SiteProNews

It’s easier said than done to write great 500-750 word articles. Some of us simply have too much to say. We have trouble reigning things in at less than 1500 words. Others are on the opposite end of the spectrum strain to make their articles long enough.

Knowing that a 500-750 word article marketing article has a greater chance of getting published on a top website like About.com, I consistently try to get all of my articles to conform to that range. Today, I reveal some of my secrets so you can get published on more top websites and ezines.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: article marketing, article writing, Writing

Blogs are a great link building tool and they are also great for customer relationship building, reputation management, and a good survey tool to get a feel for what people think about new products. To develop a blog so that it is a good search engine optimization (SEO) link building tool it’s important to use linking strategies that are effective with the search engines including Google or Yahoo.

Ideal for customer relations if done properly, a blog is an excellent way to get customer reactions to new products or services, and also as a tool to combat negative press. Just remember that anything you post on the Internet can come back and bite you later on because even a blog post will stay up for a long time. So be very careful what you say.

Starting conversations with your readers online is what works today, and in fact, it is the shift in marketing all together. Another aspect of blogging involves reputation management. For example, you can create a blog for an individual who has negative mentions on Google, and actually “push” the negative posts down to page two on the Internet. You could talk about this person’s activities on the Boards of charities, and post research or trends articles on their blog two to there times a week. The same content can also be written into articles, and posted on the Internet. But you cannot submit duplicate copy or the search engines will not count it. The content of each article must be at least 30 percent different.

Another aspect of blog writing that people often do not understand is the search engine optimization and PR value. Inside each blog post it’s a good idea to use a key word or phrase, and link that phrase back to a website. The linking strategy might be to link to specific pages in his website that are related to that topic or key phrase - not just to the home page. There are times when we have seen blog posts get picked up by other bloggers, who link to your post.

A goal is required in blogging, and writing and monitoring a blog can be a lot of work. The beauty of blogging is that it provides a marketing vehicle that does NOT rely on a third party, such as an editor writing an article about you. What’s more, corporate blogs provide you with an opportunity to tell your company’s story. Various executives in your company, large or small, can post to a corporate blog, so you can create a strategy ahead of time, then assign folks to write about specific topics.

Blogs are a great crisis management tool as well. Just look at how popular Martha Stewart’s blog was during her court battle. Blogs are a great way to build a database of interested people for later use in opt in email blasts. You can send people over to a sign up form on a blog, and you are certain to get an opt in database.

Insofar as a return on investment (ROI) for blog writing, it costs very little. You can set up a blog at blogger.com, for free. So it costs you in time - your time, the time of your employees, or the writing fees to hire someone to ghostwrite and monitor your blogs.

There are tracking programs to check and see if your blog is building traffic to your website, because of course, the better your blog’s linking strategies are, the more folks will visit your website. You can get details including what happens once a visitor comes in to your website from your blog, including what path they go down? Do they ultimately get funneled to a sale? These things must be tracked on your website by programs like Google Analytics, which is free, or HitsLink. And of course, you need the experience to be able to read and analyze the reports once they are generated on HitsLink, to track your successes.

---

Kristin Gabriel is writer and social media marketing professional with a Los Angeles SEO firm. Her company also handles marketing, public relations, and online advertising. Visit MarComNewMedia.com

Tags: blogs, content, Writing

As you would surely be aware after some time in the Internet marketing business, submitting your articles and getting them re-published on others’ websites and newsletters/ezines is one of the most powerful Internet marketing strategies. Your articles will start working as a free advertisement for you forever. And you do not have to pay even a dime for such advertising space. You will continue to enjoy free traffic driven to your website for a long, long time!

Assuming you have decided to venture into writing your own articles, the following checklist should offer you as a very useful guide to help you overcome some common problems all beginners find in writing articles:

1) Decide on a Specific Objective

Always begin with a clear objective of writing an article. Is it a solution and answer to a particular problem faced by many? Is it an article expressing one’s experience in certain field? Or is it an article to attract prospective customers.

2) Target Your Audience

Before writing an article, ensure that the targeted audience is big enough to make your effort worthwhile. Ensure that this target is relevant, meaning they would find your article beneficial. For example as I write this article the target audience is the Internet marketers who want to drive or improve traffic to their sites by submitting articles to directories etc and are looking for a good guidance to do so effectively.

3) Give a Brief Description of the Article

With a quick glance the reader would immediately know the gist of the purpose, the important points and benefits of this article.

4) Create an Attention Grabbing Title

Perhaps we need some tips from the Advertising experts. One has this to say : “People that sell products to help you stop smoking don’t sell the “stop smoking” part. They sell the part about making your breath better, improving your health, living longer, getting better-looking dates, having whiter teeth”

Hence your title must grab the reader’s attention and prompt them to start reading at least the introduction of your article in order not to miss the benefits by ignoring your article!

5) Write as if You Are Talking to Somebody

There is no need for big and bombastic words and jargons that only would lead to confusion to some. You must write with simple English and in a manner that the reader feels that you are actually talking to him or her.

6) Re-read and Re-Write Your Articles

After you have finished writing, safe it and put it away for one day or two. Open it and read again. I bet you would find some weaknesses or mistakes that need your correction and amendments. Repeat this once or twice at least. If possible get somebody with experience of the same subject to proofread for you.

If with all this and your initial enthusiasm of an eager beaver, you still failed to become a writer, do not despair. Although you are ready to resign to the fact that you just don’t have the flair for writing and may be writing is not your forte, there are ways you could create your “own” writing with your name as the author in the “resource box”……………without having to write. In fact there are three ways from which you can choose one or use all of them:

1) Hire a Ghostwriter

You could hire somebody to write on your behalf on any subjects of your choice and he does not even take any credit despite his effort hence he is called a “ghost” writer. However a ghostwriter could be expensive. If you could afford this, it might be the best and easiest thing for you to do.

Visit http://www.elance.com/ where you can search for a writer who can help you create your own articles.

2) Buy Private Label Rights to a Collection of Articles

You could get hundreds of pre-written articles for a small enrollment fee. From these you could choose articles discussing subjects related to the content of your website. These are referred to as the “Private label articles” which you have full permission to use and also put your own name to the resource box as the author.

Although this method also costs money it is less expensive than ghost writing. The obvious disadvantage is that if the Private Label Articles are being sold in large numbers, there could be many purchasers using the same content at the same time unless of course you are good enough to do a considerable amount of editing.

3) Get Someone Else to Write for You Through an Interview!

This is a free method. You get someone else to create the article for you through an interview. Very often, interviewees are put in the limelight that would improve their image as experts in their fields. Hence people are glad to be interviewed, even if it’s free. If you know of any experts, a face-to-face interview in person can be conducted. Otherwise interviews through phones and e-mails could also be carried out. The article cold then be sold and distributed either as a text or audio format!

In conclusion, whether you are cut out to be a writer or you hopeless as a writer, you now know how to get the articles you require and distribute them to articles directories, e-zines to start driving traffic to your websites. Getting your own articles published on the Internet is one of the very best Internet marketing techniques in existence.

---

John Woon (Sung-Liang Woon) is a Rubber and Latex Consultant with about 30 years of experience. He is now also earning handsome income from the Internet working from home. Check this fantastic website to find out how he has ventured into Internet business: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-9747 … Learn more about his website and blog at: http://www.johnwoon.com and http://healthysite.blogspot.com

Tags: article writing, ghost writing, Writing

There are many different forms of online writing assignments which web content producers take on these days. Ranging anywhere from one page articles to academic papers of 100 pages or more, there is a wealth of opportunities available to web content writers. One type of web content production which more and more individuals are expressing an interest in is ebooks. For those who are new to the topic of ebooks and are curious how to create ebooks while fending off any potential episodes of writers block, the following will provide some helpful hints on the subject.

Write About a Subject Which Is Not Too Obscure

One of the ways in which writers block can strike an ebook writer is when the individual chooses a topic which is simply too obscure in nature. Perhaps the topic is so new that it hasn’t been published that often or perhaps it is simply something which many are not that interested in. This is not to say that you should choose a topic which is overtly mainstream, simply keep the fact in mind that obscure topics may lead to writers block and frustration throughout the process.

Brainstorm Prior to Writing the Ebook

When wondering how to create ebooks without being susceptible to writers block you should keep the tip in mind that brainstorming prior to starting to write the book is a wise idea. By brainstorming about your topic and taking notes on your findings, you will discover that you have a wealth of information right at your fingertips. Should you ever come to a lull in the writing process, simply take out your notes and continue with the writing.

Read Up on the Subject

The more information you have when you are creating an ebook the less likely you are to experience writers block. Therefore, when wondering how to create ebooks without the nagging episodes of writers block, remember to read up on the subject matter both before and during the writing process. Having new ideas in your head and really knowing the truth behind your topic will help you to avoid writers block. With that said, you should always produce an original ebook yet gather pertinent information to give you a good background on your ebook topic.

When You Think of New Information, Write It Down

Some individuals who write ebooks have to be at their computer desk in order to construct new ideas and subject matter for their virtual book. On the other hand, creativity may strike others at any time. For the latter group of individuals, it is extremely important to stop what you are doing immediately and write down your ideas once they come to you. This will help to provide you with fresh and pertinent ebook material and prevent you from becoming the victim of writers block while sitting at your desk.

No matter whether you are lying in bed at night or shopping in a store when an ebook subject matter idea strikes you, try to find a pen and paper in order to write down your thoughts. This will pay off in the long run should you find that writers block occurs and you are unsure of what to write.

---

Cory Threlfall - Rake In Real Cash 24/7 With Your Own Ebook Business In A Week From Now Using Ebook Money Machines ‘Step-By-Step’ Guide That Will Show You The Way To Building Your Ebook Empire Online! Go to ==> Create Ebooks or visit my Squidoo lens on Ebook Publishing at - Create Ebooks to get started.

Tags: ebooks, Writing

If you want to make money blogging, it all starts with a great, profitable topic. If you don’t get the niche of your blog right from the beginning, everything else you do is just a waste of time. Sounds, dramatic, but it’s true.

But really, finding a profitable blogging topic is not all that hard. You only need a niche that has two characteristics:

There must be lots of people interested in the blog topic and there must be people ALREADY spending money in the niche. That’s it. If there is a lot of interest and a lot of money being spent, all you need to do to have a profitable blog is tap into the existing income.

But that is where the problem starts.

There are so many blogs and so many bloggers that there really are no untapped niches that live up to the two necessary requirements of a profitable blog topic. While discovering a profitable niche is still the first step, you have to take your blogging plan further and figure out how you are going to distinguish yourself from your competition.

Every profitable blog starts with a great idea in a profitable niche. But success of the blog is determined by how well you differentiate yourself from the other bloggers in your niche. And if you are a newcomer to the niche, you have to do what the established blogger is already doing, but in a more impressive and valuable way.

The days of becoming a successful blogger making a full time income for a few minutes of work are long gone. Now you must have a plan if you want your blog to raise in the ranks and be recognized as an authority. And you must be willing to do more than your competition.

Here are some ideas to make your blog successful and profitable after you’ve identified a profitable niche to blog about.

1 Have A Plan

Just having a plan sets you apart from the majority of your competition. A lot of bloggers still don’t even blog about one specific topic. Their blogs are all over the place talking about whatever comes to mind. So, forget about them having any kind of plan or goals.

2 Create A Publishing Schedule

Coming up with great content is a challenge. And frankly, it is impossible to come up with fantastic posts every day. So, you need to have a publishing schedule that keeps you on track, but is relaxed enough to be accomplished.

I suggest making a publishing schedule that consists of a combination of short utility posts, longer featured posts and posts designed to recommend or sell products. This mix keeps regular posts being made to your blog without the pressure to come up with all the content yourselves.

3 Use All The Tools At Your Disposal

There are a lot of software programs designed to make blogging easier and more effective. And here is the good news… most bloggers don’t use them! If you are one of the bloggers in your niche using software to help you create a fantastic blog, you can set yourself apart from the competition.

4 Promote Your Blog

A lot of bloggers just post to their blog and that’s it. They sit back and wait for their post to be indexed by the search engines and the traffic to flow in. And a lot of time, they just keep waiting with little or no traffic to show for it.

So, if you are promoting your blog, going to where your potential readers are and drawing them into your blog, you can quickly take over the top spot in your niche.

Finding a profitable blog topic is easy. Just look for niches of high interest with a lot of money being spent. But remember, the competition is growing every day. Be prepared to do more, faster and more effective than other bloggers in you niche and you will take how a lion’s share of the profits.

---

Edward Lomax invites you to learn the Ready-Load-Aim-Fire Formula Of Profit Blogging by downloading his free report and accessing the valuable information on his blog. If you want to beat your blogging competition and profit from your blog, visit: http://www.bloggingbattleplan.com

Tags: blogging, Writing

Some people find great success with article marketing, while others think its proponents are full of bull. The difference between the winners and the losers in article marketing is most frequently defined when the writer sits down and begins to write. That is right. Success and failure is most often determined by the writers’ motivation, and more importantly, by the writers’ commitment to the reader.

Flawed Strategies

In 2005, a few of the Internet Marketing gurus took notice of the success people were having with article marketing, and they passed this news to the Internet Marketing newbies of the world. But, there was something missing from the advice given.

In a lot of cases, the people preaching the power of article marketing had never used the technique themselves. Even today, few of my article distribution competitors utilize reprint articles to promote their own businesses. Most of my competitors rely upon affiliate marketing to promote their websites.

Unfortunately, the Internet Marketing newbies of the world were given a lot of bad advice. It was said that:

The only purpose of article marketing was to build links, and link popularity for search engine rankings;

The writer only needed to write enough words to meet the minimum word count requirements of publishers;

It wasn’t necessary for the content to be well-written, since the publishers do not read the articles they approve for publication;

Anything that can be done to reduce the time/cost of article writing would benefit the marketer.

The only suggestion that bore any resemblance to the truth was the first item about “building links for link popularity”, but the error in this statement was to assume that there was no other purpose for article marketing.

The Bigger Picture

I have been using article marketing to promote my own websites since 1999, and I have offered article-marketing services professionally since 2000 and under my current domain since 2001. I had been using article marketing and providing services for at least five years, before the gurus started leading the uninitiated Internet Marketers astray in 2005.

As one of the pioneers in this industry, I have always attributed three benefits to article marketing, in this order:

1. Publication in a newsletter ensures that thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of readers, can read ones’ article when it is published. (Frequently, publication day for my articles will generate phone calls from many potential customers and multiple sales, sometimes thousands in sales.)

2. Publication on a website increases the likelihood that your article will be found and read on websites that have targeted and loyal visitors.

3. Building links for link popularity and improved search rankings.

I have never denied the ability to use articles to build ones’ link popularity and to increase ones’ ranking in the search engines. In fact, my website ranks in the top 20 results in Google for hundreds of keywords.

But in my experience, using articles to increase search rankings is something that is ranked at #3 in my list, because it is a long-term play. Your ability to rank in Google for specific keywords is influenced significantly by what your competitors have done before you. I have used this example many times before, but if you want to rank for the keyword “travel” against such websites as: Expedia, Yahoo, Orbitz, The Travel Channel, CNN, Travelocity, Lonely Planet, USA Today, the New York Times, and the U.S. Government; then you better bring a huge budget to the contest.

Once the newbie in Internet Marketing is aware of the challenges of the search rankings game, then the newbie is better prepared to target and get realistic results from an article marketing campaign.

What Newsletter Publishers Require From Their Writers

While it may be true that a few article directory managers do not review articles before publication, it is not true of all article directories. Directories such as http://www.EzineArticles.com, http://www.IdeaMarketers.com, http://www.Website-Articles.net, http://www.InvisibleMBA.com, http://www.ArticleStars.com, http://www.ArticleDashboard.com, and http://www.Isnare.com have editors who personally review each and every article posted to their directories, to ensure that the articles meet the directory’s editorial guidelines.

And, newsletter publishers personally read and approve every single article they publish. Why? In order for a publisher to be able to sell high-dollar advertising, the newsletter must attract and retain loyal readers. In order to get and keep readers, the newsletter must “absolutely” publish content that its readers appreciate receiving and want to read.

Herein lies “the secret to success” in article marketing. Not only do newsletter publishers read articles, seeking to find the content that will ensure the loyalty of their readers, the website publishers who have served loyal audiences for several years also strive to provide their readers only the best content available.

Article Spinner Software Stops Short Of Serving The Reader

No matter how well the Content Spinner software sellers may write their sales copy, one would be a fool to trust computers to write the kind of articles that people want to read.

Remember, the newsletter publisher and the successful webmaster are solely focused on finding content that will keep their readers loyal to them. Also remember that the “link building game for link popularity” is a long-term play that could take years to see fruition.

Given this knowledge, why would someone who is truly seeking success online be willing to trust that the article spinners are able to develop articles that would pass the “human eye test” or even the “smell test”?

What The Article Marketing Professionals Have To Say

I know that I have always suggested that one should take into account what someone is selling, before taking his or her word at face value. Since I sell ghostwriting services, it is absolutely in your best interests to take my words with much skepticism. BUT… I am not the only professional Internet Marketer with this viewpoint. Following are quotes by people whose names you may recognize.

Christopher Knight of Ezine Articles was asked, “How much must I change or rewrite my article so that your content filters won’t reject it or suspend my account?” Chris responded, “The answer is all of it. Seriously, don’t rewrite your own articles. Just create new ones. It’s not that hard.” Chris added that derivative content adds no value to his website. (http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2008/07/content-filtering.html)

Chris McElroy from http://www.ArticleContentProvider.com says, “Computer-generated articles can never replace hand-written original content. Just getting articles into article directories does not help your link popularity, so submitting garbage will get you nothing in return. Only when your articles are reprinted in newsletters, ezines, websites, and blogs that are related to your topic do you get any value from article marketing. Those who think otherwise don’t understand the first thing about article marketing or SEO.”

Allen Taylor, who contributes to the article marketing blog at http://articlecontentprovider.com/article-marketing-blog/ was asked to review someone’s article spinner software. I am sure the guy who requested the review is kicking himself in the butt right now; since Allen proceeded to show his readers exactly how worthless the software is in the real world.

Allen concluded his review with the following words: “I would not recommend rewriting your articles. Just write fresh articles that don’t threaten to have problems like the ones noted above. Really, it doesn’t take long to write a 500-word article that can be used for article marketing or other online marketing purposes. If you’re going to do something, why not do it right?” (http://articlecontentprovider.com/article-marketing-blog/2008/07/09/)

Willie Crawford (http://TIMIC.ORG/) is not an article-marketing professional. Instead, he is a professional marketer, who uses article marketing to promote the many websites that make up his online empire. Willie is a seven-figure earner, and yet, he continues writing new articles whenever he has the time to do so.

Willie said: “I’ve looked a numerous ‘article spinners’ and seen that the output from them was generally so incoherent that it would have been an insult to my readers.”

“I respect my readers and realize that writing is communicating one human to another. That’s why all of the articles that I publish are unique and not software generated variations of my work.”

Communicating One Human To Another

Those people who have found the greatest success utilizing article marketing as a promotional tool are those who understand that article marketing is best-used as a tool to communicate “one human to another.”

At the beginning of this article, I suggested, “Success and failure is determined by the writers’ motivation, and more importantly, by the writers’ commitment to the reader.”

Successful newsletter publishers are those who have made a commitment to keep their readers interested and reading every issue. Successful webmasters and bloggers are those who have made a commitment to keeping their readers satisfied and coming back to their websites frequently. All are looking for article content that will attract readers to their publications and ensure reader loyalty.

The successful article marketer is the person who understands his or her audience and gives his or her audience exactly what they want.

The article must convince the newsletter publisher that his or her subscribers will value the message in the article enough to read the next issue. The article must convince the Webmaster and Bloggers that the article will keep a reader on his or her website for a while longer. And finally, the reader must be thankful for having been given the opportunity to read the article.

In the end, the decision is yours. Are you simply happy complaining about what could have, should have been with the articles you have written. Or, do you want to invest what will be required to make sure your article marketing campaigns are successful?

Bill Platt has been helping online marketers with article ghostwriting and article distribution services since 2001, through his website: http://www.thephantomwriters.com If your small business finances are being pinched during this era of high gasoline prices, get your own copy of the ebook, “How To Increase The Fuel Mileage Of Any Vehicle” to learn how to improve gas mileage by 30% or better: http://www.automotivewebmasters.com/ebooks/increase-mpg.php

Tags: article ghostwriting, article marketing, Writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

Tags: article writing, opt in lists, Writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Don’t stuff your keywords.

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

Don’t do that!

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

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

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

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

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

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

6) Keep it natural.

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

Tags: article titles, keywords, Writing

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

“Duplicate content is bad.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: duplicate content, Writing

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

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

Advertize to emotions

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

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

Back up your products with logic

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

Dare to be different

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

Be yourself and be honest

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

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

Follow through and give them what they want

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

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

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

---

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

Tags: article, article writing, Writing