The Best Articles Are ___?
There are limitless topics that you could write about. But to make the biggest positive impact on your business, the articles that work the best are those that are useful and match the interests of your niche market.
If your business is selling information products to stay-at-home moms who want to start their own at-home business, then you want to write articles that demonstrate your expertise in that area and give them something of value to the reader. When those readers get to your resource box at the end of your article, they’ll click on the link expecting more of the same great content. Writing articles for dog lovers, for instance, when your target market is aspiring work-at-home moms just doesn’t make sense.
The best explanation I've ever heard of this was by Jimmy D. Brown who coined the term “useful but incomplete”. What he meant was that your articles should be “useful” to your target audience, but “incomplete” in that they should lead the reader hungrily to seek more information from you. They'll turn to your resource box in search of more.
Quality is also a key ingredient to successful articles. While anyone can throw together a few sentences, combine a few paragraphs, paste on a resource box and call it an article, this slap-dash method is not likely to produce the results you desire. Quite simply, quality content is the key for any kind of success in article marketing.
Online article directories are filled with articles written by non-native language writers who don’t understand grammar or sentence structure, or by those who have simply copied what someone else wrote and plugged it into an article spinner without thought for the value of the finished article. Using such shoddy marketing methods will never help your article marketing efforts, and will likely brand you as unprofessional and harm your reputation as a business owner.
Most editors in search of content would rather find an expert on EzineArticles.com or LadyPens.com with 10 high-quality articles, than one with 500 junk articles. When editors and readers see junk articles, they assume that everything that person does is junk. Not a great way to build a business!
When you offer well-written, relevant content that helps your reader answer a question or gain new knowledge and understanding of a subject matter they're interested in, you'll establish yourself as an expert and advance your article marketing efforts and, ultimately, your business.
Could You Benefit from Article Marketing?
Article marketing is one of the most popular methods of promoting a business online. Not only is it easy and low-cost, it works and anyone can do it!
By writing articles on your areas of expertise and offering this content free of charge to online and offline publishers, you can:
- spread the word to your target market
- demonstrate your professional know-how & expertise, and
- create a body of work that continues to "sell" you and your website long after the initial article creation
Other website owners, bloggers, and newsletter publishers are constantly looking for quality content to provide to their readers. You help them out by providing your well-written, targeted articles. In return they include a plug about you and your business, called the "author resource box," at the bottom of the piece. The resource box includes a link to your site. So, they get free content, and you get free publicity. It's a win-win!
You may be wondering if article marketing will work for your niche or industry. There are blogs and newsletters and ezines and websites on just about every topic under the sun, from accounting to Zoroastrianism.
Here's a short list of businesses that can benefit from article marketing:
- Service providers.
- Bloggers.
- Affiliate marketers.
- Ebook Authors.
- Infoproduct sellers.
- Online Store owners.
- Coaches and consultants.
- Realtors.
- Podcasters.
- Membership site owners.
- Authors.
- Speakers.
- Network marketers.
In short, if you're selling something or trying to drive traffic to your website or blog, article marketing is for you. It's one of the most efficient ways to attract targeted visitors, to build trust among your readers, and to gain new customers or clients.
Here are some broad examples:
- Bloggers can use article marketing to attract readers to their blogs and increase their subscriber base.
- Webmasters can use article marketing to create valuable backlinks, and increase website traffic.
- Writers can use article marketing to exhibit their writing skills, educate readers, and attract clients.
- Hairstylists can use article marketing to share hair care tips, showcase their expertise, and attract business to their salons.
- Dog trainers can use article marketing to share dog training lessons, and inform the public about the needs at a local shelter.
Whatever your passion, article marketing can benefit you and your business. When used correctly, it can successfully attract targeted traffic to your website or blog, grow your mailing list, help you become an expert in your field, build trust with your readers, make your website more popular, spread your name and website across the Web, add backlinks to your site, allow you to "advertise" free, brand yourself and your business, and generate sales.
As you can see, the benefits of article marketing are numerous.
And, it starts with just one article.
7 Benefits to Marketing Your Business With Video
You may have heard that using video to market your business can bring incredible results. But do the benefits outweigh the effort it takes to put your video online? Shooting a video, editing and formatting it, uploading it to the internet with the right title and description takes a bit of time. But the payoff for video marketing can be tremendous. Here are seven real benefits of marketing with video:
- Personal Connection – Especially for internet based businesses, the personal connection with your potential market is a huge selling factor. With video, your audience can truly get to know you, eye-to-eye. They get to see that you are indeed a real, live person. They start building a deeper relationship with you and feel as if they actually have met you.
- Social proof – There's an old proverb: “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” On the internet it's so easy to be a fake and a fraud. People are skeptical about claims they read online, and rightfully so. But video puts a face to your words and makes you more believable and trustworthy.
- Traffic – People are watching 2 BILLION videos per day on YouTube alone! That's a whole lot of traffic you're missing if you're not marketing yourself with video. It's free and easy to add your video to a large number of the video sites available online.
- Emotional Influence – The classic horror movie is a great example of how the audio has an emotional effect on us. The creepy music comes in, immediately cluing you in that something bad is about to happen. Now, imagine combining that audio with powerful video cues to influence the emotions of the listener and create a much more compelling message than with just text alone.
- Portability – Maybe even more so then articles and ebooks, video is portable. iPhones, Smartphones, iPads and all kinds of other devices allow video to be seen on the go. You can also allow people to download video easily so they can view it over and over again.
- Demonstrations – Reviews, case studies and examples are great ways to sell products and services. It's the reason why infomercials make millions of dollars. Now there's no need for you to be as annoying as the Sham-Wow guy to make money with video; you just need to create videos that show and tell your potential customers why your product will be helpful for them.
- Engagement – There are many reports available online to show that video boosts response and conversion rates. When someone is watching a video, you have their full attention – eyes and ears. Unlike with the written word, they're not likely skip ahead or gloss over important information. Most people will watch a video from beginning to end, allowing you to clearly create a message and call to action that engages your audience.
Overall, video is an effective marketing strategy that is only growing in popularity. Since video is here to stay, it's time to check out the options and see how quick and easy video marketing can be.
5 Quick Tips To Get Website Traffic Fast!
Online, one of the most significant keys to success is getting website traffic. The more visitors you have, the better your sales and profits. Presumably you have a niche and you know your keywords, and regularly conduct keyword research to stay on top of what’s popular. Based on those assumptions here are five quick and easy tips to get website traffic fast!
Tip #1 Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords.
Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage? Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages. Here’s a quick brief on tags.
There are a number of tag types including,
* Title tags. Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords. Here’s what they look like - <title>Primary keyword phrase here. </title>
Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase. The sentence will describe your business in less than 90 characters.
* Header Tags. Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines. They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this - <h1>Primary and/or Secondary keywords here</h1>
The “1” designates this header as the most important header on the page.
* Meta Tags. Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page. Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.
* Alt Tags. Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic. Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag.
Tip #2 Add content to your site regularly
Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking. Content is what search engine spiders look for and index - without it there’s nothing to index or rank. Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide regular, optimized content and your traffic will soar.
Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links
The more websites which link to your webpages the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal. Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic.
There are different types of links.
- A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com
- A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text. Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page.
- If the link is to an internal web page, for example an article published on a website, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link.”
You can encourage linking to your website by:
* Adding content to your site.
* Submitting to article directories.
* Publishing press releases.
* Blogging and participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites.
Tip #4 Be Social!
Now more than ever before, internet marketing is about building a community. Whether you offer a forum on your website or you participate in social networking sites, social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site – create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation.
Get involved - many groups and forums are industry specific, find those which cater to your industry, and begin participating. Speak to and connect with a highly targeted audience.
Tip #5 Advertise for more exposure and traffic
Advertising, when handled strategically, can be used to promote your content and products or services. PPC advertising is often the tool of choice because you control the advertising budget on a daily basis and have the tools to test and track your advertising efforts. Once you’ve honed your PPC ads the return on investment can be phenomenal in terms of traffic and purchases.
For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy. Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action. Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.
Who Do You Send Press Releases To? Creating Your Media List
Create and Build a Media List
You need to build a media list and it will likely take some time to get a really good list going. If you’ve just begun building your media list, start locally and small. And start online so you can build traffic to your website.
Local and/or small media are most likely to be interested in your story and it's the perfect way to hone your press release writing skills. Besides, a lot of the larger media outlets scan the smaller outlets to find stories to pick up. Also, as you gain experience and build-up your portfolio, you can work your way up to bigger media outlets.
Try newspapers, trade journals, topic specific magazines, websites, radio shows, television show ~ whoever would be interested in your topic.
Always remember to get specific contact information for your press release when possible. A release addressed to a particular person will receive a lot more attention than a general release sent to the media outlet. You’ll also want to update your list frequently as staff may often change.
Familiarize yourself with the editor or reporter's work. Find out the method she prefers to receive press releases in. Don't automatically send them by email – some will prefer mail or fax. Find out their deadlines.
If you are sending your release by email, never send an attachment. Copy and paste your release into the body of the email. Never send a bulk email. Address emails individually.
How to Build Your Distribution List:
- For your local media, check the publication or their website for information on how to submit a release. Find out the precise editor or reporter you should be addressing your release to. You may have to pick up your phone to get this information or hire an assistant to do the calling and information gathering for you.
- Do a search on your favorite search engine for websites in your industry that might just be interested in running your story.
- Here's a few websites to help you build your list:
- Media Post http://www.mediapost.com - extensive directory for US media
- NewsLink.org http://www.newslink.org - directory for a number of countries
- ABYZ News Links http://www.abyznewslinks.com - directory for a number of countries
Please note: If you choose a free resource to build your list, realize that the information may not always be completely up-to-date. A paid resource will often provide more current information and if they don’t, ask them for a refund!
4. Submit your site to a few online newswires and news websites. A number of them require payment, but here are some, both free and paid.
- PR Web http://www.prweb.com - They do a great job, but no longer offer a free service.
- PressMethod.com http://www.pressmethod.com - free press release distribution center.
- PRFree.com http://www.prfree.com - free press release distribution
- 24-7PressRelease.com http://www.24-7pressrelease.com - free service. You can also contribute funds to receive better placement for your release.
Please note: Don’t spend a lot of time submitting to a bunch of free online places. The exposure will be limited, so it’s not something you should focus solely on.
Extra Exposure from Google & About.com with Your Press Releases
Google.com often takes press releases from PRWeb.com. You may be buried in their news section, BUT if someone searches for keywords on Google related to your press release topic…your release may be featured at the top of the results.
About.com also scours press releases to add to its various sections and you might just find yourself listed without submitting to them. If you're not familiar with About.com, they are a huge website with information on just about every topic there could possibly be. If you think your press release should be listed, contact the editor of the appropriate section and suggest your press release for inclusion...or you can even just ask them to list your website as a resource.
More Potential Resources to Get Media Outlet Ideas
Magazines, Newspapers & Radio Programs: You can also search places like magazines.com and newspapers.com for ideas on target publications. The focus of these websites is not to build a media list, so you'll have to do some digging for the appropriate contact information. Still, you might find publications you won't find in the other resources.
http://www.radio-locator.com (radio stations with websites)
http://www.npr.org/stations (radio stations in the U.S.)
Internet Radio: Although, the distribution is probably not as great as with mainstream radio, you may want to search targeted programs on Internet radio. Here are a few places to look:
Websites: Do a Google search for websites listed for your target keywords. Find websites that tend to be informational and like to deliver content to their visitors. You can also search directories like:
Next week find out what to do when a reporter calls!
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