Tuesday, April 10, 2007

5 Article Marketing Secrets

Article marketing is most probably the most effective link building strategy in existence. Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you submit. Inside this resource box, you include a link to your website. If you submit just one article to 100 article directories and it is approved for publication, you will immediately receive 100 back links to your website. There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web!

Now, if you submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you may get 500 back links easily! How? Again, by including the link to your website or blog in the Author Box at the end of your articles like I have done below. The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks (PR). We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your search engine standing!

There are many questions about this tactic of submitting articles to directories. Here are my answers to the the top 5 questions.

1. If I submit the same article to many article directories, will it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?

The simple answer is - No - but see #2 (below) for a loophole. Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines will assume that the submitted content is your original work. This is the reason why most article directory editors are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they try to avoid, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services. They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR (private label rights) articles as well as articles loaded with Affiliate links.

PLR articles are those you buy that were written by someone other than you. These are not a good way to go because the authors are selling the same articles to hundreds of other people. Using PLR articles will create a "duplicate content" problem for you with both the search engines and with the Directory editors.

2. Should I submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

If the article was posted on your website or blog first, the answer is "Yes, absolutely!". If you submit your articles to directories first, the search engines may assume that where the articles first appeared, in the Article Directory, is the originator of the content. In that case, your articles could be distinguished as "duplicate content". This could lead to the de-indexing of your articles. It will not, however, get your website de-indexed. The key is, you want your articles to appear on your website or blog first and be indexed first as originating with you. Wait a few days and then submit them to directories.

3. Can I submit as many articles as I want to as many article directories as possible?

Absolutely, that's what I do and I do it often! This is very much advised as a fast way to build up your link popularity and secure a great page rank for your website or blog. I have only found one directory so far that only allows one submission per day. I have not found any others that have any limits whatsoever.

Bear in mind that search engines are quite wary of any website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that when you submit articles to the article directories, wait a few days between each submission. There is one exception to this. When I began submitting articles I had 10 that I submitted on the same day to get caught up, so to speak. After that I limited my submissions to one a day to each directory.

4. My page views are are still quite low even after submitting my articles. Does article marketing really work?

Yes, article marketing does work! If your page views remain at low levels after submitting many articles, ask yourself, or someone you trust, the following:

a) Is the subject of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?

b) Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?

c) Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation to others?

d) Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you are sharing?

I almost always ask my wife or my best friend for their advice on my writing. I have no ego to bruise. I want my articles to be readable and helpful. So ASK! If you get - "No" - to any of these, you have found the factors that contribute to your low page views. Doing some editing to correct the problems you have identified can dramatically increase the number of times your article is viewed.

I have some articles that were viewed more than 30 times in just a few days through just one Article Directory! Multiply that by about 300 and you can see the impact. Many of the readers clicked my Author Box link and visited my blogs for more Free Resources on a particular topic. I pride myself on providing lots of Free stuff on my blogs and you should too.

Remember, some article directories attract only a few visitors so viewing will also be low. If you are writing on a highly specialized topic, low page views would not be unusual.

The key is, your articles are published and your back link in your Author Box is pointing to your website or blog and that helps your page rank even on a low viewed directory.

5. Can I be sure that my articles will be kept intact by people who would use them in their own websites or eZines?

You can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster published your Author Box links. If he did not, you could ask him to include them. If you get no response, contact the article directory editors so that they themselves can act on the matter. Vigilance is the key. It is rare but it does happen.

A positive side of directories is the editors will recognize "duplicate content" when the thief tries to submit your article under their name. The article will be rejected. This leaves them with placing it on their own blog or wesbite and you can find that out by doing the search as described.

Do these 5 things and watch your traffic increase.

Lastly, finding Article Directories to submit to is simple - Google "Article Directories" and you will get a huge list. Or, do what I do. I use software that submits the articles with a few button clicks (see my blog). This has saved me hours upon hours of tedious hand-submission because the software has over 350 of the best directories built in so you do not have to search for them.

Keep in mind, submitting articles takes work, tons of work when submitting to one directory at a time. Check out various software like I did. The best software does cost a few bucks so do not expect to get off cheap. There is free or low cost software but "you get what you pay for".

Articles, written by you, are still the fastest and cheapest (Free!) way to get more traffic and higher search engine rankings.

Yours for Success in Life!
Jim DeSantis

P.S. - Please forward this article to someone who may benefit from it.

About the Author

Jim DeSantis is a veteran Journalist providing balanced News, Commentary, and Writing resources. Go to Jim's Front Page Blog for lots of free writing resources and links. You will find a wealth of information from writing articles fast to writing your novel or ebook.

Online Marketing Essential Tips

Online marketing is turning out to be a powerful marketing tool, and is overtaking conventional marketing strategies. But just like other marketing tools or strategies it has to be used properly for it to be effective. These are some of the essential tips for online marketing

Using Your Website
If you already have a website, then update it continuously. And, if you don’t have one then it is high time you launched a website. Get a professional to help you out if you are not well versed in these things. Here are some basic guidelines to design a website.

• Make sure all the pages in the site have the same look
• As much as possible try to place the contents of your pages in a HTML table
• The main page is your storefront or your reception area. If this does not impress your visitors then they will go away and not come back again.
• Keep your navigations on the left, top, bottom or right side of each page
• Content is king. Make the information concise and complete

Search Engine Optimization
Once you have started marketing online it is not going to be effective unless you have visitors to your website. Visitors can come to your website in two ways. They can come directly by typing the address of your website on the address bar. This is good enough if people know about your website. What about people who don’t know about it? They will come to you through a search engine. You have to be savvy with the techniques that are used to ensure that your website gets the top rankings in a search engine. This is because people tend to visit sites that are listed on the first page of a search. So, if you are not aware of the techniques then again it is a good idea to consult a professional. You can also do your research on the internet. There are lots of good articles available on the net on this topic.

Knowing about the various Marketing Strategies
There are a lot of ways to market on the internet. You can use your website of course but, how do you use it. You can use
• Email marketing - Basically email marketing involves sending emails or newsletters to existing or new customers.
• Starting an affiliate program - An affiliate program is an advertising program that make sure that the traffic is diverted to your website or the business is directed to you
• Placing ads- It can besetting up an automated Google sitemap, signing up for Google Ad words or you could post articles on an article distribution website
• Articles in marketing - Articles are a very powerful marketing tool. No business can hope to succeed on the internet without writing articles
• Press release - People are not going to notice your product unless they know something about it. Issuing a press release is a good idea.
• Blog marketing - A blog is basically a web log in a diary like format. Blogging can help in marketing your product.
• Podcasting, RSS feeds, seeding etc. are emerging technologies which are being used for internet marketing.

Knowing the Importance of Links
It is essential that the website achieves top rankings in major search engines like Google to attract a large customer base. There are many methods to do that and one among them is the use of links. Links are lines of text or graphic that connects a web page to another page or another portion of the same site OR to another site. You have to “click” on the links to go to the area specified in the link. The larger the number of links to your site, greater is the possibility of a higher ranking for your site. There are many kinds of links like inbound links, out bound links, reciprocal links etc.

Testing the Marketing Strategy
You should use tracking software to keep track of which ads, keywords, etc are brining you sales and which are not. Focus on the most effective methods, and keep testing – you can continually refine your marketing and improve your profitability with good testing.

About the Author

Sean McPheat provides royalty free information products and services.. Visit http://www.royaltyfreeproducts.com for some free samples.

New Website Marketing Made Easy

Often new website owners ask me how to get traffic to their new creation. Some have been known to stare at their computer in an attempt to will visitors to the site. The truth is, the Internet is evolving every second of every day. And with that, it becomes more difficult to establish a viable presence—or does it? Follow these easy steps and carve your slice of the cyber pie.

Step One: Preparation

Before going out to proclaim the glory that is your website, first make sure it’s in tiptop shape. Was your website carefully and professionally constructed? That includes content copy. It’s vital that your copy (the text on your website) be written well, including a logical flow, clarity, good sentence structure, wise word choices and proper grammar/punctuation. Studies reveal the average Internet visitor is getting more sophisticated and expects features, such as proper language use (whether English or another language). Fail in this area and you’ll lose business. It’s that plain and simple.

Now that your copy is humming, how is your search engine optimization? Did you at least look into some basics? Search Engine Optimization is the act of making your website search engine friendly and more likely to appear under the keyword phrases appealing to your targeted audience. While it can be a complex process, the basics should include having your pages search engine friendly, containing some keywords to attract your target audience. Once these two components are satisfactory, you’re ready for the next step.

Step Two: Links

Your website needs links. Today, even a simple link exchange can be complicated. Many website owners don’t want to reciprocate links with a new website. So how can you advance if you can’t get links? Thankfully, there are alternative solutions. When you’re first starting out, don’t spend too much time trying to find websites willing to link with you. Instead, work on establishing yourself first.

Today’s Internet world revolves around content. Website owners across the globe are just waiting for free content from people like you. So the best way to gain links to your website in bunches is by providing content to other websites—also known as “promotional articles.” These articles offer other website owners something of value. The result? Your new website receives many one-way links from other websites easily.

Naturally, your article needs to be written well to succeed. Simply throwing words down on paper doesn’t cut it. The better your article is written, the more it will appeal to website owners. In the end, you’ll glean more worldwide coverage, which is what you want. Not a writer? No problem. You can visit PromotionalArticles.com and have promotional articles professionally crafted for you. Simply slap your name on them and away you go. And even if you’ve written your own article, I strongly suggest using their editorial service. As every good writer knows, all writing should be professionally reviewed and polished by a savvy editor before publication.

Step Three: Promotional Articles & Repetition

If possible, you want to release a few promotional articles, at the very least. Timing is important. For example, if all you have is three articles currently, space their release. Don’t release them all at once. Promotional Articles can be fast acting. Yet, it really depends on the market the article is geared toward and how well it is written. I have seen my articles end up on other websites within hours of release.

Once released, the search engines will begin to pick up the fact your article is on other indexed websites. When this happens, your back links go up, which can continue for quite some time. Without a doubt, you’ll discover the process for releasing promotional article to the world quite simple. At my website, JasonAMartin.com, there is an article all about how to do this.

Step Four: Further Linking

Once you have allowed a little time to pass after step three, your website will begin to take hold. When it does, it’s time to seek solid links on other websites. Stick to websites that are either on the same topic or related. For example, if you owned a website that sold cheese, receiving a link from a website that sold motor oil wouldn’t be beneficial. However, receiving a link from a website about cheese or wine would.

As time permits, search for smaller websites in your field, then see if they sell advertising on their front page for a small fee. For example, one night I found a website, which was set up decently in the search engines and was on the same topic as one of my websites. The site offered a homepage text link for $2 per week. I not only received a nice link to help my search engine status, but a possibility for highly targeted traffic as well. The Internet is full of on-topic websites for you to locate for potential profitability.

That’s a Wrap

By following this plan, you can significantly increase the staying power of your website. It really isn’t that complicated when you do things properly. “Is there more?” you ask. Sure. For instance, you can purchase traffic from trusted PPC sources. This and other techniques are discussed in various articles, which are all available at JasonAMartin.com. Once you master the art of opening a website properly, you’ll want to open up many more. Submit your articles to ContentTycoon.com.

©2005 JASON ANDREW MARTIN LLC All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

Jason A. Martin is pursuing a Journalism degree and has over a decade of successful Internet business experience. His informational articles can be found at http://JasonAMartin.comHe also runs http://ContentTycoon.com,a website where you can get free website content.

Using Content Hubs To Promote

We've all heard it before: content is king. And it is true. If you own a site, you need to post something interesting that people want to read before you can expect people to stop by. If your site is a content-based website, then you've already taken a huge step. However, if your website is a business website whose only purpose is to talk about your services, then you really should make an effort to post some content onto your website which is helpful to readers, free, and relevant to your services or website. If you do this, your site will attract traffic from people looking for information, not just to purchase something. And with increased traffic in general, you will get increased attention. And this increases your statistics.

Writing content for your own website is only half the battle, though. You have got to get people to read it. Just posting a website is not going to get people to come to it. It would be like building a business in the middle of the mountains. Nobody knows its there and you won't get any customers. If you get your articles out there for people to read and the articles are written correctly, you can position yourself as an expert in your field and promote your own website. One way to do this is by publishing on content hubs rather than limiting it to your own website.

A content hub is a site which publishes articles on all topics (usually categorized). Those articles are freely available to anyone to use on their own website, newsletter, blog, etc. So, many publishers or site owners in need of fresh content for their website can go to one or more of these content hubs, find an article they like, and use it. They have to maintain proper credit to the author and publish the small author bio which accompanies the article.

Let's look at this, though, from the author's viewpoint - your viewpoint. Let's say you are selling consulting services for search engine optimization. You have a site for your services, but you blend in with all the other such services. So, you write a series of articles giving tips to webmasters on how they can optimize their website. With your article you include a short bio of yourself. You include a mention of your services and a link to your website. You publish your article on a bunch of content hubs. Other websites, newsletters and blogs grab your article off those sites and use it on their own. Your article therefore spreads throughout the internet. Being that your site is linked with the article and is therefore on all of these other websites now (including the content hubs themselves), search engines who are constantly spidering the internet pick up on your article and index it associated with your website. This, in turn, raises your ranking in the search engines. And you get increased traffic to your website not only from search engine searches but also from your article.

Now, let's say you have done some research on keywords and you interlace your article with certain keywords. When the search engines spider your article all over the internet and associates with your website, it will raise your search engine rankings even more. There is a real science to this, and if done correctly, can drastically raise your internet presence in a short time. I recently had a meeting with the CEO of In Touch Media Group, a Clearwater, FL based company which is in the business of internet marketing. They use content hubs as part of their strategy for clients and they couple this with their vast archived data regarding keywords. They showed me the stats of one site which they have, in the course of just a few months, taken from essentially no traffic to a VERY respectable level of traffic. After getting an article out in the content hubs, they will follow up a few weeks later with a press release.

So, how can you publish some of your articles on content hubs? Well, the first step is to find and visit them. There are many of them out there, but here are some of the better ones:

* http://www.goarticles.com/
* http://www.isnare.com/
* http://www.submityourarticle.com/indexi.php - a service to send your article to a bunch of hubs at once
* http://www.articlecity.com/
* http://www.exchangenet.com/
* http://article-directory.net/
* http://freezinesite.com/

There are services to help you distribute to a large collection of publishers at once. I have used Isnare's distribution service and it seems to work well. There are also distribution groups on Yahoo. Here are a few of them:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce_list/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles4you2use4promotion/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articlesubmission/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles/

With that, I wish you the best of luck in your promotion efforts. Start writing!

About the Author

David Risley is a web developer and founder of PC Media, Inc. (http://www.pcmedianet.com). Specializes in PHP/MySQL development, consulting and internet business management. He is also the founder of PC Mechanic (http://www.pcmech.com), a large website delivering do-it-yourself computer information to thousands of users every day.

What to do when a cold engine is hard to start

Starting a car with a cold engine can be very difficult sometimes and it can become a real obstacle for those who live surrounded by extremely cold weathers. This way, for all those who might experience this problem it is not only important to learn how to overcome it but also why it happens in order to be able to prevent it as much as possible as well.

Cold engines might experience problems at the time to start due to different reasons. One of these reasons can be based on the effect which cold has on liquids evaporation. When it is cold, gasoline evaporates less and this cause it to be more difficult to burn due to the fact that it is burnt when it is evaporated.

Another reason by which a cold engine might have problems to start is caused by the fact that oil becomes much thicker in cold than the way it is in hot. Oil, like any other liquid changes its consistency when it is exposed to very low temperatures as well as it changes back when it is in a very hot weather, and this might cause oil to have problems at the time of circulating in the car engine.

Besides the engine, car batteries might experience problems while being in cold weathers as well and this could affect the engine. Batteries function through chemical reactions which loose agility while being cold and therefore, in such circumstances, batteries don't function properly. When this happens, the car energy becomes affected and this causes problems for the engine start.

If these three problems happen together, starting an engine might become a really hard task to achieve. In order to overcome the lack of gasoline evaporation problem, you can spray ether into the engine which would evaporate quickly and help the engine start. Besides this, you can also to prevent having oil too thick which wouldn't circulate properly by using thin synthetic oils. You should also try to maintain the car isolated from cold as much as possible, but by using the two last mentioned methods you would experience much less problems at the time of staring the car in cold weather.

About the Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.autorized.comPlease visit his website to learn about auto maintenance, auto insurance, auto safety and much more!