Writing articles for submission and distribution on the internet is one of the most effective ways of driving free traffic to your site, raising your profile and credibility with your potential customers and giving your website a boost in the search engine rankings. There really is no down side to this activity, some of the more obvious benefits are:
There are many different websites known as article banks where you can submit your articles. These are normally free as they want your content its what theyre there for after all. Generally speaking, as long as your article isnt blatant advertising or self publicity, they will be very happy to publish it on their site.
Once its on the website, it can be read by any visitors and some of these may decide to use the article in their ezine, their blog or their website. They are allowed to do this for free so long as they include your signature file. Your signature file should include your name, your website(s) URL and maybe a couple of lines of text that you can include to say what it is that you offer at your site - more free publicity and links for you. Thats where you advertise - in your signature file, not in the body of the article itself.
Anyone can write an article the typical length is between 500 and 1200 words, so it really isnt too difficult. Just pick a subject you know a little about and write a short article. Dont be self conscious and dont feel that just because you know something everybody else also knows it already.
If you really arent comfortable with writing even this much text then there is a very simple and easy way that you can get your articles written and published and that is to write a list. You know the sort of thing:
Top Ten things To Do On A Rainy Day
Twenty Unusual Uses For Wrapping Paper
Seven Simple Steps To Improve Your Health
Its simple an introductory paragraph at the start, followed by the list, followed by a summary paragraph at the end. Youll see a lot of articles like this, and not just because the author couldnt be bothered to write a proper article either. The fact is that people like lists, they allow them to digest a lot of information and new concepts quickly and efficiently.
As if all of the above wasnt enough to convince you that you should be writing articles, there is one further hidden bonus that you may be able to benefit from. Do you have a web based project in mind which you are going to do just as soon as you have enough time Okay when will you have enough time
Now you can build your new website, or get your next series of autoresponder messages prepared, one page at a time just by writing articles. And when the time comes to launch the complete package, you will have your advertising in place. Get scribbling.
Hamish Hayward
Discover the key criteria you must assess to succeed in business.
Joe Nogood owns a small but thriving gift store. He is middle-aged and he dabbles in the stock market and has survived some major crashes in his time. He is an expert on gifts, having learned the skills over the years. There is only one word to describe him, ordinary.
Joe has been studying the internet for months, surveying the battlefield, as he calls it. One day, he declared to Stan, his longtime buddy. The dotcom bubble has bottomed out, I see that we are at the beginning of a new uptrend. Lets build an online store.
Setting up a website is like setting up a business in a foreign land. Joe had to learn the foreign language (HTML, XML, PHP, Perl, CGI, Java, CSS, RSS).
The first stage was easy enough. They quickly decided on JoeNoGood.com, it has a counterculture aura around it and a matching slogan as well - Were Good at JoeNoGood.com.
Registering JoeNoGood.com (domain name), finding a web-hosting company to host his site and finding a credit card processor to handle the credit card transactions were simple tasks. There are also some excellent open-source software that, with some basic knowledge, Joe and Stan built their website within two weeks.
The second stage is by far the toughest and will need stamina website marketing and promotion. Having a website is like having a billboard pasted with your messages on an island. Now Joe needs visitors (hits) and bridges (links) to his little island.
When a consumer wants to find a product, 80% of the time, this person will use a search engine. Joes website has to search-engine friendly - when a search is made for a product or service at JoeNoGood.com, Joe want his websites page to be in the top 20 rankings (top 10 would be ideal). This is Joes first-year marketing plan.
Sending 48 Free-Reprint Articles a year
Joes marketing plan needs him to write 48 articles a year. He understood that his articles have to be original, informative, entertaining and in plain language. With his buddy during an all-night brainstorming session they agreed on a few ideas.
A Brief History of Gift-Giving would be a good start. Gifts for Positive Response might be another not corruption, you blockhead, think about a prelude to a marriage proposal or motivating a teenage student to excel in his studies. Romantics may like to read Gifts for Your Love; the list goes on and on.
Perhaps, a possible topic may be Gift-Receiving Habits of Bushmen Americans, the ones concentrated in the D.C. area. Bushmen use strange language like I wish to caveat my response which is hardly understandable by the public. A follow-up article like Bushmen Gifts the Impact on Iraqs Economy may provide the scholarly reputation for Joe, a must-read for think tanks around the world.
Publishing 4 Free E-books a year
Since Joe wrote an article a week, within three months, he will have enough material for an e-book. Knowing the hassles, he decides on a commercial website that can convert his articles into an EXE and PDF format and submit this free-for-download e-book to the various depositories on his behalf.
Naturally, since this e-book is free, Joe inserted some messages on his products and services in a non-intrusive manner. Joe thought an e-book-cum-catalog, what a clever idea. He wants to persuade without using the ways used by in-your-face marketers. Joe wants his readers to know and believe he is true to his chosen slogan.
On publishing his first e-book and seeing a growing readership, Joe called his printers and ordered a fresh set of new name cards Joe Nogood, Owner-Internet Writer-Author. Stan sensed a distinct glow about Joes demeanor since that moment.
Releasing 4 Free Software a year using Rebrand Software
Neither Joe nor Stan can write software of professional quality. It is true Stan attended a few night classes in programming but writing software that will be used as market promotion tools is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Giving away free software like corporate gifts (golf caps, diaries) will need quality and robust software. When users download and use Joes software, they will see JoeNoGood.com logo and a link directly to Joes site. Apart from the onetime costs, there are no extra costs - when Joe gives out this corporate gift to 1000 or 1 million, his outlay is the same. Joes eyes glistened on hearing this.
Joe found a rebrand software site that will sell him resale rights with adjustments. That is important, because JoeNoGood.com do not want to be associated with cloned software that everybody may have, like many marketing self-help books. He wants some unique feature that will distinguish his corporate gift from the others. Finally, he decided on an RSS news feed reader, stock charting program, a time planner with crypto functions and a computer security tool.
Sending 6 Press Releases a year
Joe understands that sending messages is tricky. From his knowledge of Chaos Theory, which he learned from analyzing stocks, information seeps through the internet at different speeds.
A press release by Google can travel round the world many times in a few hours. On the other hand, a message by Joe may take months just to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Hence, he chose RushPRnews.com headed by a veteran with 15+ years experience to give him an edge over the thousands of press releases filed each day.
A happy ending
At the end of the first year, Joe found he gained about 1000 links for his articles, assuming 20 links for each article. For the 8 free e-books and software titles, he got about 2000 links, assuming 250 links for each title. For the press releases, he found another 250-500 links. 3000-plus inbound links for one year of hard work is indeed gratifying for Joe.
Years down the road, Joes hard work and determination had paid off. His store is the recognized leader with over 36% of the global share in gift sales. From the meticulous data he has collected over the years, he converted these to marketing data that any advertiser or gift manufacturer would die to get their hands on. Joe wisely published for-subscription-only e-books with the grand title of Collective Consciousness of Gift Buyers by Country, Month and Year and priced them in eGold (equivalent to thousands of Yanks dollars). Joe Nogood struck dotcom gold. The powers in Mountain View are not amused.
JoeNoGood.com and Joe Nogood are fictional. Hopefully readers can see a bit of themselves in Joe as he grapples with the complex issues on the Internet. Stay tuned, folks.
The term Bushmen Americans is hereby released into the public domain. A small attribution (first coined by Stan Seecrets) is appreciated. The usefulness of this term may have a limited shelf life (around Jan. 2009) unless someone named Jeb becomes President then.
The name Joe Nogood is the exclusive copyright of Stan Seecrets. Fair use is permitted.
Anybody who wants to trade his full-featured, hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered, ocean-going yacht for exclusive movie/television rights to Joe Nogoods story can contact this author 24/7.
Stan Seecrets Postulate: Were Good at JoeNoGood.com (figure this one out yourself).
[This article may be freely reprinted provided it is published with the authors bio and activating the link to the URL below. It can be edited, summarized, expanded, and translated into any human language provided the literary integrity is maintained. In the case of print media, the same conditions apply except that the URL must be printed in bold letters.]
The author, Stan Seecrets, is a veteran software developer with 25+ years experience at which specializes in digital asset protection and total website management. You can send your views or criticism by e-mail to Stan at seecrets.biz.
Copyright 2005, Stan Seecrets. All rights reserved