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Duplicate Content and What You Should Know

07 2008 Wednesday

By Robert Cerff in 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.

Multiple copies of the same content are not useful to the internet as a whole
Multiple copies of the same content on your website could dilute your “link juice”
Multiple copies of the same content can hamper effective indexing of your website.
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

Powerful Articles Demand Response

07 2008 Tuesday

By Mark Tyner in 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.

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.

Successful Brands Are Based On Great Themes

07 2008 Tuesday

By Jerry Bader in 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.

How Starting a Home Based-Business & Building it Online Just by Writing Articles is Easy

06 2008 Monday

By Eric Gruber in 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:

You can’t come up with any good ideas.
You don’t have time.
Getting noticed is nearly impossible.
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

Press Releases Aren’t Dead

06 2008 Wednesday

By Jennifer Horowitz in Writing

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?

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.

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.

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

How To Inspire Yourself To Write Articles Others Will Want To Read

06 2008 Tuesday

By Bill Platt in 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

7 Great Tips for Writing Articles that Readers Can’t RESIST!

06 2008 Tuesday

By Sharon Sarmiento in 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!

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

Using Online PR Distribution Services to Your Advantage

06 2008 Friday

By Susan L Reid in 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.

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.

Two Words That Could Make Or Break Your Website

05 2008 Thursday

By Michael Tasker in Writing

Quite simply, it doesn’t matter if you have a blockbuster product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that it exists, forget it, you are not going to attract traffic and make sales. If that happens, then you don’t have a business.

While there are many methods and schemes used by so many websites today, there is still one reliable method that can help you with an extra boost in the constant requirement to attract trageted traffic.

Welcome To Viral Marketing

While the term viral may easily depict a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, do not worry. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares. Viral marketing is legitimate, effective and accepted by the online community as one of the best ways of raising awareness of your website and products.

What Is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of a product or company. It is the use of several forms of media to reach out to potential customers without actually promoting the product. Advertising without directly advertising the product or service.

In a nutshell, in the big wide world of advertising companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and thus open it as well.

This is all very well with large companies with huge advertising budgets, but how can the power and effectiveness of viral marketing help the owner of a website with the promotion of their product of service?

Using Viral Marketing To Your Advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers, ie targeted traffic. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Websites and companies are catching on to the effectivity of viral marketing. Not using it could end your website business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

How To Use Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is a great way to get people to know about your website. One of the most cost effective means of viral marketing (don’t forget it can be free) is writing articles. In the resource box of your article will be the information about your website. Your article gets distributed and hence your website information then spreads among those who have expressed an interest in what you are writing about.If their interest is stimulated enough, they will then go to the website address that you have given in the resource box and thus, you have a targeted visitor to your website.

Other forms of viral marketing include blogging, becoming active in forums by leaving messages and replies for the particular niche that your website is pitched to, press releases, even utilising the power of Youtube. The more you think about this, the greater the avenues for viral marketing appear.

Viral marketing undertaken in different formats and targeted correctly can create a continual flow of targeted interested visitors to your website who will be more inclined to spend than a casual visitor. And never forget that one of the major benefits of viral marketing is that as a means of targeting your advertising message, using many of the methods it can be free.

Michael Tasker started his information product business last year and it has now expanded to various websites plus direct marketing channels as well. He learned by utilising the extensive quality references that he sourced plus following the advice of those that had already succeeded. He was mentored as anyone who has ambitions to succeed with online marketing should be. Simply put, he followed a tried and tested formula that others had used to succeed.
Find your stepping stones to your work at home internet business success at
http://www.goodbyemoneyworries.com

Turbo-Charge Your Traffic with the Simple Power of Words

05 2008 Tuesday

By Dave Foster in Writing

You have to admit, at no time in the past has it been easier to earn money from writing than it is today… thanks to the power of the internet!

I’m not talking about being paid to write, which (unless you’re Stephen King or J. K. Rowling) is pretty much perceived as a minimum pay service. I’m talking about leveraging your written words to draw readers (like a magnet) to a website that you own, from where you can market, sell and resell numerous information products for profit.

Like everything online, success depends on one thing and one thing only… volume of traffic (ie: the number of people who see your site).

It has emerged that one of the most proven and cost effective traffic generation methods available to website owners also happens to be the one task that most website owners try to avoid… that is writing articles.

Yet, writing articles is one of the very best ways to create a constant flow of targeted traffic to your website. With a little effort and a sound, repeatable formula, you can easily write articles that are guaranteed to:

A: Draw traffic to your website

B: Create Ad copy to sell you products

C: Strengthen your presence and credibility on the internet

Using the following techniques can gain the attention of the search engines and get your products and ideas noticed by real people at the same time.

There’s no mystery about the basic structure for writing articles. Each one should have a beginning (the lead), a middle (the content) and an end (the conclusion)… not too difficult is it?

There is however one added ingredient you need to ensure that your writing is picked up by the search engines and subsequently attract a steady flow of traffic. That extra ingredient is ‘Targeted Keywords’.

Please don’t be put off by the idea of writing an article structured around keywords. The process is very straight forward… you can click on the link in the resource box at the end of this article to view a short video which explains the step by step process in more detail.

Once you’ve done your keyword research and have a final list of words or phrases you want to use throughout your piece, do the following:

1. Use your keyword (or keyword phrase) once in the title

2. Use your keyword (or keyword phrase) once in the lead

3. Use your keyword (or keyword phrase) a couple of times in the first paragraph

4. Use your keyword (or keyword phrase) in a scatter pattern throughout the content of the piece

5. Use your keyword (or keyword phrase) once in the conclusion

Using this basic structure (keyword-focussed title, lead, content and conclusion) will guarantee that your article gets the attention of search engines and also human readers.

This sure-fire structure is your most effective traffic generator yet, but wait, there’s one more thing! A secret weapon which almost no one else on the internet is using… it’s your local library.

A visit to your library to find material you can use within your article structure gives you a massive offline advantage over just about every other internet marketer or writer.

You see, if people are writing articles which include the keywords “japanese garden” for example, and conduct research purely online, they are highly likely to see other very similar articles written by people doing exactly the same research.

Taking your research offline, using books, newspapers and magazines for your source information, provides a totally new perspective which is far less likely to be seen in other online articles, putting you way ahead of the competition.

Use that research material together with your keyword-focussed article writing structure to produce something in the range of 400-600 words and you have your article.

Now, don’t panic, writing 400-600 words is no big deal. Think of it like this. One double-spaced page with a one-inch margin all around will hold about 200-250 words. If you’ve done your research and taken notes, the chances are that you have more than enough ideas and information to fill a minimum of two such pages.

Using the previous example “japanese garden”, you could then title your article “Seven Steps to Japanese Garden Heaven”. Okay, maybe not the sharpest title, but it would certainly tell human readers (and the search engines) what your article is about.

Take the research you’ve done and split it into seven major benefits for people searching online for information to help them create their own Japanese Garden.

Your lead might be something like this: “Imagine the calm and simple serenity you could enjoy strolling through your very own Japanese Garden…”

Then take each of the seven steps you mentioned in the title and turn each one into a section for your article. If you want a short piece, make each section one paragraph long. If you want something more substantial, make each section two or three paragraphs long.

When you reach the conclusion do these two things:

1. Sum up your article’s lead or title in your final paragraph (including the keyword or keyword phrase)

2. Quit!

Use this basic structure for writing articles and you’ll find it amazingly easy to create very successful, keyword-focussed material that will bring visitors flocking to your website — even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer!

Find out more about how articles can turbo charge your website traffic by clicking on the FREE video link in the resource box below.

Dave Foster owns and operates the “Solo Profits” blog and podcast, helping to guide individual entrepreneurs and home-based business owners to online success. Draw upon the wealth of solo business information at the “Solo Profits” blog - Here ==> http://www.soloprofits.comDiscover more about turning your words into traffic right here: ==> http://www.soloprofits.com/turnwordsvideo.html

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