March 15, 2010 By 2 Comments

Article Syndication: How to Syndicate Your Articles Online

Article Syndication

If you want to attract a lot of people to read your articles online they need to be seen in multiple locations on the Web. It’s not enough these days to just place the article on your website or blog because you’ll only reach a small percentage of your audience.

What is article syndication?

It’s the process of distributing your articles to multiple websites at the same time. The most commonly used form of syndication are RSS Feeds. RSS refers to really simple syndication. A person must have an RSS reader such as Google Reader. It summarizes articles from multiple websites you’ve subscribed to. To subscribe to an RSS Feed look for the orange icon displayed at the top of a website. For example to subscribe to the RSS feed on this page simply click on the large orange icon displayed above.

Benefits of article syndication

  • Easy method for internet users to receive new content
  • Builds incoming links from visitors linking to your content
  • Boosts search engine rankings by increasing your online visibility
  • Builds relationships with your visitors by regularly providing new content for them
  • Visitors receive instant notification of new articles
  • Guaranteed delivery. Content doesn’t get blocked by email spam filters
  • Reach a wider audience

7 Ways to syndicate your articles online

1. Write high quality content
Content that is well written and contains information that serves the needs of your readers will naturally get distributed around the Net by others.

2. Article directories
Most article directories have RSS Feeds that distribute your content once it gets submitted to them. Ezine and newsletter publishers may select your articles to place in their publications. People can sign up to receive email alerts when a new article is published in their niche.

3. Blog
Blogs built on software such as WordPress have an RSS Feed built into them. When a new article is posted on a WordPress Blog it automatically alerts the search engines. Visitors to your blog can be notified of new content by subscribing to the blog’s RSS feed.

4. Social Bookmarking
Add social bookmarking icons (e.g. delicious, stumble, etc.) to your blog to make it easy for visitors to bookmark your articles.

5. Social Media Websites
Many internet users prefer to be notified through social media sites instead of using email because that’s where they gather with their friends and it’s what they use constantly every day for communication. Set up accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Every time you write a new article alert your audience using these websites.

6. Video and Podcast Sites
Convert your article to video and/or audio. Share your video on video sharing sites such as YouTube. Submit your audio file to Podcast directories. This enables visitors to watch and listen to your content rather than just reading it.

7. Newsletter or Ezine
Send out a newsletter or ezine every week or 2 weeks to let your subscribers know about new content or news related to your niche.

The key to successful article syndication is do it frequently and consistently. Make a plan to write several articles a week then syndicate them on multiple websites to maximize audience participation.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE report titled:
7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: ,
March 13, 2010 By 1 Comment

How Do You Get Free Traffic to Come to Your Website

free website traffic

Large companies spend a fortune in online advertising to drive traffic to their websites. How can you possibly compete with them when you’re the sole owner of your business and can’t afford to invest in paid advertising?

The best way to compete with large companies is to build a website around a micro niche then promote it using free traffic generating strategies. Let me explain what I mean by giving you an example.

If the large company sells shoes target a smaller niche such as “mens running shoes.” Make your website standout from the large companies by making it personable e.g. adding a blog so visitors can comment on your posts, write articles about running, create videos offering tips on running, adding social bookmarking icons so visitors can easily share your content with others.

One of the best ways to get free traffic to your website is article marketing. It will only cost you time to write and submit your content to article directories and other online publications.

Step by step article marketing process:

1. Choose a topic you’re passionate about

Create a list of topics to write about by entering your main keyword in Google’s keyword research tool. It will provide a wide range of related keywords people are searching on plus how many monthly searches that keyword receives. Your job is to write articles based on those keywords so your content can be found in the search engines and in article directories where newsletter publishers and site owners are looking for content to publish.

2. Create an attention getting headline

This means you need to write an attractive headline that grabs your reader’s attention. For example instead of writing “How to find comfortable running shoes” you could write “A Startling Fact About How To Save Your Feet When Buying Men’s Running Shoes.” Which headline gets the most attention?

3. Write content that benefits your readers

Your main content should provide at least one good tip your reader can act upon. Alternatively divide your content into several paragraphs each containing one tip. If you write 4 paragraphs (4 tips) of 100 words for each paragraph you’ll easily complete a 400-500 word article.

4. Offer an incentive

The resource box at the end of your article is where you can promote your product or service. Instead of trying to sell to your readers directly by linking to your product, offer a free report or ecourse so you can first capture their email address. This will enable you to stay in touch with them. Most people won’t purchase products on first contact.

5. Promote your content

The key to generating lots of free traffic to your website is to get your content in front of as many people as possible then build a community of followers. Start by submitting your articles to the top article directories because they receive millions of visitors each day. Add the articles to your blog so visitors can interact with them by leaving comments or asking questions. Create Twitter and Facebook accounts so you can notify your followers when you’ve written a new article. Participate in forum conversations and blogs related to your niche.

Build your community by offering a regular newsletter. Develop long term relationships with your subscribers by providing tips, news, product reviews, coupons, sales etc.

Your success will be determined by the frequency and consistency of your content marketing efforts therefore create a plan (e.g. write and publish 3 articles each week) then stick to it.

Related Articles
How Can I Promote My Website For Free

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE report titled:
7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Herman Drost is the owner and author of
http://www.DrostDesigns.com
Web Design, SEO, Article Marketing

Filed Under: Web Site Promotion Tagged With: , ,
March 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

How to Repurpose Old Content and Generate More Traffic to Your Website

repurpose old content

  • Do you often get stuck for new article writing ideas?
  • Do you often stare at a blank screen hoping for a topic to spring into your mind?
  • Do you feel you’ve exhausted the number of articles you’ve written for your niche?
  • Do you have old content that can be revived?

These are some of the most frequently asked questions writers often ask themselves when trying to create new articles for their business. If you’ve been online for some time you’ve probably written content in multiple locations that can be repurposed into new articles. Even though it may be old content that you are very familiar with, your readers will still view it as unique because they don’t remember everything you’ve written.

4 Ways to Repurpose Your Old Content

1. Blog archives

If you’ve been blogging for several years you’ll have blog posts that are buried in your archives. Even if they’re short you can bundle several of them together to create a new 400-500 word article and submit it to the top article directories and other publications.

2. Reports and Ebooks

Review the content in old reports and ebooks then repurpose it into new articles. If they were written several years ago, rewrite the content. Your writing style will be different than in the past plus you have greater experience. Don’t copy the content in the ebook and use it for an article if you plan to sell the ebook in your resource box. Your customers will ask for a refund when they find out it’s exactly the same content.

3. Ezine archives

If you’ve written unique articles for your ezine or newsletter, repurpose them into new articles for publication. Make sure the articles you’ve written for your ezine have not already been submitted to the article directories. If so, they will be rejected by the editors because of duplicate content.

4. Customers’ questions or comments

Customers or visitors to your website or blog often leave comments or have questions related to your content. Write an article using the points visitors made in their comments. Answer a customer’s question by providing several useful tips in a unique article them send it to your customer and/or add it to your website. The customer will be pleasantly surprised and may even pass it on to others.

Dust off your old content instead of letting it lie dormant by repurposing it into new articles then submit them to article directories and other online publications. It’s a quick and easy way to attract more visitors without looking for new topics and creating new articles from scratch.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE report titled:
7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Web Design Tagged With: ,
March 11, 2010 By 3 Comments

How Does Viral Marketing Work to Generate Website Traffic

viral marketing

Viral marketing refers to information that is passed along from person to person. The internet is a great viral marketing medium because you can distribute your content very quickly to a large audience. It’s similar to a human virus. Think of the swine flu or cold virus that spread quickly if you were in the same room as the person with the virus.

Benefits of viral marketing

The amount of traffic generated to your website will increase in proportion to the number of people your content reaches. The larger your audience the more visitors you’ll receive. Viral promotion strategies may include article marketing, videos, reports, ebooks, affiliates, images or simply writing compelling content.

Article marketing: an example of how to generate traffic with viral marketing

When marketing products on the Net lots of content is constantly needed to build backlinks, increase search engine rankings and provide material for your website visitors. Your customers are what keep you in business so if you take good care of them by giving them valuable content you’ll build long term relationships.

1. Write a compelling article

  • Create a list of keywords using the free WordTracker or Google keyword research tool
  • Create topics based on each keyword
  • Create an attractive headline to draw readers into your article
  • Write several paragraphs containing tips related to your headline
  • Create a resource box that offers a free report as an incentive for visiting your website
  • Include anchor text (hyperlinked keyword) and your full web address in the resource box

2. Submit to article directories

The top article directories receive millions of visitors and are visited daily by the search engines. When you submit your article to them you’ll generate instant and long term traffic. Instant traffic comes from RSS feeds, email alerts and ezine publishers selecting your article for publication. Long term traffic comes from your article appearing in the search engines. This happens because you get a high quality backlink from the directory plus backlinks from other sites that publish your article.

3. Publish on your blog

Publish the article on your blog so visitors can pass it on to others or comment on it. It will also be distributed to your RSS readers through the RSS feed built into your blog.

4. Use social media

Use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn to notify potential readers about your new article. Add social bookmarking icons to your website or blog for visitors to easily bookmark your content.

5. Repurpose your articles

Convert your articles to videos, podcasts, short reports and ebooks. Use video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube), podcast and ebook directories to spread your content virally.

Viral marketing through writing and distributing content, creates a snowball affect that can generate traffic to your website instantly and continuously for many years to come.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE report titled:
7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
March 9, 2010 By 10 Comments

EzineArticles: How to Generate Traffic to Your Website

Article marketing has become one of the most popular and effective ways to generate traffic to your website. This is because the top article directories receive millions of visitors each day. You can benefit from this traffic by submitting your articles to them. Ezinearticles is the top article directory because they constantly reward their authors by finding new ways to attract more visitors to articles submitted to their website.

How to Generate Traffic to Your Website with Ezinearticles

Let’s look at the what happens when your article is submitted to Ezinearticles (EA):

Immediate search engine exposure
EA gets indexed by the search engines every day or several times a day. If you optimized your article for a relatively non-competitive keyword or keyword phrase it may appear on the first page of the search engines. Visitors searching on your keyword will find your article and then visit your website by clicking on the link in your resource box.

RSS feeds.
RSS stands for really simple syndication. An RSS Feed Reader (such as the Google Reader) enables visitors that subscribe to the feed to receive summaries of your articles in their reader. EA has an RSS feed that enables visitors to instantly get notified of new articles. You’ll receive a spike in traffic every time you submit a new article.

*Email alerts. Visitors to EZ can sign up to receive email alerts in their niche. Whenever a new article is published in that niche the subscribers get notified.

Recent, Most Viewed, Most Published Sections
There are 3 sections at the end of each article for every niche listed in EA:
*Other Recent EzineArticles.
*Most Viewed EzineArticles in 60 days for a category
*Most Published EzineArticles in 60 days for a category

Other Recent. Your most recently submitted articles will immediately appear in this section. This makes it easy for ezine publishers to select similar articles in their niche for publication.

Most Viewed. If your article receives lots of views it will be selected by EA to appear in this section for 60 days. You benefit by receiving even more views as people visit this section to find the most popular articles to place in their publications.

Most Published. If your article gets published in multiple ezines or newsletters it may appear in this section for 60 days. Invest in writing high quality articles so your articles will get displayed here.

Social Media
Visitors to your articles on EA can share the article by clicking on any of the Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Delicious, FriendFeed icons that are displayed at the end of each article.

Twitter subscribers can automatically be notified of new articles by synchronizing your EA account with your Twitter account.

Article Tools
Under Article Tools-Article Reports in the administration area you can view the click through rate of each article. It also provides the month views and the keywords visitors used to find your articles. The article tools section also enables you to submit press releases, submit your ezine to an ezine directory, create a widget for your website, get article title suggestions and view your author rankings.

View your article marketing investment as a highly effective method for advertising your website. If done frequently and consistently it will continue to attract visitors for years to come.

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Learn how to write & publish articles by picking up a copy of
Article Writing Strategies.

Filed Under: Article Marketing, Ebook Creation Tagged With: ,
March 8, 2010 By 2 Comments

How Do I Get Website Traffic on a Budget

website traffic

Traffic is the life blood of your website. If no one visits your site it will die a slow death and join 1000s of other abandoned sites on the Net. Most site owners don’t have a large budget to promote their business so they often ask themselves “How do I get website traffic on a budget?” They are constantly looking for free or inexpensive traffic generation strategies.

Here’s a highly effective traffic generation strategy that won’t cost you a dime. Even though this strategy is free it will still take time to implement but if done frequently and consistently will attract 1000s of visitors.

Web Content Development

New content needs to be constantly added to your website to attract and retain your visitors. One very effective way to achieve this is to write search engine optimized articles. This is an article that contains keywords that people are searching for in the search engines. When a person enters that keyword in the Google search box (or other search engine) your article appears on the first page of results.

Before writing the article create a list of keywords using the free Word Tracker keyword research tool. It will display how many searches each keyword receives each month. Write an article based on the topic of the keyword. Use the keyword in the title, article body and resource box at the end of the article. The article should be at least 400 words long so it meets the requirements for article directory submissions.

Make sure you create an attention getting headline then expand upon it by offering four valuable tips. Write four paragraphs of approximately 10 lines for each tip. This will give you 400 words. Your resource box is where you promote your offer or website. Be sure to include two links back to your website. One should be anchor text (hyperlinked text), the other your full website address.

Promote your content

To maximize the effectiveness of your article first place it on your website or blog then submit it to the top article directories and social media websites. Placing it first on your website means this web page will appear first in the search engines ahead of other web properties where you’ve published the same article.

If you want to get more traffic rewrite the article from another angle using a different headline but target the same keyword. Now you have another unique article that will also attract its own stream of traffic. Make sure you include links back to your website within the resource box . Use this article to submit to the top article directories such as Ezinearticles, Goarticles, Ideamarketers. These directories receive millions of visitors plus get visited by search engines every day. Traffic to your website will increase in proportion to the quality and quantity of articles you submit.

Notify your niche community using social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your Blog, whenever you have new content to publish. Place social bookmarking icons on your blog for visitors to easily bookmark your content. Build your community of subscribers by regularly offering them a newsletter.

Make a schedule to write and publish new content every few days or every day if you can handle it. View web content development and article marketing as free advertising for your website. It’s more effective than paid advertising because your content keeps working for you 24/7 throughout the year.

Related Articles
How Can I Promote My Website For Free

How to Promote a Website for Beginners

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Learn the secrets how to write, submit and promote highly effective articles by claiming your copy of: Article Marketing Strategies.

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Maryland Website Design

Filed Under: Web Site Promotion Tagged With: , ,
March 6, 2010 By 3 Comments

How to Increase Website Traffic


A website that doesn’t attract traffic is like putting a sign up in the desert. It may be a very beautiful and expensively designed sign but if no one passes by to view it you won’t get any business. There are 1000s of sites on the Net that are just sitting there making no sales because they’re not attracting any visitors.

How to increase website traffic

1. Website optimization

Your web pages must be search engine friendly to attract search engine spiders. This means your webs pages must include the keywords people are searching on to find your them. To find those keywords open up the Google Keyword Research Tool. Insert your suggested keyword term. The keyword tool will create a list of keywords and phrases that display the number of times those words have been searched on each month.

Weave these keywords into the title, description meta tags, headings, subheadings, image descriptions, navigation links, internal links, file names and main content of your website.

2. Link building

Backlinks are links that point to your website from other sites. The number and quality of incoming links determine your rankings in the search engines. One of the best methods of building links is article marketing.

Benefits of article marketing
The three main benefits include web content development, building backlinks, increasing search engine rankings. Continually working on these three strategies will generate a ton of web traffic.

Web content development
Content is King on the Net. If you write lots of unique, valuable content and place it one your website or blog, others will naturally link to it from their blogs, social media sites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) and social bookmarking sites.

Publish your content
The top article directors attract millions of visitors each day. You can gain some of these visitors by submitting your articles to them. Write articles containing 400 words that include your main keyword in the title, main content and resource box. Make sure you include 2 links to your website in the resource box. One should be linked text (anchor text) and the other your full website address. You will immediately begin to get a trickle of traffic after you’ve submitted your article. If it gets picked up by an ezine publisher with 1000s of subscribers you’ll experience a dramatic increase in website traffic.

The more articles you write and publish the more traffic you’ll generate. If you convert the content to video and submit it to video sharing websites like YouTube you’ll attract even more traffic.

3. Monitor website statistics

Your statistical data shows how many visitors you’re getting to your website, where they are coming from and what keywords they are using to find your online property. If your web host doesn’t provide this service create a Google Analytics account and insert the code within the web pages. This enables you to track the success of your marketing efforts.

If you optimize your website, provide lots of valuable content on a regular basis and publish that content all over the Net you’ll dramatically increase your website traffic.

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Claim your copy of
101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site

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March 4, 2010 By 17 Comments

The Importance of a Website For Your Business

website design

The writing is on the wall for business owners still using print advertising to market their products and services. Most people now search the Net from their computers or cell phones to find a local or national business. It’s easier, faster and often more accurate plus you also receive listings from businesses that never could afford a yellow page ad.

7 Reasons to Build a Website for Your Business

1. Accessibility

Customers can easily find your business online at any time, from anywhere (as long as they have an internet connection). For example smart phone users can instantly view your products and services while in the car, plane, restaurant or even while walking around town.

2. Provide unlimited information

A website allows you to display your products and services using text, photos, video and audio (podcasts). You can add as many pages as you like plus edit the information at any time.

3. Inexpensive

A website will lower your advertising costs. For example a yellow page ad costs you 1000s of dollars and you can’t edit the information once the ad is published. The initial cost of your site may be $1000.00 or more depending on it’s size and complexity but your maintenance costs will be very small ( only yearly domain name registration and web hosting).

4. Interactivity

These days customers want to interact with your business before making a purchase. Ways to add interactivity to your website may include adding a Forum, Blog, RSS Feed, Contact form, Newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, Videos, Podcasts or Chat box. For example a Blog enables visitors to leave comments to your posts. You can answer their questions by replying to their comments.

5. Not limited by geographical areas

Your website can be found locally, nationally and even worldwide if it is marketed to those areas. If you want it to appeal to different countries you can even translate it into different languages.

6. Attract a wide audience

A website can attract 1000s or even millions of visitors if marketed nationally or worldwide. This is in sharp contrast to a yellow page add which only serves your local area. Attracting a wider audience generates more sales thus making your business more profitable.

7. Market to a targeted audience

If you use Google AdWords you can create online ads that target customers according to a geographic area, time and day. For example if you know your product only sells on Saturday nights in a specific town your ad can be targeted for those parameters.

Now that you understand the importance of building a website for your business, make a plan for your website needs and how you will market it. Discuss your plans with a professional web designer before hiring him/her to design it.

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March 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

Article Marketing: How to Promote Your Website Writing and Submitting Articles

article marketing

Even if you have a beautiful website it won’t attract many visitors if you don’t promote it. There are hundreds of ways to promote a site however one of the most successful methods is writing articles then submitting the content to top article directories. Ezine publishers and website owners select well written articles from these directories to publish in their ezines or add them to their blogs or websites. This generates lots of traffic back to your website.

How to write an article that gets published

1. Create a list of keywords

Open the Google Keyword Research Tool then enter one of the main keywords related to your business. Use exact match to weed out general search terms. The tool will generate a long list of related keywords showing how many times people searched for that keyword in Google. Use this list to write a series of articles (one article per keyword or keyword phrase).

2. Write your article

Title
Write an attention getting headline that includes your main keyword. For example in the title of this article I chose “article marketing” as the main keyword phrase. Make sure place you it at the beginning of your headline because search engines place more weight on keywords at the beginning.

Article body
The main content should expand on what you promised in the title. A good length is 400 words. One simple way to write the content is to simply create a list of tips then write a paragraph on each tip. If you write 4 paragraphs each containing 100 words you’ll have a 400 word article completed in a short time. Be sure to include your main keyword in the content.

Resource box
This is added to the end of the article and is the only place you can promote your product or service and include a link back to your website. To motivate readers to click on the link offer an incentive such as a free report or free software.

Proofread your article
Get a friend or relative to proofread your article or if you do it yourself let it sit for a while then read through it again. Removing grammar and spelling mistakes will ensure the article is ready for publication.

Article marketing
The more places your article gets seen on the Net the more visitors it will attract. Publish it on your blog or website first then submit to the top article directories. If you have time rewrite the article before submitting it to the directories. This provides them with a unique article rather than the same one you added to your blog.

Tip
If you submit the same article to multiple publications the first website containing your article will rank ahead of the others in the search engines. For example if I first add the article to my blog then to a directory, the blog web page will rank first. Article marketing needs to be done frequently and consistently to be successful.

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Learn how to write & publish articles by picking up a copy of
Article Writing Strategies.

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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