Web Design Discussion

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.

Writing and publishing articles is a highly effective method to attract a constant stream of traffic to your web site. Approximately 85% of people never go beyond 10 articles. This means that most people give up because they don’t see the fruits of their labors.

Receiving traffic from your articles occurs over time as they appear in article directories, search engines, web sites and ezines. Your web traffic may start with a trickle of visitors then increases as more articles get published.

My Article Marketing Formula

1. Create well written content

Place yourself in your customers shoes so you can think from their perspective instead of your own. Ask yourself what are their wants, needs and desires? Don’t worry about your article having perfect grammar and sentence structure. Just make sure it reads well and has no spelling mistakes then submit it for publication. It’s better to write more articles than to spend hours trying to perfect your article.

2. Make a plan

Without following a clear article marketing plan you are bound to fail. Decide how many articles you will write and submit each week then stick to it. If you can only commit to one article per week do that however it will take a long time to build substantial traffic. Try to commit or build up to 3 articles per week. This will generate over 150 articles per year. The beauty of this strategy is that they’ll keep working for you for years to come without touching them. It’s like getting free advertising.

3. Generate continuous traffic

One article is like having an employee that works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week throughout the year without getting tired or complaining. The more articles you write the more employees you will have working for you. As your articles get published all over the Web your traffic will continue to increase and it won’t stop even if you take a break.

Instead of spending time and money on discovering the magic formula for generating traffic, focus on article marketing. It will cost you time but it will give a great return on your investment.

Also read Article Marketing Metrics

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

Press releases are a highly effective method for building traffic to your product or service. It’s not used much by online marketers so you can use it to stand out from your competitors. The biggest problem in getting started is writing the press release however the steps below will show you how to convert the content you’ve already written into a press release for your business.

1. Release instructions

This is placed at the top of your document . Mention if it’s for “immediate release” or “for release on some future date.”

2. Create a newsworthy headline

Press release distribution sites are looking for stories that will capture the attention of their audience. Look at the articles written in newspapers. They often begin with a story to capture the attention of the reader.

Example

Instead of your title saying “How to Convert Your Article to A Press Release” write “Mary shows you how to gain free publicity by converting your article to a press release”

3. Create a summary

Write 2 or 3 sentences that expand on your headline. It should summarize what your press release (article) is about.

4. Add your main content

This should consist of 400-500 words maximum explaining the significance of your topic and how it will help your audience. For example if you were to take the topic of this article you could describe how press releases help attract traffic, build your brand and get high rankings in the search engines.

If your article contains how to information that sounds boring spice it up a little to make it more newsworthy. Try to make your story relevant and create a sense of urgency. This will help it get accepted by the media.

5. Create an about section

This should summarize what your company is about. Include a call to action by introducing your product or service, where the business is located and web site address.

6. Include contact information

This is added to the end of your press release so media can contact you for any questions. Include the contact person, their position, name of the company, phone number and email address.

7. The ending

End your press release by adding ### centered at the bottom.

Google “free press release websites” to find locations online where you can submit your document.

If you’re introducing a new product, service or have redesigned your web site consider sending a press release to let people know about it. It’s a fast and easy way to generate immediate traffic.

Also read Top 7 benefits of a press release

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Attract a endless streams of NEW visitors to
your website by picking up a copy of
Article Writing & Marketing Strategies

If you’re not tracking the number of visitors you’re receiving from your articles you won’t know their effectiveness. More visitors means more traffic, sales or subscribers. You want to get the maximum output from every article. Instead of just focusing on writing lots of content work on improving the quality of each article.

Ways to monitor article visitors

1. Ezinearticles statistics

This article directory keeps statistics on the articles you submit. Simply login to your account, go to author tools-view my article reports. It will display the number of article views and URL clicks (people that clicked on the links). You will also be able to read any comments readers added.

2. Web site statistics

If you published an article on your web site or blog you can view the hits and page views provided by your hosting service. It will also show the keywords people entered to find your article. By monitoring your site stats you’ll see what content is the most popular. This will give you ideas for future articles.

3. Tracking software

Software such as AdTrackz allows you to cloak and track your links. For instance the URL for my newsletter is http://www.isitebuild.com/newsletter.htm and the tracking URL is http://www.drostdesigns.com/at/go.php?c=nl. The software monitors the number of people clicking on the link to read my newsletter.

Example
If you write a guest article for a blog or newsletter you can track the number of visitors that click the URL in the resource box by cloaking it.

Use these 3 methods to monitor the effectiveness of your writing. Set a goal to increase the number of visitors to your web site. If you already get 500 visitors a month, write and submit new articles until you’ve achieved 1000 visitors a month.

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Also read 7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Short reports are a great way to share your expertise and make money as well. A short report consists of 15-20 pages and is usually sold from $7 to $17 whereas ebooks may be over 100 pages and sell for $27 and up. Short reports are easier to sell because they don’t affect the pocket book as much. Your visitors will buy them without thinking if they can afford it.

So how do you create a short report?

1. Select a topic you are interested in

It’s easier to write on a topic you know a lot about than one where you need to do a lot of research. It will take less time and the content will come easier.

2. Create a list of 7 tips

Ideas for the tips may include, 7 top reasons, 7 benefits, 7 ways…you get the idea. Write a paragraph of 5 to 10 lines on each tip to create your 7 tips article. You now have created your first article. Use the content of this article for the introduction to your short report.

3. Expand each tip into an article

Write as much as you can on each tip. If you get stuck for content visit article directories, forums and blogs that contain content on the same subject. This will stimulate your create juices to flow. Once you’ve completed your 7 articles you’ll have 8 articles altogether (including the 7 tips one you wrote in the beginning).

4. String the articles together

Create an attractive title for your short report. Use the first article as your introduction followed by the main body of your content. This where you simply string all your 7 tips articles together. Remember to include your bio and a link to your web site at the end of your report.

Use Microsoft Word or Open Office Software to create your report. Open Office is a free download at openoffice.org. It allows you to quickly convert your document to a PDF file which can be read on any computer with any type of browser.

After you’ve completed your first report it becomes easier to create many others. Use them as free bonuses to promote other products or sell them for a small fee.

This can be the beginning of building your own information empire.

Also read Make Money With Your Blog – Write an Ebook or Report

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Pick up a copy of Write That Report
to learn a quick-and-easy method for creating high quality reports in no time and how to build an army of affiliates to sell it for you.

Writing lots of articles is the key to building and maintaining a successful online business because the essence is content. Your first article doesn’t have to be perfect but you do have to get it written so you can write successive articles based on that foundation.

7 steps for writing your first article

1. Select a topic

It’s easier to write about a topic you have passion for or know a lot about than selecting one you have no interest in. To help in that process visit your local bookstore to see what captures your interest. Go online to search article directories, magazines, bookstores or visit forums or blogs.

2. Write an attractive headline

The headline is what a person reads first before reading the rest of the article. Use words that grab the reader’s attention e.g. how to, guide to, simple ways to, tips of, do you, are you…etc.

3. Write an introduction

Your introduction should briefly describe what will be contained within the body of the article. It’s intention is to grab the attention of the reader. One way to achieve this is to ask a question or tell a story. The body of your article expands on the introduction.

4. List 7 tips

Create a list of 7 tips on your topic of interest then write several sentences for each tip. Your article only needs to be 300-500 words long. 3 sentences make a paragraph of approximately 60 words. Seven paragraphs gives you 420 words. If you add an introduction and conclusion you will easily create a 500 word article.

5. Write a conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize what the person read. Use different words from the article body and
make sure it’s a natural transition.

6. Call to action

The resource box at the end of your article is where you place your call to action, who you are and a link back to your website. The call to action should directly relate to the content you wrote. Don’t offer a product or service that is unrelated. You want your readers eager to read more of your future articles.

7. Check your spelling and grammar

Misspelled words, omitted periods, commas or bad sentence construction makes your article appear unprofessional. Run the article through a spell checker and get someone else to read through it before submitting it for publication.

Tip

Don’t worry about getting your article perfect before publishing. It’s more important to spend your time writing more articles than laboring over one article. If you constantly submit your articles to the top article directories you’ll generate a consistent flow of visitors to your web site.

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Get my complete step-by-step guide for
“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies“
to boost traffic generation to your web site.

If you don’t attract visitors to your web site you won’t make any sales. One of the best free methods for traffic generation is to write lots of articles related to your business then distribute them through multiple channels on the Net.

1. Write highly effective content

There’s lots of content on the web which is not uniquely written. It may be copied from other sources, contain lots of spelling and grammar mistakes or doesn’t provide information the reader can use. A uniquely written article stands out from thousands of others on the Web. Find your own unique style of writing so you’ll naturally get people looking for more of your articles.

2. Attract the search engines

Search engines spider keywords contained in your article. Include them in the headline, body and anchor text. Use the h1 tag for the title of your article if it’s for a web page. Search engines place more emphasis on this tag than the body tags.

If you’re writing about dog collars, include the phrase “dog collars” in the link text (anchor text). of your web site. Your site will rank faster than if you just used the URL of your web site in the text.

3. Link building

Links are crucial for attracting web traffic. The quantity and quality of links determine how high your rankings will be. Links can be included in the resource box at the end of your articles, so the more articles you write and distribute on the Net the more links you’ll receive.

Links from high traffic web sites, directories, or search engines will raise your rankings faster than low traffic sites. Therefore look for web sites that already get tons of traffic. Offer exclusive rights to your article. Web site owners know they need to consistently write unique content but often don’t have enough time. You can help them out.

Article directories such as Ezine Articles already receive millions of visitors per day. Submitting articles to this directory on a constant basis will produce a constant flow of traffic to your web site.

4. Repurpose your content

Not all people like to consume content in written form. Some prefer to listen or watch. Take the articles you’ve already written and repurpose (convert) them into audio or video files. You can also use your articles for e-courses, teleseminars, web site and blog content etc. By repurposing
your content you’ll attract a wider audience which means more traffic.

5. More articles = higher traffic generation

Not every article will attract visitors but some will attract thousands. You never know which one or ones will generate the most traffic. Your chances increase by writing more articles. As long as your articles remain on the Net they will keep sending traffic to your web site for years to come.

6. Become a guest writer

Offer to write an article for an online publication, newsletter, blog or web site owner. If your article gets published in a very popular publication you’ll receive lots of traffic.

7. Create a list of ezine publishers

Ezine publishers are always on the lookout for unique content. Enter ezines+keyword or newsletter+keyword in the Google search box to find and contact ezine and newsletter publishers you can send your articles to. Often individual newsletters will attract more visitors to your article than submitting it to general directories.

Get my complete step-by-step guide for
“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies“
to boost traffic generation to your web site.

All online businesses constantly require content. If you can write an article, you have the capacity to start and build a profitable online business. Choose a niche or topic you are passionate about then start writing.

7 Strategies for Starting an Online Business with Article Marketing:

1. Web Site Content

An online business needs a web site to sell your product or service. You need content for these web pages that persuades visitors to purchase from you. An article can easily be converted to a sales page or content for web pages. For ecommerce websites selling many items write an introductory paragraph or two before displaying the item images.

2. List Building content

Building an email list is essential for building relationships with your visitors. Your newsletter helps you to stay in touch with your visitors so they will trust your recommendations for purchasing future products and services. Offer your audience your best written articles first before distributing them on the Net. If you build a large list of 1000s of subscribers you can send one email to this list that generates instant sales.

3. Traffic generation content

For your web site to succeed it needs constant traffic. Writing lots of articles, submitting them to article directories, blogs, social marketing sites and including them on your own web site will attract lots of visitors. The amount of traffic you receive is proportional to the number of articles you write.

4. Multimedia content

Content on the web these days is not confined to text only. Video and audio is being used to appeal to a wider range of visitors. Some folks prefer to listen or watch to consume content. Some prefer all three methods… read, listen and watch. You can satisfy your customers’ needs by repurposing (converting) your written articles into video and audio then distributing it all over the web.

5. Search engine friendly content

Search engines spider content containing keywords people are searching for. For instance if you write a series of articles on “dog training” that includes keyword phrases such as dog training equipment, dog training collars, dog training collars, search engines will find your content and deliver visitors to your web site.

6. Autoresponder content

Autoresponders are essential tools to keep in touch with your visitors. A customer sometimes needs 7 exposures to your message before purchasing your product. Offer an email course from your web site or to newsletter subscribers by writing a series of 7 short articles. Load these up in your autoresponder then send a different message for alternate days of the week. Each message should conclude with your product offer.

7. Link building content

The number and quality of links pointing to your web site determines your ranking in the search engines. Include your web site links in the resource box at the end of the article. People reading your article will link to it or place it on their web site, blog or in their newsletter. If your article gets placed on many web sites your rankings will increase dramatically because there are many links pointing back to it.

If you apply these 7 strategies consistently, you can dominate any niche. Now go ahead and choose the niche you are passionate about and start writing lots of articles.

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Learn how to start and build a profitable online business with

“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Affordable WebSite Design

Last year I created an ebook titled “Article Marketing Strategies” and only used article marketing to promote my one page web site. The result: Listed on the first page of Google, MSN, AOL, HotBot, Netscape and second page of Yahoo. Sales from this ebook generate passive income each month automatically.

With many people losing their jobs and/or stuggling to pay their bills they will be starting an online business. Article marketing will become more prominent in 2009 as a way to generate free traffic to web sites.

Here’s an article from the No 1 article directory on the Net..EzineArticles.com

2009 Article Marketing Predictions

Want to stay on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the Article Writing & Marketing field?

Here are (10) trends that will have an impact in 2009 from our perspective:

1. Article Marketing Niche Expansion: Recessionary economy combined with the growing fear of starting a PPC (Pay Per Click) ad campaign due to perception of complexities to get started will lead more experts in every niche to produce more articles than ever before in an effort to drive more qualified traffic and leads back to their website. Yes, of course I’m biased here.

2. Attention Given To Time Efficiencies: Expert authors feeling both the pressure to produce a high volume of articles to achieve traffic & media exposure success combined with a lack of time or a lack of desire to give it the time will turn to two primary time-saving strategies:

* Audio to Articles – Either producing new audio clips and having them transcribed or taking existing audio training products, having them transcribed and edited into dozens of articles per hour of audio recording.
* Hiring of virtual assistants and/or part & full-time employees who will help edit new articles & repackage existing content into new articles freeing the expert to spend more of his or her time on producing more unique & original content.

3. Article Rejection Rates Go Up: Article rejection rates will go up another 3-5% (approaching 32-37% rejection of everything submitted) due to many issues largely having to do with a lack of original thought put into the article writing process, lack of interest in following the Editorial Guidelines and combined with our improved ability to deflect derivative article submissions (those that are rewritten to death).

4. Article Review Speed Improves: Article review speeds will increase by 3-6 hours faster for every membership level. We’re selfishly motivated on this one as we know there is a correlation between article submission quantity and speed of article review. Expect us to test this further in 2009.

5. Dead Links In Old Articles Become Unlinked: People come and they go; websites come and they go… yet often we’re left with tens of thousands of articles that are very good in content yet the link is dead because the website owner walked away or shut down their site. We’re going to solve this problem this year as we’ve already spent a large part of 2008 in setting up an elaborate dead link discovery process… that will ultimately end up first encouraging members to fix their dead links, giving fair notice and time to complete such, ending in their articles with dead links getting the active link removed along with a text notice of the link. Articles with dead links are a liability (because they provide a poor user experience) we will not allow to continue in 2009.

6. Freelance Writers Who Niche-Specialize Will Be Richly Rewarded: Members who hired and were burned by cheap generalist ghostwriters will seek freelance writers who are specialized in knowledge around their niche instead of hiring a ‘jack or jill of all trades’ article writer. Articles will cost more, but the quality of reputation & trust factor will make up for it.

7. Members (Who Hire Freelancers) Take On Trainer Roles: Members who hire ghostwriters will seek writers who will dedicate a large chunk of their time to them (instead of serving hundreds of clients) and thus will create more of a partnership where our members will want to train the freelancer just the same as they would a full or part-time employee. This leads to higher quality articles & consistency.

8. In-House Writing Teams Become Common. The top .05% to 1% of members will hire part-time and/or full-time article writers to work in-house as employees to help them to repackage their existing content and produce an enormous amount of fresh new original & unique content that is quality-controlled in-house. Many will invest tens of thousands of labor dollars this year in this strategy and will find that the qualified traffic that results from it gives them a significant profit (and competitive market advantage) over other means of traffic acquisition.

9. Article Submission Service Provider Eco-System Expands: More than any other year, an industry will emerge stronger to support experts in all walks of life who want to leverage the power of Article Marketing, but don’t have the expertise in packaging or repackaging their content, doing the manual submissions on a frequent basis & performance reporting.

10. No End In Sight To The End of the Long Tail of Content Demand: Most of your competitors still have no idea what the LONG-TAIL is. Expect to see more experts exploit the long-tail specifically centered around their niche topic of expertise. It seems the closer one gets to answering the long-tail of demand for their niche, the more they discover there is no end to the tail of market demand for their unique expertise.

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Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your website with

“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Affordable Web Site Design

There are many dead products being marketed online because they did not do the necessary keyword research. The product was dead before it was promoted. Don’t let yourself fall into the same trap. Many folks get so excited by their new idea they don’t even bother to check if their is a demand for it.

The purpose of doing the keyword research before you build a web site and market it by writing and submitting articles is to see if their is a demand and to determine how competitive your market is.

So how do you determine if there is a demand for your product?

1. Use the free wordtracker tool (Google “free wordtracker tool”)
Enter any of your primary keywords in the search box to find how many searches are being done for that term. The free tool will return 100 phrases you can use. If you wish to dig deeper try the monthly subscription.

2. Copy and paste these phrases into an excel spreadsheet labeled WordTracker at the top of the column.

3. Enter the title Google in the second column. Insert each phrase in the Google search box with quotations around them and press enter. This will give you the number of web sites returned for that term.

4. Enter anchor+keyword in the Google search box. The anchor text is the text used in the link for your phrase. It will return how many web sites are using that keyword in their anchor text.

5. Enter title+keyword in the Google search box. This provides all the web sites that contain your keyword in their title meta tags…a crucial element for optimizing your web site.

6. Enter url+keyword in the the Google search box. This returns web sites that contain your keyword phrase in a URL on their web pages.

7. Research the number of backlinks of top competitors. Take the top 10 web sites that appear in Google for your keyword, then do a backlink check for each of them.

Enter link:www.domain.com in the Yahoo search box then click the web search button. In the inlinks drop down box select “except from this domain” This will show you the number of backlinks this particular site has. If you want to rank higher than this site you will need to get ore backlinks than them.

Ideally you want to target the keywords that have the highest demand and the least number of competitors. For example if the keyword phrase “web site design maryland” produces a large number of searches, has only a small number of sites that contain that phrase in their title, anchor text, url and the top sites contain only a few backlinks, you stand a good chance of achieving top rankings.

If there is no demand for this phrase or it has too many competitors, choose another one. This is why you need to create a large keyword list at the beginning of your research.

Resources

WebCEO
Enables you to do all the above research with one tool

Free WordTracker Tool

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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