**** Internet Marketing Preparation ****

Planning and preparation is at the heart of all of your strategies. It is where you determine the most effective approach to creating a successful internet marketing campaign.

Marketing Plan Development – All great marketing campaigns start with a clear, concise & effective plan with specific measurable results. As the old saying goes – “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail.”

Keyword Phrase Analysis – Identifying the keywords or keyword phrases is the next step in creating an effective internet marketing strategy. Starting with a few root terms or phrases, conduct an extensive analysis of at least 100 keywords and how frequently they are search for over the internet each month.

Keyword Phrase Selection – After conducting the initial Keyword Phrase Analysis, you are now prepared to begin identifying the absolute best words and phrases for your marketing strategies and content development.

Website Theme & Description Development – By focusing on a major theme, your website becomes more that just another dot com. It because a valuable resource for your customers and visitors. It improves the overall experience and delivers high value.

**** Core Marketing Strategies ****

These strategies are the building blocks for your internet marketing success. They are fundamental to producing cost effective results and have stood the test of time. Each core strategy is a proven method for generating targeted buyers or users to your website. When combined with a comprehensive marketing plan, you are literally guaranteed success!

Search Engine Optimization & Placement – Winning at the Search Engine Game is one of the most effective ways to promote your website and build your company! However, it is not the easiest game to play. It takes planning, preparation and patients. It takes completing the above internet marketing preparation, then creating website content that is keyword focused.

Keyword Landing Pages – In addition to selecting the best possible keyword phrases, you need to create 10 – 15 content rich website pages that focus on the terms. These pages could be articles, tips, advice, in-depth case studies, expanded product or service descriptions, etc.

Strategic & Reciprocal Links – As you know, “No Man is an Island” and neither is your website. Finding the right sites to link to yours is a very powerful strategy.

Pay-Per-Click Internet Marketing – Performance based marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing strategies available. By displaying targeted ads to targeted prospects, pay-per-click advertising allows you to pay only if a prospective visitor actually comes to your website. Sometimes as little as 10 cents! You are not charge for the number of times that you ad is seen – only when they click thru to offer!

Electronic Newsletter or Ezine Publishing – Since the invention of the internet, communicating by email has been one of the most cost effective ways to stay in contact with your customers and prospects. Even though, we are now dealing with the enormous amount of unsolicited advertising, it is still “King”.
 

**** Advanced Marketing Strategies ****

These strategies extend the Core Marketing Strategies. They are designed to further capitalize on an already existing internet marketing foundation.

Autoresponder Email Campaigns – By using Auto Responder Technology, you can put your messages on autopilot. Send a series of messages promoting your products and services or create your own e-course to be delivered automatically over a specific time period.

It’s a well-established fact that autoresponders are a necessary tool for selling online, because they automate the follow-up sales process. This means few (people) can do the work of many (people.)

Targeted Email Campaigns – Every business needs to communicate with their customers and prospects, and any business can get results quickly, easily and cost effectively using permission-based email marketing.

It’s Inexpensive… It’s Effective… It’s Immediate… It’s Targeted… It’s Easy!

“54% of small businesses surveyed rated e-mail as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.”

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all types and sizes. No matter how you define success, you can achieve outstanding results with email marketing while investing only a small amount of time and an even smaller amount of money…

Affiliate Partner Programs – Starting your own affiliate program is a very powerful way leverage your existing website and generate revenue for yourself and others. In short, it is a very simple concept. You give your affiliate partners a special link that is unique to them.

They place it on their website, include it in their newsletters, and/or promote it in their email campaigns. When one of their visitors or readers buy something or sign up for something, you will pay them a commission.

Online Directories & Vertical Portal Submission – On the Internet, every industry or market segment has 100s or even 1,000s of unique online portals and specialized directories. By placing your website name/address, description and other pertinent information, you can drastically increase the amount of pre-qualified visitors to your website.

Article/eZine Marketing Campaigns – Once you have created a series of articles about your area of expertise, it is really easy to find others that will publish it to their subscribers and in some instances, even pay you for it. In most case, one of the best ways to use your existing content is to have 1,000s of article directories & ezines circulating your articles to 100,000s visitors/subscribers with your byline and contact info.  There are a number of online resources that will help link ezine publishers & article directories with article writers.

Key Product Landing Pages – In conjunction with your search engine optimization strategies, creating key product landing pages is an excellent way to leverage your overall internet marketing strategy.  These specially designed web pages should include detailed information, customer reviews and comments about a specific product or product lines.

About The Author

Jonn Thomas is the President/CEO of VBO Corporation (VBOCommerce.com) - An eCommerce Development & Internet Marketing Firm. He is also the Founder of MBNet.com - The Minority Business and the Creator of  ArticleMarketingFX.com. For more info, visit his blog at JonnThomas.com.

Article marketing allows you to become known, build credibility, and establish a relationship with your target audience using the web sites they are already visiting. There is no need to waste your time, effort or money marketing to a general, untargeted audience.

Speak directly to a specific audience who is already showing an interest in what you have to offer. Post your articles in the newsletters that your target audience subscribes to. Get your articles published on the websites that they are visiting. Have your words included in the RSS feeds of the most popular sites on the net. Article marketing lets you speak directly to your perfect customer.

Here are eight extraordinarily powerful results of submitting articles to newsletters and content rich websites:

Create More Business -When your articles appear in newsletters and content rich newsletters, a targeted audience reads them. A large percentage of your potential target audience has never heard of your website. You create more business for yourself by providing content that inspires action.

Generate More Traffic - When your readers are inspired to action, the action they take is to visit your website, where you have more opportunities to make offers, collect email addresses, and get sales. The cornerstone of success with internet marketing is get more visitors to show up at your site.

Improve Your Conversions - When more visitors show up at your site, they are already feeling good about you, your approach, and your solution to their problem because they have read your articles. Ken Evoy calls these visitors “pre-sold” and says that compared to “cold visitors”, these people are much more likely to join your mailing list, subscribe to your newsletter, or buy from you. And why do these people show up? Because they found your link on popular sites around the net.

Increase Inbound Links - Every time your articles appear on popular sites around the net, they carry a link to your website. When your article is reprinted, you get another link directly to your site from a relevant source. No more begging webmasters for reciprocal links, no more monitoring web links. You provide content and the popular websites around the net publish more links to your site.

Increase Your Page Rank - Links from popular website sites, especially sites closely aligned with yours, are viewed by Google as “highly relevant”. More relevant links result in a Page Rank increase for your site. Your articles give the largest, most popular sites in your industry a reason to link to you. The more relevant links you have, the higher your Page Rank

Get Better Search Listings - According to Google, “Page Rank provides the basis for all of our web search tools.” So the bigger your site’s Page Rank, the higher your site will appear on search engine results pages. Having your page show up in the top 10 of keyword search results dramatically improves your traffic and increases your site’s credibility.

Become a Recognized Expert - Increased credibility is a tremendous factor in converting traffic to sales. When the most popular sites in your industry publish your articles, you become known as an expert in your field. Your website gains both credibility and stature. Customers start coming to you, instead of you chasing them down. The more often your knowledge and expertise is demonstrated to a potential customer, the more they’ll trust you, and the more they’ll buy from you. Submit articles today and gain that expert status.

Grow Your Affiliate Income - Expert status is one of the prime factors that turn ordinary affiliates into Super Affiliates. As you become a recognized expert, more people believe in (and act on) your recommendations. When they act on your recommendations, your affiliate income soars. It all starts with submitting your first article.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to internet marketers, small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Article Marketer site is a favorite of internet marketers around the world.

As he was describing his site and the problem, I thought, “This is going to be a quick fix.”

How wrong I was!

His site was excellent. Other than a few minor points, it followed all my basic rules for a successful affiliate marketing site.

The site was focused around a single theme in a profitable niche, with an excellent selection of high-priced, high-commission products.

Chris had gone the extra mile to have his site professionally designed, and it was simple, elegant and user-friendly, employing consistent navigation and a nifty database-driven search results system.

He was working directly with his merchant partners to create ad copy that offered his visitors the best possible deals.

And he was advertising in the pay-per-click search engines to drive tons of targeted traffic, and using hundreds of keyword listings with brilliantly worded titles and descriptions.

So, why on earth were his sales so low?

I knew I was picking at straws, but during our first session, I made a host of recommendations for improvement, which included:

• a domain name change
• a background color change
• reformatting the page table size
• rephrasing offers more positively
• adding relevant graphics and photos
• dropping poor performing merchants
• adding a newsletter
• adding new products
• redirecting non-buyers to additional offers

Chris implemented all my suggestions as well as a few of his own. After giving the new version a few weeks to prove itself, we scheduled our second teleconsulting session. I was anxious to hear how well the site was now performing.

You can appreciate my dismay when Chris told me that his sales had actually dropped!

Aargh!

I reviewed his site again, and it suddenly struck me… he should try blue links!

Why?

Because web design convention suggests that links should be blue, visited links purple and active links red. Although nothing written in stone about link color, I believe that those conventional colors should used whenever they compliment site design.

I’d changed my own site links, Sage-Hearts.com, from maroon to blue sometime before and noticed a nice conversion rate increase.

Sure enough, that WAS the answer to Chris’ site problems…

His conversions increased 1100% almost overnight JUST by changing his link color to blue.

In addition to being underlined, people expect links to be blue, and in some cases visitors may have problems with sites that don’t conform to their expectations.

With the average site visit lasting only about 8 seconds, we don’t have time to waste confusing our visitors with basic site navigation. Use blue links if possible to keep your navigation instantly recognizable, unambiguous and consistent.

Author’s Resource: Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online“. To learn how you too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit http://netprofitstoday.com/

To me, that question speaks of the asker’s skepticism, so let’s put aside any question of whether money is REALLY being made online before we look any further.

Thousands of merchants have put resources into developing affiliate programs so that others can promote their products in exchange for a commission, which is usually a percentage of the product’s price. If there wasn’t money to be made, Sony, Dell and those thousands of other merchants wouldn’t waste their time and money building affiliate programs.

I personally know at least a hundred people who make marketing on the Internet their full-time occupation. If there wasn’t money to be made, that wouldn’t be possible.

I am one of those people. The secondary title of my ebook about affiliate marketing is ‘How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online’. Although I dislike
that  subtitleand its crass approach, it IS the truth, and it IS effective  proof that money can be made online. The statement is backed up on the Super Affiliate Handbook
homepage with a picture  of part of my income tax statement from 2002 which shows my  earnings.

See it for yourself at: http://Super-Affiliate-Handbook.com

So, having dispelled any question about whether there is money to be made online, let’s proceed to the REAL question. Let’s take the emphasis off the word ‘REALLY’ and place it where it belongs - on YOU.

Can YOU really make money online?

Sure you can! IF you REALLY want to.

Desire is the first key to success. But here’s where it gets a little tricky. If your desire is for money, as opposed to what money can buy, your work will be made much harder, if
not impossible.

‘Huh? Why is that?’ you may wonder.

Money is a concept. In and of itself it does nothing for you, unless you are very fond of small rectangular pieces of colored paper.

If you focus instead on the good that money will bring to your life, such as free time and all the fun ways to spend it, then you’ll give positive direction to your efforts.

Think about it.. what can that money buy you? The kids’ education, a new car, a new house, a second honeymooon…how about a sailboat?

Dream a little - dream a LOT, but create some desire, and a REASON to work hard for what you want to achieve.

And that’s the second key to making money online - Work.

Too many people still hold onto the notion of ‘get rick quick’. I’ve got news for them - there’s no such thing. You can get rich a little quicker on the ‘net, but the truth is
that nothing worth having comes without a price. You must invest some time and money.

Not much money, but some. Compared to starting any other business, the amount of financial investment required to start an affiliate marketing business on the Internet is
negligible.

If you don’t have one or two hundred bucks - or can’t beg, borrow or steal that amount - then maybe you can get a part-time job and save up to start your online business.

No matter how you slice it, you won’t find another opportunity anywhere that has the  potential for this much reward for so little outlay. This IS one of the least expensive businesses you can start.

Last but not least - can you stick with it over the long haul?

Persistence is perhaps the MOST important quality shared by all entrepeneurs. That’s why you hear about those who make a million, lose a million and then make another million. They go up, then down, then up again, but they never gave up.

You can’t let the ups and downs get to you. Not everything is will go your way all of the time. You’ll have to make some effort and it won’t always be easy.

But, if you keep your goals foremost in your mind, learn what you need to know and invest your resources wisely and with persistence, you virtually can’t help but succeed.

That’s how you REALLY make money online!

Author’s Resource: Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online“. To learn how you too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit http://netprofitstoday.com/

No matter why you’re writing an article, it’s your responsibility to make it be interesting - otherwise no one will read it. (Except you.)

So how can you make your article interesting and engage your reader? It’s all about the ANGLE. First pick your topic. For example, let’s say your topic is something boring … “car wax.” Now, here’s where many people start writing.

Stop! You need an angle! What aspect of car wax do you want to write about? Is there anything new or sexy in the world of car wax that people are interested in? Some ideas: how the new generation of car waxes helps protect your paint job for twice as long, OR, an overview of the best five brands of car wax on the market, OR what the best type of wax is for your particular car. Get it? These are all angles. (By the way, I’ve never even waxed my car, so please take these ideas with a grain of salt! ; )

Ready to brainstorm your angles? Here are seven article “formulas” to get you started. Some elements of each may overlap with each other, but each formula is truly a distinct animal.

1. The How-To

People love how-to articles! They lead the reader step-by-step through how to reach an objective. They also sometimes offer resources the reader can contact for more information.

What expertise do *you* have to share? Turn that subject into an interesting how-to for readers. Examples: “How to Make Your Employees Stick Around Forever,” “How to Find the Best Dress for Your Figure,” and “How to Promote Your Business for Free.”

2. The List

This is one of the most basic formulas and the easiest to write. Give a short one or two paragraph intro, then launch right into your list. Keep each item to a few sentences max. People love numbers, so number your list and give your total number in the title! Examples: “31 Ways to Organize Your Office,” “15 Tips for Pain-Free Feet,” “Five Reasons Management Won’t Be the Same in 2001″.

3. The “Straw Man”

Here you set up a premise and knock it down, showing the benefits of your alternative view or approach. This is ideal to use when you’re discussing the drawbacks of a new practice or method that’s controversial right now. Here’s a great example we often see on the covers of health magazines: “Are High Protein Diets the Key to Fast Weight Loss?” You get all excited, thinking you’ve discovered an amazing dieting revelation. But the article reveals, point by point, that high protein diets are unsafe for the long term, and that of course the only reliable way to lose weight is through diet and exercise. Oh well! Back to the treadmill….

4. The Mini Case Study

Raise a provocative question and then answer it with three or four real-life examples. Example: For an article titled, “Should You Quit Your Job and Go Freelance?” you could begin with a few stats on how today’s workforce is leaving the corporate world in search of solo bliss. Then you could feature a few real cases, each with different outcomes to show all sides of the issue.

5. The Interview

Choose a credible expert to interview for your article. For example, if your topic is the latest trends in banking, you could interview a top banking industry analyst. Present it in either a traditional article format or do a Q&A format.

6. The Trend

Trends aren’t just for fashion! Whenever a trend sweeps a certain profession, you’ll suddenly see dozens of articles covering the topic. From the latest hairstyle to the latest tax shelter, people want to know all about these trends - their origins, benefits, and drawbacks.

7. The Study Finding

These articles report the results of a study or survey. If you do a bit of research, you can probably dig up a recent study on which you can base your article. Examples: “Blue Chip Companies Cutting Marketing Budgets Across the Board,” “Armadillos Now Deemed America’s Favorite Pet,” and “More 20 Somethings Finding Love Online.”

About The Author 

Alexandria Brown is president of AKB Marketing Communications. Her FREE monthly e-zine gives “how-to” tips on writing compelling copy for Web sites, brochures, and e-zines. Learn how to attract new clients and strengthen your customer relationships! Subscribe today at http://www.akbwriting.com

You do not have to be a Hemingway to be a great article writer. There are some basic rules to follow though. Here are 5 steps to writing a good article that will attract attention and result in more traffic and sales for your business.

ACTION STEP 1 - Create A Hot Title

You must grab the attention of the reader first. People scan everything before they commit to reading it. Let them know what the article is about in a way that makes them want to dig into it for more information. Two classic ways to make a good title are to use a “How to” format, such as, “How To Get A Base Hit 7 Times Out Of Ten”, and the “Tips” format, which might go something like this: “5 Super Easy Tips To Relieve Stress”.

ACTION STEP 2 - Get Your Reader’s Attention With An Interesting Opening Sentence

The next most important part of writing your article is to grab the reader with a powerful first sentence. This will keep them interested and wanting more information. Two of the best ways to hook your reader is to ask a question or to state a fact.

A question should make the reader curious to find out the answer by finishing the article. If you state a fact, you must make it the basis for the rest of your article.

ACTION STEP 3 - Discuss The Main Points In The Body Of The Article

Here is where you provide the content of your article, and the solutions to the problem that you are solving for the reader. Your purpose here is to educate and inform. Address each problem and follow it with the solution. Or if you are giving tips to your reader, you can list each tip in the order that best solves their problem.

ACTION STEP 4 - Summary and Ask Your Reader To Take Action

Always include a brief summary for maximum results. Then tell your reader why it is important for them to take action now. Give a benefit or two as an incentive for them to respond now. This can be a link to your website or newsletter. After all, this was the primary purpose of your article.

ACTION STEP 5 - Include A Powerful Resource Box After Your Article

You absolutely need to make a resource box promoting your website, eBook, eCourse or affiliate program. The resource box gives the reader another way to get more information. This will spur the traffic to your promotion as your article is read by more people. Create a resource box that tells who you are and what you are offering to the reader. This should take no more than 3-6 lines of text.

These 5 steps will ensure that you have an article that people will want to read and then visit your website. Just use this easy 5 step format and simply fill in the details with your own information. Then distribute your articles to ezine and newsletter publishers in your business niche. The result will be more targeted traffic and increased visibility for your business.

This article may be reprinted in full. The resource box and hyperlink must remain intact.
About the Author

View other articles by Marc here: http://www.savepress.com

Just like we need water to live, the internet needs fresh and relevant content to survive. The beauty of it is that content from every corner of the globe is needed everyday, so regardless of your expertise, you may be able to share valuable experiences, recommendations, etc.

Article marketing has the power to send targeted and highly qualified traffic to your site since prospects are attracted by the content you are providing resulting in better conversions and customer acquisition.

Achieving a goal worth something is never easy, article marketing involves work and effort in order to see results. The first thing you will need is constant and quality content. It is very common that webmasters do not want to write their own articles but relying in yourself is actually the best way to provide valuable information.

Paying ghost writers is an option but keep in mind that not everybody will have the same experiences and not everyone shares the same way of thinking. If you decide to write articles then remember to read them at least once before you post them, this will help you avoid duplicate words and will help you craft a great excerpt.

It is also important to keep in mind that a paragraph is not a chunk of lines put together, it is actually a way to format and articulate your thoughts. Just imagine how hard it would be to read this article if everything was shown as an unformatted block of text, it would surely keep you from reading the content of it, regardless of it’s quality. Another important but often overlooked step is using a spell checker tool to avoid grammatical errors which would make you look like a total amateur.

Now that we understand the basics lets move on to more important matters. Many webmasters make the horrible mistake of promoting their products, web sites or services in their article body. This action defeats the purpose or article writing and will cause readers to avoid the content you provide.

Nobody wants to be sold on an article which is supposed to provide quality information, so if you have a site which sells electronics then write about the features and uses of such items. Avoid writing sentences which will make you sound like an advertising, in other words don’t say “My site this, and my site that”, people are not attracted to web site names but to the content they provide.

Do not over optimize the article body mentioning specific keywords over and over. This practice will get you to the land of banned authors and you will loose a great opportunity to increase your site’s ranking. Imagine how you would feel if I used a phrase like “article marketing” 10, 15 or 20 times throughout the article body!, it would surely make me think bad of the web site in question and will make the author sound even worse. If you want to optimize something, then optimize the article title!, you would be amazed to know how a good title can bring you more traffic than keyword density and anchor text optimization.

Getting quality content is not an impossible task but if you prefer to dig holes instead of writing articles it is best for you to outsource your work and let a professional do it, this way you will create a great impression and you will have more time to further develop your site.

About the Author

ArticleCharge provides high quality information on nearly every topic, learn more about article marketing techniques and link building through article marketing. Enjoy the beauty of knowledge at http://www.articlecharge.com

When an author creates an article, it becomes a permanent fixture, driving traffic and enticing new customers all the time. So the question is frequently asked, “How long will an article be available to the target market?” It’s a fair question and one that is both relatively easy, and almost impossible, to answer. What happens to your articles once they are distributed?

~Posted on Websites~

This is the first destination that matters. Websites always need content. Webmasters love having relevant articles on their sites that will help their visitors make better decisions. The more you write on your subject, the more of an expert you will become. If there’s a widgets website and your articles are all over that site, the target market interested in widgets are going to come to know you as an expert.

So when will the webmaster take your articles off the page? Almost never. Why would they? It’s an additional page on their site that the spiders and their visitors alike appreciate having access to. That means that your link in the resource box is going to be reaching new widget audiences for years to come.

~Sent in Newsletters~

Publishing a newsletter is very popular, but creating enough content by yourself is difficult. When newsletter editors publish your widget articles in this month’s newsletter, it is sent out to a group of people who have demonstrated interest in the topic of widgets. How did they demonstrate interest? They signed up for the newsletter. You could pay for an ad, or you could write an article. Articles are more interesting to subscribers than ads are, and you can demonstrate your expertise more fully with a well written article.

~Archived on the Web~

Many newsletters, in addition to being sent directly to the inboxes of your target market, are also archived on the website of the newsletter publisher, giving your article double exposure. Talk about better bang for your buck!

~Linked at Sites~

Don’t underestimate the power of links. Sure you get a link from your article to your page, but here’s something that many people haven’t considered: A link from the widgets home page to the widgets newsletter which contains your widgets article adds a tremendous weight to the relevance of the link from your article’s resource box back to your home page. This is a very advanced linking strategy because these links are pure ambrosia for the Google Spider.

These heavily weighted links generally show up 3-6 months after the newsletter has been sent out - giving you an unexpected bonus boost with Google Page Rank and Search Engine Results Position.

~Constant and Never Ending Submission~

New publishers and editors are always joining Article Marketer Universe, so your articles are constantly being sent out to new content sites, new newsletters and new article repositories. Your words are always being delivered to a fresh set of prospective customers.

~Article Directories~

Your articles are posted on article directories, and they are available forever. These sites want content and they’ll keep your article around forever.

~Used by Affiliates~

Your article might also be used by your affiliates as they try to create new business for you. That means your article will show up on your affiliate’s sites, in their newsletters, targeting another fresh set of prospective customers - or even new affiliates for you.

~Included in e-Books~

E-book publishing is entering a new phase of popularity. Free reprint ebooks and rebrandable ebooks are used to introduce newcomers to a given product space. Remember when you were new at your thing? Didn’t you do research, look things up on the web, and read the ebooks that were available? Don’t you wish there had been more information easily available? When your article appears in an ebook, you have been introduced to yet another qualified prospect. You are being recognized as an expert in the space.

So what is the life span of an article? It can be years and years. I know that my articles have been picked up long after I’ve written them and all of a sudden I’ve got a bunch of new visitors I wasn’t expecting. The cumulative effect of having several articles out there makes your article life span almost as long as yours… maybe longer!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to internet marketers, small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Article Marketer site is a favorite of internet marketers around the world.

I have reviewed thousands of articles written by marketers hoping to promote their websites, products, affiliate programs, and e-books. While most of the articles are useful, all too many are not worth the paper they’re printed on (and that’s saying a lot in the electronic age!) Are you making the same mistakes?

In this article you will discover the simple, common sense techniques that will get your article accepted by article banks, approved by newsletter editors, and published in some of the largest ezines online.

I’ll show you how to increase your “article-submitted-to-published” conversion ratio and draw readers over to your site by improving your “newsletter-reader-to-qualified-visitor” ratio.

~Offer Valuable Content~

This, of course, is paramount to your success, so it’s first on the list. Share your knowledge of the topic, and don’t be stingy about it. If you include tips, tricks, and helpful information, you’ll get more editors to publish your article. They need content to keep their existing subscribers loyal, attract new subscribers, and earn them some money.

What content do they want? Readers want to read about topics of interest, and learn from your experience and insight. Tell a story, explain how things work, offer examples because that’s the way people learn. Once you give them some interesting information, they’ll visit your website to learn more from you. Because they already trust you, they’ll visit your site pre-qualified and open to an offer. This is the best kind of web visitor.

Valuable content will improve your “newsletter-reader-to-qualified-visitor” conversion ratio.

~Don’t Sell~

If you submit a sales letter, there isn’t a newsletter editor on the planet who will publish it. After all, they have a newsletter that reaches thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of targeted, double opt-in subscribers. If you want them to publish your blatant advertising, you’ll have to buy an ad.

Think about the article banks. Why would such article repositories as www.eBusiness-Articles.com or www.Healthy-Articles.com want to clutter up their directories with advertising sales letters? They want original, valuable content, because they serve newsletter editors and publishers. If the content doesn’t draw the interest of their audience (editors) the repositories don’t want it.

Sales letters will hurt (maybe eliminate) your “article-submitted-to-published” conversion ratio.

~Use Product Placement~

I know, I know, the only reason you’re writing articles is to increase your sales, and I just told you not to sell. Don’t fret - there’s a way to successfully sell your company within your article without submitting a blatant sales letter.

Hollywood producers incorporate products into their movies. Would you pay to see a movie about the features and benefits of Coca-Cola? Probably not. Would you watch a movie with Tom Cruise chasing bad guys? A lot of people will.

No one complains when he drinks a Coke while contemplating his next move. No one minds when screeches past a Coca Cola truck during the high-speed chase. And at the end, when gets the girl while standing in front of a Coca-Cola display, does that bother you? No, of course not, because none of those things took away from the plot of the movie. The story was interesting. Coca Cola spends millions on product placement every year, because they’ve learned that when movie goers enjoy the movie, Coke sales go up.

Do the same in your article. Use your business as the basis for a story you tell. Use your product as an example. Use one of your customers as a case study explaining your point. One of the authors at ArticleMarketer.com took this advice and wrote an article to submit through our service. When publishers read his article they …

See what I just did there? Now you’re just a little disappointed that I didn’t finish the story, aren’t you? Do that in your article. Engage your readers, involve them in the story, make them want more.

Product placement will improve your “newsletter-reader-to-qualified-visitor” conversion ratio.

~Formatting Matters~

You must follow the rules and guidelines listed by each newsletter, article site and publisher on your list. The formatting of your article can have a tremendous impact on whether or not it gets published. Each publisher has different requirements, so read the guidelines and submit accordingly.

At Article Marketer, we submit articles to a wide variety of article repositories, newsletter editors and email distribution groups for authors around the world. We’ve made hundreds of thousands of successful article submissions, but before we could launch our service, we had to evaluate the submission criteria of each publisher, repository and article site on our long distribution list. Here’s some of what we found:

Most sites don’t want HTML. Others allow an anchor tag, but no formatting tags. Some publishers want articles with 60 character lines, with a hard break at the end of each line. Others will reject an article with 60 character lines, preferring automatic word wrap. Others want 65 character lines. One wants an 80 character line.

Some don’t want your copyright and personal information at the top of the article. They also don’t want you to repeat the article title or your byline in the article body. Others require it there.

Keep in mind that the first few lines of an article (following the headline) are key to capturing a reader’s attention. Depending on the submission site, they’ll format your article with copyright and reprint rights, without squandering the “prime real estate” on copyright, reprint rules, and other stuff. If a reader doesn’t get pulled into your article, your resource box can’t deliver traffic to you. Then what’s the point?

Following the submission guidelines will increase your “article-submitted-to-published” conversion ratio.

~A Powerful Call to Action~

Every article should end with a distinct and powerful call to action. I’ve seen authors who try to cram every site they know into their resource box. This is a waste of time, and it confuses the reader.

Imagine if you’re reading an article about how to whiten your teeth. The article is well written and you start thinking to yourself “Hey, this author knows his stuff!”. When you get to the end and you see a link to whiter teeth dot com, you’ll probably visit. However, if the whiter teeth link is stacked on top of clean fuel dot com and marketing stuff dot com, a confused reader will not click at all. Talk directly to your qualified audience about your topic and send them to a specific site, then watch as your sales go up.

Focusing your call to action will improve your “newsletter-reader-to-qualified-visitor” conversion ratio.

~It’s An Article, Not a Letter~

Many authors make the mistake of thinking of their article as a personal missive to the reader. A personal voice is terrific, just remember that you’re writing an article, not a letter to a friend. Articles in Time Magazine never end with:

Sincerely,
Susie Jones

While it is true that some authors will sign off with a trademark tagline, that tagline is incorporated into their article, and it’s never followed by a signature. Besides that, a signature isn’t a powerful way to close your article. Use a powerful call to action.

Avoiding the look of a personal letter will increase your “article-submitted-to-published” ratio.

~Don’t Change the Title and Resubmit~

If there’s one thing that an editor hates more than anything, it’s to get the same article multiple times. I know that there are people telling you to resubmit your articles with new titles, because the headline is important. While I don’t deny the importance of a good headline, just putting a new headline on an old article is a really bad idea.

Christopher Knight at http://www.ezinearticles.com tells me that the surest way for an author to get penalized is to submit the same article multiple times with different titles.

If you want to try different titles, also rework the article. There’s no reason you can’t write several articles on the same topic. Just make each unique. The more articles you write in your subject area, the more you are seen as an expert in that area.

Writing multiple unique articles in a given subject will improve both your “article-submitted-to-published” and your “newsletter-reader-to-qualified-visitor” ratios.

~Use Pre-Written Articles to Your Advantage~

There are many places that will give you articles to publish as your own. While publishing this content on your own website is perfectly fine, submitting it to editors and publishers all around the net is a waste of time.

Think of it like the hoaxes that are passed around the net. How many times did you get the one about Bill Gates paying a nickel for each email? How long after that did you tire of receiving it? And how long after that did you start getting really annoyed at receiving it? Editors get a lot of articles – and they’ve seen the free reprint articles more than they’d care to remember.

If you want to submit these articles to editors, you can, but you need to know a trick. Use them as a foundation for your own work. Add your own personal spin to each one. Change it around, add your own personal flair, make it your own. Incorporate your insight and your expertise. Then it will truly be your article.

Making the article your own will improve your “article-submitted-to-published” ratio.

~Use a Spell Checker~

If I had a nickle for every time a authr maked a grimmatical or speeling error, I could retire. Every word processor has a spell checker (mine just went crazy after that last sentence!) and if English isn’t your primary language, have it reviewed by a native English speaker. You’re trying to establish credibility, and using “your” instead of “you’re” or “there” instead of “they’re” blows your whole image.

Using a spell checker and having someone proofread your work will improve your “article-submitted-to-published” ratio.

~Address the Promise of the Title~

If your title is, “How to Bake Cookies” then a reader had better have the basics down at the end of your article. No, you don’t have to turn her into the next Mrs. Fields, (after all, it’s just an article, not a graduate study program) but a reader should be able to finish your article with a decent approach to the baking of a cookie. She’ll know about cooking times and required utensils and where to find recipes, or whatever else goes into the basics of cookie baking. You’re the expert, give her what she needs based on your title.

~Conclusion~

Every article should end with a strong conclusion, one that leads to your resource box. Your article is being reviewed by real people, who have real standards for publishing. If you follow the tips in this article, you’ll get better results from your article marketing campaign, you will get your article approved at most article sites and find it published in the larger ezines.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to internet marketers, small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Article Marketer  site is a favorite of internet marketers around the world.

There is one thing that matters (and one thing only) in the realm of internet marketing: Converting the random web surfer into a pre-qualified, pre-sold visitor to your website.

Does Google Adwords pre-sell your visitors? No, not really.
Does your banner on an affiliate website pre-qualify your visitors? No, not really.

There is a way to drive a stream of targeted, pre-sold, pre-qualified traffic to your website. Write a few articles that are interesting, helpful and unique. It’s that simple, really. Take a look at how getting a few articles published makes a world of difference in your actual conversion to subscriptions and sales.

GIVE A FREE SAMPLE

When you give someone some very good information in your article, they become familiar with your work. Think of your article like the “free sample” you get at the grocery store. You try the bit of pizza or the latest cheese spread, and then you buy some to take home for later. Your article introduces your expertise and gives the reader a look at the quality of your work. They become familiar with you, with your point of view, with your “take” on things.

Once someone has finished reading your article, they will have a “feeling” about what you have written, and they will agree or disagree with your stand on the topic. Those who agree with you are more likely to visit your website to hear more of what you have to say.

These are pre-sold visitors, people who come to your site open to what you have to say, like the way you say it, and are more likely to become subscribers or buyers.

AUTOMATIC TARGETING

When you write an interesting, helpful article, newsletter editors seeking good quality content will want to publish it. These publishers know their audience. Most newsletters are published around a particular topic or theme. The subscribers to this newsletter are interested in this theme, that’s why they continue to be subscribers. That means that when your article appears in this newsletter, it is automatically reaching your pre-qualified, perfectly targeted audience.

Combine perfect targeting with your ability to pre-sell your visitors and you have a recipe for success. Now you only need one more thing…

MASSIVE DISTRIBUTION

You’ve got to get your article in front of newsletter editors. There are three simple ways to do this, and they are all quick, cheap and effective. You can do it yourself, or you can take advantage of a quick and easy approach (which we’ll discuss in a moment).

~Groups~

You can submit your article to article announcement groups. These subscription email distribution lists allow you to send your article directly to publishers and editors seeking free content. There are literally hundreds of groups you can join. Some of the more popular are the Yahoo! Groups Article Announce ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Article_Announce ), The Write Articles ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWriteArticles ) and Best Free Content- Business ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bestfreecontent_business ) These groups are all looking for business related articles.

~Article Repositories~

There are article banks and repositories that accept articles by category. GoArticles.com and ezinearticles.com are some of the biggest players, while some new sites like www.content-articles.com and www.Niche-Content-Articles.com are just getting started and are eager to receive your articles.

~Newsletters & Content Sites~

There are literally hundreds of thousands of ezines online – and they all need content. Niche website owners are looking to publish articles that their niche audience will find interesting. Contact the publisher – ask if they accept articles. Send a sample and see if they like what you write, then you can send them your articles and have them published. It takes some work, but it’s doable.

But why go through all the effort when you can use a quick and easy method to reach 1000s of buyers today, without doing the work by hand, without being chained to your computer, and without paying an arm and a leg?

QUICK AND EASY

You can submit all the articles you want, whenever you want, on any schedule you want, with a few clicks of your mouse. It’s how I drive thousands of visitors to my sites every single day. It is the hallmark of my success.

I have automated the article submission process. Why? Because I quickly got tired of doing the manual work myself. Visiting sites, copying and pasting my article in different formats, remembering all the myriad usernames and passwords - and that was just the beginning.

Each site has different guidelines and submission rules. Some have word count restrictions; others don’t want more than one article per week. Each site has specific categories and content restrictions. Trying to keep track of when I submitted my articles, where this article could go and where I should send that article, remembering which articles had already gone out, where I hadn’t yet submitted… it was overwhelming.

TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE!

I put together a tech team and I said, “I don’t want to do this by hand anymore.” We sat down and designed a system that automatically manages the guidelines, formats the article according the needs of the publisher, inserts the “reprint rights” boilerplate for the article sites that require that, incorporates my resource box and formats the whole thing with the correct number of characters per line.

What used to take me hours and hours of effort is now completed in less than five minutes of my personal attention, and then the system does all the work. My articles get wide distribution. I get traffic every day from the articles I publish, and because the system is constantly monitoring the web, my list is always up to date with current publishers and repositories. When a site disappears, it comes off the list. When a new site pops up, it is incorporated into the list, complete with the categories it accepts, the author terms of service that must be followed and the publishing guidelines. I don’t have to remember - the system does.

So the choice is yours. You can certainly submit your articles by hand to newsletter editors and article banks. It’s completely free, it just takes you a bit of time. You’ll want to keep a log of the places you submit to, and the dates, since it may take you several weeks to achieve full distribution.

With the quick and easy method, I put each article into the Article Marketer system only once, I don’t have to keep track of which sites I’ve submitted to - because I know that the system automatically submits the articles to as many places as possible. It frees me up to do other things - all I have to do is sit back and wait for the traffic to roll in.

And roll in it does. My sites receive thousands and thousands of visitors, and since I started writing articles, my conversions have gone through the roof!

With my this quick and easy method (Article Marketer), I don’t have to do any of the drudgework by hand anymore and I get to focus my time and effort on building my business, instead of sitting at a computer filling out web forms by hand.

Isn’t that what you’d like to do?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to internet marketers, small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His  Article Marketer site is a favorite of internet marketers around the world.