Web Design Discussion

How can you effectively display your articles, picture, profile and business/social marketing links all in one place to get more visitors?

Your Profile Page at EzineArticles displays all your articles sorted by article title, category, date and comments. Instead of sending people a long and awkward web site address, register a new domain Name: Articlesby(YourFirstName).com then redirect it to your profile page.

As you write more articles your profile page will become more substantial, so visitors will come to recognize you as an authority on your subject and want to do business with you.

How to redirect your Articlesby(YourFirstName).com to your EzineArticles Profile Page

1. Create an account at Godaddy.com
2. Register Articlesby(YourFirstName).com
3. Log in to your Account Manager.
4. From the My Products section, click Domains
5. Select the domain name you want to forward.
6. Click Forward.
7. Select Enabled.
8. In the Forward To field, enter the URL you want to forward your domain name(s) to.
9. In the Redirect Type area, select the following:

*301 - Redirects to the site you specified in the Forward To field using a “301 Moved Permanently” HTTP response. The HTTP 301 response code tells user-agents (including search engines) that the location has permanently moved.
10. Click OK.
11. Click OK again.
12. Wait a few minutes then check that your EzineArticles Profile Page redirects to Articlesby(YourFirstName).com

Now whenever people ask what you do or what you have accomplished tell them to visit: Articlesby(YourFirstName).com

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Read more of my in-depth articles by visiting ArticlesByHerman.com

Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

The main reason for starting my blog was to quickly and easily display my articles and to attract visitors from search engines and other web sites. Readers have the ability to interact with my articles by leaving their comments. This has worked fairly well, however there is one limitation. Visitors can’t see all your article titles without scrolling through the Sitemap page.

A solution to this problem came from Jeff Herring..more intimately known as the Article Marketing Guy

Here’s the solution for people to easily view all your articles on EzineArticles

Register the domain name…Articlesby(yourfirstname).com then redirect it to your EzineArticles Bio Page e.g. articlesbyherman.com

Benefits

1. Display all the articles you’ve written on EzineArticles

Whether you’ve written 100s or 1000s of articles, visitors can easily view all the content you’ve written according to article title, category, date and comments.

2. Display your author bio

Your bio is displayed at the top of the page before your articles. Be sure to include a nice photo of yourself and a well written bio so people know who you are and what expertise you have.

3. Display Business and Social Networking links

Here are the links you can include under your bio:

Author Links
Blog URL
Business URL
Personal URL
Ezine URL

Business/Social Networking Links
LinkedIN URL
FaceBook URL
Twitter URL

This gives readers quick access to all your other business properties.

4. Show people what you’ve accomplished

When people ask what do you do or how do you market your business, send them to Articlesby(yourfirstname).com They’ll automatically get redirected to your profile page on EzineArticles.

Registering a domain name that is easy to spell and remember, allows you to quickly direct people to all your articles. This increases the presence of your articles and attracts more visitors.

My next post will show you exactly where to register your domain name, and how to correctly redirect it to your EzineArticles profile page.

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Read more of my in-depth articles by visiting ArticlesByHerman.com

Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

I’m always on the look out for new strategies to generate more traffic but often view new tools with quiet skepticism until I actually try them out and gain some success. I’ve begun using Twitter on an almost daily basis now and am convinced it’s a useful addition to my marketing arsenal.

Top 7 Strategies to Generate More Traffic With Twitter

1. Create a twitter account within your EzineArticles profile

EzineArticles now has the ability to automatically syndicate your article to your Twitter account within 140 characters. Every time you submit a new article your followers will see it and can respond to it.

2. Provide sweet morsels of information to your followers

People following you on Twitter are probably interested in nuggets of information they can use immediately. Provide a quick tip to help them grow their business.

3. Start conversations

Twitter is an excellent communication medium that allows you to reply directly to someone in your niche you are following. The replies are often faster than communicating with them by email.

4. Create joint ventures with online Gurus

It’s often difficult to get an email response from online Gurus however if you follow and engage them in conversation on Twitter you have a better chance of doing a joint venture with them. The key is to build a relationship with them first and have a great product that is in high demand.

5. Build a community

Building a community means following and communicating with people in your niche and attracting others that want to follow you. People with the same interests want to gather together to share information. Your community will help you build your business instead of trying to figure out everything on your own.

6. Include links to your favorite resources

Twitter allows you to include links to your blog posts, web site or others sites. Long urls are automatically shortened. This means you can send people to a favorite article by creating an attractive headline within 140 characters then include the link to the rest of the article (or blog post).

7. Research tool

You can enter a keyword in the search box at http://search.twitter.com/ and it will return a list of Twitter sites related to your search. You can also search on a Twitter username and it will return tweets (twitter messages) for that name.

Tip

Attract more followers to your Twitter account by notifying your newsletter subscribers, placing a link on your blog, social marketing sites and email messages. If you take action on all the points mentioned above you’ll build a steady flow of traffic to your web site.

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Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and SEO.

Do you want to get more mileage out of your articles?

Most folks write an article then submit it to online article directories. This will generate some traffic however competition for eyeballs is fierce these days so you need to find alternative ways to attract more readers.

EzineArticles now has the ability to automatically syndicate your articles to your twitter account.

Benefits

1. Every time your article is submitted/reviewed and accepted by EzineArticles.com it automatically gets announced on your Twitter account within the space of 140 characters.

2. There is no need to rewrite your article. People that see your article on Twitter can will get redirected to your article on EzineArticles by clicking on the link in your Twitter account.

3. More traffic. Twitter is in the top 1003 sites on the Web according to Alexa. You can include a link to your website on your Twitter account. A backlink from a high traffic site helps boost your search engine rankings.

4. More visitors - as the number of followers and people following you on Twitter increases you’ll have more visitors reading your articles, visiting your web site and potentially increase sales.

5. Write more articles. Every article automatically gets tweeted so the more articles you submit the more often your Twitter account gets updated.

How to setup your Twitter account within your EzineArticles account.

Here are the 3 most important things to do if you’re new to Twitter:

1. Upload your author photo.
2. Upload your 140 character author bio.
3. Involve yourself in conversations taking place on your Twitter account. This is the fastest way to attract Followers to your Twitter profile.

Resources

Directory of EzineArticles Expert Authors who also Twitter.
Twitter.EzineArticles.com

Search for people who have Twitter accounts
http://Search.Twitter.com/

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Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

My first post on “Free Tutorial for Twitter” answered the question What is Twitter?. Now I’ll show you how to use it as a marketing and communication tool.

Sending Twitter messages, or “Tweets”

There are 3 ways to update:

1. All subscribers
2. Directed to one person
3. Sent a private message to one person

All Subscribers

Login to twitter.com/home
Insert your message in the box under “What are you doing”
Click update
All subscribers will see your message
This will register as an update in the right sidebar

Directed to one person

If you want to reply directly to a specific person you are following use @username. Keep in mind it will still be seen publicly by all your other followers. Make sure the person you’re sending the message to is following you, or they won’t receive it.

Sent a private message to one person

You can send a Twitter friend a Direct Text, which will go to their individual phone or web page. From the web, click Message from the profile page or use the drop down box on your Direct Messages page. From your phone, use the command: D + username + message.

What do the numbers in the right sidebar mean?

3 links are displayed in the right sidebar of your account:

Following - this is the number of people you are following or the number of friends you have.

Followers - these are the people who are following your Tweets.

Updates - refer to the number of messages you’ve sent.

How do you follow someone?

For example if you wish to follow me, go to http://twitter.com/hermandrost and click “follow” under my picture

You can also follow someone by clicking on any of the photos on my twitter page. This will bring up the twitter page of a specific person then click the follow link on his page.

My experience

I’ve found this application useful for following people in my niche. Gurus are busy people that often don’t reply to email or blog comments so you can follow what they are doing on Twitter and communicate with them.

People are not going to follow you if you have nothing valuable to say or don’t invite them. Announce it to your ezine subscribers and/or place a link to your twitter account on your blog. So far I’m only sending updates when I’ve got something noteworthy to say.

Please write your comment below if I’ve missed something. I’m still learning how to use Twitter as an effective marketing tool….more on this later.

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Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

I finally broke down and decided to open a Twitter account after hearing about the great successes my online friends were having connecting with others in their niche. I thought it would be an easy application to master quickly yet found I couldn’t figure out how to use it even after studying the help and faq files.

So I decided to write a free tutorial to help all those folks that were as confused as I was when beginning to use Twitter.

What is Twitter?

It’s a social media application that allows you to communicate with others instantly through short messages of 140 characters.

Twitter is designed to work on a mobile phone as well as on a computer plus there are many other tools which enable you to make updates to your Twitter account such as IM.

How to Get Started

1. Create an account

Visit Twitter.com and click “Join for free.” If you’re serious about using it as a marketing tool use your own name as the username. It’s more personal and people can instantly address you by your real name instead of racer22 or something similar.

2. Upload a photo

Make sure you have a nice photo of yourself. It will appear on other people’s Twitter accounts.

3. Configure your settings

This is where you can edit your online bio, URL, time zone etc.

4. Customize the background

Use a different background than the default style to differentiate your twitter page from all others. You can accomplish this by uploading a different background color from your computer in .gif or .jpeg format.

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Follow me at http://twitter.com/hermandrost
You’ll receive quality tips on the design, conversion and marketing of your web site plus I’ll get back to you in a timely manner if you reply to my Tweets

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

Do you want to squeeze out more traffic from your articles?

If you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com (and you should if you want to attract continuous visitors to your web site), you can check which articles received the most views.

To do this login to your account-author tools-view my article reports-views. You will see a list of your articles in descending order based on the number of views they received.

The articles that received the most views indicate the topics your readers are most interested in.

Write a similar article or articles on the same topic (with different title and content) then submit them for publication.

After your article has been accepted you will receive more traffic in the days and weeks to come as your article(s) gets picked up by ezine publishers looking for unique content to feed their subscribers.

Learn how to create sets of articles to drive 1000s of information hungry visitors to your website. Pick up a copy of “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

What’s the most effective way to attract visitors if you want to add an article directory to your own web site?

I ghost write an article each month for a client’s web site and submit it to article directories. He now has over 10 articles and wants to use them as content.

Two thoughts came to mind how to implement the best strategy. Here are the pros and cons of each:

1. Create a blog

I would create a blog in a subdirectory of his site ie www.domain.com/articles/ then easily add the articles each month threough the backend administration panel.

Pros

Easy to set up
Easy to maintain
Easy to create any number of categories
Pages are dynamically created
RSS feed built in
Automatically pings RSS directories when updated
Blogs get quickly indexed by the search engines
Article posts are automatically archived

Cons

Generally blogs need to updated more than once a month to be effective traffic generators
Takes more time to set up than a static web page
Contains database and 100s of more files than a simple static web site
Need to continually update WordPress software that runs the blog to keep ahead of security fixes
More difficult to customize WordPress template than static web page

2. Create a static web page directory

The static web page would contain the titles and brief descriptions of all the articles. Each title would link to its own web page.

Pros

Easy to create
Integrates well with current web site..use same template
Pages would be on the same level as other pages ie www.domain.com/articles.html
Search engine friendly..just need to add meta tags

Cons

Takes more time to maintain
Need to log into FTP manager when adding new pages
Need to add link to article directory page plus create a new page for the article

Conclusion

An article directory in the form of a blog would initially be more difficult to create if you want to customize the template to look the same as your main web site.

Once a blog is set up it’s easier to maintain because you can add unlimited pages which can easily be categorized, archived and indexed by the search engines.

Please comment if you can think of any other great strategies (a script perhaps) for adding an article directory to your web site?

Learn how to create sets of articles to drive 1000s of information hungry visitors to your website. Pick up a copy of “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

Writing a submitting a few articles doesn’t generate a lot of traffic these days. It’s like throwing mud at a wall and hoping it will stick. Of course it’s possible that a publisher will see your article and send it to his list of 10,000 subscribers. To increase the chances of this happening you need to increase the volume of articles written.

How to increase article volume

1. Create an article writing plan

Decide how many articles you will write each week or month then stick to the plan. The key to writing and submitting articles successfully is to do it consistently over an extended period of time. This will generate a continuous flow of visitors to your web site.

2. Create sets of articles based on a theme

Sometimes it’s easier to write several articles if they are based on a common theme. For example if you sell water filters, write several articles on why you need to drink purified water. The subtopics could be:

Benefits of drinking purified water
Types of water filters
7 tips for buying a water filter
How to install a water filter

3. Vary your title and resource box

Create a different title for each article topic. Vary the content, anchor text and links in the resource box. Search engines want to see a variety of links pointing to different pages of your web site, not just the home page.

4. Submit sets of articles

Instead of submitting one article at a time, submit the whole set. Article editors will review and approve a set at a time instead of one at a time. This means you will receive a larger boost in traffic than submitting one article because readers immediately see several articles from the same author on the same theme.

5. Submit to other publishers

Instead of just submitting articles to article directories, find ezine publishers that specialize in publishing your written content. This will help spread your message and gain more visitors.

Tip

Create a list of article themes then take massive action. As you increase your article volume, the amount of visitors will increase also.

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

A few years ago I used to receive a ton of traffic from article directories by just writing and submitting one article. Times have changed. You now need to write a lot more articles to receive the same amount of traffic. One way to easily increase your article volume is to write sets of articles.

Benefits for creating sets of articles

1. Generates more content

A series of articles contain more content than a single one, therefore you can submit more articles for publication and attract more visitors.

2. Produce unique content

It’s difficult to rewrite an article you’ve written because you easily get tired of looking at the same content. It’s easier to create one long article on a particular theme, then break it into several shorter articles with unique titles.

3. Quality content

More thought is required to write sets of articles. This means your content will be more in-depth thus providing more value to your readers.

4. Build long-term relationships

It requires many conversations to make a good friend. Deep conversations can shorten the time to develop deep relationships. Writing a series of articles is like having a deep conversation with your reader because you can convey more in-depth information about your topic.

5. Article syndication sites prefer sets of articles

I often look for related articles when I’ve finished reading quality content. If you submit a collection of articles on the same theme or topic readers will recognize you as an authority on this subject.

6. More content to repurpose

Web sites, videos, podcasts, ecourses, teleseminars all require lots of content. Sets of articles provide lots of content you can repurpose into types of media.

7. Develop a better writing style

The more you write the better writer you become. Developing your own unique writing style will make your content stand out from 1000s of other articles many of which are poorly written.

Learn how to create sets of articles to drive 1000s of information hungry visitors to your website. Pick up a copy of “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.