Article Categories

• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Branding
• Business
• Cloud Technology
• Ecommerce
• Email Marketing
• Facebook
• Google
• Keywords
• LinkedIn
• Linking Strategies
• List Building
• Local Search
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• Mobile Applications
• Page Rank
• Pay Per Click
• RSS
• Sales Copy
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Security
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SPAM
• SPN Featured Articles
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Office/Telecommuting
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Web Development
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• WordPress
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
• Kalena Jordan
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

Write Current Content and Explode Your SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

Content is King

As a small business owner or entrepreneur trying to broaden your internet target and get recognized, I’m sure you are aware of the value of new, fresh, recurring content on your site of all types. When it comes to written content on page copy or blogs and articles, you need to be able to write well, be informative and entertain, that’s obvious. That’s for your viewers. But if you can’t write as well for Google and the other search engines to maximize your subject matter for Search Engine Marketing, you are the proverbial tree in the forest that falls when no one else is around. This article provides a frequently discussed yet misunderstood technique to help you make your material applicable and explode your SEO online.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Perhaps you’ve heard of Google Adwords, Google’s primary pay for placement vehicle on their mother of all search engine returns. You might have run a campaign or I bet you’ve at least been petitioned by Google Adwords “experts” to run your campaigns for you to help you pay less per click, otherwise known as PPC.

Well, Google offers a free instrument to help you select keywords and phrases based upon how much they are searched every month and how much competition there is from other marketers. It’s called the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and while it is created for advertisers, it reveals plenty of tips about search engine optimizing your written content (or video tags) for your page copy and blogs. Contrary to what many believe, you do not have to have an Adwords account to make use of this tool, and here is the link, so save this:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

I could tell you about it, but why don’t I just show you. Check out this instructional Vlog video:

Relevant Content using Google’s Keyword ToolUncomfortable Behaviors

When I write I like to write for the readers. I’ve seen too much content composed for search engine optimization that really stinks to the point of being unreadable, cramming keywords into sentences. It’s awkward to write this way for me, and perhaps for you, because it just feels weird and you can end up with a write-up or website that seems bogus. Here are a few ideas for getting adjusted to it:

1. Use the Adwords Tool first and come up with 3-5 keywords (phrases) for your content, using high-traffic, low-competition keywords where available. Keep them on a list in front of you.

2. Lay out your paragraph or article in light of the phrases you selected for SEO. It may give a different slant than you first had or take you down a different path that you know interests the readers out there.

3. Write your piece sprinkling in the key phrases on your list where they click. Add a check mark each time you use a keyword, and you can use alternatives of a phrase to not sound too repetitive (spot gold, spot gold prices, spot gold pricing, gold prices).

4. Proof-read for sanity and information flow, and revise where needed.

That’s it! Get used to that process and it will get easier and easier.

---

Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness. He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop. Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now.

Tips on How to Convert Your Articles Into Videos

By Charles Kiyimba in Featured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

Endless Articles Ideas: What Everyone Wants to Read

By Rick Quatraro in Featured

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

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

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

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

I. Questions People Ask Online

1. Search Engines

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

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

2. Your Site’s Statistics Dashboard.

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

3. Google Adword Tool.

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

4. Blogs and Discussion Boards.

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

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

II. Solutions

There are a few ways to find the solutions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

What Should You Know About Article Marketing?

By Charles Kiyimba in Featured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

That First Impression: Title Considerations

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

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

Making Wordplay Work

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

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

Words are Key

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

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

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

Brevity, Please

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

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

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

To Joke or Not to Joke

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

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

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

---

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

Has Article Marketing Gone the Way of the DoDo Bird?

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

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

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

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

And then as they say, all hell broke loose.

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

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

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

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

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

Google’s Use of the Author Tag

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

8 Reasons Why You Should Submit Your Articles to Authority Sites

By David Jackson in Featured

If you are an article marketer and write well, instead of wasting your time submitting your articles to article directories, you should give serious consideration to submitting to authority sites.

Why? Stay with me, I’m getting to that.

Question: So, what exactly is an authority site?

Answer: Definitions vary, but my own personal definition of an authority site is “a site that is linked to and respected by thousands of people who often reference its material.”

For example, for Internet Marketing news and events, IMNewsWatch would be considered an authority site. In the SEO and Internet Marketing worlds, authority sites would include sites like SearchEngineJournal, SiteProNews, WebProNews, PromotionWorld, CopyBlogger, SearchEngineLand, MarketingProfs and ProBlogger just to name a few.

And while some sites enjoy more authority than others, the two common denominators are, the sites are all highly-respected, and they all have a large and loyal following.

Following are 8 reasons why should you submit your articles to authority sites:

1. Respect. While you may be proud of having your articles accepted by article directories, it’s really no great accomplishment. Why? Because most article directories will accept articles from just about anyone – regardless of how poorly written they are. On the other hand, getting your articles published by the aforementioned authority sites is something to write home about. Why? Because those sites are highly-respected and have a much higher publishing standard.

2. Article Directory Oblivion. When you submit your article to article directories, chances are, your article will get buried among the thousands of other article submissions. And unless you get lucky and your articles happen to get found among the masses, and published by a popular newsletter or website, they will forever live in article directory oblivion, getting viewed every now and then.

3. The Viral Factor. I stated previously that authority sites enjoy a large and loyal following. So how does that benefit you? If an authority site publishes your articles, it’s probably because your articles have value, meaning they’re interesting, useful and/or entertaining. That is exactly the type of content that readers will pass along to others via tweet, Facebook, e-mail etc.

4. The Power. When you submit your articles to authority sites, you have the power to pick and choose what sites you want to submit to. On the other hand, when you submit your articles to article directories, you surrender that power. Once submitted to an article directory, your articles are available to be published by anyone. That means your articles have the very real potential of being published by low-quality sites, which could effectively damage your site’s reputation with the search engines.

5. Diminished Link Value. One of the great by-products of article marketing is inbound links. If you write quality content, more than likely, you will attract quality inbound links. Unfortunately, many writers who submit to article directories aren’t aware article directories have had diminished link value for years. That’s why mega-popular, monolithic article directories like EzineArticles, Buzzle and Associated Content were so heavily penalized by the Panda update. Over the years, they became notorious for the amount of low-quality content they contained. Because they accepted articles from just about anyone – regardless of how poorly written or shallow the articles were.

6. Greater Exposure. Authority sites not only depend on quality content for their very existence, like the shark in the movie “Jaws”, they also devour content rapidly. As such, they’re constantly in need of quality content infusions. If you submit your articles to authority sites and prove yourself to be a trusted and reliable source of content, they will be much more apt to feature your articles on a regular basis – thereby increasing your exposure. This will not only enhance your reputation, but your bottom line as well.

7. Greater Opportunities. There’s an old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” What does that mean? It means people of similar taste, character or background tend to associate with one another, or like the same things. That holds true both online and offline. Online, individuals of discerning taste tend to gravitate to high-quality content and websites (i.e., authority sites).

And since I’ve been submitting my articles to authority sites, I’ve lost count of the number of joint venture opportunities I’ve been offered. I generally turn them down because my plate is quite full for the foreseeable future. But that’s not really the point. The point is, the opportunities were offered because of the respect and exposure I received from having my articles published on authority sites.

8. Enhanced Perception. If you consistently write quality articles that are factually accurate and help people, you will be perceived as an expert in your field – provided you really are an expert. But while what you write is important, where your articles are published is even more important.

Having your articles published on authority sites will only enhance your reputation as an expert. And with expert status comes increased income. Expert status will give you the ability to charge higher fees for your products and services. And if you are really good at what you do and provide good value, your clients will refer you to other clients – further increasing your income.

So are there any negatives to submitting your articles to authority sites? If there are, I certainly haven’t found them yet.

---

David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! http://free-marketing-tips-blog.com

Does Article Marketing Work? 3 Reasons Why It Is Superior To Most Forms of Marketing Online

By Adam Bauthues in Featured

Have you incorporated article marketing into your business plan yet? If not, you should most definitely start immediately because it works wonders. Article marketing is still one of the best ways for any business owner, whether inexperienced or advanced, to increase their business and make more money. Article marketing is one of the most solid and “evergreen” marketing tools available. It is not a flashy or glamorous process so you do not see many marketers talk about it these days and that is a shame, because nothing could be more easy to implement.

Internet article marketing is the process of writing articles, and then submitting them to be published all over the Internet. Once you produce a killer article there are thousands of places where you can get it published almost instantly. With current technology, you can get your content published on thousands of article directories and websites with the push of a button. This will definitely give your website the boost it needs to start generating profits. Plus, it is still one of the best long term strategies for your business. Article marketing, when done right, will steadily increase your profits over time and establish you as an expert in your niche.

If there is one strategy you need to be implementing today, it is article marketing. Here are 3 solid reasons why article marketing is superior to most other forms of marketing, why it will never die, and why you need to start using it immediately in your business plan.

1) Superior Traffic Strategy

Article marketing is one of the most powerful traffic generation strategies available. When it comes to traffic, one single article can go a long way. Generally, getting traffic is not difficult, but getting targeted and qualified traffic to your website is what article marketing is all about. There are 3 key ways that your article can generate you traffic:

- Most article directories and places that allow you to publish your articles free of charge, give you the ability to place a small “bio box” at the end of each article. This bio box is where you will sell your business, and yourself, via your website. You will be able to put a small blurb about your business or website in this bio box, along with a link to the website you wish to drive traffic to. Anyone who likes the information you provided in your article can click through to your website and learn more of what you have to offer.

- If your articles are written well and provide value to readers in your niche, other website owners who are looking for great content for their websites will be able to “re-publish” your content with your links included. This means you can effectively be receiving traffic from multiple websites, all targeted to your niche, as well as the article directory where you originally published your article!

With each link out there that you have coming back to your website, you build respect with the search engines. If your content is getting republished on many different websites, this can be seen as a sign that your content is extremely relevant to the topic at hand and will boost your search engine rankings dramatically. This of course will drive even more traffic to your website.

2) Superior Credibility Builder

If you produce quality content in your niche over and over again, each article you create and distribute becomes one more credibility booster in your arsenal. People will start to associate you with value and quality and will seek out your work. Over time you will be seen as an authority in your niche as your name becomes associated with quality work. This will also continue to build your traffic as people will begin coming to you first when they are looking for answers or information.

It is a known fact that people prefer to buy from those they know and trust. Thus most article distribution services and networks give you many different ways to make sure people recognize you. You can include a picture of yourself on most, alongside your bio box. It is a funny thing, but if people just see your face enough they will come to view you as an authority in your niche and someone they can trust because you are always there. This will lead to brand or name recognition which is a good thing.

Experts in advertising claim that it can take anywhere from 3-7 exposures to an ad or a service before recognition sets in. Depending on how good your content is you could very quickly develop a following in your niche. Article marketing helps you build this kind of trust and exposure by allowing you to reach thousands of people everyday, repeatedly.

3) Instant Promotional Opportunities

Some article marketing services allow you to directly promote your business, products or services directly in the content of your article. This gives you an extra opportunity to connect with your readers right away, mention a problem, and then link to a solution you have found, which just happens to be your website or product. If the article service allows this, they will generally limit the number of links you can have, but it can still be an excellent way to drive instant profits, which is the ultimate goal. When done right this can make a huge difference. One of the ways to utilize this opportunity to the fullest is to link to internal pages within your overall website. This gives you extra link juice to those individual pages PLUS helps your overall site rankings too.

The best way to take advantage of all 3 of these article marketing benefits is to find a quality article distribution service that takes care of all of this for you. That way all you have to do is create the content and submit it to the service. They will take care of everything else by making sure your article gets distributed all over the Internet, and making sure that you are in compliance with each directory so that your articles are published in as many places as possible.

My advice is to start producing quality articles right away. Write one quality article per day and submit it to a quality article distribution service, then let them take care of the rest. Do this for 30 days straight and you will be very happy with the results. Success can come quickly, if you remain consistent and don’t get pulled in too many different directions.

---

Adam Bauthues is a successful entrepreneur both in the online and offline arenas. To learn more about why affiliate marketing is considered the easiest and most efficient way to earn money online, and how you can dominate any affiliate marketing niche no matter your current level of knowledge, please visit: http://www.ProjectMarketer.com

Article Marketing: Content is King and Syndication is his Mistress – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Ben Jackson in Featured

Article Marketing is not only a misunderstood means of promotion, it is also probably the most misunderstood means of backlinking. It seems that everyone does article marketing, but we all have a different understanding of how it works and how to approach it.

Some people do AM for traffic and some do it for backlinks. Likewise, some people try to advertise with their articles, and some simply provide content. Well, there isn’t really a wrong way to do article marketing, but there is definitely a right way. Let’s clear the air and break down article marketing into its two core components and what they mean for your site’s traffic and rankings.

Distribution and Syndication

Distribution is where you submit your articles, and syndication is where they are published after they are found in the places you distributed to. For example, you submit (distribute) an article to EzineArticles. A week later, a webmaster finds your article and publishes (syndicates) it on his/her site. These syndication backlinks are usually much more powerful than any link you will get from a directory. Also, these links can and will send targeted traffic to your site. So to review, your article is distributed to directories where you will get some traffic and weak links, and then it is syndicated on other sites that give you a lot more traffic and better links than the directories. That means these links give you more traffic NOW and more traffic LATER because they help your rankings more. Our conclusion is that you want to create content that is made specifically to be syndicated – content for webmasters.

Here’s how you do it:

First, you want to consider the length of your article. If you were a webmaster looking for content to publish on your site, how long do you think you’d want it to be? The answer is basically as long as you can find! Longer content means readers stick around and read for longer and sites with more robust content often rank better. Rather than writing two 500 word articles that get little syndication, you should write one 1,000 word article because its chances for successful, widespread syndication are much better. And to reiterate, this means there’s a better chance of getting a whole lot more traffic and much stronger links.

Next, you want to look at the way the content itself is written. Article marketing works best with content that is very informational and even instructional in nature. Do NOT write advertisements. They will not get syndicated, and they possibly won’t even be accepted on any directories in the first place. It can be tempting to write an advertisement – don’t do it. Simply write an article that you think readers would find helpful, and also, if you can manage it, entertaining as well. People go online for information and entertainment. If you can provide one, you’re good. If you can provide both, you’re golden. If you’ve got a 1,000 word, informative and entertaining article on your hands, then you’re holding a powerful piece of promotional content. It is well worth your time to write like this because the benefits can be fantastic.

One aspect that cannot be stressed enough is the priority of quality content over well-optimized content. Concern yourself with writing a great article first, then worry about optimizing it for your keyword. Believe it or not, this will actually help your SEO in the long run. Everyone always talks about getting quality links. Well, duh. Who ever said that low quality links would be better? The problem is sorting them out and
understanding exactly how these high quality links are obtained. This is how: through excellent content. If you write lousy articles, they get published exclusively on article directories which give lousy links. But, if you write great articles, they get found and syndicated on great sites. Internalize this:

Great sites only publish great content, and great sites give great backlinks.

Your answer to these high quality backlinks everyone’s been talking about is through quality content. The content itself is the most important factor for SEO, followed by anchor text in your links, followed by your keyword in the title tag and keyword density. You can’t always have it all and the choice is usually between having a slightly optimized article on a great site or a well-optimized article on a lousy site. I’ll take the former any day.

Besides the quality of the content itself, widespread syndication for your article requires one other thing, proper distribution. You want to place your article where webmasters will find it. This basically means putting it on all the top directories, such as EzineArticles. This is all you have to do. However, there are a lot of services and products such as Article Marketing Robot for mass distribution. You do not have to use any of these for successful article marketing, but they do help. To restate, the links you get in directories are weak, however, in bulk they can still garner SEO benefits and slightly better chances of syndication. Overall, a combination of targeted and mass submission is best for a complete article marketing strategy.

Article Marketing can be a complex beast to master. It is a muddled area simply because so many people use it for so many different reasons. The strategy outlined above will, in my opinion, give you the biggest gains in traffic and the greatest boost in rankings you can achieve per article.

---

The most important part is the content creation itself, but for article submission, you can do it yourself or you can use an article submission service to automate your submissions for you. Check out our SEO course for more free information on SEO and related topics.

Article Marketing – Get The Basics Right First

By Toby Russell in Featured

In your Article writing try-using AIDA, (stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and finally Action) possibly the most recognized method ever for creating great copy writing for content, ads, articles – you name it, it does the trick. After all being successful online is all about being able to successfully ‘market’ yourself and your products or services on the Internet to the right-targeted visitor.

Sounds easy but its not, here’s what happened to me early on. When I first started out, I wrote some copy, read all right, put it up and thought naively as it transpired that I’d suddenly have loads of traffic – blimey, didn’t think that one though at all, then a friend said to me ‘you did do your keyword research?’

Wow that was a light bulb moment – because no I hadn’t, I was pretty Internet ‘green’ back then, so yes I’d written a great article but because there were no keywords in it that people were actively searching for, it got buried on probably page 365,000 of search results – not my finest hour by any stretch.

So rule No. 1 is do your Keyword Research well and comprehensively. But also here are a couple of other key areas to help you in your article marketing activity, so read on.

Researching your Subject Successfully

To be successful in article marketing your research is key, research your chosen niche, read a variety of articles online or in books and other literature, I always find magazines a great source of information and there’s bound to be some in your chosen niche (if not then you should be worried) then make sure you have done your keyword research as well, not like me who then felt a total idiot when the obvious was pointed out to me – stupid or what!

Building Trust Through Your Writing

Writing articles has many people stumbling and believing it’s not easy especially when you do not have a clue about the niche you are writing on. To make your article writing experience easier, it is better to start out in areas that you are comfortable with. These are likely to be topics you are already familiar with and in which you can have a steady flow of information almost like a conversation.

But here’s the real key ‘like a conversation’

Get quickly to the point where you’re writing style and therefore the kind of articles you are writing are in a conversational and matter of fact manner- it will be like talking to your best friend, this is a really important part of creating content – articles, blogposts etc – if you always try & craft it as though you are having a conversation with a friend you’ll find it easier, your writing will be more believable and you’ll build trust faster.

Look at it this way-what do you know about me – you know I write my own copy, you know I’ve made stupid mistakes in the past- hopefully I’ve connected with you through my writing, and that’s what its all about!

Don’t Overlook Keywords Like I Did

Over and above the AIDA approach, article marketing requires the targeting of keywords as I’ve identified. Articles should be written around a certain set of keywords that best define the service, product or niche you are involved in. If you can properly target keywords within the title and body of your article, then you will be successful in your article marketing campaign as search engines would place you in a position where website visitors will have easy access to your site.

Not Familiar with Keyword research?

Sorry if this bit sounds a bit basic but hey we all have to start somewhere and there will be some reading this just starting out so bear with me because keywords are vital, so here goes …Keywords are the words website users are likely to type into search engine boxes when looking for a specific topic. To make the best out of your article marketing efforts you start with a keyword research. Keyword research means you trying to figure out the words with the highest number of searches within a given period say a month.

The reason for this is to estimate the amount of traffic that keyword or phrase generates monthly. A keyword with high traffic can mean more sales potential and vice versa.

When the keyword you are interested in has a low search numbers it therefore follows it has lower competition levels (i.e. fewer competing websites), you have an even better chance to easily rank higher on search engines.

Don’t Overlook Other ‘Marketing’ Opportunities

There are other forms of website promotion such as pay-per-click (PPC), forum posts and blog commenting, but article marketing has proven to be highly effective when done properly. This is because an article that is rated “high quality” will be used over and over again in different websites on the Internet. All these link back to your website – how cool is that? Yep now possibly you can see why Sam (my wife) & I bang on about the power of article marketing, now ‘heads up’ the links, traffic etc is not immediate but its sustainable and that for us is more important.

---

Toby Russell, Internet Marketer, Publisher & Property Investor offers tried and tested methods to help you succeed on line. Want to know more about Article Marketing? Get his popular Free Special Report – features over 10 pages of Key Copywriting hints and tips that will have you writing like a “Pro” in no time. available at => http://www.startinternetmarketingonline.com

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

Home Newsletter Archives SEO Forums Webmaster Tools Webmaster Resources Link to SPN Top SEO Tools Website Templates SPN Partners Contact Us Privacy Advertise

ExactSeek SiteProNews MetaWebSearch SPN Videos EzineHub ISEDN DropJack NewWebDirectory.com SEO-News SEO-News Forums Blog Search FreeWebSubmission SmartWebGadgets