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All things writing! Resources, books, tools, recommendations, software and commentary for writers of all types.
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Web Content: Keeping It Fresh
If you are new to building websites, you may think that the actual construction is the hard part. After a while, you will start to realize how hard it is to keep your site updated and full of fresh content. That is where the real work lies. Keeping the content on your website fresh can be accomplished by adding new articles. You could plan to add one new article to your site every day. This also works to increase your site's search engine optimization because search engines like websites with substantial content. For individuals who want to keep their web content fresh and interesting but do not write for themselves, there are many options available. Online reprint directories are full of articles that you can post on your website. When you use these articles you will have to include a box at the end of the article with information about the author. There are other options if you want to add articles to your site without advertising for another person's website. You can purchase individual or packs of articles called private label rights articles. Even though these articles are reasonably priced, they are not unique; several people can buy the same articles. To get truly unique content, you can hire a ghostwriter to write articles for your website. This is a very common practice amongst website owners. Keep your content timely. Nothing says "stale" better than outdated content. In copywriting, if something of importance is happening, find a way to include it into your content. For example, during the month of October you can include information about Breast Cancer Awareness. You can also add information to your site that readers can use related to approaching holidays. For instance, if your website is marketed to families, you can post lots of helpful information about how to make costumes, make jack-o-lanterns, and have a fun and safe time trick-or-treating as the date gets close to Halloween. When you do copywriting, write several articles or post other information about a specific event, take that information off of your homepage when the event is over with. You do not have to delete the content, just move it to a page where it can be archived. That way, readers who are interested in those articles can still obtain them but your homepage will not look like it has old or outdated content on it. When celebrities are in need of a fresh image, they get a makeover. This can work for your site as well. If you have been using the same banner for your heading since the day you first went live on the internet, change it up a little and see if your visitors take notice. Fresh content also means the graphics, pictures, and photos that you use on your website. People who make a habit of visiting your site will instantly know that you have updated your website if they see that images have been moved around as content has been adjusted. Updating your website is one of many great ways to boost traffic to your website. You can include information about updates in the emails you send to individuals on your mailing list. Your newsletter could feature a small part of a newly posted article followed by a link to the page where the entire article appears.
Article Generating Software - Quality Article Writer Software To Write Articles Quickly
There's no question about it that article marketing is a force to be reckoned with, not only does it give your website heaps of free exposure, it returns a lot of oneway links targeting the keywords for your site which obviously boosts your search engine rankings. If you're an affiliate marketer, then you will be able to quickly source a product in any niche, pen many articles and post them to the top article directories with links back to your associate page to gain those much needed affiliate cheques. Still, there's a problem if you're attempting to produce several of unique articles rapidly, especially if you do not have the cash in hand to out source your content. So what is the alternative? You require a great deal of unique articles quickly, or you might need to rewrite articles that are hidden on your disc drive, you want to get your hands on some good article generating software, something that will save you a great deal of time and all the same bring about articles that actually make good sense. You'll be able to also obtain article software that will change one article into dozens, if not hundreds of related articles at the press of a button, best known as article spinning software. But which article writing software will accommodate your needs? There are various really good programs and services out there, but there are a good deal of completely terrible ones that are just a absolute waste of time and money. A few of the article software I have purchased have been that bad, that the articles were totally illegible, the articles just did not make any sense and were totally unreadable. Get on over to our article generating reviews for a indepth review of some of the best software and services available to help you write many articles quickly.
Article Marketing Is Not Dead…If You Know How To Revive It
Change in life is inevitable, and that includes article marketing. Used by millions, this marketing technique has made money for many, but for others, it just plain hasn't worked. Article marketing must be done responsibly and consistently over time in order to deliver results. It isn't a "get-rich-quick" technique, but those who follow the trends in article marketing can prosper.
In order to get the most out of your article marketing, you’ll want to stay aware of changing techniques and hire someone to help you with writing or submission if needed.
To help get you started, I have listed the top ten changes that have taken place in article marketing over the years:
1. Create – or have someone create for you – original articles for your web site and do not use them for submission. This will draw search engines to your site and you can advertise this fresh content in your byline to entice readers to click your link.
2. Pay more attention to titles. Do your keyword research first and use your top three keywords at the beginning of the title. Use power words such as “daring,” “remarkable” and “urgent.” Ask an engaging question or use a top seven or top ten title.
3. Do not submit articles too often – or not often enough. Article directories have less restrictions, but keep in mind that individual publishers can get easily overwhelmed. Submit two to four articles per month and keep doing it.
4. In the past, article marketers were told to educate their readers. While this still holds true today, you will get more responses when you identify the problems of your potential audience and then solve these problems.
5. It is now common to find article marketers rewriting their title, article body and byline partway through their submission list. This is a reliable way to get published more often, but realize that it can be time-consuming. Get help rewriting if needed.
6. Some new article marketers are offering publishers customized articles to fit their audience, or giving permission for publishers to edit the article so long as the byline remains untouched and all links are made live.
7. In the beginning, article marketers submitted their articles to thousands of article directories. Now, savvy article marketers submit their article to the top ten or twenty article directories that provide more traffic than a thousand low-quality directories.
8. A submission list used to consist of article directories, e-zines, newsgroups and individual sites. The new submission list should also include blogs, social networking sites, niche topic sites and news sites (turn your article into a tipsheet).
9. Once your article is included in a well-ranked article directory, submit that page to social bookmarking sites where you have accounts. Do the same for the original articles on your site.
10. Consider offering an original, exclusive article to target sites with a large audience who will relate to you and what you have to offer. Ask to be paid or negotiate advertising space in their newsletter or on their site.
Some things about article marketing have remained unchanged. Never use document spinner software, mass distribution to thousands of sites, a submission list that isn't targeted and automated submission tools.
Article marketing is not dead, but it has changed. To be a successful article marketer, you must keep informed and stay up to date on changes in the technique. Keep an eye on blogs and web sites dedicated to the subject so you can keep reaping the benefits of article marketing.
© 2008, Davis Virtual Assistance. Reprints welcomed so long as the article and byline are kept intact and all links are made live.
Bonnie Jo Davis is an article marketing expert with more than thirteen years of experience who uses the technique daily for herself and her clients. If you use article marketing or would like to learn how visit her site at http://www.articlesubmissionsites.com. While you are there you can download the free e-book "Writing For Publicity" a compilation of her articles about article marketing and submission.
Successful Article Marketers Help Readers Solve Problems
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt
Every week, I have the opportunity to speak with people about the benefits and challenges of using article marketing to promote an online business. Of course, article marketing is about getting your sales message in front of potential customers and to get links to your website, from the page where an article is posted online.
Where most people get confused with article marketing is with the idea that "it is a method to promote one's website." Many interpret this to mean that an article should directly promote the writer's website within the article, but that approach is wrong and will reduce one's success using this methodology.
Understanding The Overall Article Marketing Strategy
Consider this. Television has been a successful advertising medium for more than six decades, because TV stations understand the importance of providing content to anchor the advertising. In every television hour, there are 42 minutes of content to provide an anchor for 18 minutes of advertising. People tune into the content out of a desire to receive the content, and they accept the advertising as a necessary price to pay in order to get the content for free.
Article marketing works best when the writer emulates the television-advertising model, by anchoring a sales message to content that people want to consume.
The role of article marketing is to capture an audience for the writer's website advertisement, which should be presented in the "resource box" / "about the author" information that appears in the paragraph immediately following the actual article. But, in order to capture that audience, an article needs to tell a story that publishers and webmasters desire to share with their readers.
How To Capture An Audience
When people ask me what they should write about in their articles, I always ask them a set of three questions to help them to define a successful strategy. Those three questions are as follows:
1. What do you sell?
2. Who is most likely to buy what you are selling?
3. What types of problems are common to those people that you may be able to answer?
Publishers and webmasters have a responsibility to their visitors to provide the kind of content that people actually "want" to read. I have heard publishers and webmasters state that if you want to sell to their readers, buy advertising. But if you were willing to teach something of value to their readers, then by all means, they would be happy to give you an advertisement in the "about the author" section at the end of your article, as payment for allowing them to share your information with their readers.
So, if you want an audience for your website's sales message, you should strive to give publishers the kind of information that they would like to share with their readers. If you give readers what they want, publishers will be willing to give you what you want - a chance to share the story of your business with the publishers' readers and website visitors.
Give Readers What They Want
When people go to a search engine, a website, a newsletter or blog, people are looking for information that will help them to address a problem they face. In short, people go online to find solutions for problems.
Since I desire to reach the people most likely to buy my products or services, I want to write content that will appeal directly to those people. When I sit down to write, I try to identify a problem that many people might have, and then I strive to locate and offer a solution to the problem.
When publishers and webmasters agree that the problem addressed is real and my solution is sound, my articles find huge audiences.
When my articles answer a reader's problem, my "about the author" information gets read. When my "about the author" information appeals to the reader, my website gets a new visitor. And for every new visitor my website gets, I have one more chance to sell my products and services to another potential client.
In Closing
There are certain people online, whose articles you have seen frequently on many websites and in some of your favorite newsletters. If you read those articles with an analytical eye, you will soon realize that what I tell you is true. Those people who put the focus of their articles on helping others to solve problems are the people whose articles are published most often and in the largest range of newsletters and websites.
Article marketing works well for those of us who seek to help readers solve problems.
For those who are looking to escape this tried-and-true method of article marketing, I wish you well. But I stand firm in the belief that if you put more focus on helping people solve more problems, you will benefit from article marketing in ways that other people can only dream.
============================================================ Bill Platt has owned and operated http://www.thePhantomWriters.com article distribution service since 2001, and he has published more than 125 articles in his own name. Article marketing is the perfect advertising system for small businesses, but if you find yourself spending at least $1200 per month on PPC Advertising, then you owe it to yourself to review Bill's Pay-For-Performance Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html ============================================================
Read More Articles From Bill Platt: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml#Bill_Platt
How Freelance Writers Can Make Money Online
In this article we´ll take a look at how freelance writers can make money online. There are literally dozens of avenues a freelance writer can make money online. All that´s needed is strategic planning and knowing where to go. It´s quite simple really. To begin, it would be great if you had a portfolio online where potential clients can see some of your work or articles. Ezinearticles.com is a great place to showcase you writing style. After you´ve submitted some articles (about 30+), you should be able to gain "expert author" status. Other websites that you can submit to build your writing portfolio includes associatedcontent.com and helium.com. A simple website with all your articles also can suffice, as long as you can fully showcase your professional writing capabilities online. You can also make sure of blogger or any of the web2.0 sites such as squidoo, hubpages and even twitter if you are short on cash. These are free to register and sign up. Next, you will want to be connected to a marketplace where there are people constantly looking for professional writers. The Digital Point forum is a great place to start. Here you can find tons of potential clients that require your services. The potential is really great. There will always be an influx of people who need professional writers to perform specific tasks. Digitalpoint is an excellent place to find clients who are looking for content writers, copywriters, etc. After you´ve gained some posts you can start new threads where you can then look for clients based on your strengths. Other websites include freelance websites such as elance.com and getafreelancer.com. Webmaster forums are another alternative since webmasters constantly need freelance writers to produce their content. You´d be amazed how great the demand is for professional freelance writers. The demand will always be greater than the supply, so this is great news for the professional freelance writer. There are many other forums online where you can find great clients to work for but digital point is a really great starting platform. If your services are top-notch then you can be sure that you will find many clients. An extra perk is that perhaps you will be writing for this client on a long term basis. If you want to learn how to make 6 figure yearly income as a freelance writer, check out my 6 Figure freelancer review. Learn how David Drake 6 Figure freelancer guide can make you more money than your day job.
Free Article Content
Some webmasters try to use articles from free content directories to get visitors to their site and make some money. This is mostly important for those who have just begun working as an affiliate for several companies and do not yet have any funding, yet need to built small niche websites to visitors to their site so that they can begin making revenue. Although this can sometimes be the only option for those who are running on a non-existent budget, it is not a way that will effectively build your website or revenue. There are a few potential reasons why this may be detrimental to your business building efforts. Problem #1 - Search Engines Search engines will only look down upon your site if it has the exact same duplicated content than other sites. The more sites that share your content, the less it will help you achieve good search engine rankings. Good search engine rankings are essential in getting visitors to your sit so that they have a chance to click on your affiliate links. If you cannot even get visitors, then will never make an revenue. Working on the search engine optimization of your site so that you will eventually be high enough in the results to get customers, should be priority one. Problem #2 - Getting visitors to click Although getting your site high on search engine result pages and acquiring site visitors is hard work, unfortunately this is only half of the battle. You must also be able to convince those visitors to click on your affiliate links. If your visitors see the same content they have seen on a multitude of other sites, they will be least likely to click on your links. This is because most people want to buy things that are recommended by people that they trust or whom they feel like are an expert on the subject. If your content is just duplicated from other sites, you will be exposed as someone who does not really know what they are talking about and therefore will not look heavily on your product recommendations. This will reduce the number of website visitors who will be willing to click through. Problem #3 - Author Bylines Most free content is only given to you if you agree to place the authors byline under the article (you can get into trouble if you try to use it without following the stipulated rules). This poses a problem because most author bylines include links. When a reader gets done reading a really intriguing article, there is a strong possibility that they will click on the author’s byline link rather than your affiliate links. This is the entire reason why these authors offer free content to begin with, so that they may get their name and links out there to the public. Using this type of content may mean shooting yourself in the foot and losing possible profitable website visitors. Once you put these three problems together, you are looking at a serious decline in revenue simply because you used free website content from article directories. Although it may be the only option for some, if you have the funds to buy your own original content, then you should go this route. If you don’t have the finds, however, you may be better off writing your own content and then hiring professional services once you have made a profit to work with.
Make A Lot of Extra Money With Article Marketing - Ezinearticles
Despite that you are mom who want some extra money for your family or just some college kid who need some money, you should try to make money online with affiliate marketing using Articles. I am going to show you some effective ways to use Article Directory... There are 3 ways you can use Ezinearticles, and this is not some make money scams that does work. Method #1 - Write a lot of articles. You do some basic keyword research with "Google Keyword Tool" and "Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool", visit forums to understand what is your prospect problems and write down all the problems and solutions with keywords. Prepare to write 50 ~ 100 articles all based on your research, just write at least 50 articles to submit into Ezinearticles, you may repeat the same topic with different title, angle and tones. You need to learn the AIDA formula, Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Attention - You need attention graping title. Interest - Your article must further enhance your reader's interest. (Use problems and solutions just like this article). Desire - You must lead your readers emotion to desire for action. Action - Tell your readers to click your article's link or resources box link. (Example: Want to find more information about How to get your site index in 2 hours? You are welcome to visit "website name or keywords" for more information). Method #2 - Write the article following the trend and using a special angle to describe them in your article. If you know the trend of your market, especially what people are talking about in the forums, write a problem and solution article with a unique angle; You target are not just your readers, but also to attract ezine publishers and other website owner to download and host your articles!
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