search for them and you will find them.

5. Q & A Page from your site. If you already have done the work why do more?

II. Solutions

There are a few ways to find the solutions.

1) You, the expert. This is the easiest way obviously.

2) Research the answer. Search for it online or in books at the library.

3) Ask an expert. Someone will help you. Think about someone you know or just go ask someone. Send the question to someone’s website, see if they answer. Offer to give them credit in your article. Or offer to conduct a written interview that you email them like I did and give them backlinks to their site or credit if they don’t have a site.

Solutions to problems are what people look for online. This is one of the primary reasons people use the internet to begin with. And the value of a well written article or page on your site with the solutions to these problems is immense. First, do the research to see which word combinations to use which have the best possible chance of being found.

Only write about 2-3 questions per article, preferably if they are related so the search engines will be more clear about the theme of the article. Break the article into clear and concise paragraphs to make it easy to read and understand.

Would you agree that people are always looking for solutions to problems online? You probably do.

Just think of all the questions you had about creating a website, writing an article, what information to put on your site and all the everyday questions you ask regarding your health, diet, financial questions, parenting, pet care, house repair, car repair, cooking, delivery, entertainment systems, household product reviews, vacation planning, etc. Everything on the internet starts with a question. Every potential visitor to your site has questions that need answers. Find the questions and provide the answers in your articles and I promise you will never run out of article ideas.

Rick is founder of Deluxe-Sweets-and-Candy-Gifts.com a site dedicated to dessert and candy making ideas as an option for economical, edible gifts. Along the way he discovered how article marketing attracts backlinks and increases both short-term and long-term traffic to his site. His only regret is he stopped article writing a while back and should have stuck with it. http://www.deluxe-sweets-and-candy-gifts.com/article-writing.html

By Terri Seymour in Article Marketing

articlewriting 2If you are an online business owner and are not yet active in article marketing, you need to get started as soon as possible.

Why write articles?

Article writing and marketing is one of the most powerful ways to boost your traffic and sales. Articles will build your reputation and credibility. Articles will allow you to make more contacts and establish more connections. Articles will improve your ranking and bring you more traffic. Articles will improve your online presence. Article marketing is free!

Writing an article is not as hard as most people think. You are not writing a dissertation but a simple and informative article.

Below are ten steps to help you write a more successful article.

Step 1: The Title

Be sure you choose a title that will grab people’s attention and catch their interest. Most people will decide to read an article or not just by the title. Be specific in what your article is about.

For example: How to Grow Vegetables vs. 5 Ways to Healthier More Delicious Vegetables

Which article would you read? I know I would read the second one.

Step 2: Topic of Interest

Be sure to choose topics that people will want to know about. Do some research to see what questions people are asking. Visit forums, groups, social sites and see what needs to be addressed. See what the buzz is about and write your article accordingly.

Step 3: Easy to Understand

There is no need to write a college dissertation. Use short, easy to understand sentences. Use 5th grade level words to be sure everyone who reads your article will understand what you are talking about.

Step 4: Easy to Read

Going along with the short easy to understand sentences, keep your paragraphs short but informative. Leave plenty of white space so reading your article is not hard on the eyes.

Step 5: Relevant Keywords

Research keywords when writing your article. Try to use some of the most popular search phrases that deal with your article subject. A good program to use is Google’s keyword search tool. But once you find the relevant keywords be sure not to overstuff your article with them. If you use them too many times your article will be too repetitive and will not do well in the search engines.

Step 6: Writing

When writing your article, write it as if you were explaining it to a friend. Don’t make it sound like a seminar or lecture. Add personal experiences when possible so your readers can identify with you and feel a bond and/or connection. Let your personality shine through and write from your heart!

Step 7: Lists

If you are including any kind of list in your article, be sure to write it in a bulleted or numbered list style. This will attract the reader’s eye and increase the chances of it being read through.

Step 8: Article Body

The first paragraph should be an introduction to what type of information your article will contain. Use it as a lead-in to the main body of the article. When writing the main body, be sure your writing flows from point to point and doesn’t jump around aimlessly. The last paragraph should sum up what the article meant and what points were made.

Step 9: Proofread

This step cannot be stressed enough. Read over your article several times to be sure all spelling, punctuation and grammar is correct. Things can be missed in just one or two goings over so do it several times to be sure.

Step 10: Resource Box

Your resource box is very important so you want it to be effective in getting people to click on your link and take you up on whatever you offer. Don’t try to sell anything in your resource box. Offer something free if possible.

For example:

John Doe is an expert in the SEO field. He can help you get your site to the top of the search engines. Click here to get his free step by step report.

Article writing is not as intimidating as it sounds. You do not need to know big fancy words. You do not have to be a scholar and you do not have to be a professional author to write a quality article with helpful information.

Don’t be one of the 95% of people who fail at their online business. Terri Seymour can help you make money online. Find out how to increase your traffic and sales with her popular “How to Build Your Online Business” ebook for FREE at: ==> http://www.SeymourProducts.com

By Charles Kiyimba in Article Marketing

articlewritingArticle marketing is one of the best marketing methods of driving traffic to your website. But do you write articles to market your business? Do you know the secrets of writing successful articles? One thing I discovered is that most prominent and well established online marketers use articles to market their websites and to promote their products. This is the reason why I would like to share with you the hidden information about article marketing.

Of what benefit is article marketing to you as an online marketer? There are basically two benefits: sustainability and getting free targeted traffic. When you write your articles and submit them to ezine publishers, they continuously bring to your website a steady stream of visitors for many years to come and at no extra cost. You receive free targeted traffic because you don’t directly pay for it apart from the initial charge paid to article submission service providers for distributing your articles. The benefit of having targeted traffic is that you do not labor to persuade an already attracted customer and whose interest has been aroused through your article marketing techniques.

Success in article marketing requires you to submit quality articles. Quality articles are those that contain and provide to your readers good information. These are articles that are very well written, which add value to the internet fraternity. When you write quality articles, you stand high chances of building positive perceptions in the minds of your readers, which in turn helps you to build your own credibility. When you become credible enough, you obviously begin to make money through the increased sales of your products. The quality of your articles will determine your success in article marketing campaigns.

Additionally, success in article marketing also depends greatly on the quantity of the articles you submit for distribution. You do not have to write so many articles in a very short time, expecting to get quick returns. That’s not how it works. I have come across many marketers, who circulate the internet with over 400 articles in a span of only one year. It’s being overambitious. Two or three articles a week are good enough to work for you profitably. Remember that while quantity matters a lot, it should not be overemphasized at the expense of the quality of your articles. Quantity should not supersede quality if your aim is to successfully promote your business through article marketing.

It’s important to brand yourself well by having your own writing style. Most people who promote their website and products through article marketing do not write their own articles. In fact it’s difficult for most marketers to write their own articles. They instead prefer to source them from outside. But whichever the case, I would advise you to go through those articles and edit a few things to make them compatible with your style. The uniqueness of your style is part of your brand and can bring you good results in article marketing.

How authentic are your articles? If you really want to benefit from article marketing, then the content of each article you publish should be original. Search engines are most of the time crawling the internet in search of new unique content. Even your readers will return to your website if you provide them with new original content. Remember that your articles’ originality and uniqueness are two important article marketing factors that can lead you to prosperity.

Keyword optimization is an important factor in article marketing. Keywords are words or a set of words that best describe what your visitors will look for. They are words, which your targeted audience type in at search engines like Google to receive the information they are looking for. If your article does not rank among the first 10 to 20 results when doing a keyword search, then your targeted audience won’t be able to read your articles. The onus is on you to learn how to optimize the keywords in the articles you write in order to get free traffic from the search engines and to succeed with your article marketing method as well.

Persistence is another key factor in article marketing. I have come across article marketers, who write so many articles at the start and go in recess only to wake up again after one year. That’s not good and does not help you to build your business. Success is not only achieved through quality and quantity, but it’s also achieved through persistence and continuity. Consistently write your articles, based on your plan to continue attracting your targeted audience to your website and to retain your existing customers.

The length of your articles matters a lot in article marketing. They should be of a reasonable length, say 800 words, for you to benefit optimally. This is because search engines will rank your article based on the word count (number of words in a specific area), keyword density (total number of keywords compared to the total number of words in your article), keyword prominence (relevancy of a keyword in the specific area) and keyword frequency (number of times a keyword appears in a specific area). It’s therefore difficult to rank high if these factors are not considered and long articles tend to be at an advantage.

Last but not least, do not be in hurry to get quick returns when using article marketing as your marketing strategy. One thing you need to know is that it takes some time for your articles to get good rankings and to be disseminated to various ezines. Success in article marketing depends mainly on being persistent, writing quality articles (articles with unique content and properly optimized keywords) and having many articles distributed.

Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn’t. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

By Donna Anderson in Article Marketing

spn_exclusiveThere’s been a lot of talk lately that article marketing has gone the way of the Do-Do bird, especially since the Google Panda update. As I see it though, the value of article marketing hasn’t diminished at all, the process itself has just evolved. Add guest blogging to your article marketing strategy and bring it back to life.

Most webmasters don’t realize it but guest blogging is another type of article marketing, one which produces much better results if done properly. After all, what’s a blog post? It’s just another article, only it’s published on a blog. And what’s a blog? A blog is another place to publish said article – just like an article directory but with better quality traffic.

How Does Guest Blogging Help Your Traffic?

Submitting articles to online directories is fine if you’re only after the link juice. But directories are not destination websites. The only time someone reads your article when it’s posted on a directory is if they come across the link while conducting a search. That’s all well and good if you have the number one spot, but if there are other articles that outrank yours on the index, the chances of someone reading your article are reduced.

An established blog, on the other hand, is a destination website, which means there are people who visit that blog directly, and repeatedly, to see what new information has been posted. Your guest blog post will be seen by all of those regular visitors, whether they were searching for that information or not.

Essentially, when you publish an article on a directory, your traffic is hit-and-miss. If it’s a hot topic and/or you rank well, you’ll get readers. But when your guest post is published you have a ready made audience arriving every day, ready to read the latest news.

How To Make Guest Blogging A Vital Part Of Your Article Marketing Strategy

Obviously, since you’re not just haphazardly submitting dozens of articles, it takes a little more effort to include guest blogging in your article marketing strategy. Here are some tips to make it well worth your while:

Choose Carefully: It’s important to choose your blogs carefully or you’ll just be wasting your time. You certainly don’t want your guest blog posts to be published on any questionable blogs. But even more important, you want to choose blogs that attract relevant traffic.

For example, it wouldn’t make any sense for you to submit a guest post on dog training tips to a blog about SEO practices. First of all, they probably wouldn’t accept it. But even if they did, none of their followers would read your post because that’s not the kind of information they’re looking for.

While traffic numbers shouldn’t be your main concern, the quality of the traffic coming into that blog is important. Look for activity in the comments section but also take a look at the SEO that’s been done. Are they pulling in targeted traffic that will be beneficial for you or are they using Justin Bieber and Britney Spears to drag in readers from all corners of the Web?

Don’t Worry About Traffic: Comment activity is usually a good sign but quantity doesn’t necessarily equal quality. A lot of blogs have lower traffic or activity levels but the traffic they do receive is highly targeted. Never underestimate the power of SEO.

Read the Blog: Now that you’ve narrowed your search, read the blog. Get a feel for the type of content they use, how they address their audience, and the type of information the audience is looking for. Is there a certain topic they talk about more than others, etc.

Read the Comments: Before I submit a guest blog post I always cruise the comments section. Sometimes you can pick up a really great idea from the regular readers of that blog. At the very least you’ll learn what they like to talk about.

Make Your Article Relevant: This is the hard part. Your first inclination will be to write an article just like you’d write for one of the directories, an article that gently leads people to click on your link. In some cases, that will be fine. But most bloggers won’t appreciate your self-promotion.

Concentrate instead on writing an article that showcases your expertise as it relates to that particular blog.

Write a Great Resource Box: Your resource box on your standard directory articles may seldom, if ever, be read. The reader arrived at your article looking for an answer to a specific question. If you answered it in your article, he’s satisfied and he’ll click away. If you didn’t answer it, he’s not satisfied, and he’ll click away in anger.

However, your resource box in your guest blog post will get a lot more attention, especially if you’ve written a good quality, informative, relevant post. Make sure you include these 4 things in your resource box:

1. Your name – Use your real name to establish credibility and authority
2. Your website URL – If you have the opportunity to include more than one link, make one of the URL and the other an anchor text link. Some readers still feel safer clicking on an actual URL.
3. Your USP – Tell the readers why they should click on your link. What is it that makes you special?
4. Your Call to Action – Tell the reader exactly what you want them to do. Click Here isn’t enough. You have to tell them what they’ll get if they do – Click Here to read my article about XYZ Now!

Think Outside the Box: There are thousands of guest blogging opportunities out there so it’s important to learn to think outside the box. It’s not necessary to look for blogs in your exact same niche. In fact, the whole point of guest blogging is to increase your visibility, so branching off into a related niche isn’t a bad idea.

For example, maybe you normally blog about vegetarian recipes and you come across someone looking for a guest blogger on their Baby Care blog. What a great opportunity for you to attract new parents who might be interested in a vegetarian diet for their babies. Write a guest blog post about homemade vegetarian baby food and you’ll attract a whole new audience.

Donna Anderson is a freelance writer specializing in SEO web content and article marketing techniques. Visit her blog at http://whitehatwriting.com for writing tips and article marketing advice and read her Squidoo lens to learn How to Write a Perfect Resource Box.

By Steve Shaw in Article Marketing

articlewritingYou may be wondering if taking the time to write a quality article is really worth the effort, considering that if you spent less time on each article you could produce more of them.

What exactly does article marketing require? Which is more important in an online article submission–quality and quantity?

The answer is “both”, but not in the way you may think.

Your first job is to produce a quality free reprint article. If you don’t, then your article won’t be republished. Republication is the whole goal of article marketing. If you throw together an article and it’s laden with spelling and grammar errors, then it’s not going to be much use to you.

You also have your readers to think about–people will form opinions about you based on your articles. If your articles are well-written, thoughtful, and helpful, then people will come away with a positive impression of you.

If, on the other hand, your articles are confusing and look thrown together, it can appear as if you’re unprofessional. It can be hard to take you seriously.

It is to your benefit to take the time to write a solid article. Here are 5 things to shoot for:

1 – You need to refine, edit, and check your article for grammar and spelling errors. You may need to spread this work over a few days.

2 – Your articles should be organized–the argument or points in your article should flow in a logical manner.

3 – The subject matter of your article is important too–your article needs to answer a question that your readers are wondering or teach them a skill.

4 – Your title should be constructed to catch a reader’s attention. The title should clearly tell what the article is about and be phrased in an interesting way.

5 – Your articles should provide fresh information. Don’t just write what you see other people writing. Instead, put your own spin on things, teach your topic from an angle that hasn’t been covered, and answer questions that you don’t see being answered.

Let your readers guide you–many times a customer or client may ask you a great question. Many times your answers to these frequently asked questions can be used as the basis for articles.

As you get more used to writing, the process gets faster and easier. It may not take you as long to write an article when you become more experienced.

There’s also the issue of quantity–does it matter how many articles you submit?

Yes, it does. You need to submit enough articles on a consistent basis to see results with article marketing. When you’re first starting, it may be something that you work up to.

If you’ve been wondering if you should be focusing on quality or quantity, focus on quality first. Get your writing process down so that you’re creating quality articles, then you can work on writing a sufficient number of article each month.

Steve Shaw has helped thousands of business owners worldwide build traffic, leads and sales to their websites, and he wants to help you do the same – grab his free report giving you a blueprint for attracting sustainable, dirt-cheap, long-term, targeted traffic to any website … including yours! Go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report – some people have used the same information to boost their traffic by up to 600%!

By Enzo F. Cesario in Article Marketing

articlewriting 2While it certainly isn’t as much work as crafting the body of a superior article, selecting a title for a piece is definitely an important element of the entire process of content creation. The title of an article is a multifunction web tool, providing opportunities for engagement with the reader and search engine in equal measure. Putting some thought into the title and how best to leverage its effects will help title choices provide a solid return on investment instead of burdening an otherwise good project needlessly.

Making Wordplay Work

The necessity of a good title is rather self evident if one plays a small game. Borrowed from Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography, Hitch 22, the game basically goes like this: Pick a popular movie title and change it just slightly to get a “title that didn’t quite make it” — Quiet of the Lambs, American Pastry, Mister Zhivago, the American Samurai and such all demonstrate the importance of getting things just right. A small change can eliminate the value of good wordplay or an entertaining twist of phrase in favor of something more bland and pointless.

To that end, try to put some thought into the title. Reference popular works — for example, a comparison piece doesn’t go wrong by referring to “A Tale of Two…” Alternatively, the title could reference a key quotation or phrase within the body of the text itself. Don’t ignore something that seems to work, but double check creative title ideas against someone else’s opinion, just to be sure.

Words are Key

The title is a crucial part of the Search Engine Optimization process. Keyword spiders and algorithms often look at the first words in an article, and the title is no exception. Having the core keyword worked into the title will consistently help return better results within Internet searches.

However, this comes with particular caveats: Some keywords, particularly keyword phrases, are long and clunky and can interfere with the aesthetics of a title. If the keyword phrase in question is “how to brew your own beer,” that’s one thing. A clever preface can be put before it, with how to brew your own beer as a subtitle or addendum to the main line. On the other hand, the keywords might be “Legal Advice Auto Accident,” which is more difficult to work into a clever title. Experiment with a few approaches, and consider putting only a few of the keywords into the title or breaking them up into a fresh sentence.

Another trick concerns where to put the title. In many blog posts the title will have its own section. However, also consider putting the title and its keywords into the body of the paragraph itself. Some search engines ignore separate title fields and focus on the content of the article itself, so this can help keep a writer from robbing themselves of good keyword return.

Brevity, Please

Particularly in the academic world, titles of articles and papers tend to be long and quite dense. “An Analysis of the Savior Archetype in Modern English Literature” certainly tells us what the paper is about, but could also easily be summed up as “The Savior in Modern Literature” and loses nothing of its statement of intent.

Further, keyword optimization becomes less effective the further into a document one gets, and this includes the size of the title. Proper keyword effect selects for shorter, more efficient use of titles, so avoid the temptation to put the whole topic into the title line. Go for simpler, brief word choices that allow expression of the important information without going on and on.

Hyphenated titles are very popular for this reason. A single word can capture the intent of the message, such as “Betrayed,” and then be followed with keywords. To take an example from the news, perhaps the keywords are “WikiLeaks” and “PayPal.” The title could then be “Betrayed — WikiLeaks Banned from PayPal.”

To Joke or Not to Joke

Not every lighthearted article responds well to a joking title. People are oddly finicky and picky about when they’ll accept humor, and the use of puns in a title is a risky gamble. Yet it undoubtedly works — consider the example of the Focker movie trilogy starring Ben Stiller.

Obviously if the article is a serious piece, a pun should be avoided unless it’s executed in the vein of dark humor. Serious work demands a serious title.

However, an important rule of thumb is to be very cautious about industries or groups in jokes. Consider for whom the article is intended. If it is aimed at a wider public audience, such as a newsletter or advertisement intended to bring people into a site for discussion or purchases, then an excellent inside joke would be misplaced. Not everyone understands the jargon, so it should be limited. On the other hand, a specialty letter crafted specifically for professionals of the plumbing craft could easily get away with jokes about piping and other internally-recognized puns. As with any online venture, the goal is clearly to keep the audience first and foremost in mind when selecting a title, rather than simply hoping they’ll “get” it.

Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

By Steve Shaw in Article Marketing

linksIf you’re wondering if you’re submitting articles in a way that optimizes your potential for links, I’ve got a short checklist for you:

1 - Have you done research for your keywords?

This step is crucial in your article marketing strategy, and it’s really not that hard. You can use Google’s free keyword tool to research some phrases associated with your niche. From the keyword tool, you can gather how many people are searching for this particular phrase (that’s the demand).

Then, take the phrase and do a Google search on it, putting the phrase in quotes. The number of results is the supply–that’s how many web pages are competing for that particular phrase.

You’re looking for phrases that have high demand and relatively low supply. Some of the more popular phrases associated with your niche may already have high competition–just know that it may take longer to make headway with those words.

2 - Have you developed a list of main keywords that you’d like your website to rank highly for, and are you hyperlinking those phrases in your resource box?

When writing your articles, you should be working from two different lists of keywords. The main keyphrases are shorter–usually 2-3 words long. They have more competition, but the payoff for ranking highly for them is greater.

These are the words that you would like your website to rank high for. In your article submissions, target these words in your resource box, as opposed to the article.

3 - Also, have you put together a list of longer keyword phrases (long-tail keywords) that you focus on in your articles and titles?

The long-tail key phrases are usually 3-8 words long. They have less competition, but also less reward. Still, they can be attractive because with relatively little effort you can get your article to rank for that term.

It’s the article that you want to rank for the long-tail term, whereas it’s your website that you want to rank for the main keywords.

4 - Does your resource box (author bio) hyperlink your main keyword phrases?

The resource box links that use key phrases as anchor text are very powerful–these are the phrases that you want your website to rank highly for. To do this properly, be sure that you alternate the keywords you use (hyperlinking the same words each time can have some negative SEO consequences).

For the second link in your resource box, you can link your written out URL. Having this spelled out website address helps readers to remember where your site is located (maybe they’ll think about visiting it when they no longer have your article in front of them).

5 - Do you submit articles regularly, month in and month out?

“The secret to success is constancy of purpose.” That’s true about just about everything in life, and it’s true of article marketing too. A key component to your article marketing success is just submitting articles on a regular basis.

It can take a few months for the first impact to show up in the search engines–it takes Google several months to calculate your links and the various other factors that go into determining where your website will show up in the rankings. Just be steady in your article submissions, and you’ll see better results.

Submitting articles is very user friendly–you don’t need to be an SEO expert or any sort of technical wizard to do this. It is a big help, however, to take a little preparation and have a strategy that maximizes your potential for backlinks and the quality of the links. Even if you’re a beginner, you can do these 5 steps listed here and make a big difference in your success.

Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot – and it’s all 100% free! Go to http://www.autoblogit.com for more information.

By Titus Hoskins in Article Marketing

dodobirdAfter the Google Panda Update, has article marketing become less effective? That’s a major question which many webmasters and online marketers seem to be asking these days. It has also brought up the whole notion that article marketing is, in fact, dead. Well, here’s my two cents on this whole issue.

Article marketing has always been one of my most basic and solid online marketing techniques. One which has brought in sales, traffic and those all important one-way quality backlinks to my content. Then came the Google Panda Update and changed everything.

We have had countless major Google Algorithm updates before, but Panda was different, mainly because instead of examining just one page on your site, it looked at the quality of your WHOLE site and ranked it accordingly. Supposedly, those sites with perceived “poor quality” or not enough “original” content got lowered in the Google Index and rankings – not a good thing to happen to any site. Unfortunately, like all these updates, some innocent high quality sites were hit and their rankings and search traffic dropped significantly.

And then as they say, all hell broke loose.

Panic quickly followed and many webmasters with lucrative high ranking keywords in Google, not only took notice, but started making changes on their own sites. This panic or alarm was so great, we had thousands if not millions, of webmasters dropping content which was not original or/and changing many of their outgoing links to “no follow” on their sites.

It seemed like everyone had collectively closed shop and drawn a protective barrier around their sites; making doubly sure they would not get penalized by Google for having too much non-original content or a poor quality site.

I believe article marketing was the greatest victim of the Panda Update and fallout. Not only were the article directories like Ezinearticles hit hard, but more significantly, the perceived effectiveness of article marketing itself, took a direct hit by this update. Sometimes perception is everything, especially on the web. If webmasters believed having a non-unique article on their site, no matter if the article is well written and of top-notch quality, would lower their site’s rankings in the eyes of Google, then the article must go or be deleted.

While it is sometimes foolhardy to draw general conclusions from your own limited experiences, I have seen my traffic and sales, from the different article directories fall dramatically. My traffic from Ezinearticles, which was my biggest source, has fallen to a trickle. More alarmingly, my articles don’t get picked up and displayed on other sites like they did in the past. Again, it should be emphasized, these are only my findings… other authors may have different outcomes and I do know of a few marketers who have seen their traffic increase from Ezinearticles, mostly with unique articles displayed on that site.

After Panda, it seems Google is trying to list or rank the author’s site first in their rankings for any articles. After a slight drop in traffic immediately after the Panda Update, I have seen my traffic bounce back and this may be one of the reasons. In the past, I had placed many of my articles on my own sites as well as on the other sites and in the article directories. Going forward, I will write more unique articles for other sites and the directories, just to keep the “original content” factor/signal from popping up.

Google’s Use of the Author Tag

I was also very curious to see that Google has started supporting “authorship markup” or the “author” attribute tag in their search engine. According to a post by Othar Hansson, a software engineer at Google, “The markup uses existing standards such as HTML5 (rel=”author”) and XFN (rel=”me”) to enable search engines and other web services to identify works by the same author across the web.” If the content is on the same domain you use the rel=”author” tag and link it to your author’s page on that same domain. If your content is listed on a site where you don’t have an author’s page or profile, you can always link the content back to your own site’s author page by using the (rel=”me”) attribute tag. To learn exactly how the “author” tag works visit Google’s help page here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1229920

I am even more interested to see if, over time, Google starts placing the same kind of importance on web writers, as they do with authority sites. Google’s goal is to present the highest quality content available on the web. One way of judging/ranking this quality is by the author. King is King is King… no matter where it is displayed on the web.

However, getting back to our initial question concerning the apparent extinction of article marketing? There is no denying that article marketing has become less effective after the Panda Update and the follow-up changes made by Google.

Some webmasters/marketers are solving this problem by using software programs to “spin” articles in order to produce countless unique versions of an article. Quite frankly, I have never been satisfied with any “spun” version of an article – it simply sounds awkward or doesn’t have the right flow to it. However, it may fool the search engines, and many unscrupulous marketers are seeing good results from this type of article marketing because all the articles appear unique. Obviously, this is another headache for Google, because these inferior “spun” articles may become much more prevalent on the web after Panda, lowering the overall quality of content on the web and in their index, rather than increasing it.

Personally, while I am losing X amount of dollars, I just can’t bring myself to use this sort of “software” to produce countless inferior versions of my articles. Instead, I have started to write unique articles and submit them to only one site. And for what it’s worth, I will still continue to write other viral articles which will hopefully get placed on numerous sites. And while they still bring targeted traffic back to my sites, my returns on these viral articles seems to be less and less, as many major sites have stopped taking these “non-unique” types of articles after the Panda Update. In my honest opinion, while article marketing is not quite dead, its glory days have long since passed.

Titus Hoskins is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com . If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day Marketing Course here: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com . This article may be
freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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