SiteProNews

I know you’ve heard many times that to be successful at Internet Marketing you have to have a list. You can build your list in many ways but the quickest and most effective way is by writing articles.

Many ezine publishers and website owners are constantly looking for new and up to date information for their publications and web pages. Article writing is the perfect way to provide that information and build an opt-in list.

A lot of new and some experienced Internet Marketers get confused about the obvious use of the opt-in list. The main objective is not just to build a list of names and email addresses. Its purpose is to help you build your business by providing you with a valuable list of names and email addresses that are of good quality.

Millions of people search the internet daily for numerous reasons. The majority of them are usually looking for information on one or a variety of subjects that they just want to know more about.

Here are a few things that you should consider when writing articles to build your business:

1. Find out what type of information people are looking for and provide it for them. This can be done easily by asking the members who are currently on you list what they want.

If you don’t currently have a list you can always visit different forums to find out what people are asking for.

2. Keep in contact with the members on your opt-in list and get to know them. Obviously, if they are subscribing to your list, and staying around, they are interested in what you have to say and you have something in common.

You can ask them to recommend you to their friends, family or co-workers who have the same interests that you have and they can help you build your business.

3. Be careful not to frustrate the members on your list by constantly providing too much information by email too frequently. Though they may like to get email, try not to send too many emails too often.

You can provide the best quality information there is but if you over do it some of your members will opt-out and leave you because of information overload.

When you write articles and submit them to article directories in most cases it is free. It is one of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your website, get free advertising and build your opt-in list all at the same time.

Make your articles key-word rich about your website topic and strive to keep the word count between 400 and 600 words long.

There are times that they will be longer but make sure you check the article directories rules as different article directories have different rules about article length.

Always include a resource box at the bottom of your article with a little bit of information about yourself and include a link to your website.

You will soon build credibility and draw more targeted traffic to your website as your articles are read by others and they begin to click on the link to your website and opt-in to your list.

You will also start to get noticed by search engines and get established as other website owners begin to publish your articles in their ezines, to their list and on their websites.

So, to build your opt-in list quickly and drive traffic to your website, write good quality articles and submit them to the article directories often.

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Angela Meyers is a writer and internet marketer who writes and publishes eBooks and media material on various ways to make money online. Want to find out several different ways to make money online? visit: http://www.resellrightsandplrmadesimple.com

Tags: article writing, opt in lists, Writing

There’s a thin line between appropriately using your keywords in your titles and being obnoxious about it. You may look at some titles and think,

“That title barely makes sense,” or “All this person’s titles look the same, and they don’t really give me any idea of what their article is about.”

If someone is looking at your title and saying either of those two things, you haven’t used keywords appropriately.

If you’re wondering how to effectively incorporate your keywords into your article titles–look no further! This article will show you 7 keyword integrating title tips that’ll help you catch Google’s eye (and your reader’s too!):

1) Your title should reflect what the article is about.

That tip may sound obvious, but folks who are super-focused on inserting their keywords into their titles sometimes end up with titles that don’t reflect specifically what their article is about. First and foremost, remember that the purpose of your title is to lure a reader in with a taste of what the article is about.

2) Your title should be attention-grabbing and stand out from all the other articles on the same topic.

When a reader is looking at an article directory or search results on Google, they will be looking at a list of titles all on the same topic. In order to get the click-through, your title needs to stand apart from the pack and make the reader say,

“That article looks like it would answer my question in an interesting way!”

There is little benefit to having your keywords in your article title if your title is BO-RING!

Your article won’t be the only article on the article directory it’s published on, and it will not be the only search result on Google. Your title is competing against tons of other titles, so be compelling, have a hook, grab your reader’s attention and lure them into your article.

3) Don’t force your keywords to be in your title if you cannot meet the first two criteria here.

Yes–these first two criteria are more important than getting your keywords in your title. Above all, craft an attention-grabbing title that tells specifically what your article is about.

4) Don’t stuff your keywords.

There are some folks who are not really interested in writing an educational article–they just see the article as a vehicle for their keywords, and they create a makeshift article and insert their keywords throughout it.

Don’t do that!

That is not what article marketing is about, and you will totally miss out on the wonderful benefits you can achieve if you overlook the main purpose of your article–to educate the reader.

Put yourself in the shoes of your reader–from looking at your article title amid a sea of other article titles on the same topic, would your title draw a reader in and cause them to click through to the rest of your article?

5) Consider making your title the remedy that your article offers.

We need to sort of twist our thinking–when someone is doing a Google search, they are most often looking for the solution to a problem.

Think like your target market–if they were to find your article, what would they be typing into Google to reach it?

This could mean having a title that is a question. For example: “Can I bake my own wedding cake?” or “How can I stop my dog from jumping on people?”.

6) Keep it natural.

Lots of times folks establish keywords, and they think they need to use those exact keywords in their article title and in their article, with a result that sounds contrived and forced.

Keep in mind that Google will acknowledge variations of your keywords too. For example, if your keyword is “sail boats”, you can also use “sailing boats”, “sail boat” or “how to sail a boat”–any words that are semantically related to the original keywords.

7) If you write on the topic of your website (which you should definitely be doing!), there is a good chance that your keywords will naturally appear in your article without even trying.

We’re going for a natural sounding article that serves our readers, and the truth is that as long as you’re writing about the topic of your website, your keywords and their variations will likely appear in the article naturally.

The big lesson here–don’t over-think the keyword issue. Yes, you can mention your keywords in your article titles, but only IF your article title also indicates what your article is about and is compelling enough to catch a reader’s attention.

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Sharon is an article marketing expert who loves to teach folks how to drive traffic to their websites. Now you know how to use keywords in your articles–would you like to submit articles to a very large distribution network of quality publishers who really want to receive your articles? Of course you would! Learn how to leverage your articles so that you get maximum results and reach hundreds of publishers with the click of a button.

Tags: article titles, keywords, Writing

Is duplicate content penalty a myth or a reality?  Well I would say that it’s a bit of both.  Many folk have been terrorised into paranoia over duplicate content, but here are the facts.

“Duplicate content is bad.”

Okay, so I said it.  But please note that I didn’t say that it’s evil or that your web pages are certainly heading to supplemental hell.  But duplicate content can be bad for the following reasons.

1. Multiple copies of the same content are not useful to the internet as a whole
2. Multiple copies of the same content on your website could dilute your “link juice”
3. Multiple copies of the same content can hamper effective indexing of your website.
4. Multiple copies of the same content will confuse the search engines as to which copy may be the original.

Multiple copies are not useful to the internet.  Okay so we often turn on the TV only to find that while there are over 100 channels on offer there’s still nothing on.  But imagine if out of the 100 channels there were only really 8 to choose from, the others were simply showing the same thing as on the others.  Duplicate content works in the same way.  It serves us the same content on all the channels.  The search engines quickly realised that good content ranks but that the same content shouldn’t fill all choices.  This is the real penalty of duplicate content.  The same content shouldn’t rank over and over because if it doesn’t meet the searcher’s needs then they wouldn’t have another option.

From the average webmaster’s point of view I would say that point 2 is the most important.  Can you imagine having 3 or 4 pages all with great content, but the same content, being indexed and linked to from related websites?  Sounds great, but if it is the same content then you have effectively shared the full linking power of that content over multiple pages.  So in this case instead of having one page showing up on the first page of the search results, you now have 2 on the second.  I know which scenario I would prefer.  The other side of the coin is with dynamic URLs you may find that several different dynamic formulas may take you to the same product page.  Again this could be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and with this may come the uncertainty as to which one to rank.  Quite often this will result in the relegation of both of those URLs to a lower rank.  Although I have a sneaky suspicion that the search engines are catching onto the dynamic URL problem and now will rank one page from a website and simply ignore the others.

Should you have multiple versions of the same content on your website as can often be the case of dynamic URLs then this may prevent the search engines from indexing your whole website.  Imagine once again you are searching through the TV channels and the first 10 are all the same, you may continue searching and reach channel 20.  If by this time you’re still searching then you must be really bored.  The Bots don’t have time to get bored, if it reaches page 10 and all the content seems the same it will assume that the rest aren’t worth indexing.  This could be a problem.  Added to this if it deems none of your pages worth indexing you could face a massive uphill battle to have your pages indexed, never mind ranking highly.

Originality is a difficult one because with no way of being able to certify that you were the first to post the content the search engines rely on the speed with which it was indexed.  Indexing of websites takes place at different rates.  Blogs generally are crawled and indexed a lot more frequently than a website that shows updates once a month on average.  In this case if you had added great quality content to your website only to have a blogger scrape it, you might lose the full benefit of this content as the blog may be indexed and be recognised as having first published it.  While this is an extreme example it is a good reason to regularly update your website to keep the search bots coming back regularly.

As you can see from the points above there is no definite penalty for duplicate content.  But for reasons that make good logical sense many times these pages simply don’t cut it at the highest level.  The question you should always be asking is, “will this benefit my visitors?” or even, “Will this impact negatively on my visitors?”  The answer to that question should quickly send you in the right direction and keep you from possible pitfalls.

Robert Cerff is a search engine analyst and marketing consultant for Prop Data Internet Solutions. He has ten years experience in e-commerce, online marketing and web development. http://www.propdata.co.za

Tags: duplicate content, Writing

Everyone thinks they have it all figured out when it comes down to producing, distributing, and reaping the benefits of article posting. Don’t get me wrong here, they are headed in the right direction and even hit their objectives, but does it produce monstrous results in sales? What is the magic formula for an article that directs traffic like an expressway versus one that fails miserably?

Human Emotion is the key. When you produce an article that sparks interest in your audience, or tap into their emotions, compelling them to purchase, then you’ve hit your goal. However, the bottom line is that most marketers write and post articles constantly to boost website traffic in hopes to stimulate sales, so the quality has diminished. With a few key elements you can capitalize on the poor grade articles and realize great success posting articles that capture people’s attention and directs them to what they want. Remember that last statement, what they want.

Advertize to emotions

This can be a tough, depending on your sales product so we will use a few examples here. I live in a large city next to an even larger lake. On my street alone there must be a boat at every other house, and most people have a hard time understanding the logic behind it. Somehow half of my street found logic behind the purchase of a boat. Maybe the boat salesman sells ice to Eskimos in the winter, no, that’s not it. It’s deeply imbedded in our society, the answer is competition. Think about that. We live in a highly competitive world. My neighbors saw each other’s boats and said wait a minute, how do I rank? I’m losing rank here. Soon the boat will be pulled with a matching new truck.

The new truck certainly wasn’t needed to get the boat to the lake. The old truck was fine and fit its purpose, simple transportation. But think of how that person feels leaving the neighborhood, full of peers, with a brand new boat. It’s the same way you feel when you leave the car lot with a brand new car, or live in a five bedroom two story home with just your spouse. Let’s face the facts. Our emotions drive nearly every purchase we make. With that understood, lets really drive home the message by offering up a few suggestions of how that person will feel with your product. Help with the reasoning behind buying your product and make it logical for them, make it a necessity even.

Back up your products with logic

You can make this happen with everything in existence that has a price tag on it. Imagine how you would benefit with the product and then verbalize. Let’s use something simple like water. Water believe it or not is a perfect example of compulsive purchases driven by marketers using your emotion and backing it up with logic. I used to think water was fine right out of the tap. Then a marketer got a hold of it and said it needs to be filtered, bottled, and infused with vitamins, flavored and everything imaginable to be healthier or beneficial like we are all super athletes. Each brand has a different twist on how their water is better or more beneficial for you. Everything from getting your daily vitamins to maxed out energy all revolve around the simple substance of water. They have paved the way with logical reasons to buy improved water that the tap stuff is out of the question.

Dare to be different

If everything was the same, competition would not exist plain and simple. Make your article stand out and your product for that matter. People want originality to set them apart from their peers. Inject your creativity starting with the title. A different, eye catching or unique title to lure them in will maximize results. Just make sure it’s on topic. Continue with creativity and personality throughout the body to set yours apart. Do not just state the facts; however use them as power statements. With a billion articles online you must be different to get notoriety, for example.

Be yourself and be honest

Honesty is just good policy. Don’t over exaggerate, make false promises, or mislead people because a major reason behind producing articles is to gain credibility. If you make your article personal and informational, that adds value to both the Internet and your readers. Offer up so of your own experiences with in the article topic and help others relate to both yourself and your writings. After the article others may read other postings produced by you. After you read an article do you look for the author? Do you look or follow the resource box at the bottom?

It’s only natural after being moved by a great interesting article. Maybe you want to learn more or respect what the author had to say. People read the article in the first place because they wanted information on the title subject. They were looking for something and the title led them into your article so it is important to follow through. It’s important to them not to be misled, and to find what they were looking for, and it’s important for you to help them get what they want. So let’s do just that.

Follow through and give them what they want

Give them what they want. It’s very important to back up you statements. The article has served its purpose, hit on the readers emotions, gave logical reasoning and sparked interest. Rather, it gave information on the reader’s initial interest because they searched for that topic. The article was personal, honest and different. Now back it up.

For example, I write articles surrounding the online affiliate market, common used tactics and practices that marketers use in small at home businesses. The subjects are pretty broad, however when the reader follows the resource box they find a website that contains everything needed for a small at home online business.

If you write articles simply because you enjoy it, there is difference from why the article is written for a business purpose. An article written and targeted for attracting traffic or to be profitable has to have this follow up quality. The ability to give either a product or more valuable information on the title topic solidifies your credibility and makes you a trustworthy supplier of the readers needs. Even a few of these tips done correctly produce results, however, perfecting them all produce the desired results.

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Mark Tyner is the webmaster of YourHomeBiz-Direct. For how to market with ezine articles or article submission please visit his website and receive 5 free e-books on internet marketing.

Tags: article, article writing, Writing

A true brand is a metaphor for desire, a container for aspirations and the promise of fulfillment. We are all the same, each of us searching for the same things and they aren’t keywords. Most businesses think way too narrowly; too focused on the concrete instead of the psychological. Branding like history is based on enduring themes, the universal hardwired predilections that form our basic needs and wants, whether for business or pleasure.

Quintessential Brand Themes

Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman have come up with what they call the ‘Seven Giants’ in their book ‘Marketing Metaphoria.’ They describe seven classic elements that they see effecting consumer behavior: balance, transformation, journey, container, connection, resource, and control.

Balance is about maintaining or reestablishing normality; Transformation is about the metamorphosis from unsatisfying to fulfillment; Journey is about personal growth; Container is about physical and emotional constraints; Connection is about relationships; Resource is about acquiring and using tools and knowledge; and Control is about creating a sense of security, well-being, or mastery.

These themes have a marked similarity to the classic storytelling scenarios used by every novelist, screenwriter, and successful brand strategist.

The Brand Story

Effective brand strategies are based on delivering a story, a tale that embeds in the collective consciousness of an audience and becomes a metaphor for some deep-seated psychological human need.

We are taught to maintain a positive outlook, and it is definitely a more healthy approach to life than the opposite, but stories are based on tension, disruption, and overcoming obstacles. If your audience is self-satisfied, if they’re happy with the way they look, the way they feel, and the stuff they own, why would they be interested in buying your product or service? The fact is most people and businesses want more, more of everything, and the promise of more is what you’re selling.

It may not be popular to say, but the negative perspective is the more powerful. If branding is about making a memorable impression you will be more successful if you tap into your audiences’ insecurities and neediness.

Even seemly positive commercials like Dove’s ‘real beauty’ campaign is really about highlighting the audiences’ flaws: it places a mirror in front of the viewer and says, ‘look in the mirror, this is what you really look like, and girl you need makeup’ - cynical perhaps, but this marketing strategy was able to hit consumers from both sides of the psychological fence: great positive PR because of the apparent positive message, while at the same time subliminally saying, you really don’t want to look this natural do you? It’s what we call the Law of Dissatisfaction.

It All Boils Down To Creating Discontent

Archetypical stories all boil down to motivating sales by getting your audience to think your stuff will make their lives better; and in order to do that, you first have to get your audience to accept the fact that their current situation is not as good as they thought.

What good is a forty-two inch flat-screen when you could have a sixty inch one; what good is a headache tablet that takes twenty minutes to work when you could have one that works in five; and how can anyone really be happy with their face or body when just a few injections of some magic elixir will turn them into a beauty queen or matinee idol? Is there really anything wrong with wanting to reach your maximum potential? It is after all the driving force behind our economy and the ultimate motivation behind innovation.

Stories Are Content, Advertising Is Irritation

We all know the Web is about content, and the future of successful Web-marketing lies in the ability to turn marketing messages into content, and meaningful content is about storytelling. We need to stop looking at television advertising as the prototype format; the people running television have their heads buried deep in the sand beside the same people who run the music and movie industries - they just don’t seem to be able to adapt to the new Web-environment and it’s inherent nature, capabilities and demands.

Mind numbing, number crunching study after number crunching study, filled with misleading statistics, complicated graphs, and pretty PowerPoint charts don’t tell the real story. Wasting money on ineffective banner ads and irritating, over-used TV spots, while obsessing over search engine optimization and technical solutions won’t get you where you want to go.

Companies need to learn how to connect to an audience and build a relationship with that audience by delivering content in ways that people have used from time immemorial, through telling a story told by a real person with a real voice: something the Web is not only capable of doing, but is superior at delivering.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Tags: content writing, Writing

Stop the excuses! I’ve heard all the excuses for why you can’t start and build your business. So, don’t even tell me:

1. You can’t come up with any good ideas.
2. You don’t have time.
3. Getting noticed is nearly impossible.
4. You have little or no money.

You’re in for a lucrative awakening. It’s easier than you think to start and build your home business – if you know the system and I’m about to prove it right now!

4 Reasons to Take ACTION & Start Building Your Home Business Online:

1. It’s easy to come up with an idea for your home business

As Your Article Marketing Expert, I’ve helped people start and grow profitable businesses in just about every category you can think of including Internet dating, remote controlled cars, health and fitness, martial arts, Pilates for pregnant women, care giving, quilting, parenting, family business succession and much more.

Your market is out there waiting for you.

Start with your passions and interests

Think about…

• What are you interested in?
• What are you passionate about?
• What subjects or topics are you knowledgeable about?
• What are people asking you for advice about?

If you can create content on a subject you’re passionate about and at the same time solve a problem or fill a need then you can start your home business online.

2. It’s easy to find time to launch and build your home business online

Are you going to tell me that you don’t have 30 minutes a day to work on your home business?

That’s all it takes to write a simple “how-to” or “top tips” article that solves a problem your chosen niche market is looking for. These articles can then be easily turned into special reports, e-Books, A to Z systems, homes-study courses and many other products sold online using a shopping cart like MyEasyOnlineStore.com

So, starting today, designate yourself some article writing time. Do not allow yourself to get distracted. Do not watch TV for 30 minutes. Just start writing for 30 minutes per day.

3. It’s easy to get noticed

When you submit articles to the top websites, ezines and article directories, you will get noticed. Here’s proof by people just like you…

• In just 2 months, marketing expert and President of Imperatives LLC. Scott Glatstein went from 6 listings on Google to more than 2000 listings.
• With just one article Derek Gehl, CEO of the Internet Marketing Center reached more than 500,000 prospects. And that’s with just 1 placement in SiteProNews.com’s newsletter. That doesn’t count the hundreds of other websites his articles are published on.
• Dating expert April Masini’s article “10 Lessons to Spice Up Your
  Social Life” can be found on Self Growth and was featured in their newsletter. The site is Ranked # 1 for self improvement on Google and Yahoo. It gets 167,000 unique visitors a month to the website and sends newsletters to over 450,000 opt-in subscribers a week.
• By writing and submitting articles, technology expert Dani Kaplan generated a surge of new business opportunities making ’07 the best year in 27 years in business.

4. It’s easy to start your home business online with little or no money

If you can write a “To-Do” list, then you can write a top tips article in little time once you learn the system. And, you won’t need to hire a copy writer. This way, you can start your business and start creating products without spending a penny.

Plus, other websites, ezines and article directories will publish your articles for free. This way you’re getting free publicity and free advertising.

If you want to start a home business and build it online, then do NOT let anything or anyone get in your way. You can launch your business online easily by just writing articles. So get started today!

About the Author:
Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber uses the power of articles to create online opportunities for entrepreneurs who want more publicity, prospects and profits. Now, Eric is sharing the exact roadmap, broken into 5 easy-to-follow steps that thousands have used to launch and build their businesses online with articles. And, he’s giving this knowledge for FREE, with his new e-Book at: http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com/freebook

Tags: article marketing, home based business, online marketing

There used to be a lot of hype about online press releases. Recently it has died down a little bit. We are still finding that it works well for clients. But there are some very definite rules to follow.

When done properly press releases are a great way to generate publicity, drive traffic and boost search engine rankings.

The key to a successful press release is to have a clearly defined purpose.

Why are press releases important?

1. More consumers than ever are reading press releases online and consumers may be interested in a topic that the media may not be. So, there are releases where the target audience is the consumer and then there are releases were the target audience is the media. The releases targeted at the media are usually bigger news and more likely to be something that the media will run with and create an article out of.

1. Keep in mind there are journalists that have columns about websites; they cover what’s new, what’s hot, what’s popular on Blogs and sites. So, something that may not have been newsworthy to the “regular” media may be considered newsworthy to these new crop of journalists.

You should start by defining your target audience. Is this a story for the public, something that is potentially good for the mass media or something for the web reporters out there?

No matter who you target, your press release really needs to be creative to catch the interest of the chosen audience.

Press releases need to be stand out among a sea of thousands of other press releases that are being released every day. So, you’ll need to create an interesting hook. How do you do that?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who will care about what I’m saying and why will they care? In other words what is the focus of the release, what is the part that will excite, anger, interest people?
• Is it something that is unique in your industry?
• What are the benefits of the product/service/news you are announcing?
• Is there anything controversial about this? If so, playing it up is a great way to get attention.

Next you’ll want to define your keywords for the release:

Doing keyword research will help you use keywords within the release that you know people are looking for.

Next you will make sure that you write a compelling title. Ideally it will include one of your keywords and it will pique the curiosity of people scanning headlines.

Since the launch of Google’s Universal Search and Blended Search from Yahoo, images are fast becoming another way to make your content stand out, so make sure you use an image with your press release.

It never hurts to have an SEO Firm take a look at your release. Have them go over your press release for any recommendations for better optimization. A fresh set of eyes, especially ones that are specifically trained in optimizing content can go a long way in helping your press release be found in the search engines.

So, there you go - a quick lesson in press releases.

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Over the past 10 years Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on SEO and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet

Tags: content marketing, press release, Writing

Anyone engaged in writing articles for offline publications or online business has occasionally struggled with the question of “What to write?”

Methods To Help The Average Person To Start Writing

Maybe I am just an overly optimistic person. I have always believed that anyone committed to writing an article can write an article. The problem is that most individuals simply do not have the belief in their own skills and insight. That is the reason why we ghost writing lot will always have a job. As long as there are people who doubt their own skills or insights, I will always have a job.

One of my good friends, Clinton Douglas IV, learned the lesson of understanding that he had his own abilities and skills that he could utilize to write his own articles. He learned that he could turn his insight into literature worth reading, by simply calling his favorite ghost writer on the phone (me) and sharing his thoughts on a topic. He was always amazed how it seemed like I could read his thoughts and mind and put his thoughts to paper, even the thoughts that he did not mention specifically to me.

Most people simply don’t have a favorite ghost writer on the other end of a telephone call. For them, they should sit down to the computer and type and type and type, with little to no regard for proper spelling, grammar, or storytelling. The first draft should always be used to get one’s thoughts out of the brain and down on paper. Spelling, grammar and wording can be fixed during the editing process.

My friend Clinton utilizes this technique on occasion too. He wrote an article one time, by just spilling his brain onto the page. He wrote from his heart and got his thoughts all out of his head. When done, he sent me his final draft for editing. Sure, there were many words that were fixed, a lot of bad grammar that was corrected, and wording that was massaged, before we found the final product. Once written by him and edited, we put his “3:10 to Yuma” article out on the World Wide Web. Almost immediately, my friend Clinton started receiving compliments for his story. Many said it was very inspirational.

I believe in your ability to write your own articles, even if you do not.

Even if you can never bring yourself to write your own articles, that is fine, since we professional ghost writers are happy to write for you.

How Professional Writers Find Inspiration

When it is time to sit down to write an article, we professionals sit down and start reading. Inspiration is a thought that comes to our mind while we are reading information on our target topic. Our thought is never to rewrite what other writers are talking about. Instead, our inspired thought is often an extension of the words we read that were penned by our peers.

How many times have you been reading something written by someone else, and you felt that the author should have ventured off on a tangent that he or she left hanging? Inspiration often occurs right here in this moment, at that very intersection of this thought.

Once you know the question left unanswered by another writer, then you will have found your own direction and inspiration for writing your next article.

Answer The Unanswered Question and More…

When you want to use articles to promote your online business, it is not enough to answer the unanswered question. You actually need to venture a bit further afield and to ask yourself one very important question: Is the person most likely to buy your product or service also interested in having this question answered?

When you write for promotion purposes, you should always try to speak to the hearts and minds of the people most likely to buy what you are selling. If your potential clients are asking the same questions as you are, then you know what questions you need to answer for your readers. It is in answering questions important to your customers, where you will begin to find real success using promotional articles to promote your business.

Help your customers answer questions they want answered, and they will help you to earn the sales you need to keep your doors open to others.

Final Note About Inspiration and The Writing Process

This article began as a blog post, written in a blog I contribute to weekly (the Article Marketing Tips Blog).

I often write a blog post as my first draft of an idea. Then I massage the message to make it worthy as a promotional article, an article to be read by a larger audience.

Sometimes my first draft is an answer to someone who asked me a question about my service. I answer his or her question from the hip, then I copy-and-paste my answer to a word document and massage the copy for a public audience.

Many times, this first-draft, second-draft process has helped me to create some of the very best articles I have written. Due to the fact that my original article draft is put together as an answer to a question that one of my potential clients had, it permits me to write an article that answers a question that many of my other potential customers may also be thinking.

In answering questions for the larger audience, I have found great success for myself in article marketing. Given a little bit of motivation and commitment, you can make my processes work for you too, to build your own success online.

About The Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article distribution to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article marketing services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success that can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Article Source: thePhantomWriters Article Submission Service

Tags: Articles, Writing

This article will give you 7 key tips for crafting an attention-grabbing article that will be welcomed by quality publishers, bring value to your readers, drive targeted traffic to your website *and* build up those precious one-way links in the process!

Let’s get started…

1) Remember who you’re writing for and why.

The object with article marketing is to write articles that bring value to your readers, that show you to be an expert on your topic, and that inspire your readers to click through to your website. Also keep in mind that your articles need to please the online publishers–after all, if your article doesn’t get picked up for publication, then nobody gets to read your article!

2) Don’t write about your website or business.

This is the part that so many article marketers struggle with! Remember, our articles are geared to meet the needs of our target readers and the online publishers. The minute your article stops sounding educational and starts sounding like an advertisement for your website, your readers will put their guard up and lose interest in your article, which is not what we’re going for! You need to take a more subtle approach. When you’re writing your articles, you are a teacher, an educator, an expert–not a salesperson!

The appropriate place to talk about your business, website or products is your author resource box.

3) Write about your area of expertise.

Your customers can be a constant source of article topic ideas. What are the top 10 questions that customers most frequently ask you? Write those questions down and create an article that answers each question. Remember, you have to be creative and subtle, because you must answer the question without mentioning your own website. Your role as the author of the article is to be a source of information, not a sales person.

4) Write ‘How To’,'7 Tips’ and ‘Top 10′ lists.

We all love a list, don’t we? Instructional ‘How To’ articles and informational ‘Top 10′ (or 7 or 5 or whatever) articles have a knack for catching readers eyes. No matter what the topic of your article, you can find a way to create a ‘How To’ or ‘Top 7′ list. This is an article writing strategy that works, so do it!

5) Always write about the topic of your website.

It sounds obvious, but I’ve seen more than a few authors who have a one track mind about article marketing–they just want to rack up the precious one-way backlinks that article marketing generates, and so they think it’s fine to write articles on any topic under the sun with a link in their resource box going back to their website on a different topic. Don’t do that!

Why? We’re not after just any type of traffic–we’re after *targeted traffic*. Targeted traffic means that the folks you lure to your website are people who would be very likely to be interested in the topic of your website. While you will never write directly about your website, you will definitely want to write about the *topic* of your website.

6) Make a great resource box.

Aha! This is the appropriate place to talk about your business. Writing a great resource box is an art in itself, but just to get you started here are a few tips:

• Do include a little biographical information.
• Do tell the reader why they should go to your website.
• Do ask them to click.
• Do customize your resource box to the article.
• Do include a link to your site, but don’t go ‘link crazy’. A single link is great. Three or four links is pretty pointless.

7) Don’t forget to have a great website.

This is the part that some folks overlook. They know that in order to increase their search engine rankings for their website that they need to generate incoming links and increased exposure for their site, but what then?

There’s no real benefit to drawing readers to a site that leaves them saying, “Is that all? This isn’t of much help to me.”

So, remember to create valuable content on your website too, so that you have a quality destination to which you’re trying to draw your readers.

The valuable content on your website is also like bait that entices a reader to click through to your site. Be sure to have something on your website that will expand upon the information you’ve just provided in your article.

Article marketing isn’t brain surgery–anyone can do it! Just follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to a successful article marketing campaign!

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Interested in putting these 7 tips into action? Sharon Sarmiento is an article marketing expert who enjoys teaching website owners how to write and submit articles for maximum traffic. She’ll guide you step-by-step through the article writing and submission process at the popular blog, Creative Article Marketing => http://www.creativearticlemarketing.com

Tags: article writing, content writing, Writing

You have something fabulous to announce to the world! So, what online press release distribution service do you use?

With so many to choose from, it’s hard to know where to start. If you do a search for newswire services it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the possibilities. You might either give up or go overboard, spending lots of unnecessary money and duplicating your efforts.

Before you do either, first consider what you want your press release to do for you. Do you want it to be primarily a public relations tool to get your news out? Or would you rather that it be a search-marketing tool that can provide search-engine visibility and target prospects? If you’re thinking like a savvy businesswoman, the answer is: both.

You will gain excellent visibility if you:

- Optimize your press release through the strategic use of keyword-rich headlines and body copy.

- Include extensive links back to your website or specific landing page.

- Distribute your release through the right online newswire services.

When you optimize your press release, it will also be indexed quickly in the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Also, each time your release is picked up by another website, it also creates a link back to your site.

Once you’ve decided what you want your press release to do for you, the next step is to determine which online newswire service (or combination of more than one) you want to use. Would a free service be best, or would a paid service be better?

Free PR Distribution Services

Some of these newswire agencies are free. Others offer free basic services and then charge fees for expanded services. Fees range from $20 to over $200 and are generally used by small to medium-sized online businesses.

- www.i-newswire.com

- www.pressbox.co.uk

- www.pr.com

- www.prleap.com

- www.prlog.com

- www.prweb.com

- www.theopenpress.com

- www.24-7pressrelease.com

PR Web is on the leading edge of online news releases and is geared towards optimized press releases.

Paid PR Distribution Services to Consider

Most of these paid services offer multiple payment options, depending on your distribution preferences. Commensurately, their services are more expensive ($500 to $700 per 400-word release and can include an annual membership fee of $100+). These are the newswire services that tend to be used by traditional PR agencies for their corporate clients.

- www.businesswire.com

- www.ereleases.com

- www.eworldwire.com

- www.internetnewsbureau.com

- www.marketwire.com

- www.massmediadistribution.com

- www.pressrelease365.com

- www.prnewswire.com

- www.send2press.com

- www.urlwire.com

- www.xpresspress.com

PR Newswire is the world leader in the electronic delivery of news releases and information directly from companies, institutions, and agencies to the media, financial community, and consumers.

Choosing your online press release distribution service doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It’s easy, once you know what you want your press release to do for you. If you just want to get your announcement out, then consider a free PR distribution agency.

If you’d like to be included in major search engines, generating links and targeting prospects, then an expanded fee newswire agency will serve you well. For the highest exposure and maximum visibility, you can’t beat the service of a paid PR distribution

agency. They will get your news seen at the top of major search engines, and their RSS/XML feeds will get your news distributed to thousands of interested journalists.

Take the time now to review the options and decide which PR distribution service is best for you. This way, you’ll leverage your press releases to greatest advantage and position your business for success.

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Business Coach & Consultant for entrepreneurial women starting up small businesses, Dr. Susan L Reid is the author of “Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success.” For ideas, tips, and support for your business journey, sign up here for our free e-Zine.

Tags: press release, press writing, Writing