Article Marketing Planet

Article sites are still, stickiness wise, one of the single best ways to drive traffic and build a name as a expert, all at the same time.

So how does this tie to your blog?

Well, for a start, if you’re blogging on the same topic as you’re writing content on, you should have a fairly good niche to promote into – and can use any of your longer, more coherent posts as article content. But if you want it to work really well, there are a couple of steps you MUST follow.

1. Make sure your article is coherent. Blog posts, by their nature are supposed to be less informal than the standard ‘article’ – like you’re having an intimate conversation with a group of friends, instead of a more impersonal discussion with your readers, but at the same time, the best blog posts make TERRIBLE articles. So a blog post that is also going to be used on article submission sites should be both interesting, and slightly more ‘formal’ than standard blog posts.
2. Post it on your blog, and add your resource box at the end – you can make it clear that its a free reprint if you want, or you can simply post it in a category for your reprints. That way, you can offer a feed of your reprints too, and include the link in your resource box. Also include the permalink to the post itself in your post – which means you will need to edit the post after posting the first time.
3. Wait a month – in that month, submit the article to any bookmarking sites, and ensure that you maximize its impact by encouraging your readers to ‘vote’ for it too.
4. Ensure your post is in the search engines by searching for the first line of your article. If its not in the search engines, work on getting it there – read up on site maps and other products designed to get you in the search engines.
5. Submit your content to a maximum of 10 reprint sites. Make sure your resource box doesn’t break any of their rules, and make sure that you leave comments OPEN on these posts (if you close them ordinarily.

The purpose of writing and distributing articles is threefold: to increase website traffic, to establish your credentails as an expert, and ultimately to sell more products or services. Just writing and submitting articles won’t do this, however. You must make it possible for your articles to become viral.

An article that you write is distribute to the various article sites on the Internet only one time. From there, ezine publishers, blog writers, and website owners who have an interest in information in your area will find the article and publish it on their websites, blogs, and in their ezines. This starts the viral domino effect.

From those websites, blogs, and ezines, other people will pick it up and publish it in their ezines and on their websites. The one article just snowballs. The sky is the limit.

Ten years from now, you could be wandering the Internet and stumble across an article that you wrote and distributed just today. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if that website owner only recently published your article on their site. If you search for that same article, at that time ten years from now, you may be astounded as to many times that one article appears!

The article will all but disappear, however, unless you give it the ability to become viral. You do this by including a notice at the very bottom of the article giving others permission to reprint the article, free of charge, as long as the article remains unchanged, and your resource box is included in the reprint.

It’s that easy. One small sentence at the bottom of your articles can change the entire path of your article simply by allowing it to be reprinted. This will in turn change your business for the better. Without that notice, others won’t know if they can use your article, even if it is posted at an article site. If there is a doubt, most people will pass up reprinting the article to protect themselves from accusations of copyright infringement.

To make sure your article becomes viral, make that one sentence permission a normal part of all your article.

Networking with e-zine publishers in your field is a good business strategy. These publishers are one of the most important parts of your marketing and it is suggested you start building a list of appropriate e-zines now.

There are ezine directories that can direct you to appropriate places. Vist them and subscribe to several e-zines in your chosen area. Don’t try submitting articles until you get a feel for the e-zine by reading a couple of issues. The Directory of Ezines at www.directoryofezines.com , along with several others, even tell you information if article submissions are accepted, where to send them, and what rules tofollow. This information is priceless.

Contact the ezine publisher directly if you decide to submit an article. Most e-zine owners like to know the person who is sending them an article for publication. Not contacting the publisher first does not create a good raport.

Send a personal note telling the publisher how much you like their publication. List something specific you especially like about the ezine. Next, tell the publisher you believe readers would like your articles and ask if you might submit one or more. Finding one specialized point within the general interest area will increase your chances of being positively received.

Don’t send tons of articles all at once and overload the publisher’s already full mailbox. Limit yourself to sending only one article weekly, and sometimes even one a month. Make the e-zine publisher feel important by providing short articles once a week that you wrote just for that e-zine. E-zine publishers like knowing they are the only place a person can find a particular article.

Allowing your readers to change the links in your article and author’s resource box to their own chosen ones is a completely different idea. Most marketers work to keep that information in the article no matter what.

This may not make sense to you at the moment and you may even think it is a totally off-the-wall idea. Changing the affiliate links does not change your information as to your name and website link. These stay with the article so you still get the recognition.

You will still benefit from the article and may find it even more profitable. Other people will be more willing to publish your article if they can see a benefit to themselves. Allowing this change of affiliate links gives them that incentive.

A situation that is especially beneficial is when you have affiliates helping with your promotion. It also works if you are helping promote another’s product and have affiliates under you. They will feel more inclined to use the article and you will benefit by getting increased money from their added sales.

Depending on your ultimate goal from writing the article, it might even help if you allow your affliliates to change even the resource box. They will add their own information there instead.

By allowing affiliates to keep your author name intact but changing all links, including the resource box ones you can still be recognized as the author. This will allow you to be considered the expert on the subject, yet you will benefit from the increased sales of your affiliates. This is a positive option all around.

These days, it is hard to find anyone, of any age, who does not blog. Business have even taken to blogging, from small ones to large corporations. The popularity and simplicity of blogging makes it popular with everyone.

Using blogs to help with your sales is easy and recommended. It is simple to create your own blog on which to post your articles. You can find a webhosting company that includes a blog in its webhosting package, or you can choose a popular blog site like Blogger at www.blogger.com .

The most important thing is to make your blog viral. Do this by creating an RSS feed and allowing readers to copy your blog to their own.

All you need to do is set up your blog and start posting your articles into categories of your own choosing. using pinging features will allow blog directories to keep updated whenever you add a new post to your blog. You can also sign up at http://pingomatic.com/ to have your blog pinged with many different services all at once. This will help bring traffic to your blog.

Another way to make blogs helpful in your article marketing is to seek out blogs that relate to your field of interest. Upon finding a subject that relates to your article, add a comment and a link to the article asking other readers of the blog to visit your blog and read the article.

Posting the actual article on someone else’s blog is rude and not accepted. A simple link to an article that directly relates to the topic in question is perfectly acceptable.

Wherever your business is, online or off, forums can benefit you. These benefits Take many forms for marketers. Forums can be a source of information on what the market needs an as a means of letting people know how that need can be met. You can post articles on forums, find tidbits of useful information for writing more articles and you can learn from others as well as teach them.

It is common for forum owners to allow members to post articles. Some even have special pboards set up for you to take advantage of this privelege. It’s there, use it.

You risk looking unprofessional and appearing desperate when you end up posting your article inappropriately. Take the time to read the particular procedure for each forum you post on. Not following rules exactly could cause you to be restricted from the forum.

Becoming active in your chosen forum is a good idea. Check to find out if you can post ads, links, articles or just information in your signature line. Whatever the rules, follow them.

To repeat, finding topics to write about within your area can be done on forums. By finding out what people want to know and then providing that information, you increase the chances of your article being read. You can find out what people want to know by conducting surveys or simply reading posts, both past and present.

There are forums on every topic if you take the time to find them. Google your chosen field and add the word forum to find out what is available. The sheer number of related forums may surprise you!

The Warrior Forum at http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/ is one of the most popular around. It has been in existence for greater than six years and do encourage members to post articles.

Articles can be profitable in a variety of ways. Posting written articles for distribution can increase sales for you by getting people to your site. You can also use them as a free download for others to use or allow affliliates to use them to increase their own sales.

Sell the private label rights to your articles is yet another profitable way to benefit. By doing this, you lose your recognition as the author because that is given to whoever buys the articles. What you gain from this method is simply money for your articles.

Start by gathering several articles on the same topic and placing them together into a zipped folder. Upon completion, upload the file to your website and make sure there is a link to it.

If writing articles is something you like to do, you can start a site where people pay to become a member. You then write and upload new groups of articles with private label rights for the members to download and use.

You can even hire someone else to write the articles based on topics you give them. The topics will be decided by requests from your members. If the articles are good, you could make quite a bit of money from this endeavor.

Creating a private label rights license is a necessity. You will include this license in every bundle of articles you produce and will post it somewhere on your membership site so it can be viewed.

There is an option to creating your own membership site. You can find owners of already established membership sites and make a deal to sell the articles to them, and they can in turn sell the articles. It is advisable to find out before writing these articles if the owner is willing to make this deal.

Even if you can write, it might make more sense to hire one or more ghostwriters to provide your articles. Needing hundreds of articles in a short amount of time will make it necessary to hire several.

There are many reasons to have someone else do your writing. The hard part is, finding a good, affordable ghost writer. You can post a bid request for the work at one of the freelance sites, such as www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com , but you may not get a writer who can do a decent job.

One of the major problems you may find at these sites is the fact that in order to get a low price, they often hire writers who don’t speak, or write, English very well. This doesn’t mean that the writer is a poor one, it simply means that they don’t know English well enough to provide the content you need.

Plagiarism is often another problem you will find at these sites. If you purchase articles from a writer at a freelance site, go to copyscape at www.copyscape.com and run each article through to make sure that the work is original.

Your best bet is to hire someone who you can use exclusively for all of your writing needs. Most of these writers are quite expensive, but you can find some that will write good articles at a reasonable price. One company that hires good writers and charges affordable rates can be found at www.writingandtranscriptionservices.com . This place offers you 300 – 500 word articles written for under ten dollars.

The best way to get what you want from another writer is to relay exactly what you are looking for. Providing the writer with a list of topics or titles for the articles is a very good idea. This allows the writer to see exactly what you are looking for. A good writer will get your articles done quickly. The time will depend on how many articles you need, and how much research the writer must do.

Most ghost writers will want part of their money before they start working for a new customer. This deposit is usually equal to one third or one half of whatever the total cost will be. Once you and your writer have established a good working relationship, however, they may allow you to pay only upon completion.

The purpose of writing and distributing articles is threefold: to increase website traffic, to establish your credentials as an expert, and ultimately to sell more products or services. Just writing and submitting articles won’t do this, however. You must make it possible for your articles to become viral.

An article that you write is distribute to the various article sites on the Internet only one time. From there, ezine publishers, blog writers, and website owners who have an interest in information in your area will find the article and publish it on their websites, blogs, and in their ezines. This starts the viral domino effect.

From those websites, blogs, and ezines, other people will pick it up and publish it in their ezines and on their websites. The one article just snowballs. The sky is the limit.

Ten years from now, you could be wandering the Internet and stumble across an article that you wrote and distributed just today. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if that website owner only recently published your article on their site. If you search for that same article, at that time ten years from now, you may be astounded as to many times that one article appears!

The article will all but disappear, however, unless you give it the ability to become viral. You do this by including a notice at the very bottom of the article giving others permission to reprint the article, free of charge, as long as the article remains unchanged, and your resource box is included in the reprint.

It’s that easy. One small sentence at the bottom of your articles can change the entire path of your article simply by allowing it to be reprinted. This will in turn change your business for the better. Without that notice, others won’t know if they can use your article, even if it is posted at an article site. If there is a doubt, most people will pass up reprinting the article to protect themselves from accusations of copyright infringement.

To make sure your article becomes viral, make that one sentence permission a normal part of all your article.

Networking with e-zine publishers in your field is a good business strategy. These publishers are one of the most important parts of your marketing and it is suggested you start building a list of appropriate e-zines now.

There are ezine directories that can direct you to appropriate places. Vist them and subscribe to several e-zines in your chosen area. Don’t try submitting articles until you get a feel for the e-zine by reading a couple of issues. The Directory of Ezines at www.directoryofezines.com , along with several others, even tell you information if article submissions are accepted, where to send them, and what rules tofollow. This information is priceless.

Contact the ezine publisher directly if you decide to submit an article. Most e-zine owners like to know the person who is sending them an article for publication. Not contacting the publisher first does not create a good raport.

Send a personal note telling the publisher how much you like their publication. List something specific you especially like about the ezine. Next, tell the publisher you believe readers would like your articles and ask if you might submit one or more. Finding one specialized point within the general interest area will increase your chances of being positively received.

Don’t send tons of articles all at once and overload the publisher’s already full mailbox. Limit yourself to sending only one article weekly, and sometimes even one a month. Make the e-zine publisher feel important by providing short articles once a week that you wrote just for that e-zine. E-zine publishers like knowing they are the only place a person can find a particular article.