Article writing tips, techniques, strategies

4 Easy Steps to Leveraging Your Articles

2005-12-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Writing valuable content-rich articles for your target market and submitting them to article directories and other publishers is one of the best ways to market your business, become known as an expert in your field, and add subscribers to your list.

For example, if you regularly write an article for your ezine, you can get a lot more mileage out of it if you submit it to article directories and other online publishing services. And making every piece you write work more than once for you is one way to work smarter and not harder. That's called leverage.

There are several reasons why you want to do this. One is to get your name and your business out there so people will learn who you are and what you do, and it helps to position you as an expert. No more keeping yourself a secret and hiding behind your computer! :) Another reason is that your articles give people a taste of your style, what it is that you offer, and it gives them an opportunity to get to know you a bit without risking anything.

At the end of each article include a resource box so if people want to find out more about you and your business, they have that information at their fingertips. Once someone reads your article, if they like your stuff, they will likely visit your website and sign up for your Pink Spoon (your free offering that gets people on your list). And writing articles is one of the fastest (and FREE) ways to get lots of exposure, especially if a publisher with a large list picks it up!

Want to get started? Here are the 4 easy steps:

1. Write the article or recycle one you've already written, giving it a fresh edit (it never hurts).

Write or revise an article targeted at your niche that is full of valuable content. A couple of tips: Articles can be anywhere from 300-700 words in length for the best chance of being picked up (if you have a longer article, consider chopping it in half and making it two shorter articles). Also, articles with lists, steps, or mini-chunks of information seem to be the most read.

2. Add your copyright.

Don't forget to protect your work by adding a copyright. At the end of each article, put a copyright notice with the date of when you first published the article. For example, copyright (or ©) 2005 Alicia M Forest.

3. Write the copy for your author's box.

After your copyright notice comes what's usually referred to as the "resource box" or "author's box." In order for others to publish your work, ask that they include this information at the end of your article, keeping what you provide in it whole and intact. As this is standard practice, you'll find most publishers will honor this request.

Write 3-5 lines that entice people to find out more about you by providing the web address to the sign-up page for your Pink Spoon. You don't need to use this valuable real estate to promote your business, but do use it to encourage people to join your list by signing up for your ezine or other free offering.

A tip: Again, don't send your article readers to your home page. Send them to a page set up specifically to add them to your list. For example, say"for more articles like this, please visit www.yourezinepage.com to sign up!"

4. Submit your article.

Although this is one of the most time-consuming marketing tasks, it can be made much simplier by either hiring a VA to do it for you, or using an article submission service. A couple of services that I use are:

SubmitYOUR Article

www.articlemarketer.com

There are literally hundreds of websites that offer free content for publishers who are in need of quality articles for their own publications or websites. Here are some of the best ones:

www.ezinearticles.com

www.ideamarketers.com

www.goarticles.com

www.article-host.com

www.articlecity.com

Bonus step:

If you want to see stronger results from submitting your articles, contact directly those publishers of ezines and websites in your niche. Google publishers of ezines in your target market and then send a query to the editor/owner about submitting an article. Present yourself as a professional and offer your article for their use, provided the resource box remains in tact.

Paste your article under your message (attachments can get blocked, and if the receiver doesn't know you it's unlikely they will open and read it anyway).

Writing and submitting articles is one of the tried-and-true, if slow-and-steady, ways to build your list, become known as an expert, and offer value to your target market.

Copyright 2005 Alicia Forest

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach™, & Founder of http://www.ClientAbundance.com , teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs and solo professionals to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com

Article Writing Myths: Just a Few Articles Will Do the Trick

2005-12-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

Myth - If I write just a few articles that will be enough to meet my needs for marketing my business and creating prospects.

Reality - Are you one of the people that believe you can write just a few articles and that will take care of everything?

So many beginning writers get caught in this trap. They labor and write a few articles, post them to an article directory, and then sit back and wait for the prospects and profits to roll in.
Of course this does not happen and then they give up on article writing and marketing, believing that articles do not work for building your practice.

Writing articles works, most people don't work it

The reality comes in two parts:

Part 1 is that article writing and article marketing does work, and works really well when done right.

Part 2 is about doing it right. Some people are just not willing to put in the time and the work to build it right.

Hitting critical mass

When I first began posting articles, a few articles brought a tiny trickle of prospects. When I hit 25 the trickle got bigger. By the time I hit 250, a good critical mass, the trickle turned into a nice stream.

Now at 705 articles, if this one is accepted, I get a flood of propects everyday, to the point where I could not stop them from coming in if I wanted to, and I surely do not.

Visit http://www.TheArticleGuy.com for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscribe to our monthly Article Writing & Marketing Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

Article Star Rating Systems Online

2005-12-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that online article rating systems on MSN.com and other news sources and article online submission sites tend to drag out the worst of the human spirit? Have you ever considered that these rating systems are abused by persnickety, vindictive, insomniac, Prozac taking, depressed, angry and psychologically challenged people. If they disagree with an article or political point they under rate the story or rate it with one-star because the truth offends them?

This doesn’t just happen in the mass media online story or article rating but also on online article submission sites. One has to ask the question; Why do weak people with little minds get so caught up in their own little pathetic world that they cannot control their own emotions and sneakly berate a story or article? Indeed there are cases where a pea-headed low cranial capacity, worthless scoundrel will go thru an authors entire line up and rate all their articles with one-star; but why? Who has the time to go and do that?

Some say well what do you expect from a group of writers and folks living in the virtual world of the Internet after losing site of the real world? Indeed that is an interesting point. I guess one would expect just because these folks are hiding behind keyboards in anonymity certainly they possess some shread of common decency and maybe just a touch of integrity? Yet, they do not appear too.

The Star Rating Systems on articles or stories is therefore completely worthless. In fact the more a story draws out of the wood work the nut cases and losers of the world to comment the better. Because that means the article or story is making people think, drawing out their childish and petty behavior and thus provoking a reaction. So if your articles receive one-star, take it as a compliment, because you made them think. Indeed driving controversy also drives viewership as well and on the Internet that is a good thing. Think on this children next time you rate an article, who is controlling your mind, you or that writer that you berate.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Copying Content - Still Valuable, or A Thing of The Past?

2005-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

There are many specialists out there that believe that content that has been copied is not valuable anymore and may actually penalize your website online for listing such content but I on the other hand beg to differ.

Ezine article directories world wide consistently list the same ol' content as the other. They all pull into the same pool of authors who ultimately submit the same articles to each directory. My question is this, if copied content is not valuable anymore, why is it that these article directories are some of the most popular websites world wide?

See if you break down the authors article, you start to get clues as to why "copied content" can still be mistaken for original content.

Title & Author Stay The Same, But The Rest Is Not Just Gravy:

One constant is true for all articles submitted by authors: Their "title" and "author" are always the same but everything else tends to change in the process of submitting the article.

See, some article directories ask for a "description" to post online leading to the article. In many cases, I've seen authors simply make up their own description as they go which in turn gives the article a unique feel to it.

HTML Formatted Articles Changes The Dynamics Of The Article:

In other cases, some article directories allow for HTML to be posted with the article. When this is allowed, you will usually get a unique article created by the author and edited by the author. For those sites that allow HTML, there are others that don't allow HTML which in turn depends on the article directory and its own "author guidelines" about a well formatted article. Some article directories allow images, while others do not.

Some article directories have "internal" HTML editors known as "WYSIWYG" editors. These act as an HTML editor which allows the author to personalize their article with bolding text, adding links, etc.

= = = =

With All Of These Different Scenarios, Is The Content Still Valuable?

ABSOLUTELY! Beyond and besides the fact that every article directory requires different methods of submitting your article, each article directory is also unique to each other thus providing different content around the article itself.

It's well known that search engines do pick out and identify your "template" content, vs. your "internal" content but at the same time, your template content is unique and hopefully isn't 100% copied somewhere else.

In Conclusion:

Although copied content is looked down on, every website out there has some form of copied content somewhere within their site. Whether it be within your menu system, or content. The fact is, you can ultimately change copied content into unique content by changing the dynamics or properties of the content itself.

About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the owner of Smartads. We help business owners to increase their marketing efforts online and offline. Today's Topic "Content & Copywriting".

Ezine Article Directory (Content & Copywriting) http://www.article99.com/internet-marketing/content-copywriting/

Content & Copywriting RSS/XML Feed: http://www.article99.com/rss-feeds/Content-and-Copywriting.xml

Write Articles To Get Googled And Build Credibility

2005-12-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

Value your privacy? Get over it. The bad news is that thanks to the Web, privacy no longer exists. Get Googled, and within a few short seconds anyone who knows your name will be able to learn quite a bit about you.

Try it. Go to Google ( http://www.google.com ), and type in your name. I just did a search query for "Angela Booth" and Google returned a search of over 95, 000 pages. If you have a Web site, post a message on Usenet, sell on eBay, or do much of anything other than breathe, you're caught, like a butterfly in amber, in the sticky World Wide Web courtesy of Google.
Bad as this may be for privacy, this is good news if you're trying to build a business. It means that if you focus some of your marketing and promotion time on getting your name out on the Web, you're building your credibility.

Suddenly all those direct-mail letters that you've been sending out carry a bit more weight. You're more than a slip of paper, a stamp and an envelope. You’re a Google-presence.

So how do you build credibility out of being Googled?

The fastest way is to write a couple of information-rich articles, and post them on your Web site. Sure, this is a little bit of work, but not much. You can write, can’t you? Within a month or so, your name will appear on Google.com. Over time, your name will also pop up on the Web's other search engines.

You don’t have a Web site? You need one, and if you can type and you've got an hour to spare you can get one. Many, many Web site hosting companies offer site hosting for next-to-nothing a month. These hosting companies are catering to non-technical people who want a hassle-free site, so they make it as easy as they can by offering site templates. All you do is pick a template, type in your information (or copy and paste), and in less than an hour you've got a pretty good site that works great.

Continue writing articles. Write one a month, and post them on your Web site. You can also offer them to other Web sites to publish. You do this by joining a few article announcement lists and sending your articles to the lists.

Note, that I said "information rich" articles. Some small business owners write puff pieces about themselves and their business, and guess how much credibility this builds? People search for information online, so your articles must contain useful information.

You won’t suddenly get a dozen new clients directly from your online articles. You get them indirectly. For example, when someone I don't know sends me an e-mail message and I'm interested in what they say, the first thing I do is Google them. In five seconds, I know whether I want to pursue the relationship or not.

If you're sending out direct mail letters introducing yourself and your services, you can bet that those prospects who are interested in what you have to offer will Google you. If you're revealed as knowledgeable in your field, you're suddenly credible.

So go ahead, use Google.com to your promotional advantage. It's a powerful tool to build credibility for your business.

Wouldn't you like to clone yourself as a writer, or have someone do your writing tasks for you? Contact Angela Booth at http://www.angelabooth.com now because Angela expertly ghost-writes articles, proposals, marketing communications, Web copy, and books. Yes, you're the author of the words Angela writes for you. Angela is fast, reliable and professional, and works with individuals and small businesses as well as large companies.

Discover What Good Writing Is All About

2005-12-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

Writing is a form of preserved talk, talk that has been pinned down on paper so the words can be heard again. The basic principles of good writing, apart, from grammatical correctness, might be presented as follows:

1) written sentences should sound like natural speech,
2) the words we use must be exact, fresh, full of strength and vitality. Picture making words are better than vague, general words,
3) fresh point of view will give flavor to the style,
4) humor will lighten it.

Though, it is true that written sentences should sound like natural speech, they fully present an image of the natural speech. The reasons for this are fairly obvious: natural speech is a great deal more than words; it is also tone of voice, facial expression, gestures, and even the speaker’s appearance.

The whole point of writing is to create something better than we really talk – something more interesting, more thoughtful, and more effective in every way, for “effectiveness is what matters, and if an expression is confusing, ambiguous or unintentionally vague, it can hardly be an effective use of the language.” (C.R.E.Parker).

The only thing we must borrow from the natural speech to achieve an air of naturalness is the rhythm of speech. Now before we speak of sentence rhythm at more length, we shall consider one of the major qualities of writing – sentence length.

To begin with, fashions in sentence length constantly change. Past generation were more hospitable to the long sentences than we are, and prose writers sometimes created sentences 200-300 words long. They are often well-arranged sentences too; after all, the thought they convey is complex and can be hardly skimmed through. Indeed, some of them present the works of art.

In the twentieth century, the tendency in writing has been toward shorter, easier-to-grasp-at-one glance sentences.

- This tendency can be easily explained by the spread of the literacy among masses of people.

- Consequently, the style of writing should be clear and comprehensive for everybody, and aimed at satisfying the demand in easy and interesting reading.

- The increase in the tempo of living and absence of leisure-reading matter must be fitted to the needs of those who read only in the odd moments of their lives, between household chores and television programs, business meetings and social duties.

Hence, what can be inferred from the length of the sentences the writer uses?

Indeed, sentence length and grammatical complexity vary from writer to writer, from idea to idea, from sentence to sentence. There can’t be any general rules, which every person, who starts writing should strictly stick to. However, there are a handful of good ideas that can be applied by the writers.

Sentence length depends greatly on the complexity of the idea to be expressed. In our time, the average length of sentences is somewhere between 20-30 words. Now the simplicity and naturalness of the written and spoken language is deemphasized. So, the usage of short sentences became the custom of the day.

Short sentences can infuse a fresh spirit into the way you write and speak. Get to know why?

* The writer, who wants to persuade the audience, should remember that he will succeed best when the argument is couched in brief, even staccato sentences.

* In most readers’ mind, the short sentence carries an unmistakable sense of wisdom, because down through the ages it has acted as the setting for all the familiar gems of “truth”.

* Since there is no room in a very short sentence for anything but one elaborated thought, it follows that an idea to set forth in such a sentence will receive a large degree of emphasis.

* The short sentences can be used to express the feeling of suspense, excitement, or even horror. What would be a crime thriller be like without the terse, clipped sentences that portend a tense episode? The concentration upon a few bare facts adds a peculiar sense of horror or vice verse excitement to the narrative.

* The very absence of elaboration gives a writer a great opportunity to deliver the message to the reader in a simple and comprehensive way.

* The short sentences give unity to the expressed ideas, relieve monotony of too many clauses, and in general, make the expression more exact and accurate.

Undoubtedly, every writer should pay special attention to the length of the sentences he uses. Thus, the primary concern in writing and speaking must always be that our sentences fit the thoughts they are communicating.

About the Author: Linda Correli is a staff writer of http://www.CustomResearchPapers.us/ and an author of the popular online tutorial for students "What Teachers Want: Master the Art of Essay Writing in 10 Days", available at http://www.Go2Essay.com/

How To Use Quotes

2005-12-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

You see them everywhere: on buses, note cards, television shows, books, and even coffee cups. Quotes have infiltrated our very world and are excellent ways of showcasing a unique thought, idea, or inspiration. Many individuals are at a loss when it comes to actually using quotes in everyday aspects of their lives, but fear not! There are a million different uses for your favorite quote.

Quotes do not have to be stodgy, historic, or dated. Many individuals see historians with wire rimmed glasses spouting off famous quotes while teaching lessons to a class of under-eager students. Quite to the contrary, quotes can add a spark of fun in your life!

Use quotes for personalization reasons. Perhaps you have a specific quote that has become your motto over the years. Maybe you have a couple of quotes that best signify your style and your way of life. Embrace your favorite quotes and work to include them into your lifestyle.

Incorporate quotes into the design of your home. Paint words of inspiration above doorways or on blank walls. Frame treasured quotes for posterity or embroider quotes into fluffy robes so that you can remember them on brisk mornings.

Use quotes in your internet personality. Attach quotes to e-mails in place of a signature and put them at a place of honor on your personal website. For individuals that use messaging software, include quotes in the away messages or personal information. Web logs are incredibly popular these days, so include a quote of the day with each entry.

Weave quotes into your speeches and projects. Whether you are a student or are busy in the working world, use quotes to emphasize a point or create a new way of thinking.

Include quotes in your crafting explorations or hobbies. Give quotes as gifts to friends in need. Keep quotes written on slips of paper and hand them out at will. Whatever you decide to use quotes for, they will certainly enrich your life.

About the Author: If you are still looking for that favorite quote, check out Quote-A-Quote at amazon.com. This book houses a treasure trove of popular quotes on every topic under the sun!

How To Write A Keyword Rich Article

2005-12-17T07:09:00.000-08:00

The creation of a Website that contains many of the words that qualify as keywords is not that difficult. A Website that is full of a particular keyword earns a high ranking in any list of related articles. However, a Website with a lot of keywords does not always motivate an Internet surfer to look long and hard at that particular Website. To achieve that, one must learn how to write a keyword rich article.

For example, a search of Websites with the keywords CNC cutting machine yields a list of many Websites with details on various CNC cutting machines. Those Websites of the top of the list might be helpful to the machine buyer, but they may not hold the interest of an Internet surfer. However, someone who knew how to write a keyword rich article about the CNC cutting machine could probably hold many of the Internet surfers who drifted onto any site with such a keyword rich article.

There is not one standard approach used by all those who know how to write a keyword rich article. Some of the keyword rich articles started life as conventional short commentaries on some event or product. The deft writer then substitutes keywords into various spots within the written article. Some writers find that such word substitution is the easiest way to produce a good, keyword rich article.

Other writers know that step one of learning how to write a keyword rich article might be choosing a focus for whatever will be written. They look for something that is interesting and different. These writers then address a particular topic, but they usually pepper with many keywords whatever they choose to write.

Once a writer has chosen a topic, then that individual needs to create many reasons to introduce into an article a large number of phrases, phrases that contain the selected keyword. If for example a writer is dealing with the topic of history of the cell phone, then the writer might put in the first paragraph a phrase such as this: before anyone had chosen to write about the history of the cell phone... The ability to come up with such phrases demonstrates an understanding of how to write keyword rich articles.

Of course, the mere creation of multiple keyword phrases seldom serves to hold the interest of the reader. Those phrases must be presented in an organized manner. They should help a writer to illustrate with keywords the important points within any article.

About the Author: Advertise Adsense next to your articles when you submit them at http://www.ArticleWise.com, the fastest growing free article directory on the web!

How to Write Words Worth a Thousand Pictures

2005-12-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

Our Image-Driven Society

We live in a new image-driven society. It can be hard on writers unless they learn to connect with today’s readers. Writing that connects is easy when you keep a few basic writing principles in mind. Let’s face it, as a writer, you are competing with the greatest influence in our image-driven society, the film and television industry. So, let’s take three well-known words in film making as cues for effective writing. Ready? Lights! Camera! Action!

Lights!

Catch the reader's attention. You catch your reader's attention when you know who they are and what holds their interest. Yes, write what you know but also write for who you know. For example, avoid using abstract words and concepts when writing for children. Kids won't understand and you won't grab their attention.

The effective writer writes about what interests the reader using words the reader relates to and understands. When you write fiction or even creative non-fiction; develop catchy titles, contemporary themes, strong heroes, good plots, intense conflict, and create interesting characters. When you do, lights go on for your reader.

Camera!

Describe, describe, describe! Use specific, concrete, and concise words. Write to describe but avoid using too many adjectives. Mark Twain said: "When you catch an adjective, kill it." Strong words from Mr. Twain but when you cut out adjectives and use descriptive nouns, your writing comes to life. Instead of writing "big, beautiful house," try writing "mansion," "villa," "castle," "palace," or "chateau." Use a thesaurus and find image-driven nouns to replace superfluous adjectives. Sorry, I couldn't find a noun to replace "superfluous adjectives." But you get the idea.
The contemporary writing advice, "show don't tell," echoes in the ears of most writers. And for good reasons. The writer must "show" readers rather than "tell" to grab their image-driven attention. For example, use vivid detail instead of vague generalizations when describing emotions. Write, "sweat dripped from his forehead," not "he was nervous." Let the images come alive in your story.

Action!

Use action verbs, avoid "to be" verbs. Put your reader in the middle of the action in your story. Describe the action with the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and feel by using action verbs. Use moving images and carry your reader along, don't let your story become a study in still-life. Don't sprinkle your story on your readers; dunk ‘em in over their heads! Go ahead, get 'em soaking wet with the action in your story. They will love you for it.

Lights! Camera! Action! will connect your story with your readers. Go ahead, give ‘em pictures they’ll never forget!

Copyright © Glenn White

Glenn White is a freelance writer, editor and content manager at his web site for Inspirational and Christian writers at: http://www.WriteToInspire.com editor@writetoinspire.com

Article Writing & Article Marketing: Your Article Writing Resolutions

2005-12-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

In the midst of the this crazy time of year, I'd like to invite you to pause a moment, take a deep breath, and take a little time trip with me.

Let's pretend that it is now one year from today. How many articles have you written in the last year? How many prospects, and how much more publicity and profits have you had because of our article writing and marketing?

Now come back to the present with me, and let's make a plan for your article goals.

Setting article goals

Most people think of their article goals as a "when I get around to it" kind of thing. This is much like the I'll save some money when I get around to it kind of approach. You never get around to it because the money is always spent and gone.

So let's drop that appoach that does not work, and pick up one that does.

In my experience, a minimum goal you should set is one article a week. You can really do much more than that, but let's start there just to have a starting point.

Now consider this - if you write just one article a week for a year, by this time next year, you will have 52 articles working for you. Not bad at all.

3 simple & powerful steps

Step 1 - Write it down. Do not just keep it in your head. Write it down. The weakest ink is still better than the strongest memory. Write it down.

Step 2 - Tell people that will hold you accountable. It is all too easy to let yourself down, because it is hard to be embarrassed in front of yourself. It's harder to let others down, because you can be embarrassed in front of others.

Step 3 - Take action. Take all the actions necessary to write an article a week. Schedule the time. Make a list of ideas and topics. Do at least one a week.

See you back here in a year with your 52 or more articles.

Visit http://www.TheArticleGuy.com for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscribe to our monthly Article Writing & Marketing Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next

Article Theft-What to Do About It?

2005-12-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

I have read several articles, blogs, and message board postings concerning the rise of article theft. Specifically, this is where your article is lifted from your site without your permission or pulled from a third party site.

In many ways I consider the internet to be the "Wild West" in terms of lawlessness. Ignoring established and set rules is common, meaning that us law abiding folks have our work cut out for us.

It may surprise you, but I don't take action in many cases of known article theft. Why? Because, I just don't have the time to police everything. I know of authors who check every link to their site, but that work is both tedious and time consuming.

A golden rule: If someone takes my article without my permission and the content and links are still in place, I don't worry about it. If they take my article and change the content, paragraph headers, the title, or steal credit for themselves, then I will contact the offending party and demand that they make the appropriate corrections. Even for links that are broken, I generally let these types of mistakes slide.

When it comes to writing, time is money. I only respond to egregious violations while letting everything else slip by. I would rather spend my time making money instead of losing that time to chasing down violators. No, my policy or "golden rule" isn't perfect, but it saves me from being bogged down in what I find to be a wasteful pursuit.

Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more. Please visit Matt's blog for absolutely stunning and humorous writings from the master himself!

Article Marketing: What Constitute Good Content For an Article?

2005-12-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

Article marketing is simply the process of writing articles, publishing your articles on article directories and syndicating your articles.

To be successful in article marketing, you need to:

1. Write high quality and keyword optimized articles.

2. Submit a series of such articles to article directories on a regular basis.

An article that has good content and that contain the keywords that readers are searching for has many page views. Imagine if each article generates a page view of 500 readers, if you have ten of such articles, you will get 5000 page views. With article syndication and article marketing, you get more back links for higher ranking on search engines and can also brand yourself as an expert in your area of online business.

But what constitute good content? Here are some useful tips:

1. Your content answers a need or solves a problem that your target readers have. Specifically, your article contains keywords that readers search for. For instance, if you are targeting readers with hair loss, then “hair loss” is a keyword phrase that you can use in your article. However, a better keyword phrase is likely “hair loss remedy” as your article content can be on remedy solutions for hair loss, thus addressing the needs of your reader.

2. Your article contains useful resources. Using the same example for hair loss, you can write about where your reader can find the remedy solutions.

3. Your content contains practical tips that your readers can easily apply. A step-by-step guide on preparing a remedy right out from one’s kitchen is interesting and unusual.

4. If you are writing a discussion topic, you present alternative views and a healthy discussion on each view.

5. Your content is personalized. You write from your own experiences.

6. You have an opinion on a discussion topic and your ideas are well supported. Support can be in the form of testimonials from experts or references to scientific and proven research. It is okay to write an article based on general information but winning content are those that have supporting reasons for your opinion.

7. Your article is up-to-date with the latest information on trends. No one likes to read outdated ideas. This is especially if you are writing on an area that is fast moving like IT or even fashion.

Evelyn Lim is a writer, market strategist and an online business entrepreneur. She owns and manages an article directory site, with more than 100 topic categories. To submit your articles or if you are looking for reprint articles, please visit http://www.ArticleMap.com.

Become a Recognized Name - You're In Control of Your Own Destiny

2005-12-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

If you are reading this article today, you are likely among those who are working an online business. Unfortunately, you have already learned that finding customers is not as easy as you once thought it would be. Many people have broken the bank and their dreams searching for that first customer or second customer.

Having discovered the challenge of finding customers has left you with a feeling of not knowing quite what to do. That is why you read ezines or visit websites like this one. You are searching for the knowledge that you feel you are lacking. You open each new issue of each ezine you subscribe to looking for the help you need to find your first customer or even to increase upon the customers you have already found.

THE GREATEST CHALLENGE WE FACE

See, the greatest challenge we all face is not finding people who need our products or services. Instead, our greatest challenge is actually building trust in the hearts and minds of the people who need our products or services. This is why most people have such difficulty in finding the customers we all need.

Online marketers cannot establish trust with one single advertisement! They cannot establish trust with one impression of their banner! One might get lucky and get the click-through on the advertisement or banner, but that click-through will only generate a sale for one in two hundred visitors. Scary, isn't it?

To stop and realize that the average on the Internet is five sales per thousand visitors can make it frightening to most beginners to online marketing. The term "beginner" in this area could apply to anyone who has been marketing online for less than 3 years. Yes, it is a steep learning curve on the web! Most people quit before they ever get to the three year mark --- quitting long before they have given themselves the chance to succeed.

Most marketing polls suggest that it will take you seven exposures before you will have earned enough trust to get a sale online or offline. What that means is that your potential customer must see your name and your ads a minimum of seven times before you can expect their interest to peak enough to give you a second look.

ASTRONOMICAL ODDS

That is what makes advertising online so very difficult. With more than 934 million people online as of September 2004,

( http://thephantomwriters.com/redir/peopleonline.html ) the chance of hitting the same person twice with your advertising is slim to none if you are advertising your wares the same as most people are.

Most people try to advertise with the scatter shot approach. They throw an ad out there hoping to hit as many people as possible and then move on to the next ad or next advertising medium. With this scatter shot approach, their chance of hitting one person twice is astronomical! The chance of hitting that person the required seven times is nearly impossible.

The "Rule of Seven" is why most marketers begin their own ezine. As a publisher, it is easy to meet your seven exposure requirement in the trust building process. The difficulty of this method is growing the mailing list size. As a publisher, it is fairly easy to keep subscribers --- getting the subscribers is the real difficulty.

While I do recommend for the marketer to start the ezine, the process of building a client base from an ezine is the slow boat to China approach. It could realistically take years to break the plateau of your first 1000 subscribers!

WHICH OF THESE NAMES DO YOU RECOGNIZE?

Let me suggest a few names to you:

Willie Crawford, Pamela Cole Harris, Daniel Lamaute, Valerie Giles, Dan Lok, Isaiah Hull, Brent Filson, Charles and Holly Egner, Mary Jeanne Vincent, Chris Marlow, Claire Bowes, Colin Hartness, Adriana Copaceanu, Geela, Neil Millar, Bill Lampton Ph.D., Mal Keenan, Jim Stone, Steve Preston, Trevor Johnson, Liz Beresford, Keith Bryan, Diana Barnum, Carole Martin, Dr. Joseph J. Berke, Theresa Gabriel, Greg Reid, Alan Cheng, Jim Kelly, Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian, Jeanette Fisher, Ivana Katz, Rosalyn Bronstein, Dianne Wandruff, Gordon Bellows, Steve Robichaud and Andrew Wroblewski, Silvana Clark, Darrell Knox, Craig Romero, Ulli G. Niemann, John Colanzi, Kamau Austin, Karl Augustine, Kate Smalley, Ken Leonard Jr., Patsi Krakoff, Steve Nash, Paul Kyriazi, Laura Turner, W. Troy Swezey, Richard D. Bailey, Scott F. Geld, Donald Harris, Julie Plenty, Darlene Arechederra, Ernest Quansah, Dan Brown, Lee Traupel, John Gergye, Debra Cohen, Larry Tracy, Mark Brandenburg, Jean Hanson, Stone Evans, and Bill Platt.

Of these 65 people, how many of these names do your recognize? Of the names that you do recognize, how many of them can you tell me what kind of business they are in? Or what their website is? Or what they sell?

Further, of the people whose names you do recognize, what is your gut feeling about them? How many of them do you feel that you can trust?

Chances are really good that you have heard of at least one third of these people. I can almost guarantee that you have heard of at least one person on this list. How do I know this?

It is simple.

TWO COMMON AND SHARED TRAITS

These 65 people all share two common traits:

1. They are all people who publish free-reprint articles to be distributed to publishers the world over. Each of them provide top-notch content that appeals to a much larger audience.

2. All of these writer's and netpreneurs used the Phantom Writers Article Distribution Service to get their articles into the mailboxes of more than 12,000 publishers and webmasters looking for top-quality reprint content they can place into their ezines and their websites.

Ezine publishers and webmasters the world over are looking for free content that they can supply to their readers. They all understand what a past Yahoo! study emphasized. Content is King! Most site visitors are looking for information of some kind when they go to a site or subscribe to an ezine.

Publishers and webmasters understand that the best way to attract and keep traffic and readers is to provide folks on the web what they want. By using free-reprint articles, they are able to provide their readers and their site visitors with the high-quality content subscribers and surfers demand.

A POWERFUL TESTIMONY

If there is a single name on my list that you recognize and feel as if you can trust, then you have the strongest testimony available to the power of using free-reprint articles to build your business.

If you are not confident to strike out writing your own articles, there are several people who are willing to hire their own article writing skills out to folks just like you. Just visit your favorite search engine and type in the search terms "ghost written articles" or another similar terms.

What it boils down to is this, if you are in business on the web and are looking to find your first or your ten thousandth customer, you should seriously consider striking out into the free-reprint market. If you are not comfortable as a writer, then you should absolutely explore the possibility of hiring a ghost writer to write promotional articles for you and your business.

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com
When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.
When you are ready to employ more Natural Linking Strategies in increasing your link popularity, "Links And Traffic" can help.
When you are ready for your links to actually generate click-through traffic, we are here.
This is not a link rental system or a reciprocal linking scam. We Guarantee our results.

Secrets To Creating Great Headlines

2005-12-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Great! You finished your piece and now need a headline. Usually headlines are less than ten words and need to be expressed in short, expressive, active words. This provides quick focus and pull in. By waiting until you know what you are ending up with, it will save you time. You can give a temporary headline while drafting.

If you have a good lead paragraph, you will find the headline. If you want to intrigue or hook your readers, look at the significant points instead. Which idea or thought can you use as that hook.

Here are some tips on how to write that headline:

* Grab a highlighter and underline the nouns and key words in your lead paragraph.

* From the key words, imagine yourself composing a telegram, and each word is costing you $10. Avoid articles -- A, An, The -- and prepositions -- On, Under, Beside, etc.

* Substitute simple but effective synonyms to keywords. Say "polls" instead of "elections" or "go on" instead of "continue."

* Write headlines that are simple and easy to read. Don't use heavy words. Use words that are short and familiar.

* Directly give your story's main idea at the beginning of your headline.

* Try and working in the main benefit the reader gets for reading further. Also, add another benefit in the lead paragraph, to keep them moving forward.

* Use dynamic and powerful words. Not what you think is powerful but what you reader is going to think as powerful.

* Always be specific and avoid generalities. "Do this and you will get this" needs to be specific to be believable. Provide examples or statistics. Give the result that is believable to the reader.

* Only use a person’s name in the headline if they are well known. Provide a link to where someone can find out more about this person.

* Repeating key words, using weak verbs such as a, an, is, are, or starting the line with a verb is not recommended.

* If you have to use abbreviations, do so only when the abbreviation is commonly known to your main target market. Create a footnote for a definition or place the abbreviations in parentheses.

* Use numbers only if important and write them in figures -- use B for billion and M for million.

* Even if your statistics are outstanding you might not want to state them. If they are too unbelievable, people will not buy.

These thirteen tips are not all inclusive to all the tips and techniques you can use to create headlines. When I wrote these I wanted to convey some suggestions for the frequent mistakes I see made or unique recommendations that will get your headline noticed quickly and build curiosity.

About the Author: Catherine Franz, business and writing coach, resides in Virginia and is a syndicated columnist, radio producer, International speaker, and author. Ezines and other articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com http://abundance.blogs.com

Writing in Exchange for Bread on the Table

2005-12-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

Some people say that I have it all – I disagree. I constantly have to struggle with this love-hate relationship I have with writing. I love reading, that’s for sure. And I love to write….about myself as and when I want to. But when I am required to write about something like….say….how to change the black oil in a car or how to pick the right motherboard for your computer….I have to literally drag myself to the computer and prompt my fingers to move.

This is the relationship I have with writing. It’s because I make a living out of churning out articles after articles…sometimes completing up to 30 articles a day face to face with a deadly deadline….it is not such a heavenly life after all.

It’s ironic that I spent a large part of my life looking for the right thing to do. Something that excites me and challenges me. Something that I WANT to do instead of being FORCED TO do. I hate being forced into doing something but this is sometimes called the ‘REAL WORLD’. Even when you love doing something and you start having people telling you HOW to write your articles, or books, it begins to lose its initial appeal.

And yet, despite turning into a drudgery of kind, I continue to write. Writing is what I do best.

Because my husband would turn to me in the dead of night, awakened by some kind of swearing and the tap-tap-tap of my keyboard, he shakes his head and says, “Gosh, you’re still writing? Why?”

I hiss back. “Because I am paid to do this. Because I LOVE this. It’s my job. It’s my life. This is what I am being paid to do, you moron!”

With a chuckle, knowing me, he turns his back on me and goes back to sleep. Smart ass!

While over the years, many other opportunities came a-knocking on my door and I wondered if I would do better if I did something else. Oh, I would still write but I will write my own stuff. My own novel. My own articles. My own blog. Whatever…my own diary. But no one else will ever get the chance to tell me how to write the things I write – NEVER!!!

And yet, surprisingly, I turn my back on those opportunities because I know I love to write.

Like I said. I write for a living and secretly love it. If I started selling insurance or doing real estate, it would be like…so superficial. So temporary. But when I write…I write well and I do it quickly, fast and very efficiently. And I sometimes feel proud of myself…although my fingers and eyes were throbbing like an earthquake waiting to happen.

Writing is a passion. If you have a passion for writing, you’ll start writing passionately and whatever comes out is a masterpiece in its own right. Every single article that I’ve ever written, I am proud of them. I treat them like my little babies. I’ve lost count of the number of ‘babies’ I have today but all those articles that I have written, they are a part of me.

And I have learnt how to write efficiently and quickly without sounding like a train running out of steam. Get going, get going, get going. Come on, go on with it, write, write, write. And then after you’ve completed the article, go back and dissect them and inject some botox into them. If you stick around the first few sentences and try to get it perfect right from the start, you’ll never complete the article.

And with this secret (which is not a really a secret to begin with), I am now making my life as a writer.

Do I still love writing after spending the last 7 years writing on topics that are completely dry and arid to me? Well….I love to hate it …and sometimes I hate to love it.

I believe I will continue writing until I am lying on my deathbed….breathing my last few breaths….I can imagine myself saying, “Honey, get me my keyboard…I want to be buried with it.”

Once a writer, always a writer.

Evidence: I took a total of 3 mins 22 seconds to write this whole article.

Marsha Maung is a freelance work at home graphic designer and copy writer. She focused on below-the-line advertising and marketing. More information can be found at http://www.marshamaung.com and http://www.creativejooz.com.

The Free-Reprint Articles Powerhouse and Copyright Law

2005-12-13T07:38:00.000-08:00

Writing articles is definitely a very solid method of building a client base for your online business. There is no doubt about that. The writers I speak with who use free-reprint articles for the promotion of their businesses all proudly talk about the success articles have brought to them.

Articles will generate substantial traffic to those who write well. Even better, a considerable amount of the traffic will convert to sales.

The Internet is a rocky super highway. Thousands upon thousands of people have had their dreams shattered by the realities of marketing online.

Less than 5% of all online businesses will survive, so it is important to try to do the things that the 95% do not do. I will tell you one thing now --- more than 95% of all online marketers do not even attempt to use articles for the promotion of their businesses.

I have written a number of articles telling people about the promotional power of free-reprint articles. In fact, I have built my business on free-reprint articles, by helping others tap into the promotional powerhouse for themselves.

I have often said that one should investigate writing their own articles. I have even said that ideas of inspiration can be found in reading the works of others.

I wish to re-emphasize my original direction to find inspiration by reading the words of others. I said that reading around should only be used for inspiration. One will discover that as they read someone else's point of view, they will suddenly see an idea for an article on what may be a similar, but very different tact.

One should NEVER take the words of the original author and make them their own!!! Nearly every article you read will contain a copyright notice. The copyright notice is legally binding, supported by federal law.

Helpful Link:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Overview

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm

If you are writing your own articles but borrowing a few sentences from someone else, YOU ARE STEALING! Copyright violation is a criminal offense that can find you in court and defending your bank account!

Words that I write and put into a free-reprint article do carry clearly stated "terms of reprint". Let us review those real quick:

This is a Free-Reprint article. The only requirements for publishing this article are:

· You must leave the resource box unedited.

· Minor editing to the article is permitted.

· You may not use this article in UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email).

· Email distribution of this article must be opt-in email only.

· You must forward a copy of the ezine or newsletter that contains the article inside to the author at: mailto:bplatt@thephantomwriters.com

· If you post this article on a website, you must set the links up as hyperlinks, and you must send us a copy of the URL where the article is posted.

Where in these "terms of reprint" do I give permission to borrow a few sentences or paragraphs from one of my articles to form the basis of your article with your name in the resource box?

I have read these "terms of reprint" again, and I still do not see the permission to use my words in this way! What am I missing here?

Let us writers be aware, there are those in the our Internet writers community who deliberately disregard our "terms of reprint" to take our words as their own.

Folks, if you are just getting started in using free-reprint articles to promote your business, please realize that it is completely unnecessary to steal the words of others! Inspiration resides in all of us, and we can find it in the most bizarre of places.

In my original article on this topic, which was written for Max Shifrin (one of my ghost writing clients by the way), this is what was said:

When in doubt, I always turn to the search engines to find inspiration. I might have a general subject in mind, but I might not know how I want to address it. That is until I am reading someone else's view of this subject, and Boom!, inspiration strikes.

A spark goes off in the old brain and I know exactly where I am going tonight. I know exactly how I will proceed with my new issue and article.

When I am done, you could look at the original source and never understand how I decided my slant on the article. That is because the source being read only serves to spark the inspiration from which the article will be written.

The actual article this segment came from was an article titled "Online Publishing: Where Do You Want to Go Today?"

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.

When you are ready to employ more Natural Linking Strategies in increasing your link popularity, "Links And Traffic" can help.

When you are ready for your links to actually generate click-through traffic, we are here.
This is not a link rental system or a reciprocal linking scam. We Guarantee our results.

How Ordinary People Are Making Thousands of Dollars From Internet Information Publishing

2005-12-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

Johanes Gutenberg, the 15th century German who invented the printing press died a poor man and failed as a businessman. Yet his invention revolutionized publishing and made untold fortunes for publishers all over the world. The penniless German was responsible for the birth of mass media as we have always known it, where a handful of publishers have been able to reach audiences of millions.

Thanks to the increasingly powerful World Wide Web that “Gutenberg model” which has survived a number of centuries is in the process of being replaced and already we are seeing a glimpse of things to come as real panic starts to penetrate traditional mainstream media like newspapers. It is no longer necessary to have vast resources and plenty of cash to reach hundreds of thousands of readers with your publication. The cost of publishing online is close to zero allowing anybody anywhere to publish and anybody with the necessary skills to quickly become successful at it.

There is no stopping the rapidly increasing number of ordinary people (as well as serious, organized businesses) who are increasingly making tons of cash from online publishing activities. They are proving to themselves and to the rest of the world that indeed the future of publishing is already here and that there is no doubt the future is on the net. Here are 8 different ways in which online publishers have made some serious cash in recent times.

1. Tip Jars Tip The Scales The first time I heard about this idea of generating cash from online publishing, I laughed out loud and doubted whether it would amount to anything. Looking at some of the six-figure amounts that have come to some online publishers (bloggers) I’ve long stopped laughing.

In one recent amazing case readers feverishly tipped a writer who attacked an unpopular court verdict in his blog post, echoing the general feeling of the public. When the tips were tallied at the end of the day, they amounted to a staggering $30,000. This happened at the popular blog, Ohmynews. Numerous other bloggers have given up their jobs and gone into full-time blogging (online publishing) from the generous tips of their readers.

While everybody knows that a good publication is supposed to be answerable only to its’ readers, the real world does not quite work like that. In offline publishing powerful businesses have always bribed, bullied and cajoled the press to keep certain embarrassing stories from seeing the light of day. And because somebody has to pay the bills, newspapers and other media have lost many battles over the years to more powerful forces. Even big advertisers have been able to kill popular stories by just threatening to withdraw their huge advertising contracts from a publication.

This kind of bullying becomes a lot more difficult to execute online, more so with a tip jar system in place. It keeps the publisher and the writers sharply focused on where their loyalties should firmly be.

Still, tip jars are tricky and to benefit from them, you will need to understand how they work and what needs to be done to encourage a flood of tips.

2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising Saves The Day In the early net days, banner ads ruled and were responsible for many online business failures. Conventional advertising just doesn’t work online. But relevant, text PPC (pay-per-click) ads are another story. They’re responsible for the huge profits search engines like Google are now pulling in. PPC ads are also responsible for the massive shift of advertising dollars from offline media to online outlets.

The Google Adsense PPC affiliate program is helping many small publishers all over the world to earn thousands of dollars. Google recently profiled one of their Adsense affiliates in one of their blogs whom they say makes an average of $42,000 every month. There have been claims of even higher figures on various sites all over the net.

There are however numerous other less known ways in which ordinary online publishers are making their money. The following example is a case in point.

Christopher Kyalo is a successful online publisher and entrepreneur. Read the rest of this article in a free sample of his best-selling email course, How To Build Your Own Internet Information Publishing Empire. To get it, send a blank email now to InternetinfoPublishsecrets-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You can also visit his Online writing blog
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Kyalo

8 Ways to Make Your Articles Go the Extra Mile

2005-12-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

Your audience is hungry for information. But they want it in the right format. The format must be easy to read, easy to digest and easy to apply. If you deliver your articles the way your audience likes it, they will reward you by reading every article you publish. They will even visit your website, sign-up for your ezine and eventually visit your product page just to receive more of your helpful information. By writing short articles you can capture attention, gain more traffic, create more sales and most importantly, be helpful to people when they need it. Here are seven quick tips to help you format your articles and make them go the extra mile:

1. Question/Answer. This is a popular format for everyone wants their questions answered in a 123 fashion. If only all questions could be answered in a numbered method. Discover your audience's burning questions that you have the answers for. List the questions; write a short paragraph that answers each question. Write a short introduction and even shorter summary. There you have it. An easy to read and easy to digest short article answering your audience's most pressing questions.

2. Problem/Solution. I absolutely love this format. I myself have gotten tons of problems solved with this format, after reading someone's problem/solution article. Therefore, many of my business problems that I solve become guess what kind of article? Yes. You are right; they become problem/solution articles. Simply describe the problem in one short paragraph and offer the solution in a one sentence paragraph below it. Or vice versa, describe the problem in a one sentence paragraph and give the solution in the longer paragraph.

3. Myth/Truth. The myth/truth format is another format that I use often in my writing. I guess because there are plenty of myths to destroy in any field. No, really I don't see it used as much as the other formats. So it becomes one of my attempts to be different. Also, you can easily convert other formats of yours or your favorite writer. For example, if you are inspired by another writer's topic instead of plagiarizing their work simply turn their list of mistakes into secrets or solutions. Simply present the facts in your own voice and viewpoint.

4. Tips/Advice. I think you know by now. I love writing short articles that help people. I mention that because I felt myself wanting to write, the same words at the beginning of this tip.

You know," I love the tip format." This article is a great example of the tips format. I listed eight tips and short advice on how to accomplish the tip. So, list out your tips and write a short paragraph of advice to explain the tip.

5. Top Ten List. A variation of the tips format is the top tips list. Your top tips list may consist of the Top Five, Top Ten, Top Seven or practically any number of ten or less. I have even written the single most important tip to …Sometimes, that one gets more attention than the other numbers, because it answers a desire in all of us that want it as easy as possible. It's great if I can achieve it in a single step or even the 2 most important ways sound better than three or seven.

6. How To. Just as we all want to achieve anything in the easiest way possible, we also like to be shown how to do anything and everything. My clients have often said to me, "Just give me 5 easy steps or 3 easy steps and I know I can do it. I'm the same way, aren't you? Format your article to teach something and offer easy steps to accomplish it. Again, list them and write a short paragraph explaining each step.

7. Ways/Secrets/Habits. Another variation of the How-to article can be written in ways, secrets, habits, or things. I have even formatted one of my articles into weapons called "7 Weapons to Conquer the Giant Procrastination." The weapons became how-to tools to overcome procrastination keeping you from writing your best book now. Visit http://www.writetowin.org/win-articles.htm for a copy of this article.

8. Reasons. Most people can understand any given topic better if they can know the whys or reasons that support it. Websites are becoming more and more popular across the globe. As a website developer, I wanted to help my clients understand strong reasons for them to get a website now. Yes. The article became, "10 Reasons You Need a Website." Think of something you want to convince your clients of and write an article doing so. For a software developer wanting to sell more of his ebook creation software, his article became "18 Reasons to Write an eBook and Give it Away Free"

Every one loves bite-sized, useful information. Why not join the Information Revolution, by writing short articles to promote your ezine, website, product or service. Your readers will enjoy receiving your expertise and make sure your articles go the extra mile by telling all their friends about your informative, helpful service.

© Earma Brown, 11-year author, entrepreneur and book coacheBk: How to Write Your Best Book NowHelps Writers and Entrepreneurs realize their best book dreamsSend any email to bestbooknow@writetowin.org receive 7 lessonecourse "How to Change Your Life By Writing Your Best Book Now"P.O. Box 612, Wylie, Texas 75098Ph: 877-846-9908

The Barely-Breathing Headline

2005-12-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

You have two seconds to get all you want from your Classified Ad and this lies in your headline. Your headline will get people to read further and click, sign up, order, register, subscribe, or take action that eventually leads to a sale. Knowing this as fact, if you had just two seconds to seize everything you’ve ever wanted in sales, would you know what to write?

Most of us would not. Skillful writers or wordsmiths hold the real power in sales. They are the speechwriters, journalists, novelists, advertising copywriters and the like. And if we had one at our beck and call, we might submit our barely breathing headlines and watch as they perform open heart surgery by merely changing some of our words.

People are moved by words; poets have known this for centuries. Certain phrases or words create strong mental pictures in our minds. Mentally we are always busy. We never stop thinking even in sleep. If you can raise a question with your headline that drives your reader to look for the answer, then you’re going to get them to read the body of your copy.

It’s not the product or service that inspires the customer’s desire for it. Rather it’s the anticipation, the feeling that they will experience as a result of owning it. Therefore, stop describing all the wonderful features. Instead paint a mental picture of how their life will change once they have the benefit of using it.

Campbell Soup gave us a simple mental image with, “Mmm mm good”. That mental image has worked for millions of buyers. Avis convinces us “We try harder” so when we think of renting a car, we first think Avis. I know many guys who only wear Levi jeans and in particular “501 Blues”. Wendy’s tells us it’s okay to be square. These are all mental images that endure.

Someone coined the phrase ‘sell the sizzle, not the steak’; a great example of mental imaging. If you’re not advertising a mental image, you probably have a barely-breathing headline. It matters little how grand the text of the ad is, no one will get that far. In simple math -- you lose 10 to 100 times the cost of your product in the time you spend creating your headline.

Do You Make These Mistakes In English? Here’s a title that offers a direct challenge. The hook is in the word “these” and it compels you to investigate. Do I make these mistakes you might ask yourself? And if so, there seems to be a promise of help if you do. Eliminating the word “these” would not force a reader to inquire further.

Compare these two headlines for appeal -- We’ll Help You Make More Money or, We’ll Help You Pay Your Rent. The lesson here is the magnetic use of the specific. A monthly obligation is fixed and distinct in the mind. “More Money” is just too general.

“Free” is, of course, a rather trite and moss-covered word. Yet no one has come up with a substitute for it that is equally as strong or less blatant. It still works for virtually everyone, but if you are aiming at professional or more affluent prospects you might think of replacing it with “complementary”.

Each day we are subjected to hundreds of ads on television, billboards, store fronts, and just about anywhere we turn. Ad agencies refer to this continual rush of advertising as “noise”. Small wonder we have become immune to advertising. The only ones we take particular interest in are the ones that rise above the “noise”. Many do this with comedy.

David Ogilvy will be best remembered for his famous Rolls Royce copy: At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock”. Notice that a long headline that really says something is much, much better than a short headline that says nothing.

Incidentally, when engineers back at the Rolls Royce factory read Ogilvy’s copy, their response was: “We really must do something about that darn clock”.

© 2005 Esther Smith

Smith publishes a syndicated weekly Newsletter. She is a Profit Masters Team Director: http://thepermanentventure.com/profitmasters.htm and sells Webucation from her website: http://www.exec-lifestyle.biz and coaches anyone wishing financial independence with a home business.

The Facts of a Writer's Life

2005-12-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

So, you dream of becoming a famous writer? You want to get that article on paper as soon as possible and see it published. You've got great ideas for a book that you'll be starting any day now. But do you know what it's really like to lead a writer's life? Read on to find out.

1. Rejection is a part of life.

Face it. You will be rejected. No matter how good you are, how well versed with the techniques, how intricately detailed. One fine day, you'll wake up and find a rejection in the mail. Don't get disheartened. It happens to all of us.

2. Rewriting will have to be done

No matter how good your vocabulary, or how well-written your material, there will come a time, when one editor will ask you to rewrite your work. Take this as an encouraging sign. It just means that the editor likes your work, but needs you to work out a few details to suit his needs.

3. Deadlines have to be met

Meeting deadlines is an important part of your career. Miss one deadline, and you can be sure you'll never be writing for that publication again. Be careful not to take on so much that you cannot complete in time. It will ruin your reputation and make you seem unprofessional.

4. Writer's block is not a myth

Regardless of what you may have heard, writer's block is a reality. You will wake up one day to find that somehow you can't seem to write any more. Relax. It's just a phase. Keep your motivation high, and you'll be back in no time.

5. Distractions, Distractions, Distractions

If you work at home, you're even more prone to these distractions. Your child needs food, clothes need washing, you need a cup of coffee. And when all that is taken care of, the phone will ring. It'll be your hubby calling just in time, to remind you of an errand that you almost forgot to do.

6. Can't do without a thesaurus

No matter how good your vocabulary or how witty your writing style, the fact of life is that you will need a thesaurus. There will be times when you can do without an overused word, or a better expression. It's times like these when you absolutely must make use of a thesaurus.

7. You can't please everyone

Everyone is different. Where there'll be dozens of people to appreciate your work, there will be many others who will tear it apart with their criticism. You have to learn to take the good with the bad.

8. Have extraordinary patience

Editors are a strange lot. They need their time, and we need our patience. Don't go checking your mail the day after you've sent your query. Chances are you'll be waiting a long time, before word comes in on that one.

9. Money doesn't come easy

In the writing world, money doesn't come as easily as it appears to from the outside. You may write dozens of articles each week, and expect lots of cash to come in from their sale. Or you may expect your book to outdo the target that you'd set for it. You never know - it just might, but every one cannot be Stephen King. And you’ll probably have to learn to live with the fact that no movie will be made from your first novel.

10. The road is long and hard

The road is bumpy, and there'll be times when you'll want to give up. But the destination is just as rewarding. Don't let the long road ahead, deter you from your dreams. And don’t ever give up.

Mridu Khullar is the editor-in-chief of http://www.writerscrossing.com/, a free online magazine for writers. Sign up for the free weekly newsletter to get a complimentary e-book with 400+ paying markets. Also check out her e-book, "Knock Their Socks Off! A Freelance Writer's Guide to Query Letters That Sell," available at http://www.writerscrossing.com/queries.html

Ten Essential Tips For Submitting Articles

2005-12-07T06:51:00.000-08:00

Submitting well planned articles on-line will increase traffic and can even launch your career when handled right. They'll drive traffic from all over the net and show an excellent return on your time invested.

Write Your Article Like You're Writing to a Friend

Even though it may be seen by thousands, each copy gets read by one person at a time. Your readers are more open if you're speaking directly to them instead of down at them. Replace big words with simple words. I've heard that writing at an eighth grade level will increase comprehension.

Write a Killer Headline

An amazing article can end up going nowhere because the headline sucked a lemon and nobody read it. Any marketer who knows their stuff will tell you the headline is 80% - 90% of the reason you're even considered. Write a great article of course, but spend lots of time on your headline.

Pick a Topic You Know Well

Assuming you've done your research and found a niche you like that's profitable, you can become an expert in that field because you'll stay with it. If the research is a chore it's easy to lose interest.

Educate But Don't Sell

Articles are thought of as nuggets of information that educate. If your article breaks that unwritten rule and is actually an advertisement in disguise, it'll never see the light of another monitor. A well written article is a subtle but powerful way to motivate someone. Advertising builds barriers, where news is accepted with an open mind.

Write Quality not Quantity

There's no room for fluff in a good article. When reading the posting guidelines, check the restrictions for article length. Stay within the word count or you'll get trashed. It's usually 500 - 600 words. Save your full length version for sites that'll accept it.

Include a Resource Box With Your "Call to Action" Link

Either at the bottom or the top of your article you'll want to include your name, describe what you do, a sign-up email if you're building a newsletter, your website link, a short call to action, whatever's appropriate.

Submit Articles Consistently

Writing and submitting articles consistently will assure growing returns. Some sites will accept your work others won't, so don't get discouraged. Make a schedule, stick to your deadlines and "Just do it"

Read The Posting Guidelines at Each Site

When posting your article follow the guidelines. Don't forget, behind every website and ezine a real person decides the fate of your article. You're asking for exposure to their data base, so take your time and be nice.

Don't Forget The Spell Check

There's nothing worse for a busy web master than wading through spelling errors. Do a spell check, print it off and read it out loud to catch grammatical errors.

Use a Tracking System

With proper tracking you'll see what worked and what didn't. It'll show where to spend more time and drop what's not working. Monitored tracking will increase your return on investment, both for time and money.

Organize your submissions with the Brain-Floss article directory and Article Optimizer© software.

C/O Dwain Berlin
Free promotional tools for on-line entrepreneurs

http//www.brain-floss.com

Dwain Berlin - All Rights Reserved Article Optimizer ©

Dwain Berlin is the author of "The Upward Spiral" a lifestyle health program based on evolution. He presently runs a prescription export service from Canada, and created the "Brain-Floss" Article Optimizer system to help on-line entrepreneurs promote their work.

How My Business Made $10,000 From My First Promotional Article

2005-12-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

Shortly before I discovered the wonders of marketing online with well-written articles, I read a book written by well-known branding expert Al Ries and his daughter Laura Ries, titled 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding. Immutable law number 6 was The law of Advertising. It dealt at length with why conventional advertising does not quite work online and why we should expect to see a revolution with this revolutionary new medium and not just a replay of the past.

That book helped me a great deal to become immune to the massive quantity of very convincing hype selling banner ads online. It also helped me understand early on why traditional advertising was not working on the net (it has a lot to do with the World Wide Web being interactive.) Most of all it prepared me to quickly grasp the potential of articles as an online marketing tool.

Still when I wrote my first promotional article and posted it to only one high-traffic articles directory that had been highly recommended, it had some very important key online marketing elements missing.

Firstly it was not a keyword-rich article and secondly it did not direct traffic to any site. The resource box simply talked about my online business and the service I was offering and mentioned an email address where I could be reached. Later I had the good sense to introduce an email course on article marketing designed to trap email addresses. But that was later and another story for another day.

Until then I had found it very difficult to attract any traffic to any of the websites I owned. Basically folks needed to spend a small fortune on some advertising to attract a handful of not exactly-targeted-but-mostly-curious-traffic to their sites. So you can imagine the excitement I felt when I checked on the site a few days later and noted that the article had already received a double-digit number in terms of hits. And I knew that this was very highly-targeted traffic.
A few weeks later, the results started trickling in.

Admittedly I had still not made my first sale, but I was still receiving the odd inquiry or two. However a couple more weeks down the road, I had signed on my first regular client and a couple of other one-off jobs. Total revenue from that single article to date is about $10,000 and still counting.

This, to me, is pure magic and illustrates the power of article marketing rather effectively. Remember that it all started happening with one article. It means that if one were to just get a handful of articles written, use the right keywords, powerful headlines and aggressively use all your articles for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your site or sites, there is no limit to what you can achieve.

And one does not even need to be a writer to make use of what is bound to end up being the most powerful marketing tool ever used by man. Anybody can simply hire an online writer either directly or through some increasingly innovative sites where quality writers can bid for your writing work. And the rates are really dirt-cheap, especially when you consider the fact that your promotional article will last forever, working very hard to drive massive traffic in the direction of your website.

Christopher Kyalo is a successful internet entrepreneur and online writer who uses articles as his only marketing tool. Read more useful articles on this subject by subscribing to his free ezine (send a blank email NOW to articlesrgold-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe). Also find lots of useful information at his blog on Articles Marketing.

Article Sets - How Authors Can Produce More Quality Articles in Less Time

2005-12-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Writing articles is fun, but it can be even more rewarding when you learn how to produce more in less time. Let's look at the simple concept of writing articles in "sets" instead of one at a time.

Article Sets Defined:

A *set of articles* is anytime you produce 2 or more articles at a time.

Types of typical article sets that you could produce:

1) Article sets by topic or sub-topic.

Example: If you were writing about racquetball as your topic, you could make a plan to write 2 articles on racquetball nutrition, 4 articles that goes into detail about each of the different color of racquetballs on the market and what they mean, and a 10-pak of articles on forehand or backhand drills.

2) Article sets by style of writing.

Example: One style might be all bullet points, another lists of things, another is a Q&A approach, another might be conversational or discussion of issues.

Note: Each type of writing is best when done in sets of the same style.

3) Accidental article sets.

Example: Your target is to produce (2) articles that are 400 words each. While getting started, you get on a roll and accidentally produce a fantastic 800 word article. Break the article in half, give the other half a new title and you have an instant article set... even if it was created by accident.

4) Article sets based on customer or prospect frequently asked questions.

Example: Customers or prospects are always asking questions. Tune into them, group them by topic, and then hammer out some article sets that answer each question. Using the racquetball topic, you might have 7 questions from your audience on how to prepare for a tournament. Each of them makes excellent article topics.

5) Keyword researched article sets.

Example: You do a keyword research for a topic or sub-topic related to your niche. Taking again the racquetball topic, a quick keyword search engine research for the topic of "racquetball" shows the following results:

racquetball rule,3988

how to play racquetball,1360

racquetball racquets,1268

racquetball court,1124

racquetball gloves,1034

racquetball shoes,827

racquetball equipment,745

racquetball racket,483

basic racquetball rule,421

I would now proceed to write articles in sets of 2 or more on each of the above topics.

Bottom line: Writing articles in sets, whether on purpose or by accident, is a great way to produce more articles in less time. Give it a shot and make it part of your article production system today.

About The Author:

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ directory. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your

content and links in tact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/
Copyright 2005 - Christopher M. Knight. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Write for Publicity

2005-12-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a powerful way to get free publicity and build your credibility at the same time, then writing articles may be your answer.

If you've been on the Internet for a while, you've probably subscribed to a few ezines. Many ezine publishers will include an article written by a guest author. At the end of the article are a few lines of text about the author referred to as bylines or resource box. These lines of text are basically just an advertisement for the writer. They usually contain a couple of lines about the author and a web address.

The writer gives the publisher permission to publish their article, free of charge, in exchange for the publisher including the author's bylines.

By writing articles and allowing them to be freely published, your articles will have the potential to be viewed by millions of Internet users. They may be published by several ezines with subscriber bases of a few hundred to several thousand. In addition, they may be displayed in ezine archives or on high traffic websites.

Most ezine publishers prefer short articles between 500 and 750 words. Short "tip" articles of just a couple of paragraphs are also very popular. Articles should be formatted to 65 characters per line or less, including spaces, and written in short paragraph sections.

When you begin writing your article, avoid using your standard word processing programs, as they do not allow for proper formatting. Instead, use a text editor such as NotePad. It should already be installed on your desktop.

When you begin typing your article, use a hard carriage return (hit enter) when your text reaches 65 characters, including spaces, and leave a space between your paragraphs. This will enable publishers to easily copy and paste your article into their publication. By taking the time to properly format your article, you will increase your chance of being published significantly.

Most publishers receive many article submissions each week and only select a few to be published. Here are some basic guidelines to assist you in getting published:

(1) Make sure you follow the publishers' submission guidelines. Articles submitted to publishers that don't follow the submission guidelines will most likely be deleted.

(2) Make sure your article is properly formatted. Publishers won't take the time to format your article. They'll simply delete it and move on to the next article submission.

(3) Keep your bylines down to 6 lines or less. Publishers will not publish articles that contain excessively long bylines.

(4) Select a descriptive title to intrigue your readers. Use a powerful headline that demands attention and try to keep it all on one line.

(5) Use proper grammar and spelling. Publishers will not take the time to edit your article. Make sure you read your article several times and use spellcheck.

(6) Avoid articles that are nothing more than a sales letter. Publishers want quality content and will simply delete an article that is written like a sales letter.

(7) Avoid referring readers to an affiliate URL. Articles containing affiliate links may make your article appear to be biased and untrustworthy.

(8) Write your articles with a sincere desire to teach and inform. Talk to your readers and share your expertise.

Once you've written your article, you'll need to develop a list of publishers that may be interested in publishing it. The best way to accomplish this is to display your articles on your website. Place a subscription box on each of your article pages to enable your visitors to subscribe. This list should be used to send your new articles to your list of publishers.

In addition, you can visit some ezine sites to locate publishers who may be interested in your articles. A good place to start is eZINESearch. http://www.ezinesearch.com

Search through the database for publications that may be interested in the type of article you've written. Another great way to promote your articles is to submit them to article announcement groups. These groups enable writers to submit their articles to an entire group of publishers, completely free.

Article Announcement Lists:

Article AnnounceSubscribe:mailto:article_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

AABusinessSubscribe:mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

AAInternetSubscribe:mailto:aainet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Articles ArchiveSubscribe:mailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.com

Free ContentSubscribe:mailto:Free-Content-subscribe@egroups.com

Make sure you review the submission guidelines prior to posting your article to an announcement group.

Here are some additional promotional resources to help you get published:

http://www.web-source.net/syndicator_submit.htm

http://www.authorconnection.com

http://www.ideamarketers.com

http://www.ezinearticles.com

http://www.marketing-seek.com

http://www.netterweb.com/articles

Writing and distributing free articles on the Internet will be one of the best promotional decisions you'll ever make. Not only will it provide you with free publicity, but if your articles are good, you'll become a trusted professional in your area of expertise.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, "Web Design Mastery" (www.webdesignmastery.com) and "eBook Starter - Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book" (www.ebookstarter.com)

Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley's acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies."

Article Marketing: Pack the Power

2005-12-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

Jay Leno does it by using his deadpan appearance and audience raping voice on national television every night. Some folks leave him on even admitting they don’t like watching him, because it’s too hard to change the channel with the remote they are holding in their hand. Then quote him the next day to their friends, who were energetic enough to punch the power button before they went to sleep.

Publicize your know how.

Everyone has a skill. It’s something you develop to keep a job. Even those who don’t hold jobs have a skill of some kind, and if they consider it long enough, put some words behind it, and focus on what they can do with that skill they develop an expertise of accomplishment with their skill.

A very good friend was a miner, one of the most sought after miners in his league. After several years of watching him move up in his career I asked how he was doing that so fast. He handed me a copy of his resume. It was professionally typed, looked very straightforward and up to date, until I saw the education portion – minimized at the bottom. There was nothing untrue on there, but unless you read it very carefully, you would have assumed he had an engineering degree.

Because of the documented information on the upper portions of his resume, nobody looked closely at the bottom and he was allowed to move up in the company based on his expertise and experience.

Market your product or service.

Know your product or service and design a marketing plan that presents your most effective knowledge about that product or service. Present the best information you have, giving a glowing interest in your product that will entice others to be interested too.

I have a good friend who sells Avon. She’s in her late sixty’s and quite a dish (even according to her husband). She is quite tall, dresses in soft attractive colors, and wears her makeup with a keen hand. She knows what looks good on her, has worn the same colors with a few style changes and stays up with the current “look”. If anyone asks what she recommends, she has a list of products in any category or price range that she readily suggests.

She does not advertise, but presents herself and her product well and makes a nice tidy profit each month from sales to family and friends. When I asked a few of her clients why they buy? Every one of them said, “Jean know her product and shows up on time. We can count on her, so we purchase from her.”

Get recognition for what you do.

It’s important to stand up and be counted, search out those opportunities, and bask in the limelight when it’s offered.

The kind of fame you want is the kind that is offered when you’ve accomplished something. Your accomplishments are grand. You’ve got more going for you than personal acclaim, you have accomplished much and you should be honored.

Motivate your clients.

With personal recognition for your accomplishments, you gain respect from your clients. You have an ability to motivate them and lead them to the market and sell them what you have to offer. It isn’t difficult with some serious recognition behind you to tell your clients what you feel they should do, because you are known as an expert in your field. Whether you have a major degree or not, doesn’t matter. The fact that you know what you are doing, can perform and project well means that you are an expert.

Use the power you’ve obtained through know how, experience, and accomplishment to take your client by the hand and lead them to the product they need. You are a professional; give them your professional knowledge and charge for the results.

Make a profit.

You are a professional; charge a fair market price for your services or product and collect for your work. Professionals do not work for free.

Impact your market as never before. Be seen. Be alive. Be creative in your endeavors to brand your business and consume your market. Let eBiz Blitz empower your dreams by infusing your business publications with Dynamic Content. Visit Dynamic Content Creator, Jan Verhoeff, at http://www.freewebs.com/ebizblitz

Do Not Dump Your Articles on the Market in Batches of 20 to 30!

2005-12-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

Is more meaning also better? Yes. And sometimes it is not. And those times count.

If you are on the wrong side of the market and you have a significant size of stock to sell you will not dump them to the first broker you meet. You will instead sell bit and pieces to different brokers.

Words are very powerful, but they are subject to inflation as are any other economic goods, although on internet there appears to be another law. The law that made faxes so powerful: the more people used them, to more value they got.

Of course there is a value in writing and publishing articles. Yet think how a search-engine will follow your production.

They will track this writing and will calculate a trend. So as any company the rule of thumb is that only growth counts. Growth and expectations of future growth. That is a rule that count in many areas, not only in the stock market (Why would GOOG stock price at around 413 with a net profit of only 5$?).

If you dump one week twenty articles and the next week 4, the search engine will see that as a fall in production. You cannot meet the expectations you have set. Your share will decline.

So what should you do? Write as you have ever done. But do not think that with dumping them on the market you will do yourself a favour. Write as ever and sell them one at a time.

© 2005 Hans Bool / Astor White

Astor White. We love to give advice. And you are free to follow them. ASTOR ONLINE. Committed to your management issues. On a distance.

Article Writing -- Your Key to Success

2005-12-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

Have you wasted valuable time and money trying to promote your online business? If you've spent hard-earned cash buying ads on ezines or on websites, you may have been disappointed with the results.

There's a better way to advertise your business or website!

Article writing is for you if you want great benefits that don't cost anything.

By submitting quality articles you'll get lots of exposure and publicity -- without a financial investment! You've probably realized by now that the internet is about information, so content brings visitors to your site. That's a no-brainer!

Consider the possibilities of regularly writing for the internet.

Your work may be seen by millions. Articles written today can quickly appear on over 100 websites.

Search engines are constantly looking for new content to feed content-hungry readers. Why not yours?

By keeping your work before the public, your website will keep getting new visitors who become buyers. As your words are spread all over the internet, your targeted traffic will increase. That's how to reach lots of qualified buyers. Previous customers will be motivated to become repeat buyers.

By writing regularly, you can reach affiliates or joint venture partners who can help your sales' potential.

Your articles can be permanently displayed on the internet.

Your reputation can spread all over the internet and beyond. Think of the reach just one article can have!

Your influence could span the globe!

What you've written can show up in the most surprising places.

1. Your words may wind up on on a number of publishers' home pages.

2. You could get featured in a large ezine with thousands of subscribers.

3. Your work could be published in a book or in magazines.

4. An author may ask to use one or more of your articles in an e-book and you'll be credited.

5. You may get discovered and earn extra income through speaking engagements.

6. You may be given the opportunity to speak on radio shows.

7. You may even be interviewed for national newspapers.

You may not have to wait long before seeing amazing results.

As you submit your work to ezines and article directories, keep in mind that top-ranking sites are crawled by Google more often than other sites. When these sites publish your writing, you'll soon see results.

With each article you submit, your reputation will grow. After you've submitted twenty or so, you may become a household name -- at no charge to you!

An author's works are often kept permanently on websites, so one keyword-rich article can bring thousands of hits for years to come.

Articles not only build your reputation, but are the best way to raise your search engine ranking.

Reciprocal linking is viewed as less important to Google than one-way linking. If numerous sites point to your website without you linking back, Google rewards you with a higher rank.

You get back links automatically by submitting articles and you don't even have to bother with link exchanges to increase rankings. You also don't have to worry about Google's ever-changing algorithm changes that can dump your website several pages down in one day.

Your published works prove you're an expert -- at least in the eyes of readers who view you as knowledgeable. You also establish credibility and trust. Your words can create your own brand for your website and business.

The written word has clout, so you can clinch your point.Writing brings personal satisfaction.

There's a great sense of accomplishment from sharing your expertise with the online community.

Real people are sitting behind computers in their homes or offices reading what you've written. Through the right words you can build rapport with them.

You'll probably get emails from time to time telling how something you wrote helped someone. And that's satisfying!

So there you have it --

Writing articles can open surprising doors to success!

Authors, submit your articles to Content Corral Article Directory. Webmaster Patricia Wagner is also an artist. View landscape art at her online gallery.

YOU CAN LEARN TO WRITE

2005-12-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

While on the phone with a fellow a while back, he mentioned
he wanted to start a business on the Web. When I asked what he
planned to do, he had a couple of good answers. But he qualified
all by saying his writing skills were not sufficient.

I hear this often. And it saddens me some way. This fellow
had demonstrated strong verbal skills. And that he is bright,
with solid values and attitudes in place. When I suggested he
need only write as he was speaking to me, I don't think he bought
it.

Another fellow recently made the same claim, and felt he
would have to hire all the writing on his site. After a first
glance at his email, one might be inclined to agree. But when
I looked closer, there were only three formatting problems. No
capitalization. No spaces between sentences. No returns at the
end of a line, so the wrap made it look awful. But upon a closer
look, the only significant problem came from the haste with which
he wrote.

The Secret To Writing On The Web

KISS! That is, keep it super simple. You are not trying to
win the Pulitzer Prize. You are simply trying to explain a point
as to a friend or customer. The only difference is you are
making the point with written, rather than spoken, words.

About Those Rules

The rules which govern proper use of English were important
when you were in school, trying to pass a course. In the world
of the Web, many do not matter much.

Sure, your site needs to be sharp. And the content must be
well written. But what does "well written" mean?

I always hesitate to say anything about how to write, for I
have forgotten most of the rules. And I frequently break those
I do remember.

Above, for example, the sentence which begins with "And I
.." is incorrect because it begins with a conjunction. But if
I leave it out, the single sentence will be 26 words in length.
Too long for easy reading.

Besides, that's not the way I would make this point to a
friend. What I might say is something like. "I don't like to
say things about writing. There're too many rules I don't
remember. And I break a lot of 'em."

How Would You Put It?

It doesn't matter how you choose to make the point. Just
write as you would explain it to a friend or site visitor. So
long as it is acceptable English and the reader understands your
point, that is the end of it.

Hail To The Purest!

The above may bring comments. There are lots of people who
expect English to be used correctly. They object when it is not.
This point of view is valid. And the need for well written
content is overlooked or ignored on far too many websites.
However, ...

Only Your Target Matters

To build a successful online business, all must be carefully
directed at your perfect customer. Every word on every page
must be directed specifically to your target.

If your target is serious students of psychology, your
writing skills must be strong. And the rules of English matter.

If your target is fly fisherman, there is a bit of a dilemma
in that they likely cover the spectrum in terms of careers,
social status, and so forth. Their definition of what writing
level is sufficient will vary enormously.

Yet when you speak to them, you will be talking about fly
fishing. Regardless of other interests, they will be interested
in the topic or they will not be on your site. They want to know
which is the best fly rod, and why. Where the fish are hiding.
And more about ways to hook one of these elusive creatures.

What matters is presenting the information your target wants
in a way in which they can easily grasp it. Against this need,
the rules of proper English matter hardly at all.

Ways To Make It Happen

A good point at which to begin the task of improving writing
skills is to study the way in which newspaper articles are
written. Give it some time, and you'll see all is written
simply. You may even discover that the reading level is about
8th grade.

Why? Not because people are poor readers. Editors want
people to find it easy to read their content. This improves the
chance that they will. Both of these characteristics of news
copy are perfect for your website. Targeted, simple, easy to
read page content should be the goal on every site.

Search on "writing tutorials" and you'll find a bunch. And
you may find some quite helpful. But forget trying to remember
all the rules. Focus on ideas that will improve your writing.
On my site, click on Topics in the navigation bar to the left.
Then on Writing Skills. There are some good ideas and references
here for approaching this task.

How To Make It Happen

In the end, though, there is no better way to improve your
writing skills than to write. Edit, rewrite, and smooth as
possible. Then write something else. If you consistently seek
to do a better job with your next writing task, you will find
improvement almost immediately.

One good starting point is your email. Write each reply
carefully. Always reread and edit. Then seek to make your next
reply stronger. While practice will not bring perfection, it
will bring continuing improvement.

What Does "I Can't Write" Mean?

You may be fearful of putting your thoughts in front of
others. You may not want to accept the corresponding risk of
criticism. You may somehow feel you are not "good enough."
That what you have to offer is of little importance.

If you have concerns such as these, attempting to start a
business online or offline is a bad idea. They will severely
limit your success, far more than your writing skills level.

Often, however, such a statement means only that you are
uncomfortable putting your thoughts into words on paper. Not
many enjoyed their English classes in school. Or the predictable
assignment: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." If your resistance
to writing amounts to things of this sort, a bit of practice is
all you need. It is not a giant leap from speaking effectively
to your target to writing to them.

The two examples mentioned above of people who felt their
writing skills were not sufficient are representative of many.
In very short order, either of these two men could be writing
effectively. Not a novel, mind you. But content directed at
a specific target such as fisherman. You can do the same.

Bob McElwain

Want to build a winning site? Improve one you already
have? Fix one that's busted? Get ANSWERS. Subscribe
to "STAT News" now! mailto:join-stat@lists.dundee.net
Web marketing and consulting since 1993
Phone: 209-742-6349

You Need To Write-Write Now!

2005-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

I've been shouting it for years, and I will probably keep shouting for many years to come. If you want to get some quality, free visitors to your website-You Need To Write An Ezine Article!

You can go ahead and admit that secretly you been toying with the idea anyway. You've fantasized about one day checking your email and seeing your name in the table of contents of your favorite ezine. You've imagine what it's like to know that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people are reading YOUR words. And then there's the glorious payoff: Some of these people will visit your website. People who through reading your article have already established a relationship with you and are therefore more likely to pay real attention to what your website has to offer. Ahh, what a lovely dream...

But I'm telling you today to STOP DREAMING. Open your eyes, open up a new Word document and get started writing!

Of course, you need something to write about. I suggest one of two choices:

(1) Write about whatever subject your website covers. If your website is about Internet marketing, write about some of the ways your website suggests marketing online. If your website sells chocolate brownies, write about chocolate brownie recipes. If your website is a Drew Barrymoore fan site, please send me the URL immediately. Just kidding! Actually you could write and article about Drew's latest movie or her fight with alcoholism. The point is, if you have website-you have a topic.

(2) Write about something you know. We all have areas where we excel, as well as subjects that interest us. For instance, I know a lot about ezine articles so I write about them. One of the benefits of writing about something you know is what I like to call the 'Expert Factor'. If you write enough articles about a certain subject you will eventually get known as an expert in that field online. People will then trust what you say and will be even more inclined check out any websites or offers you endorse. In a nutshell-you gain credibility. And online that's a GOOOOD thing!

I'll just go ahead and blurt this one out because I know it's on your mind: Don't worry about being an expert writer. Don't shy away from writing ezine articles because you think you might misplace a few commas, semicolons or dashes. This is the Internet, not the Oxford Journal of Medicine. You're not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize. Just write your article the best you can, re-read it several times, run spellcheck, and then go from there. I also recommend waiting at least half a day and then coming back and re-reading your article. This allows your brain to basically re-boot and you may find some errors you overlooked before. But don't stress; You should see some of the typos I have made.

I'm not going to bombard you with everything there is to know about ezine article writing today. This article was designed to just wet your whistle a little bit. To get you in the mood so to speak. To get you wanting to write and to give you ideas on what to write about. I assure you there will be other article in the future that touch on all the other aspects of ezine article writing. For now, though, I'll leave you to your writing; Me, I've suddenly got a taste for some chocolate brownies...

Timothy Ward is a webmaster and ezine publisher. For more of his tips on ezine articles and free promotion sign up for the new Ward Wide Webzine.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ward_Wide_Webzine
wailinward@yahoo.com

A Publisher’s Rant – Why I Hate Your Article Headlines

2005-12-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

I’m a publisher for numerous sites. I HATE many of your articles. Here’s why I hate your headline and what you can do about it.

The Headline

There is a school of thought out there that your headline should be designed to captivate readers. In the real world, this is probably true. When I am looking for articles, it is not.

I want keywords front and center in an article headline. This may come as a shock, but I am using your articles as part of a search engine optimization effort on sites. With seo, the keywords always come first. ALWAYS!

Consider the following examples:

1. California Real Estate – The Secret to Making a Bundle

2. The Secret to Making a Bundle in California Real Estate

The first headline is by far the best. The keywords are front and center. I can easily turn this headline into a meta title for site page. More importantly, this tells me that you may be a writer that understands what I want. I am going to click through to your article and read it. If the rest of the article is done in the correct format, I am going to publish this article on my site AND I am going to add you name to my worthy authors list. When I need new articles, I will go out of my way to see if you have published anything new.

The second headline is a disaster. The keywords are at the end of the headline, which is terrible for search engine optimization purposes. This is a waste of my time and tells me to avoid your articles. If I can’t find enough articles with the proper headline, I may come back and read yours. Then again, I may not.

Captivating Headlines

Now you may be thinking you need a captivating headline because you want to capture as many readers as possible. You DO NOT. I’ve already done the job for you. My sites already have traffic. I am delivering the readers to your article. They will read it if it is on the site. Of course, you’ll have to put the keywords first to get my attention.

Writing a headline is a fairly simple process. So do it!

About the Author: Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm - http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company.

A Publisher’s Rant – Why I Hate Your Byline

2005-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

I’m a publisher for numerous sites. I HATE many of your articles. Here’s why I hate the byline of your article and what you can do about it.

Bylines

The byline of an article is your chance to pimp your site and yourself. I don’t really care what you write. There only time I would forgo using an article because of the byline would be if you’re one of those people that writes seven or eight lines of text. Please try to keep it to three lines or less.

Something To Consider

If you’re writing articles, you undoubtedly know it is a great way to build the link count for a site. Assume you put two links in the byline of an article. Assume further that 60 sites publish your article. You have effectively generated 120 links for your site, a number that would take forever if you were pursuing reciprocal link trades.

Article links are also valued highly by search engines because they are inbound only links. In the “minds” of a search engine, inbound links are far more valuable than reciprocal links. Inbound links are interpreted as an indication the site in question has highly relevant information and should be ranked high in search engine results. If you don’t believe me, give some thought to the IRS.

The IRS has an excellent site covering every tax topic you could possible imagine. The IRS doesn’t link to anyone, yet it ranks at or near the top of the search rankings for practically every tax keyword phrase. Why? Roughly 971,000 sites link to the IRS. These sites include CPA firms, newspapers and so on. All of the links are inbound. Get it?

Keywords and Bylines

When writing your byline, don’t just blabber on about how great you are and so on. You are wasting the links when you do so. If you need an ego boost, go talk to yourself in front of a mirror. Instead, the byline should contain the keywords you emphasize on your site. If you do this, the search engines will associate the links with the keywords and move the appropriate pages of your site up in the rankings.

Assume you’ve written an e-book on how to lose weight and have a site. Assume further that your primary keyword phrase on the home page of your site is “how to lose weight”. Your byline should read something like:

“Halstatt is with http://www.domainname… - teaching people how to lose weight permanently. Dropping pounds is easy to do once you learn how to lose weight.”

You’ve now correlated your inbound link increases to the keyword phrase you are trying to get ranked under. Rankings are sure to follow if you keep pounding articles.

Unfortunately, most people write bylines such as:

“Halstatt was a fat slob until he had a moment of enlightenment after eating bad sushi. While spending a miserable night in the bathroom, he found that food poising was an effective way to regain his self-respect and get washboard abs. Visit http:www.domainname to read more.”

Do you see the difference? The first byline is going to move you up the search engine rankings quickly. The sushi byline isn’t going to help nearly as much. It doesn’t even include the correct keyword phrase!

Again, I rarely discard an article because of a byline unless it is over four lines. Many of you, however, could get better mileage out of yours.

About the Author: Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm - http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company.

Gaining Exposure Within Writing.Com

2005-11-30T06:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Writing Reader,

One of the most popular questions from Authors on Writing.Com is: How do I gain exposure on Writing.Com?

In this letter, I will provide numerous tips for increasing the amount of exposure you receive on Writing.Com.

Tip #1: Utilize Our Newsletters!

Every week Writing.Com sends out over 140,000 issues of its 13 various newsletters. Each week, Newsletter Editors ask for questions and feedback from their readers. Each week we see many of the newsletters "Ask & Answer" sections go blank! Get easy, quick exposure by emailing Writing.Com Newsletter Editors and asking them questions to be included in their next issue.

Subscribe to newsletters that cover your favorite genres. Email the editors with questions pertaining to the genre, writing style or topic that Editor chose that week. In most cases, you will find your name, your question and a response in that Editor's newsletter the following week. Readers of that newsletter will, more than likely, check out your portfolio!

Tip #2: Review, Review, Review!

Reading and rating are very important for writers, but when it comes to garnering eyeballs for your own work - nothing beats reviewing. When you review another author's item, invite that Author to your own portfolio. Most of our Authors will be more than happy to check out your portfolio, since you were so kind to take a look first!

Review, review and then review some more. Correspond with other Authors on the site and you'll be surprised how many more views your items get!

Tip #3: Plug Yourself In!

There are many In & Outs and Message Forums that are geared toward giving Writing.Com Authors exposure. Most of these are run by Authors themselves and receive heavy traffic. Writing.Com itself provides one that is linked from the "Item Jumps" pulldown menu.

Plug yourself without shame; utilize The Shameless "Plug" Page. Don't be shy; start posting in message forums asking people to visit your portfolio. Tell readers a little about yourself, your portfolio and your writing style; you're sure to gain new readers!

Tip #4: Win Exposure With Contests!

There are many contests run by Writing.Com members, as well! Participating in contests does not only give you the opportunity to win Gift Points, but also provides a free stage for you to flaunt your writing to others who are entering or judging that contest. Contests are easy to enter, give a wide variety of assignment and provide GREAT exposure whether you win or not!
Participate in contests! To start, you will find some by visiting Writing Contests @ Writing.Com!.

You can also visit the "Contest" sub-type link from within the Static Item listing page.

Tip #5: Get BidClicking!

Now take the Gift Points you just won in the contests and Sponsor your items with the Writing.Com BidClick System!

My recommendation is to use the Genre and Item Type sponsorship opportunities. Extremely popular genres like Romance/Love, Action/Adventure, and Fantasy can be sponsored for under 25 Gift Points (or 1/4 of a penny)!

Placing items within applicable genres will generate highly targeted readers who are more likely to read, rate AND review your item; and it costs FAR FEWER Gift Points than the main Sponsored Items column!

If you want instant exposure to all of our visitors, you can bid a higher Gift Point price for the Sponsored Items listing. This listing is shown on the right-hand side of every page and is seen by every visitor to Writing.Com. We've seen items gain over 100 ratings in less than 24 hours when sponsored there!

Sponsor items within the Genre or Item Type listing pages. For even more exposure, try out the Sponsored Items area. For even more information on this, read The Writing.Com BidClick System!

I hope you found useful information within my letter; good luck and have fun!

~~ The StoryMaster (19)

The StoryMaster is WebMaster of Writing.Com ( http://www.Writing.Com/ ). Established in 2000, Writing.Com is the online community for readers and writers of all ages and interests.
Whether you're a casual reader searching for a good story or a creative writer looking for the perfect place to improve your skills, Writing.Com is the site for you! Over 293,848 members have joined and posted over 819,680 literary items.

Beating Perfection Syndrome so you can write

2005-11-30T06:31:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday afternoon. Your partner has taken the kids to the
park. You have a whole hour to write. Instead of which, you sit,
staring out the window like Rodin's Thinker in jeans and a yellow
sweatshirt. Why aren't you writing? A tiny item called Perfection
Syndrome. You want whatever you write in this precious hour to be
perfect.

During the week, you had a stream of plausible ideas. You wrote
three ideas in your notebook: an article about children's first
words (your six month old said 'truck'), an essay about male
vanity, and a short story about a blonde with tattooed arms and a
poodle.

Just now, none of those ideas seems right. You've only got an
hour, so you want the perfect idea, the one that will justify the
sixty minutes you're about to spend on it. Instead, you do
nothing.

Perfection Syndrome can destroy your writing career. It's a
killer, because if you don't recognise it for what it is, it
leads to apathy. The gap between what's in your head and what
manifests on the page is so wide that you may give up writing for
days or weeks.

I understand Perfection Syndrome, because it's something I battle
every day. The words on the screen or the page never measure up
to the words in my head. I start typing, and after a sentence or
two, stop. The words "this is garbage" light up like neon in my
skull, my stomach clenches, and I feel as if a ten ton weight had
dropped onto my body. It's not as if I'm a new writer. I've been
writing for over 20 years. Intellectually, I understand that it's
important to get words onto the screen --- any words. You can fix
whatever you write. Emotionally, I want the first draft to be
perfect. I've accepted that perfectionism is part of my
personality, and without a personality transplant, I'm never
going to get rid of it, so all I can do is out-write it.

Yes, out-write it. A practice that's helped is Julia Cameron's
Morning Pages method, which is detailed in her books: The
Artist's Way, and Vein of Gold. The first thing I do each morning
is write three pages in longhand. This primes the pump, and if I
accomplish the Morning Pages, I know that I can count on a
productive writing day, and Perfection Syndrome is beaten for
this 24 hours at least.

Updating my inner "writer" image also helped. Images are the
language of the right brain and the subconscious mind. Your
subconscious mind is the engine which drives you. My initial
image of my writing self was of a mountain climber, clinging to
vertical rock and ice, unable to see the mountain peak, but
terrorized by a crevasse below. No wonder I needed every word to
be perfect, if the alternative was death. A more nourishing image
popped into my mind. I saw my writing self as a seed-sower, the
old-time kind, with a deep hessian bag of seeds, walking along
the furrows of a field of fertile soil, scattering seeds with
both hands. Now, whenever I feel panicked about my writing, I
visualize myself as the sower, scattering those seeds. Ask
yourself what image you hold of yourself as a writer.

Strategies to beat Perfection Syndrome

The first step in fighting Perfection Syndrome is to acknowledge
that you've got it, and know that it's beatable. Any of the
strategies below will help.

* Morning Pages: first thing each morning, write three pages in
longhand. The pages don't have to be about anything. You can
write three pages of whining about situations in your life, or
three pages of "This is stupid, I don't know what to write". Yes,
but--- you're thinking: I'm supposed to write three pages no one
will ever see, much less publish? YES. Just try the process.

* Check in with your subconscious mind. Just wonder quietly about
the image you hold of your writing self. Either awake, while
daydreaming, or in a dream, and image will float into your mind.
If it's negative, change it to a life-affirming, encouraging and
hopeful one.

* Set a target number of words for each writing session. However,
set the word target and quality LOW. Even on your worst migraine
day you can write 200 words of gibberish. Or, promise yourself
that whenever you turn on your computer, you will write 50 words
on your current project.

* Keep a writing log for each writing session for a week. List
what you worked on, how many words you wrote, and how you felt
before you started writing and how you felt when you finished.
Your writing log will convince you that writing can alter your
moods: you'll feel better when you finish your writing session
than you did before you started. It will also convince you that
you can write when you're depressed, tired, or ill.

* Start a story prompts/ ideas file. A fresh idea may tempt you
if you're resisting working on your current projects.

* Where else in your life do you expect perfection? If you're
struck with Perfection Syndrome, it will manifest in other areas.
List five of those areas, and several ways to combat each

* Perfectionism leads to procrastination: do one task each day
that you've been putting off. Be willing to skimp on the task,
and do it badly, but do it.

Copyright © 2002 by Angela Booth

***Resource box: if using, please include*** When your words
sound good, you sound good. Author and copywriter Angela Booth
crafts words for your business --- words to sell, educate or
persuade. Get in touch today for a free quote: ab@digital-e.biz
Free ezine: Creative Small Biz --- subscribe at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Creative_Small_Biz

Australian author and journalist Angela Booth writes about business, technology, health and creativity for print and online publications. She also writes copy for businesses large and small.

A New Way To Self Publish

2005-11-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

More and more good authors are turning to the Internet to self publish. There are several reasons for that. All of them are probably well known to every writer by now, so we'll not go into them here. What we'll talk about here is a new way to self publish.

Everyone has, by now, heard of ebooks. This is a wonderful way to publish on the net, but it requires special programs to empliment it. And there are web sites that will do all that for you for a fee. But what if you simply can't afford it or you don't want to pay anyone?

This idea I've come up with may be out there in left field, but out in left field is where you usually find some great ideas. Here is what I found.

Create a credit card account somewhere first. Pick any company you are comfortable with and doesn't cost a great deal. After that is all set, put your novel on your web site, create its own page, and use the ariel font. Use size 10 for the main text. Your title and chapter headings can be larger.

Write an intro page for your novel and create a separate page for it. Here is where you'll put any illustrations you may have. So people will have an example of your writing, copy and paste the first chapter of your novel and put it here, too. Also on this page will be the link to your credit card payment company.

The next step is to set up your credit card account to connect with the novel page after your customers have paid for it and then they can simply print out the novel or copy and paste it to their Word or Works program that is already on their computers.

This is a simple and yet effective way to self publish and it does not cost you anything, either. Out in left field, I know, but hey. Anything to survive, huh?

Anna Kathryn Bir is a published author of many sci fi short stories. One of them was a Star Trek story. You can find her sci fi novels on her web site http://e-sac.com email address is info@e-sac.com

Article Writing Tips from SpongeBob SquarePants

2005-11-29T07:13:00.000-08:00

Wisdom can be found in the most unexpected places. Today, wisdom bubbled up from a pineapple under the sea. I suddenly realized that everything you’d want to know about writing articles for your website can be taught by SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends.

When you write for your newsletter, blog, or website, which character are you most like?

Squidward: Squidward is B-O-R-I-N-G. When writing articles, are you a Squidward? Do you just get the words down on paper or are you finding a fun twist to entertain your audience and keep them coming back for more? Take time to make your articles stand out from the thousands of other dull articles out there by including personal stories or just having fun while writing. For instance, this article could be entitled "How to Write a Good Article", but would it stand out from the hundreds of other articles about article writing? Probably not.

Mr. Krabs: This crustacean is focused on one thing and one thing only, making more and more and more money. Only a cartoon could actually have dollar signs drawn in his eyes. He thinks of no one, only how he can benefit. Are your articles focused on you or on the reader? Are you providing information or do you have blinders on, thinking only about how you can make money from the article you are writing? If your article reads like an ad or is self-serving or full of affiliate links, you might write like Mr. Krabs.

Patrick: SpongeBob’s best friend, the starfish, has a good heart, but isn't the brightest creature in the sea. Do your articles make you sound like an expert? Are you providing valuable content or just pushing out sloppy articles as fast as you can? Always double check for typos and grammatical errors. If you're challenged by spelling and grammar, hire a Virtual Assistant or Copywriter to proofread and submit your article for you. Or slow down, set your article aside for a day and then reread it before you click the “submit” button.

Plankton: The smallest creature in the sea is also the sneakiest. He’ll do anything and hurt anyone to steal someone else’s work (the Krabby Pattie secret formula). Write your own material. Don’t be Plankton. Don’t copy and paste someone else’s work, edit it, and try to pass it off as your own. You will be caught, and it just isn’t worth it. Take the same amount of effort and work on your own thoughts and ideas. Plankton never gets away with his schemes, either. He’s on Plan “Z” and is still pathetically failing at his attempts to steal the secret formula.

SpongeBob: This little guy always tries to do the right thing, and is a hard worker. He may not always end up getting the results he hoped for, but he bounces back and tackles his work with a renewed vigor. SpongeBob works very hard, he's a good friend, he always thinks of others, and tries to have fun no matter what he is faced with. Hardworking, friendly SpongeBob is the guy to be when writing articles.

Although this is a silly lesson in article writing, I hope you'll remember the important messages our underwater friends have taught us.

1. Be entertaining. Not boring.

2. Write articles to help others, not with dollar signs in your eyes.

3. Proofread your articles carefully, and provide valuable information.

4. Write your own material. Don’t copy others.

5. Be a SpongeBob! Hard work and persistence pay off.

Before you know it, you'll develop a following for having informative and entertaining articles and you’ll be King or Queen of the sea.

Nicole Dean, owner of http://ShowMomtheMoney.com uses Article Marketing to get free advertising on websites and in newsletters worldwide. She welcomes you to visit http://www.EasyArticleMarketing.com to find out how.

Article Writing & Marketing: The Single Most Powerful Tool I Have Ever Found

2005-11-29T07:12:00.000-08:00

Have you discovered the power of article writing and marketing?

By far, this is the single most powerful tool I have ever found for creating prospects, publicity and profits.

An incredible 70/30 split

Here is a great example of the power of this article writing and marketing.

I have been writing a syndicated relationship column for 11 years now. My column runs weekly in newspapers all over the world. Since they are kind enough to include my contact information, I've gotten a steady stream of prospects, publicity and profits from doing this for 11 years.

I have been posting my articles online at EzineArticles.com since late April of this year, 2005, or said another way, for the last 7 months as of this writing. From the first month I started I've gotten a flood of prospects, publicity and profits from writing and posting articles.

Now, let's look at some simple numbers.

From my newspaper column that I have written for 11 years, I get 30% of my new prospects and subscribers.

From writing and posting articles online for the last 7 months, I get 70% of my new prospects and subscribers.

Simply stated:

11 years equals 30% of my new prospects and subscribers

7 months equals 70% of my new prospects and subscribers.

11 years = 30%

7 months = 70%

Are you getting the power of this?

Visit The Article Guy for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscribe to our monthly Article Writing & Marketing Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

Using Articles to Market Your Business by Answering Questions

2005-11-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

Using articles in your marketing can make you into the EXPERT (think - you're they're superhero), answer customer questions, and ultimately, help you sell stuff!

There is no better way to advertise and promote information than to use articles. Article can answer questions that people have regarding your product or service. Who better to answer those questions than you, the expert on your product of service?

Many businesses are now marketing their products and services via the internet. This is a great way to communicate information to people all around the world. In the absence of articles there are plenty of websites that would fail to have any purpose. All of the articles that support various products on the web have a real marketing spin. Using articles as part of a marketing program is how many items get sold, because those articles are written to answer questions people have to problems they face. Usually the solution presented in the article shows that the answer to the question is the product or service you market. Brochures, newsletters, direct mail letters and magazines columns are all perfect examples of article marketing.

To write your article, the first thing you need to do is determine your aims for writing the article. Ask yourself three simple questions

What is it I am trying to sell?

What am I trying to achieve?

Who is my target market?

In order for you to sell a product, write your article so that it meets the needs and desires of your potential customers and potential target markets. In other words, what question or problem that the customer is having can you solve by the time they finish reading the article?

Write the article so that it gets to the heart and soul of the buyer in a way that helps them to see how truly beneficial the item is to them. Emotions play an important role in a customer's decision to purchase something.

If your aim is to market a service that you offer, then you might want to include testimonials in your articles. Phrases such as "They go above and beyond every time." These sorts of phrases help to ensure you customers feel confident above using your services. Make sure your testimonials are from real people. You want to run an ethical business.

In a world that consists of an ever-growing market in the technology field and expanding information age, it is important to have a precise plan when marketing with articles. You want your customers to be reassured that you have the information that will simplify their work, life, etc...

In other words, ANSWER the questions that they didn't know they had.

Basically, the plan is to design your ideas for marketing with articles so that the articles focus on filling the need of your client in a way that they want your product or service above your competitors.

Jonathan Kraft has been specializing in Internet affiliate marketing for nearly 4 years. He works with a team on www.affiliateadvice.us, which has been designed to help people of all design and ability levels to find and set up money generating sites through affiliate programs.

SOME HELPFUL HINTS IN WRITING ARTICLES FOR THE WEB - TWENTY FIVE TIPS

2005-11-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Writing articles can provide you with enormous amount of exposure on the Web. You are branding yourself on a shoestring budget - it hasn't cost you a cent, but a little time and effort Writing a free content article is simple and follows a similar professional approach as an article for a standard, paying market.

People want quality content : for their ezines and their web sites .; however, the competition for content is fierce. Every Web site owner wants content and hundreds of writers want their content visible on the Web It's FREE promotion through your signature file at the end of your article* Articles that give good information or explain how to accomplish something are usually best, and will be read most often.

Here are some pointers in writing articles for the www:

1. Accept that writing for the web is different to writing for the off-line world. People tend to skim and scan (note alliteration) when reading online. They read quickly scrolling down the page.

2. Identify your target audience.

3. Give your article a catchy title that will grab attention and make people want to read.

4. Keep your title reasonably short. Put some thought and effort into your heading - again to get your reader's immediate attention.

5. Be professional and take your article writing seriously. Write about something you know professionally. Don't be overly casual in your writing (ie. don't write exactly as you speak)

6. Keep your paragraphs short.

7. Get to the point quickly (enough waffle with maple syrup, Craig!).

8. Target your article to your audience with "focussed information".

9. Be brief, if you are a "waffler", like this writer. People want immediate information online and have limitedtime usually - it's the "instant coffee, sorry generation.

10. Write briefly and concisely (redundant words, meaning the same thing, Craig!) Try to keep your article under 1,500 words. Most paying markets usually only accept between 500 and 2,000 words...and with a bit of luck they may even "pick up" your great article. Try to be concise in your wording. Brevity is the hall-mark of good writing...or so say many of the teachers of writing!

11. Use the OCCASIONAL exclamation mark (!) to get your readers attention. Forget the ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points!!!

12. Be credible (big word, eh?) at all times. I use my articles to attempt to share, inform and entertain at the same time in a "conversational style with dashes of my funny (peculiar/zany) humour".Happy writing "dem" articles

Craig is a writer, who believes in encouraging and helping others to find their talents and gifts, strive for and achieve their dreams in life, whatever they may be. He truly believespeople can overcome obstacles, rise to any occasion and accomplish their entire dream with enough faith and commitment.Craig's various books* (hard copies, CD's, "talking books" and e-books) are available at: http://www.nzenterprise.com/writer/books.html

I Am Biodegradable. My Writing Is Not.

2005-11-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

My dad was wrong. I just discovered that I am good for nuthin' after all. In fact I've been good for nuthin' all along. I am 100% biodegradable and that means I can be recycled into nuthin'. It also means that no matter how much I waste, no matter how much I consume, no matter how much I pollute, in the end I am environment-friendly. Best of all, I now have an end use.
Now that's something to put on my resume!

This comes as particularly good news to somebody who is not sure what his purpose is. Sometimes I write these humor columns, pretending to be funny. Sometimes people even laugh, and I worry that it might be the start of an ominous trend.

Sometimes I am selling my happiness book, pretending to be a successful author. With 2,000 copies of my book keeping the floor from floating upwards, perhaps I AM successful. Levitating floors are generally not considered signs of success in this part of the country.

Sometimes I am optimizing websites for search engine rankings. "What exactly does that mean?" I am often asked.

"Well...it means that I get my clients' site high up in the searches." Blank stare.

I try again. "It means that I help Google show you my clients' web sites. Blank stare.

"Well...I'm not sure how to explain it. But I get paid to do it." People understand that.

"I turn on a machine that defluctuates the turbo-rotating modulator down at the spare parts plant," someone adds.

"What exactly does that mean?" I ask.

"Beats me. But I get paid to do it." We are soulmates.

Sometimes I write for pay, because people seem to want something written. They hope that if they can't say it themselves, I might be able to find just the right words.

"C'mon, David. You have lots of words. Why don't you lend me some? Why, just last week you promised to 'defenestrate' me, whatever that means." They want me to put their thoughts into words, and occasionally they want me to create their thoughts. I worked for a politician years ago. I vaguely remember how to write somebody else's thoughts before he knew he had them.
"So what do you write?"

"Web site copy, mostly."

"Really? Not another book?"

"No, I still have 2,000 copies of the last book piled up in my office."

"I'm sure they'll sell quickly, David."

"Really? Want one?"

"Uh...gotta go. It's time for my pet goldfish's nap."

I also write this humor column faithfully every week. But people actually PAY me to write website copy. Now, dear reader, answer me this question. Would you rather be reading this hilarious column, loaded with frosting and topped with chocolate syrup, or would you rather read plain vanilla website copy.

OK, go ahead and read the website copy, then. See if I care.

One thing my website copy and this column have in common is that they are not biodegradable. Remember how computers would save the environment as they replace the three gazillion tones of paper we trash every few hours in offices around the world and elsewhere?

Now we discover that all that paper at least was biodegradable, recyclable, reusable. It wasn't all that bad for the environment, after all. But the monitor you are reading this on will last forever.

(SFX: evil laughter) Adventure seekers from the planet Zorgoppppt will land here in the year 2304 and discover all these abandoned monitors scattered around.

One Zorgopppptian will say to the other, "prrg, ddyte h hthp oooo djudu" (Translation: "Groovy paper weights!")

But they won't find me, thanks to my lifetime achievement. I'll be long gone, because I am (chest swells with pride) biodegradable.

David Leonhardt is biodegradable and happy at: http://www.thehappyguy.com To write your website copy, newsletter or award winning biodegradable cereal box copy, email him at: info@thehappyguy.com He is author of Inspiration & Motivation To Go: http://www.thehappyguy.com/l/daily-motivation-inspiration.php The Get Happy Workbook: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-work-book.html and Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-self-help-book.html Info@thehappyguy.com

Why Writers Write

2005-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

Writing is not just another hobby, it is an emotion. The words are not just fitted together in sentences and paragraphs hoping to pass on a message, but it is form of expression of our greatest fears, hopes and dreams.

As a teenager I had my share of problems just like any other, but I was different… special. My mind was not at ease telling my parents or friends about a situation that had occurred or even might occur. I didn’t feel that a journal was just as my feelings were hard to explain in ordinary English. I had to find a way to express my love and hate about certain subjects, no matter how large or small.

I grabbed a pencil and paper and started writing. Using images, sounds and smells was easier than I had thought. My mind then became at ease with myself and I could live another day without wondering who or what I was going to tell my thoughts to. As the weeks and months ran on I became even more comfortable with writing my thoughts and feelings on paper, I didn’t feel discomfort any longer.

Ever since I have written. It doesn’t matter what others say or think about my writings, because I know what these poems meant and the history behind each one. Knowing that every single poem has a story and emotion greater than the comprehension of others give me satisfaction when receiving flame mails stating that I suck potatoes or bananas are more interesting than my poetry.

Writers write not because of what others think. We write because it makes us feel great about putting something on paper that will stay apart of us forever. No matter how much someone says our writing stinks, there will be ten others who appreciate the time, effort and emotion put into each one, and we will know that our writing was meant for us and only us.

Gary is a writer for Love Poetry

The Myths Of Writing: Have You Bought Into These?

2005-11-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

There is an image most people carry of the artist (think Van Gough's self-portrait, the one with his ear bandaged), working in solitude in a barren garret in a dark corner of the city. Everyday is a struggle. He continually walks between moments of brilliance and moments of insanity. It's a romantic image, I suppose. Built around the belief that an artist must suffer for his art.
This applies not only to the painter, mind you, but also to the actor, the dancer, the photographer, the writer. We all must suffer for our art.

But image and reality are often two different things. Writing, for example, does NOT have to be a torturous process of endurance and pain. In fact, it should be exactly the opposite. Liberating. Joyous. Enlightening. Why else would you want to invest so much of yourself in it?
So let's take a closer look at a few common writing myths.

This first one actually applies in all areas of a person's life. Simply stated: Having a big ego is a bad thing. It's unbecoming. It's boastful. It puts you in a negative light.

The truth is … if you want to be a success at anything, you need an ego. It motivates you, keeps you moving, pushes you to do your best. It's not your enemy. It's your ally.

The key to making it work for you is to keep it directed inward. Pump yourself up silently. Let it fill you with pride and a sense of possibilities. That's what the ego does best. Used wisely, it will move you toward your writing goals, not away from them.

Our next common writing myth is one you hear all the time: you have to write something original.

What is originality?

There's only one thing in the world that can make your work original. That's you. Because that's all you have to bring to the table as a writer. Who you are. Your history. Your experiences. Your family. Your beliefs.

When a publisher says he wants something original, he's saying he wants something fresh, something that reflects you the writer. He wants your voice, your honesty. The world already has a Stephen King and a Mary Higgins Clark and a John Grisham. It doesn't need more of them.
Our final common writing myth (though there is no shortage of such myths, we are limited by space): the slower you write, the more time you spend with each and every word, the better your writing will be.

The catch to this one is simple: there's a time and place for writing, and there's a time and place for editing.

When you mix the two activities (which are very different in their requirements and purpose), you rarely do either one justice. If anything will suffer, it will be your writing. Because suddenly you'll be under the constraints of the editor sitting on your shoulder. You'll be fretting over the words while losing perspective on the more important elements of the story. Does the scene work? Are your characters being true to their nature? Does this move the story forward?

The truth is this: your writing will ALWAYS be better when you write in the moment.

Remember when you were a child? When you could spend hours building a sand castle or playing catch or flying a kite? Those were moments when nothing else in the world existed because you were completely absorbed in the activity. Write with that same captivation, as if each scene were unfolding right before your eyes, and you'll find your writing will not only be vivid and powerful, it will flow faster than you ever imagined possible.

Writing does not have to be a torturous, exacting process.

Allow yourself to have fun with it, and you'll be a better writer for the effort.

David B. Silva is a professional writer, editor and publisher. For a FREE mini-course on the best way to make writing that novel faster and easier, Click Here ==> mailto:easyway@thesuccessfulwriter.com?subject=TRAArticle dbsilva@thesuccessfulwriter.com

To Separate Yourself from the Pack, Write and Publish!

2005-11-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

For all too many firms and individual professionals, most any kind of marketing/selling or job-seeking strategy works pretty well, especially in good times. But when boom times disappear, so do more automatic forms of business development. Explained research specialist Michael Norris, President, Norris Research, during a recent recession, “The general stumbling of many ‘high fliers’ has been due to marketing, or lack thereof. Until recently, it seemed as if answering the phone was their entire marketing strategy.”

When the going gets rough, however, what’s a company or job seeker to do? One little-used technique for separating oneself from the competition is to write and publish articles and/or books.

Why adopt this approach? For one thing, it’s far less expensive than even a modest snail-mail or advertising strategy, and second, writing/publishing earns one double benefits. At once you are promoting your skills and services while educating target markets about what you know, all in one fell swoop. Thus publishing transforms companies and individuals into “thought leaders,” that is to say, better-known experts in their particular field. This allows core values and unique selling points to be articulated clearly, confidently and persuasively.

How to get started? First, you need a “go-ahead” from an editor, generally a far more effective step then starting off writing a full-blown article or book, then shot-gunning it off to a publication or publisher and hoping it fits. By locating an editor who would be sincerely interested in your work before actually writing it, you stand to gain feedback around angle, length, and deadline which will help you craft the article just the way your new editor would like to see it. Obviously chances of acceptance spike up significantly when criteria for success can be specified and followed beforehand.

To insure that your article will promote you in the way you want, you’ll also want to decide beforehand (a) specific business objectives you wish to advance, and (b) publications read by your target customers (for articles) and target reader audience (for books). A client of mine, a manufacturer of data storage systems, for example, wanted its insurance firm prospects to understand how much more productive its recently-developed data mining system could make them. So its VP Sales wrote an article called “Storage Must be Flexible,” AFTER securing interest from the editor of a major insurance journal.

How does one go about obtaining such interest? The answer is all too business-familiar: cold-call or email an editor or publisher just as you would a prospective customer, pitch your idea briefly, then await the response. You’ll probably end up chatting with the editor about your proposal and hearing her ask, “So when could you get it to me?” If pitching by email, send a nudge reminder a week or so later if you haven’t yet heard, or make a follow-up call.

The truth is that securing a go-ahead from an editor is a pretty straightforward proposition. Most editors are sitting around their desks waiting to hear from you, since they don’t generally know where their next idea meals are coming from. Since they are constantly in need of great new ideas, they welcome calls or emails from strangers who can propose them.

As you get in the game, you will steadily become proficient at this remarkable (and remarkably little-used!) marketing channel. In fact, expect some prospective clients or employers to actually begin recognizing YOUR name when you meet them. They will light up when they realize they have read an article or book authored by you. “I learned a lot from reading your ideas,” they will say, adding (pre-sold to you), “Please tell me what I can do for you. I’m all ears.”

Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc. (Concord, MA), which transforms consultants, law firms, executives and companies into “thoughtleaders.”

This article is an excerpt from his newest book "Beyond Reason: Questioning Assumptions of Everyday Life".

Visit ==>www.thoughtleading.com for more info.

Freelance Writers - Five Reasons Why You Need A Website

2005-11-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

These days, if you're starting a career as a freelance writer, it's no longer enough to ring up a few editors and distribute a few business cards. Most of the people who want to hire you will ask if you have a website. If the answer is 'no', you could lose out on some valuable sources of income.

Here are five reasons why you should have a web presence.

1. Developing the brand of you

As a writer, your name is your brand. People will like or hate your stuff, trust or distrust your opinions. Either way, they'll have positive or negative feelings every time they see an article with your name on it. So your job is to build editors' and readers' trust in that brand.

2. Writing is your business - you need to treat it like one

Every reputable business has a website that showcases its products and services. You should too. How else are people going to know what you have to offer? A website allows your potential clients the luxury of accessing your information in their own time. You should include a resume, references, services (types of writing), samples of work, links to where you're published on the net.
3. Efficiency

A website is a time saving way of showcasing your past and current work (an online portfolio or selection of clips). You can point editors to it as well - a time saver for you and them. No longer do you have to spend time selecting and printing your best work. Instead, upload examples to your site and link to other places where your work has been published.

4. Make your passion work for you

Some of the writing you do will be for love rather than money, but that's no reason why you can't make it work for you. Upload your short stories, poetry, novel chapters and so on to show how creative you are.

5. Skills development

If you do the web development yourself, you'll also be gaining another valuable skill. The discipline of editing your material for a website will be invaluable when you're trying to get a commission to write 40 web articles for a pittance (we all have to start somewhere).

So what are you waiting for? Get your stuff on the net and start building the brand of you.

Sharon Hurley Hall is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor. Sharon worked in publishing for 18 years, writing articles and editing and designing books and magazines. She has also lectured on journalism. For more information or to contact Sharon, visit http://www.doublehdesign.com/. Read more of Sharon's writing at http://www.doublehdesign.com/blog/

Benefits of Submitting Articles – 10 Reasons Why Free May Bring in the Bucks

2005-11-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

Websites, Bloggers, Ezine Publishers all need content. All business need exposure and advertising. Writing artilcles to share your expertise with others can benefit in a number of ways even if you offer your articles freely.

1. Brand Yourself. You will brand your website, business and yourself . Make sure you include your name, business name, credentials, web site address and e-mail address in your resource box.

2. Gain credibility. You will become know as an expert on the topics you write about. Get an edge on your competion with a boost in credibilty.

3. Free advertising. This will broaden your advertising efforts in addition to yur normal advertising budget.

4. Get Published All Over The Web. Multiple visiting publishers to need free content for their websites, ezines, blogs and more.

5. Get Published in Offline Content. Some publishers may put your content in ebooks and so your advertising can multiply further.

6. Gain Trust. If when people read your article they like it, they will be more likely to buy your product or service increasing your profits.

7. Highlighted Exposure. A publisher may choose to place your article on their homepage or high traffic blog. Placement can increase credibility as well as exposure.

8. Long Term Advertising. Your article may end up in archives to ezine publications. Some subcribers like to read back issues before subscribing.

9. Multiply Income. You may get extra income from people who want to hire you to write other articles, books or even speak at seminars. This can be a great way to multiply your income.

10. Link Popularity! When publishers begin placing your article along with resource box on their websites you will start to raise your search engine rankings. The more links back to you site the more popular you are with the search engines. Start gaining all sorts of popularity today!

Marie Gervacio is founder and editor of Article Blender.com , ShineYourStar.com , and SimpleBeautyTips.com. Get free content for your website, ezine or blog and/or publish your articles at ArticleBlender.com.

How to be Rejected by the Article Directories

2005-11-23T07:21:00.000-08:00

Article writing is one of the best ways to increase your traffic and get more sales. You've heard it a million times so you decide to finally just do it. You write an article and submit it to the article directories, eagerly anticipating the flow of traffic. Instead you receive the dreaded rejection letter.

What did you do wrong?

1. Did you proof-read your article before you submitted it?

Popular article directory sites receive hundreds of submissions each day. It's much easier for the owner to click "decline" than to edit your typo-filled or unformatted article. Before submitting, proof the article and proof it again. If grammar and spelling make you sweat, then hire a Copywriter or ask a friend to help you before you click that submit button.

2. Is it an Advertisement or an Article?

Article directory sites are looking for informative, useful content, not press releases or ads. If your submission reads like an ad, it will not be accepted. And, think about it -- even if was approved on a fluke, do you think that website owners will be clamoring to publish your 500 word advertisement? Not a chance.

If your goal is to write and submit a press release, then check out places like prweb.com.

3. Did you read the Submission Guidelines?

Each article directory has a different culture. Glance through the Submission Guidelines before setting up an account to make sure your article will be welcome before you submit it. If an article directory is based around a niche like gardening, then please resist the urge to submit your Mesothelioma articles. There are plenty of article directories that want your articles. It’s not an effective use of your time to submit unwanted articles to a niche site.

4. Is your article PG-rated?

Don't submit sex-related articles, profanity, or general nastiness. Article directories are businesses and, therefore, exist to make money. This means they generally receive income through affiliate sales or advertising. So, if your article includes sex or contains words stronger than "darn", don't be surprised if your article is rejected. Of course, if your article contains nastiness or anything illegal -- don't even bother.

5. Is your Article original and written by you?

Submit only original articles. Please do not copy someone else's article, edit it, and submit it. That's stealing and you will be caught. And, do not submit articles from shared content sites. Article directories want original, unique content. Public domain is 'public' but think how ineffective article directories would become if there were 500 versions of the same public domain piece. Instead of wasting your time figuring out how to reinvent other people's content, just write your own.

Now that you know what not to do, start writing the kind of articles that article directories dream of -- and watch your business grow.

Nicole Dean, owner of http://www.LadyPens.com – an article directory for women, invites you to visit http://www.EasyArticleMarketing.com to learn how writing simple articles can be the most effective way to bring traffic and sales to your website.

Lost In The World Of Article Submission?

2005-11-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

There are hundreds of theories on what makes the internet tick. How will one consumer find you on this big thing called the Web? Any webmaster knows that it is the most important element to finding and keeping traffic flowing to their website. Yet, it is not always all that easy of a problem to solve. Let’s face it, there are hundreds of webmasters out there trying to do the same thing that you are. So, you have competition beyond reason.

Although it is quite difficult for you to get your website traffic up if you don’t know how, if you do, then it’s rather simple. There are many benefits to you from simply writing and submitting articles to article submission websites. This simple process can generate a steady flow of traffic unlike any other. It is quite amazing the results that you can get from this very easy process. Here are some more details for you to consider about article submission.

First, understand how it all works. You write an article, presumably about your product, service or website. Normally, you will want to insure that it is writing without the suggestion of, Come here. I’ve got a great sale for you. This type of article will most likely not be used or it will not even be allowed into publishing. The article should be crafted surrounding whatever is going to pull your customer in. The goal is to have them click and locate you.

At the bottom of your article, you will use a resource box to include your information. Who you are and what you can do for the customer. You will also have the most powerful part of the entire article there. That is of course your website link.

All of this is submitted to an article submission website which will then publish it. Anyone who wants to can pick up your article and place it onto their own website. When they do this, they are required to use the entire article and the resource box on their website. That means that now your website link is on every website out there of every person that picks up your article. This could literally be thousands and thousands of websites.

So, now that you have your articles written and submitted, you can count on receiving some traffic. The more well written the article is, the more attractive it is for other webmasters, the more it will be picked up and used. That means more and more back links to your website. This is of course an excellent way to insure traffic to your website.

When you take this to the next level, article submission really can translate into a lot of traffic. For example, now that you have written one well written article and got some action off of it, you are ready to do this again and again. That’s because you can write any article and get the same results. So, now you don’t just have one article out there generating traffic for you, but you have five, ten, or twenty doing the work for you.

Article submission websites are an excellent way for you to generate traffic to your website. You probably will not find a better location to find such a virtually free way of getting your website out there. It really makes a lot of sense and it’s quite simple.

Part 2 - Do You Know The Value Of Article Submission?

Kim Neal - Author, Webmaster, Entreprenuer. Get the most from your efforts.Submit articles to Articles-Submit.com.

Just One Article and WOW!

2005-11-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

Let me share with you a Real Life Case of Content in its most Valuable Form. I have been marketing online for about 1 year or so, maybe a little longer. Anyway, most of what I had been doing was Traffic Exchanges and a Forum here and there, safelists and push-button mailers (which I am now sure were probably mostly spam)...oh, and Banging my head against the wall because nothing was working well. Yeah, I would make a sale here or there, but nothing to be proud of.

After reading about Article Submission, I really put some thought into it and decided that surely I could come up with something. I figured, hey the worst that can happen is that someone reads my article and thinks it is horrible and doesn't visit. No big deal, right?

Well, here is the really cool part...

I wrote that article and submitted it to 3 or 4 free submission sites...that's all, just 3 or 4. Before I knew it, I was getting subscribers left and right. I did a search and found out that not only was my article showing on the submission sites, but it was showing up on several other websites and blogs. Boy was I surprised! People actually wanted something that I wrote on their own sites.
Now, besides the extra subscribers (over 100 in fact), I also got a nice surprise when the Google Dance took place a couple weeks ago. For those of you who don't know what the Google Dance is, it is the time that Google starts updating and changing their algorithms and updating Page Rank on all of the Websites that are indexed in their system.

After that particular dance, I ended up with a Page Rank of 2. Yes, that's right...PR2. Now I know that a PR2 is not a huge achievement, but get this…it was for a website that had only been registered for a few weeks. Now the really funny part of this is that until a couple of days ago, that URL was only a forwarding URL to my Blog hosted on Blogspot. If I went to the real URL for the blog, it was a PR0, but my forwarding was a PR2. Now, of course, I have that URL hosted and a site is up, but for a Forwarded Domain to pull a PR2 off of 1 Article is pretty Amazing.

This just goes to show you the POWER behind good Content! I have since changed most of my marketing methods to incorporate Article Writing as my primary method for Traffic Generation.
It works, folks! It Just WORKS!

About the Author

Scott Raven is an Internet Marketer and Online Entrepreneur. He makes his home in Arkansas, with his Wife and 2 Daughters. You can visit Scott’s Blog at http://www.TheRavenProject.com

Copyright © 2005 TheRavenProject. All Rights Reserved.

5 Reasons Why Submitting Articles Sucks!

2005-11-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to lie to you. Submitting articles on the web gets two thumbs down, and here's why.

If you plan on doing it right, you've got a lot of work ahead of you. I mean a LOT!

Whether you're writing your own articles or submitting for a client, your ultimate goal is to be seen in prestigious places. That means high-ranking sites. That means sites where business prospects who are willing to pay for your services frequently lurk.

Here are five things that you MUST do to get your articles out into circulation (and five things that make this one SUCKY job!)

1. Research the best article sites.

Before you start typing into that submission box, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Sleuth out the best article sites on the web. Tipoffs: Author names that you recognize - and respect! Working links. An attractive design, sensible navigation. Living, breathing human beings ready to email you back with answers to your questions.

2. Update your list frequently.

It feels good to have one of those multi-page article site lists in your hands. But upon closer inspection, you may come to learn that at least a third of the URLs in your article site list don't work. Article sites spring into existence with a finger-snap... and then drop out of sight just as quickly! An outdated list means you wasted your time. Stay ahead of the article game as best you can!

3. Keep track of your submission info.

Every article site is different. Some ask for a "username." Others request an email address. Some require that you type in a password, others generate the password for you. Are you getting a sense of how confusing this can become when doing bulk article submissions? What about a client who asks tons of questions? Take notes: "Site X doesn't accept HTML formats." Record and store your user info for each site.

4. Organize your files.

Article submission varies drastically from one site to the next. You'll need to have two versions of every article - one Plain Text and one HTML-Formatted. If you change one word of one article, both versions must also be edited. Let article maintenance go by the wayside, and you'll be sending some way confused drafts out into circulation!

5. Store your personal information.

Some sites ask for an author photo, others do not. Many accept URLs - sometimes from more than one website! If you're bulk-submitting for a client, this brings a ton of questions to mind. Even the author biographies vary. You'll need to keep several bios on file - one extended bio containing several paragraphs, one brief "generic" bio, and then any bio that's part of an "article marketing campaign" where you might feature a special promotion or link to a sales page/sign-up box.

If you don't have the time to invest in article efficiency, you can always stick to just one, two or three article submission sites. But the truth is, you're short-changing yourself if you do this. The more top-quality sites you submit to, the more top-quality content-seekers will showcase your work on their sites and in their email newsletters.

I believe that if you're going to do something, you should do it right and do it all the way... or don't do it at all. That's why I'm strongly suggesting to you now, to PAY SOMEONE ELSE to organize your article submissions. You will not believe the time, effort and confusion of mass-submitting on the web. This is a FULL-TIME JOB that's best handled by an expert. Think about this: do you want to spend hours, days and weeks trying to keep up with your web articles? Or do you want to focus on offering the best service to your customers? The choice is yours.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10 years of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more details.

How a Novice Author Can Write 3000 Articles in Under 9 Months

2005-11-21T07:46:00.001-08:00

If you asked the average writer if it were possible to write 3000 articles in under nine months, they would most likely say; “That is impossible!” And you would find few to argue against that point. In fact in looking at such a goal it does appear impossible, yet for those who believe, they will always be the ones to achieve.

Let us break it down, to write 3000 articles in only nine months you would have to write 333 articles per month or 11.1 articles per day. You would not be able to take any days off if you wanted to finish. You would have to write 165,900 words per month or 5550 words per day. So in looking at the break down you can see it is possible, as anything is possible.

Each year authors get together for the National Novel Writers Month or “NaNoWriMo” contest, which is a sprint to the finish 50,000-word novel from scratch each November. They say novel writing is much easier than article writing once you start. The events organizer says that word counts are matter in this race and those words can be crap. Chris Baty is the Founder of the event and although he says that most of the novels are not very good, several of the authors have received book deals and that is common each year. Now there are 42,000 participants and about 6,000 actually complete their works with the 50,000 words. Many or the top writers of the contest write up to 2,000 words per day.

If an online article writer wrote 50,000 words in one month, they would have written 1,000 articles in nine months, which would be a remarkable accomplishment. And 1000 articles would with a by-line under them with a link to a website, would drive incredible amounts of traffic if you were smart enough to post them on the Premier Online Article Submission Site on the Internet; EzineArticles.com. Your traffic from that site alone would be 250,000 articles views. I know this because today I am just shy of 750,000 articles views, which at the current rate will be hit by the end of next week. Additionally your articles would end up in First Class Ezines and on website through RSS Feed all over the Internet.

You will have to take all your worldly knowledge to write 1,000 articles online and work hard to write each day 3-4 articles each day, every day for nine months. I know you can do this, I did it and I am not even a writer, the expert writers are now calling me “The Accidental Writer” which seems to be the case, but if I can do it, anyone can. Currently I am averaging 285,000 words per month and in October I posted 570 articles, this month I hope to better than to 600 articles. My goal was to reach 3000 articles by January 1, 2006 and I am very happy to report this article makes my three thousandth article and I accomplished this goal a month and a half early. I am smiling right now as I write this and indeed, I am very happy.

I wish to thank my mentor Dina Giolitto for helping me get tough and giving me good advice to better my quality, which I am still working on to this day. I would like to thank Jeff Herring, “The Article Guy” for being a tough competitor with good advice for spicing up my articles and helping me hone my skills. Lastly I would like to thank Chris Knight for allowing me the opportunity to share my knowledge with the World and helping me in my mission to wake people up and make them think. Please believe me, I did not start out as a writer and I am still struggling to work on my skills and I guarantee you if I can do this, then anyone can. Think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Article Writing Equals Free Advertising

2005-11-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

A little known way to receive ongoing web visitors, a higher Google Page Rank, and inbound links to your site without having to exchange links. All for free...

Article Writing - Pick a category you're interested and/or know a lot about and write an article about it. It doesn't have to be too long, just have some facts about something or even your opinion. At the bottom of the article make a new paragraph 'About the Author'. Here you write a short summary about yourself and your site name and URL. You can even have related links in the article, this is especially good if you write an article pertaining to your site, than have links to your site to show examples.

Here is an example. Go to Google and type in - "Why Paid Inclusion Is Better Than PPC Advertising" be sure to use the quotations, you want to get an exact match. This is an article I wrote last year an already it's listed on over 400 websites. I didn't pay a dime. That over 400 links pointed to my website, because of my 'About the Author' section.

Another example is - "Dear Santa: Christmas Sucks!" also in quotation marks. My sister wrote this one and it is on over 60 sites. Again free advertising for your website because of the 'About the Author' section. Both of these articles are based on opinion and look how many sites listed them. Most people know to get a higher Google Page Rank you need people to link to your website. This is the easiest way, plus it's free.

WebProNews.com - An excellent site to be listed on. They list almost any article that is webmaster related. They also allow you to upload a photo of yourself. Your article will be seen by thousands of people here.

http://www.webpronews.com/submit.html

You also have to be aware of some sites that offer to publish your article to thousands of websites for a fee. As you can see above, this really is not necessary. Just search the web for free article submission sites and you're set.

Here are some more free sites that you can submit your articles to:

http://www.articlesubmission.com

http://ezinearticles.com

http://www.articlesfactory.com

http://www.infonexus.org

http://www.articlehub.com

Kristian Pulz is the owner of http://www.links2see.com/ an online family directory and http://www.web2webgroup.com/ an interactive Yahoo Group for webmasters and website owners. He can be reached at webmaster@links2see.com

Article Writing Equals Free Advertising

2005-11-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

A little known way to receive ongoing web visitors, a higher Google Page Rank, and inbound links to your site without having to exchange links. All for free...

Article Writing - Pick a category you're interested and/or know a lot about and write an article about it. It doesn't have to be too long, just have some facts about something or even your opinion. At the bottom of the article make a new paragraph 'About the Author'. Here you write a short summary about yourself and your site name and URL. You can even have related links in the article, this is especially good if you write an article pertaining to your site, than have links to your site to show examples.

Here is an example. Go to Google and type in - "Why Paid Inclusion Is Better Than PPC Advertising" be sure to use the quotations, you want to get an exact match. This is an article I wrote last year an already it's listed on over 400 websites. I didn't pay a dime. That over 400 links pointed to my website, because of my 'About the Author' section.

Another example is - "Dear Santa: Christmas Sucks!" also in quotation marks. My sister wrote this one and it is on over 60 sites. Again free advertising for your website because of the 'About the Author' section. Both of these articles are based on opinion and look how many sites listed them. Most people know to get a higher Google Page Rank you need people to link to your website. This is the easiest way, plus it's free.

WebProNews.com - An excellent site to be listed on. They list almost any article that is webmaster related. They also allow you to upload a photo of yourself. Your article will be seen by thousands of people here.

http://www.webpronews.com/submit.html

You also have to be aware of some sites that offer to publish your article to thousands of websites for a fee. As you can see above, this really is not necessary. Just search the web for free article submission sites and you're set.

Here are some more free sites that you can submit your articles to:

http://www.articlesubmission.com

http://ezinearticles.com

http://www.articlesfactory.com

http://www.infonexus.org

http://www.articlehub.com

Kristian Pulz is the owner of http://www.Links2See.com an online family directory and http://www.web2webgroup.com an interactive Yahoo Group for webmasters and website owners. He can be reached at webmaster@links2see.com

Ten Tips for Effective Internet Article Writing

2005-11-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

On the Internet “content is king”, and the real guts of content is the written word. If you are managing a website you need readable text for your onsite articles, for articles in your promotional newsletter or ezine and for promotional articles to be published on other sites or in other ezines. While these writing tasks can be outsourced to professionals, it is also possible for you to do it yourself if you follow a step-by-step process that is outlined in the following ten tips.

1. In the first paragraph clearly state what the article is about. In standard journalism you would tell who, what, why, when and where an event is happening. In web articles you oftentimes state a problem, such as “how to get good written materials for your website”, and then explain how the article is going to solve the problem “by showing a simple step-by-step approach to writing”.

2. Organize your material in a point-wise fashion. Before you begin writing think of the points
that your article is going to cover. You may not necessarily show the points, as I am doing in this article (calling them ten tips), however, for your own outline of the article you should know what you are going to say before you begin writing. Write down these points and then make sure you include them as you begin the writing process.

3. Put the reader at ease. You are not writing for a scientific or literary society, but to your peers on the Internet. Write in a simple style and if you introduce new terms, define them for your readers.

4. Explain your points in short paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier for the reader to follow.

No one likes to look at a long block of solid text. Three, four or five sentences are usually enough for one paragraph.

5. Don’t be afraid to spill all the beans! Tell your trade secrets! No, I am not crazy, the more you tell, the more the demand you will create for your goods and services. I once hesitated to write an article on “Tips for Writing Metatags” (http://www.a1-optimization.com/optimization-tips-2.htm) thinking, who will need my search engine optimization services if they read the article? I was wrong, the article was widely published and generated several orders for my services. If you give more information, people will understand that you really are an authority on the subject that you are speaking about.

6. Give concrete examples and personal experiences to back up your points. Tell how you faced a problem and how you solved it. Or give hypothetical examples of the California Widget Company and how its website would, for example need a title tag of “Widgets: electronic widgets from the California Widget Company”

7. Emphasize the benefits of your product or service. When it comes to selling, it is the benefits that sell, rather than the features. Sure, you are selling garden supplies, home décor, clothing, gifts and jewelry on your website. These are features. But the benefits are that people can get these items in one place without shopping around, that they can save time and money, etc. The gurus of Internet marketing, such as Ken Evoy (http://myws.sitesell.com/webpromote2.html) all say that you should constantly mention the benefits that you offer to your potential customer.

8. Give resource information to your readers. Give the addresses of websites where your readers can get more information on the subject that you are talking about. These may be your own websites or they can be other resources. In case you are worrying about losing customers, good outgoing links from your website are also helpful to your site’s page ranking and positioning in search engines.

9. Get another opinion on your article. Show it to your friends and colleagues, and don’t worry if they criticize you, it is better that your friends find the mistakes than your clientele. Always remember, a good editor is a writer’s best friend

10. Keep your most important information near the beginning of the article and summarize what you want to say at the end. Editors usually cut things near the end, so keep your most important points and ideas in the beginning of the article. At the very end of the article you can summarize what you set out to accomplish in your opening paragraph.

You may not win a literary prize, but if you follow the steps that I have outlined above you will be able to produce effective written content for your website and for your promotional outreach via your own newsletters and through articles published on other websites. These articles could become the key to success in your Internet endeavors.

PS: If you follow the guidelines outlined in this article you will be able to write great articles, however if you would like to use your time in another way and would like someone else to write your article for you, then contact me, and I will do it at a very reasonable price.

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization, http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html

Why You Need a 3-Tiered Strategy For Article Submission

2005-11-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

You've heard a lot about how much writing articles can do for your internet marketing strategy. You now understand how writing articles can help position you as an expert in your field, gain valuable targed traffic for your web site, and quickly multiple your site's text links.

Now you have convinced yourself to take the plunge into article marketing and you have a few articles all lined up and ready to submit -- and you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume and variety of article directories available. It is easy to simply go with the big dogs and forget the rest, but that is a big mistake. You really need to have a 3-tiered article submission strategy.

Select a couple of the big dogs, but also had some medium-sized directories and some smaller, newer directories to your list for regular submission as well. There are several reasons why this strategy can be much more effective in the long run than targeting the large directories alone.
The mega-directories carry a big punch in terms of link power and recognition. You can almost watch the reader numbers climb on your articles. But because they are so big they also get a large volume of submissions every day and your articles very quickly move from the top page of the directories new submissions list and even from the top page of the topic listing.

Medium-sized directories don't pack as big a punch as the mega, but their text link value is still strong and they usually have a solid reader base. They have been around long enough to build a loyal audience and clientele. However because they are not as big their submission volume is lower than the mega so your articles retain top billing longer -- and becoming a top article or top author may be an attainable goal for the part-timer.

Small and/or new directories usually don't offer nearly the level of power of their larger brethren, but a quick study will reveal whether or not the directory is regularly maintained and promoted -- and you know that will mean the link power currently exists and will grow in the near future. Also with new and small directories you can easily achieve top author status and your articles will stay at the top of the ranking longer -- they may well pass directly from "new" status to "top" status which rarely if ever happens at a mega directory.

That is my current strategy for article submission and I hope you found it helpful.

Deanna Mascle is the publisher of the writing newsletter Word Craft Online. You can submit your writing to her Article Directory. She is also happy to share tips and advice for Writing On the Internet.

Writing Articles - Advice For The Do-It-Yourself Webmaster

2005-11-18T07:26:00.000-08:00

As an SME it is virtually impossible for us to hire the services of a good SEO company that is going to spend time optimising the site, adding new content and gaining good links for the site, simply because of the cost involved. Other SME's are I am sure in a similar position. They would all love to have a web site that ranked highly in google and the other search engines and brought in a constant flow of new business.

However to hire an SEO company to do all those things above is often beyond the reach of many small companies especially those just starting out. However as a company providing services ourselves and 80% of our new business coming via the internet I can thoroughly recommend that you find a company, invest the money because you will soon get the rewards back. If you feel that you still cannot quite afford to go down that path because money in the company is tight then the other course of action I can recommend is to write articles. I kept seeing and reading all this free advice from SEO's out there on the Web about the benefits of writing articles and submitting to article distribution centres and e-zines. I used to think when reading these words of wisdom how wonderful it would be if only I could do that, but I never did it. Until recently that is. About a month ago I decided I would try writing an article. First what would I write about? Big problem, what could I write about that had any relevance to my website or the services we provided and be of interest to anybody else? So I did a search on one of the article distribution sites looking for articles that had relevance to my own sites content and found nothing of real relevance. So nothing for it I would have to write my own. It still took another week before I came up with any ideas. I focused on what services we provided and how I could turn these into articles. Still nothing actually came of these thoughts. Then one night I was talking to one of our cleaners who was telling me about the problems she was having with the toilet brushes on these particular premises she was working at. They were the wrong shape for doing a good job! The following day I spoke to the company and they agreed we could put our own in. Then I realised that this was a problem in many places especially domestic households. So I wrote my first article about toilet brushes and the why's and how's of how people should approach the purchase of these objects. Once started the words flowed. I submitted this to two article distributors and one ezine. To my surprise it was accepted and I have not looked back. I now write on average two articles per week and have reached the grand total of 24 published articles. Each article gives me about five links on average, some provide more, others less, it depends on who picks them up and republishes them. Most importantly it has boosted my visitors and my backlinks and therefore my search engine position. When I did a search on who was linking to my site these articles produced 12 backlinks for google and a staggering 186 on MSN. It was incredibly interesting to see where my articles were ending up, often in very unexpected places, and it is global, so they can be picked up anywhere in the world.

Do not be put of by the thoughts

· I cannot write

· I have nothing to write about

· Nobody would want to read the things I know about

Because you are wrong on all counts. There is a lot of advice freely available on how to write good articles, go search it out. Everybody who is running a business has expert knowledge on some subject, and lastly the whole world is your audience so there will be many people out there who are interested in what you have to say. Surprise yourself, as I did, give it a go. After the first or second article you will find that they just flow and writing becomes much easier. Very importantly however they do wonders for your website.

About the Author

David Andrew Smith is the owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk a commercial cleaning company which specialises in the cleaning of natural stone.

12 Point Checklist for Writing Feature Articles

2005-11-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

1. Have you selected your intended subject topic and carefully planned out your idea?

2. Have you sent your idea query pitch to magazines or newspapers who may be interested? or will you write "on spec"?

With many magazines and newspapers now accepting material online it is now possible in many instances to email your queries directly to the publication.

Have you read the publishers guidelines carefully to make sure if this method is acceptable?Before sending your query pitch:

- Is it likely to be what the publisher needs: have you studied the publication?

- Is the timing right. Have you checked the magazines editorial calendar?

If it is a seasonal article is now the best time to send your query?

If you have answered yes to these questions then package your idea into an attractive proposal and send it off to the editor of your chosen publication.

3. Have you adequately researched your topic?Read everything you can on the topic from all available sources - bookstores, newspapers, libraries, periodical indexes and internet sources. Never discard anything about your subject topic since you don't know until you write it up what you may actually want to use.

Tip: Saving magazines, newspapers and clippings for the subject matter can save time when researching future writing assignments on the same topic or when working to deadlines. Catalogue all your collected material for easy reference.

4. Have you interviewed the key person/people you need for your proposed feature?Now it is time to organize your material into a feature article.

5. Have you discarded everything in your research except for factual information?

Proper research and liberal use of factual material gives an original perspective to your feature article and also avoids the possibility of plagiarism.

6. Have you checked and cross-referenced your facts amongst your various sources.

7. Have you decided on the length of the article?

Have you checked the length is suitable for the publication you are sending it to?

Tip: Do not waste the editors time by sending a 2000 word article to a publication that requires articles between 500-750 words.

8. Will you use quotes in your article?

Quotes and antcedotes bring a story to life. Are the quotes from a reliable source and have you double checked that quotes used are acurately recorded?

9. Do you have a good lead, middle and ending?

10. Have you proofread and edited your article to achieve the best possible version through re-writing your drafts to arrive at your final version?

Have you made all corrections and necessary changes, have you checked spelling (this includes people and place names) grammar, punctuation etc?

11. If the feature is to be visual - have you provided the appropriate photographs, art work, line drawings, or other graphic illustrations to compliment your feature?

This increases the payment amount you can expect to receive especially if you are a feature photojournalist or travel feature writer who can offer original photographic perspectives of your subject topic.

Finally...12. Have you included everything in your envelope before sending your article to the publisher (including photos properly packaged) or, if the magazine or newspaper excepts online submissions have you given everything a final check before hitting the send button?

For more resources and ideas for home business writers and/or self-publishers visit "Net Writing and e-PublishingSuccess" at http://www.netwrite-publish.com

The UGLY Practice of Sniping - Some Personal Experiences I Have Had

2005-11-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

Just a few days ago I wrote a piece entitled: "How to Write an Uncommonly Good Article - Six Key Steps Part 1." I mentioned my credentials to write such an article then went about giving what I believed were the six key steps that would most improve the works of other authors. That is, make them pleasing for other people to read - which is the purpose in the first place.

So, what was my motive to write such an article? To get people to visit my website? Not really. To "big-note" myself? No. To denote myself as an expert on the subject? No, though I do have extensive experience in it. To help people who are struggling to write articles? Yes. That was the main reason.

I wanted to let people know why, when a person starts to read their article they quickly tire, maybe scan to the bottom then click away before finishing. I find myself doing that. I know lots of others do too. So, I wanted to let aspiring authors know why that can happen. I wanted to give them some tips so they can improve their readership levels.

At the time of writing I was conscious that I was setting myself up as a target. I knew that. When I posted the article I wondered how long it would take before somebody would take a shot at me. You see, I know there are snipers on the rooftops. Make yourself a target and they will surely have a ping.

Well, it took just 72 hours for the first bullet to come my way. Some people just cannot help themselves!

Let me explain a little further:

At the time of writing this article I have well over 100 articles circulating around hundreds of sites on the web. For anybody who has written even one article you will know what a significant effort this is.

Many of the articles I have written have received very positive, complimentary comments and ratings. However, as soon as you stand up and say "this is how you do it" and give an example of your own success, out will come some anonymous person whose prime task is to shoot you down.

Well... Mr, Miss or Ms Sharpshooter why don't you have the gumption to identify yourself or go "head to head" with me? Put your long-range sniper rifle down for a while and let's duke it out. One on one. Your best versus my best. There's the challenge. Are you up to it?

Ooh. I can already hear the sound of running footsteps fading into the distance. Probably they will be running to the next target to fire off another volley at somebody else from a concealed position. What an existence!

I remember some years ago posting a self-help article on a very well known self-help site. I was trying to help a young lady overcome a drug addiction by giving her some encouragement. I figured that if she had the courage to make a public posting then I would help her. Several others did too. Except one - a fellow from New Zealand whose main aim was to lecture me on the concepts of "drug of choice" and "harm minimization" and my form of what he termed "mind bending."

I suffered this person's ridicule for weeks. Eventually, frustrated that his comments were largely ignored, he resorted to threats and all sorts of ugly abuse. Never once did he identify himself by anything except some strange pseudonym - another trait of a sniper - that I have long since forgotten. He existed only to ridicule, denigrate and criticize. How sad it is that there are people who do this sort of thing. It's a bit like spraying graffiti in the dead of night on somebody's lovely wall.

Whenever anybody publishes anything on the internet they open themselves up to become the target of all sorts of abuse. I guess it comes with the territory. In fact, I wrote another article about this sort of thing. It was called: "Understand That You Are Always Going to Attract Critics."

In many respects you have to feel some sort of pity for the snipers. To feel the way that they do, to harbor so much anger at their own inadequacy and to try to bring other people down is a truly awful way to eke out an existence.

You can take another shot sniper. Just have the courage to identify yourself. But I guess that would be just too much to ask.

This article comes with reprint rights providing no changes are made and the resource box below accompanies it.

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary's email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."

Article Writing & Marketing: Tell a Story, Make Some Points

2005-11-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

p>Did you know that each person's life tells a story?

You can tell a story that says, here, go this way, or tell a story that says, stop don't go that way.

The really cool thing is we get to pick what kind of story we want our life to tell.

An article about just one story

One method of writing articles is to tell a story from your own life and make some points for life.

Ten years ago I got pulled over at four AM in the morning while driving around trying to get my 1 year old son to sleep. No big deal really, except that all I was wearing was a t-shirt and underwear.

Briefs, by the way.

The one article I wrote about that story has gotten lots of mileage for me. That story has become a keynote speech that I give, and then draw four or five lessons for life from my experience.

All I do is make some common sense points such as the ones below:

1. We are responsible for the choices we make.

2. We are responsible for the outcome of the choices we make.

3. Our individual lives tell a story and leave a trail to either follow or avoid.

4. It's important to leave your house fully clothed.

You get the picture.

What's your story?

So what story could you pull from your life experience and write about? Then make some points for living or lessons for life.

That's an article, a speech and whatever else you wish to make it.

Visit The Article Guy for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscirbe to our monthly Article Empire Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

Is Article Marketing an Effective Technique?

2005-11-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

Getting traffic to a website can be one of the most challenging issues a webmaster may face. Many people believe by putting a website up people will simply just turn up, by the masses. This just simply is not true. It is the equivalent of opening a water shop in the Sahara desert.

Although Im sure people would love the water if they do not know about it they wont find your shop. Ok this is a slightly silly example as there are not that many people there to be potential customers but I hope you get the message.

So we have identified people don’t just turn up at websites. So how do we get them to visit? You have several options:

Paying for advertising

This can be very expensive and may not deliver the type of traffic you want.

Reciprocal link exchanges

Another technique is to exchange links with other sites. This provides virtual roads into your site, while many will not exactly be freeways they will still deliver you a bit of traffic. Also as you gain more links the search engines will start to increase your rankings so you will start to get free traffic from the search engines

Article marketing

This is a technique that is really starting to be in fashion now. The idea is your submit an article about your sites topic to various article directories. They publish the article with a back link to your site and this article is picked up by lots of sites. This gives you lots of back links and has the benefits of reciprocal linking and more. As you are not linking to the sites that link to you the links are one way. It is thought that one way links are much higher values in the search engines.

Through my tests I have found article marketing to bring me the largest benefits for the least effort and cost. Lets face it time is the one thing we cant get more of so anything that gets us the most gain for minimum effort has to be the winner!

For more information please see http://www.articlesnet.co.uk/

Keyword-Density

2005-11-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

It means that as how frequently a keyword is used in the text as a percentage of the total text. While writing content for a site or articles it is very important to check the keyword density. For example, while writing an article on auto, then, it is important to see that how often that keyword is repeated in your text. It is important because when the search engine hits your site, it will get content, then collect mega tag description and sort them in an order. After this search engine calculates the density of every Meta tag keyword in your text or content.

If your site is ranking well for specific keyword phrases at engines like Yahoo!, Teoma, MSN & for the allin sets of searches at Google (allinanchor:, allintitle:, allintext:, etc.) but not listed in the top 50-100 results at Google, the sandbox effect may be at work. However, it is important to keep in mind that this phenomenon is an 'unknown' algorithm piece at Google and standard optimization tactics, even by some of the best and most experienced SEOs have yet to consistently beat this effect.

What is keyword density ?

keyword density is an analysis of the number of times a particular word appears in relation to your web page content. It is reported as a percentage.

keyword advice

keyword traffic

aol keyword

Dynamic Article Marketing: Honor Your Consumer

2005-11-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

Dynamic article marketing reap progressive proceeds for small independent corporations. Along with other opportunities to get the company name out there, savvy marketers increasingly use article distribution sites to market their sites and keep their businesses in the forefront.

What's the key?

Purpose and motivation.

Your business is dynamically innovative when you have a distinct purpose in mind and keep that purpose in the forefront of all your marketing options. Literal changes in business design can keep the organization moving forward at a progressive rate, however, change startles clients. Your purpose of business must be obvious, your goals sure, and your motivation pure. Without pure motivation of serving others, your business will fail, just as assuredly as the Titanic sank.

Article Marketing Aspirations

Your business goals must be presented well in your articles. Creating a paradigm that works for promoting your business requires thinking about what you can provide and produce that will be helpful to those who seek your services, and putting it into essay form for marketing purposes. If you find that paradigm, your clients see it, understand it, and seek it. If you miss, your point is lagging, your business sagging, and your financial prospects drag.

Fatal Attraction

You've found a product or service you can produce, and you do it well, but then you get greedy. You over price your product, undercut your service, and rationalize the futility of your marketing options. Your business fails. You got greedy and greed is the end all of business.

Helping People Margin

Astounding as it may be that people want to be recognized, acknowledged, and honored by a new business; the fact is, they do. When you realize that your consumer just wants to know you care, you can find your "helping people margin" and move into a profitable phase of business through a process of meeting their needs, acknowledging them, recognizing them as individuals, and honoring their insight for finding a great deal. Your business is a great deal.

Market your business direct through dynamic article marketing that reaches out to your client and serves them in the way they need to be served. Promote your business by acknowledging the needs of your consumer and honoring them.

Meet your consumer on their level of need. Recognize them for who they are and set out to honor them. Seek our services at http://makemoneyhereon.tripod.com

Stimulate Your Writing With Some Creative Exercises

2005-11-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

Abandon your frustrations and get a fresh start by trying some writing activities to spark your creativity.

Exercises in creativity can improve your aptitude as a writer and inspire ideas for new writing projects.

The benefit of attempting any of the following activities is that you can complete the exercises from the comfort of your home, at your own pace, in solitude (hopefully) without outside distractions or the pressures of working with a group.

I've compiled the list of exercises suggested below over the years - from college professors, editors and fellow writers. Some of them have helped me to grow as a writer. Hopefully they will help you in some way too!

1 - Write your own obituary.(I know it sounds somewhat morbid - but it will require you to think about what you've accomplished thus far - and what you wish to achieve in the future.)

2 - Write a 400 word description of your favorite place.

3 - Write a brief biography of someone you know and love. Or write about someone famous you admire.

4 - Write a list of questions you would like to know the answers to. Then try to list the people or resources you could contact to get your answers.

5 - Read a newspaper or magazine article about something you're interested in. Re-write the article in your own words to make it better.

6 - Listen to the conversations of others in a crowded mall or restaurant. Write 200 words about your reaction to their conversation.

7 - Write 500 words describing a special time in your life. Write it so that other people could understand and appreciate it.

8 - Take a 15 minute walk around your neighborhood. As soon as you get home, write 300 words about what you saw on your walk.

9 - Think about your closest friends, your relatives, your boss, or your co-workers. Choose the person you like the most and the least; the person who has had the most positive and most negative influence on you; the person who has changed the most and the least since you've known them; and then write a write a brief paragraph on each explaining why you feel this way.
10 - Write the first ten words that come to mind. Then write brief definitions and/or explanations of why you thought of these words.

Resource Box - © Danielle Hollister (2004) is the Publisher of BellaOnline Quotations Zine - A free newsletter for quote lovers featuring more than 10,000 quotations in dozens of categories like - love, friendship, children, inspiration, success, wisdom, family, life, and many more. Read it online at - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8364.asp

Should You Use Ghostwriters that are "A Dime a Dozen?"

2005-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

Lately there's been a lot of talk about articles,articles for your web site content, articles for your ezine, articles with your bio info posted to article directories.

So what's the big deal anyway? Why is it suddenly being touted as so vitally important!

Actually, there is absolutely nothing more important than having good content on your web site and in your newsletter. Information is what people or looking for, and if you want to attract them to your place of business (your web site), then you had better supply it. And lots of it!

The important keyword here is "good" content. The information you provide must be useful and relevant to the theme of your web site. If your site is about Online Marketing then you need to show me articles about it. Don't tell me how to cook chicken or how to lose money gambling, because I'm not interested. Show me what I need, or goodbye forever...

Why it's being re-discovered as urgent, is because Google and Yahoo rate the calibre of your web site through the information you provide. The higher your ranking is, the higher up in the search results will your web pages appear. As you probably know by now, if you show up higher than #30, you're most likely invisible to surfers, as they will click on one of the first 10 search results, and occasionally from 11 to 30.

The big question then, is where do you find this information to post to your web pages. Actually, if you can write it yourself, that is the best solution.

Otherwise, you can find free articles from the Submission directories and use those. The only condition is that you must keep the author's name and web site info at the bottom of the piece.

That is standard.

However, you should know that the Search engines prefer original work, as opposed to an article that appears 50 or more times on other web sites.

The ultimate solution is to use ghostwriters. Ghostwriters are copywriting experts who you hire to write for you. The work will have your name on it, as you bought the copyright when you hired the copywriter.

Here is the most critical dilemma you face in finding the right ghostwriter: finding a copywriter that knows how to write in English, and one who understands well the subject you want written about.

It's a real challenge. There are many writers today working for $6 to $10 per article of 500 to 700 words. These are the ones you find at places like elance or rent-a-coder.

At the other end of the spectrum are writers who charge $500 to $2,000 per article, and $1,000 to $5,000 for a top quality sales page. Needless to say, I have never used one of these as they are a tiny bit out of my league (for now anyway).

For mid range pricing, expect to pay from $150 and up for a top notch article. And $500 and up for a sales page.

So your choice then is between the 'cheapie' ghostwriters at $10 and top quality work at $150.
I do have some experience with both. My first 4 web pages on Best Affiliate Products were written for $150 each.

Lately, I have been experimenting with the 'cheapies'. But I have been very frustrated with the shoddy quality of work. Firstly, in many cases the authors do NOT know their subject and quess at what they write. Yuk!

The different writing styles leaves much to be desired. Why? It's extremely important that the articles have a writing style similar to your own. Not identical, but not so different that you lose your credibility. Your readers get to know you on Article directories, for example, and if they find an article with your name that is not up to your standard... let's just say they may not read you again.

If the ghostwriters don't know your subject well enough to suit your taste, can they afford to research it? Of course not. After all, can you really expect 2 hours for $10 to be so great, and then ask to do more research. I wouldn't do it, would you?

I often spend 2 hours or more just editing an article (only if the subject is good) so it is more compatible with me. This does get tiresome, but needs to be done.

You really do get what you pay for. With a lot of research, along with trial and error, you may find an author worth keeping, and that can write dozens of articles for you. But it's a long shot for the average guys like us.

Should you try to find one? Why not. It's practical to have a source for volume articles.
As well I strongly recommend having a really good writer for special work. Especially sales pages, which are really hard to get right. Even as an affiliate you occasionally need a good sales page, especially for the resale rights packages you will sell for yourself.

At my web site you will learn more about copywriting, ghostwriters and find recommendations there.

Ghostwriters are a necessary fact of life in today's online business world, so budget accordingly. Get the full benefit that good web content and article submissions will give you.

Fred Farahcopyright 2005

Best Affiliate Products for Maximum ProfitsAll you need to know about affiliate marketing and your copywriting needs, starts right here at the: Best Affiliate Products copywriting

Article Writing and Marketing: Little Known Ways to Use Articles

2005-11-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

If you have been writing articles for any length of time, you are familiar with the basic ways in which to use them. You can use articles on your website, on someone else's website, in your newsletter and in someone else's newsletter.

These are all great ways to use and market your articles. But they are not the only way.

Less common ways to use articles

1. Include them in your promotional packet

If you are in a business such as speaking or counseling or coaching, you may be familiar with having a promotional packet or a welcome packet for new clients.

When you include your articles in your promotional materials, your clients think more highly of you, plain and simple. It quickly up your expert-ability.

2. Use them in a radio interview

Just about every radio interview I have ever done, and the number is in the hundreds, have been based on an article.

Using your articles for a radio interview makes the process so much smoother because you know the material so well. You wrote it.

3. Mini-posters

Print your article or a list of suggestions on designer stationary, and ta da, you have a mini-poster suitable for framing.

The number of ways you can use your articles is limited only by your own imagination.

Visit The Article Guy for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscirbe to our monthly Article Empire Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

What Makes An Article Directory A Great Place To Submit?

2005-11-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

Seems like every where you turn, someone is creating yet another article directory begging you to submit your articles to them. The only person you are helping by submitting your content to newbie article directories are the article directory owners themselves - because they are too new to have any traffic yet to give back to you in exchange for your valuable time.

Here's a checklist to help you determine if an article directory is worth your time to submit to or not:

[ ] Have they been in business for more than a year? Bonus points for those that have been in business for 5 or more years. Directories that are less than 6 months old are often still in the sandbox yet, meaning they don't have any traffic traction.

[ ] Can you figure out in 10 seconds of surfing their site or less who actually owns or is in charge of the site? Article directory owners that hide themselves from the public should be a sign that they don't want to be found.

[ ] Do they respond within 24-48 hours of your email requests? Did your email to them bounce back undeliverable?

[ ] Does the article directory have more than 1,000-5,000 authors listed? Sites with less than 1,000 authors are still cutting their teeth on being a directory owner.

[ ] Does it appear that the article directory was built with article bot scraped content? You can easily tell by looking for the unconverted MS word smartquotes within articles that are listed on the site. There is no honor in having your articles side by side of scraped content.

[ ] Is the article directory human powered vs. fully automated? Any article directory that is fully automated is usually a sign that the owner doesn't intend to police the quality of the content.

[ ] Do they provide RSS feeds, email alerts, forward to a friend function and other strategies to increase the distribution of your articles? Do they have thousands of members of their own double opt-in mailing lists to promote your articles?

[ ] Are they responsible with the advertising clients they have on their site? ie: No popups, no exit pops, no ‘punch the monkey' ads?

[ ] Do they provide article reports to help you see which articles are getting traction or not?

[ ] Service based mentality: Do they have it or not?

[ ] Bottom line: After you've submitted to the article directory, does it generate traffic back to your site or not? Do you find your article distributed to other niche websites or do your articles get picked up by email newsletter publishers?

The reason you make your articles available for syndication is because you want to improve your targeted web traffic, enhance your credibility, drive leads to your products, grow your email list and more!

Unfortunately, you don't have unlimited time in your day to submit your articles to every newbie article directory that begs for your attention. Prioritize the best article sites that meet or exceed the above criteria to help determine which ones should get your valuable attention. It is better to submit 100 articles a top quality article directory or niche site than it is to submit (1) article to 100 directories.

About The Author:

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ directory. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links in tact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/

IN YOUR SHADOW

2005-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

There is an old saying: You can choose your friends but not your family. Everyone has certain choices to make in their lives, except for that one initial launch into this world. We are born and we are who we are - no decision on our part - not even the chance at some suggestions.

Your entire being - the color of your skin, your grandparents’ homeland, your entire genetic make-up is right there - and now you have a choice - you can do what you believe you can, or you can carry your sense of pride or shame with you your entire life and never reach the goals and reap the benefits you could have.

Writing is a career where the choices from the very beginning are yours. In a sense, you create your character, give him all his genetic qualities, and then even write the history for his ancestry. You are in control of who, what, where, and when. However, as with any choice, there are drawbacks as well as advantages. If your character is not a member of your particular ethnic, religious, or race group, your ability to relate and to transmit ideas run into a brick wall, so to speak. Sure, you can put yourself in their place, but it would be according to your standards, and your beliefs. This ingrained system of standards and beliefs were taught to you by your parents, relatives, environment. and the world itself. Now that you have decided to write, how do you overcome this stumbling block?

The literary piece you give birth to should be as factual as possible, even though it is a fictional piece. If you feel you can, just in your own mind, place yourself in someone else’s soul, forget it. You can’t because the only person you can reach intoand enter their very being is yourself. Now what do you do? The answer is reach out, network, and include everything in your research work. Listen to both sides of the coin, and if you don’t agree, the notion to state your carved in stone moral or otherwise statements are irrelevant. Your reader needs to place themselves in your character’s heart and see the world through his/her eyes. A slight remark made to one person may be a monumental insult to an individual of another genre. Don’t judge, or build up or belittle the circumstances. State them exactly, as best you can, from that literary person’s inherited background and make-up.

Don’t ever feel that you will be able to disseminate exactly what it feels like to be someone else. We all have trouble just trying to be ourselves. However, with your character, you will have to step back and let what is the truth come forward. Then you can create the situations, the plots, and the reactions.

Every group of human beings have their particular quirks, beliefs, and moral systems. Try not to place one group’s issues and relate them through your own eyes.

Every great literary masterpiece gave credibility to their characters through writing about them as they are. Write about their individuality, their values, and their history. Give them the opportunity to voice their contradictions and their acknowledgements. Let them be themselves and you will be on your way to a masterpiece that the entire world will cherish.

Trace historical aspects for your character and take into account the evolving changes to his/her particular heritage. Check items such as foods, livelihoods, and statistics. Once you have a volume of information, you will have the grounds for a great novel or article. As writers, we are so tempted to always give our opinions, our views. You are creating this character and your story’s success will be on who he/she is. Readers will agree or disagree with your character but they will learn to respect and value his/her reactions, and choices. They will, in turn, take into account the circumstances that brought your character to this particular point in life. The most enduring characters are those that are real, life-like, and not clones of the writer. Give your characters room to breathe, and be themselves.

I believe God does not need help in creating people. He gives writers the fertile ground of diversity and the ability to relate to readers. Give your readers reliability, authenticity, and an opportunity to decide for themselves, and you are on your way to successful writing.

©Arleen M. Kaptur

Author of numerous articles, e-cookbooks,on-line workshops. Novel: SEARCHING FOR AUSTIN JAMES Website: http://www.rusticliving.info http://www.webspawner.com/users/rusticliving.index.html

Quality of Online Articles and Search Engine Ranking

2005-11-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

Many online article authors work so hard to make their articles perfect in every way. So much so that many of these perfectionists never write very many articles, which is necessary for success. You see the quality of articles has nothing to do with Search Engine Ranking.

Of course once you get the reader there; then your article quality does matter. The number of clicks you get, the number of page views or hits to your article is the first and most important matter, because with online article marketing you have to get the traffic first. Did you know that if you submit articles to online free article submission sites that in fact crappy articles or barely passable it makes people want to click out and click to somewhere else. Yet they still came to read it and may get partially thru it? Did you also know that if someone hates you because of what you wrote that they are liable to click onto your sight just to tell you so?

Did you know that most companies turn complaints into sales or increased business? You see, turning a complaint into a lead or friend is nearly universal in human behavior, as anger triggers action and you can manipulate action to serve your will, thus the martial art of Judo where you use the opponents energy to win. Verbal Judo sparing is taught in classes pertaining to conflict resolution and debate.

What does this mean? It means while quality is important it is not as important as the numbers game, meaning write lots of articles first, work on quality second and third it is okay to create controversy, because it sells and causes emotion, tension and causes click thrus, to your site hopefully. Now I do not want anyone who disagrees with me to argue. I know what I am talking about and you just have no clue. See, you want to click that link don’t you to find out who I am or why I have the balls to argue with you and even call you a stupid human, who just doesn’t get it.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

You Can Master Article Marketing In 7 Days or Less

2005-11-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

Let me clarify my definition of an "article marketer". An article marketer provides helpful information in the form of articles written about the industry they work within. Article marketers focus on writing quality content and publishing techniques to complement their existing marketing channels.

It is a win/win situation. The author gains many benefits for being published, and the reader satisfies a thirst for knowledge of the topic being discussed.

Have you considered article marketing?

Anyone can enjoy the benefits of writing content articles for the Web. I am living proof.
2 years ago I was introduced to the idea of using articles as a marketing strategy. Like so many other ideas we are subjected to, it didn't sink in right away. Excuse after excuse, I let procrastination stand in the way.

I had never written an article before …

As I began to see more and more SEO consultants and successful marketers discussing article marekting, I decided to dig in deeper and see what all the fuss was about. It sounded good, and I wanted in too.

Ironically, I begin to read articles about writing articles. Article after article the concepts begin making sense. I understood why article marketing worked, I understood how article marketing worked … but I still had no clue how to start my first article.

I discovered my first article topic quite by accident one evening. Here's how. (Be on the lookout for conversations like this that may take place between you and your colleagues every day.)
While in a general discussion with another site administrator I realized the KEY to successful articles or any ad copy.

Find a problem and solve it. That is what we all want - we want solutions to our problems!
The scenario went like this. My colleague offered live event webinars and needed a easy way to update specifics of these classes to members. Further more, I wanted a way to tell people about the live training without the burden of updating these live events through HTML on my web site.

Having some background experiences with blogs, and actively testing different blog creation scripts and services, he welcomed my advise on adopting RSS as an option to easily feed us the training class schedules.

It solved his problem of updating the live class schedules to us, and my problem of updating the content for my visitors. Realizing the solution to a problem - the research for the article began.
I started in the search engines, read some forums, and gathered facts.

The facts were then picked apart to determine the benefit of each fact. I used those benefits as the central focal point of my article.

My first article "Got Blog" was written and published soon after. Taking that first step and writing that first article, opened the door for me to be able to write a second article, then press releases, and Ebooks now too.

That article was submitted to only 15 free directories, and then I left it alone and went on to other projects.

By digging through all those articles about articles, I inadvertently learned "top notch" techniques from successful article writers themselves.

I felt that learning by this method was so helpful to me, that I created a free guide called "All About Articles the Marketing Advantage ". This guide incorporates all the great articles and techniques that gave me the confidence to build my first article campaign.

The guide was not created until a year after I had published several of my own articles and seen the successful results for myself.

One year later … there are over 140 sites - many of which I have never heard of, some of which are high traffic and successful sites, proudly telling people some interesting tips on using RSS - each one with a healthy link back to my website for more information.

I found the above information by doing a keyword search on Google using the exact phrase of the byline used on that article.

Article writing and circulation has been the single most rewarding "free" promotion effort I have accomplished in my years of trial and error! Be inspired, if I can do it, you can too!

Dawn Wentworth compiled information that helped her to get started with article marketing into a free 7 day step-by-step e-course with the companion eBook. You can Master Article Marketing In 7 Days or Less by visiting http://articles.masteradvertising.com

Rules for Responsible Article Creation

2005-11-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

These rules apply to any advertiser creating media, whether it's articles, blog posts, or video blog entries. But I'll write it to apply to responsible article creation for Adam Schultz, my WebSourced colleague.

For the advertiser seeking to create articles the rules are fairly simple: know your strengths and know your audience. It may help if you think of your current clients, and potential clients, as your audience. I will refer to clients as audience for the rest of this article.

Know Your AudienceIn particular, know what issues plague your clients from day to day. If you sell pizza ovens then consider who's buying your ovens. These are people who run kitchens.
Knowing this you know that they also manage employees and money. They also face market pressures such as low carb. They also have to clean their ovens, which is tough in itself.

All of these issues that the pizza joint manager faces would make great articles. Here's a list of titles that this little brainstorm suggested to me:

How to Motivate Your Employees to Upsell Pizza Sizes

When Success Hinders Growth: Making Time To Expand Your Pizza Joint

Getting Expansion Loans for Your Pizza Business

How One Pizza Joint Rode the Low Carb Craze and Prospered

How to Make Your Pizza Ovens Sparkle Like New

10 Tips for Cleaning Burnt Cheese Off Pizza Pans Faster Than Ever Before

15 Crazy New Gourmet Pizza Recipes

Understanding your audience's buying cycle can also help you in creating content.
Know Your StrengthsAs a pizza oven seller online you might not know much about upselling from a medium pizza to a large. But you do - I promise - have some lodes of information that can apply to the pizza business. Hunting out where your experience and expertise converges with the pizza oven business is a matter of:

a) knowing your personal strengthsb) having conversations with your customers
Conversations with your customers will reveal many many ideas for more articles/blog posts/tools (yes tools - especially web based - are some of the strongest link builders out there... so watch for tools your audience might need.)

Develop a series of questions that will uncover the vacancies in your audience's current media. WHAT?? I mean uncover what questions your audience/potential audience has and create media (write articles/blog posts/video blog entries) that answer these questions.

So What's A Responsible Article?A responsible article is one that focuses soley, completely and entirely on solving a particular problem your audience faces. This article, while intended to influence the audience by suggesting behaviors or strategies that might help them, does not seek to influence the audience in a way that will benefit your company.

An irresponsible article is one that is intended to sway the audience into an action that primarily benefits the advertiser.

So How Does this Benefit My Bottom Line?If you're writing responsible articles (creating responsible media... remember this applies to all advertiser created media) that aren't intended to sway the audience into buying your products then what the hell are you doing writing articles?

You're proving, through your free sharing of valuable information, that:

a) you're trustworthyb) you're an industry thought leader

So how does being found a trustworthy thought leader affect your bottom line? It lays the foundation for a long and successful career, no matter what the industry.

About the Author: Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send custom media questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free media creation brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key publisher identification for your industry. Visit the Article Marketing blog for article marketing ideas.

Use Textpad Program for Easy Ezine and Web Site Submissions To Bring More Sales

2005-11-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

When you create your articles in TextPad format, something like Notepad, but much more versatile, you will have them in 65 characters across wrapped, just the right format. Then, when you are ready to submit your articles to web sites, you simply copy and paste the parts of the article into the web site you want to post on.

Use Textpad to format all of your email promotion, ezines, or articles to high traffic ezines or Web sites. This shareware program at www.textpad.com is free to use for some time, and you can buy it later. It can put all of your articles or other message into 65 characters across wrapped automatically.

Textpad formats my monthly ezine, "The BookCoach Says…" easily to reach over 3500 subscribers. It also keeps track of my list and when someone opts-in or opts-out, we use TextPad to locate the name in the files to add or subtract. I like it because we can send the ezine and articles straight from our office. To submit your own ezines or well-edited articles to opt-in ezines and Web sites, you will want this format unless you want HTML format.

While Textpad has no format like bold, or italics, this one program has helped me to produce and send out over 165 articles and 95 tips to share with more than 100 ePublishers and 980 Web sites (year one) and 21,000 (year four) with hyperlinks back to my sites. This is why I am #1 on www.google.com and 25 other search engines. You can have similar success.

Author’s Note: TextPad allows you to send all of your emails including documents within the email, so your readers can open and see all immediately. When people don’t have to download an attachment, they are more likely to open your emails. Think of the time saved. From using this format, hundreds of thousands of targeted buyers eventually will come your way---to your Web site, ezine, or to your email address.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people's lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell, she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The BookCoach Says...," "Business Tip of the Month," and blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 170 free articles. Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.

How To Write Powerful Headlines

2005-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you how I go about writing headlines. I like to keep swap files of headlines around for future use. And how I go about doing it goes something like this...

I'll find a headline I like, wherever it may be, and then I don't copy it word for word, instead I'll use a "fill in the blank" approach. That way I get a generic headline that I can apply to almost any business.

For example, I find a headline I like that goes something like this:

"Give Me 5 Minutes And I'll Show You How To Put An Extra $1000 Into Your Pocket!"

In my swap file I would write it down using a "fill in the blank" approach:
"Give Me _____ And I'll _____!"

I could now take this generic headline and apply it to almost any business...

Car insurance for example:

"Give Me 60 Seconds And I'll Show You How To Slash Your Car Insurance Cost In Half Every Single Month!"

Do you follow me...?

You don't want to steal any headline word for word. That would be a bad thing. But you can recycle headlines by using a "fill in the blank" approach, and then applying that to whatever business you may be are a part of.

I mean gee... why reinvent the wheel? There are a ton of great headlines out there already!

Here's another example:

"Great New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odors Quick... Makes Indoor Air Country Fresh!

In my swap file I would write it down using a fill in the blank approach:

"Great New _____ .... Makes _____!"

I could now take this generic headline and apply it to almost any business...

Weight loss for example:

"Great New Diet Pill Burns Unwanted Fat... Makes Dieting Easy!"

So the moral of the story is... The next time you come across a headline that grabs your attention, don't just stare at it! Write it down in your swap file using a fill in the blank approach.
And over time, the next thing you know, you'll have so many fill in the blank generic headlines to choose from in your swap file....

You'll never be stuck for a headline to write ever again!

Al Martinovic publishes an internet marketing newsletter at http://www.milleniummarketers.com and runs a successful home business at http://www.ineedsmokes.com

Rules for Responsible Article Creation

2005-11-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

These rules apply to any advertiser creating media, whether it's articles, blog posts, or video blog entries. But I'll write it to apply to responsible article creation for Adam Schultz, my WebSourced colleague.

For the advertiser seeking to create articles the rules are fairly simple: know your strengths and know your audience. It may help if you think of your current clients, and potential clients, as your audience. I will refer to clients as audience for the rest of this article.

Know Your AudienceIn particular, know what issues plague your clients from day to day. If you sell pizza ovens then consider who's buying your ovens. These are people who run kitchens.
Knowing this you know that they also manage employees and money. They also face market pressures such as low carb. They also have to clean their ovens, which is tough in itself.
All of these issues that the pizza joint manager faces would make great articles. Here's a list of titles that this little brainstorm suggested to me:

How to Motivate Your Employees to Upsell Pizza SizesWhen Success Hinders Growth: Making Time To Expand Your Pizza JointGetting Expansion Loans for Your Pizza BusinessHow One Pizza Joint Rode the Low Carb Craze and ProsperedHow to Make Your Pizza Ovens Sparkle Like New10 Tips for Cleaning Burnt Cheese Off Pizza Pans Faster Than Ever Before15 Crazy New Gourmet Pizza Recipes

Understanding your audience's buying cycle can also help you in creating content.

Know Your StrengthsAs a pizza oven seller online you might not know much about upselling from a medium pizza to a large. But you do - I promise - have some lodes of information that can apply to the pizza business. Hunting out where your experience and expertise converges with the pizza oven business is a matter of:

a) knowing your personal strengthsb) having conversations with your customers
Conversations with your customers will reveal many many ideas for more articles/blog posts/tools (yes tools - especially web based - are some of the strongest link builders out there... so watch for tools your audience might need.)

Develop a series of questions that will uncover the vacancies in your audience's current media. WHAT?? I mean uncover what questions your audience/potential audience has and create media (write articles/blog posts/video blog entries) that answer these questions.

So What's A Responsible Article?A responsible article is one that focuses soley, completely and entirely on solving a particular problem your audience faces. This article, while intended to influence the audience by suggesting behaviors or strategies that might help them, does not seek to influence the audience in a way that will benefit your company.

An irresponsible article is one that is intended to sway the audience into an action that primarily benefits the advertiser.

So How Does this Benefit My Bottom Line?If you're writing responsible articles (creating responsible media... remember this applies to all advertiser created media) that aren't intended to sway the audience into buying your products then what the hell are you doing writing articles?

You're proving, through your free sharing of valuable information, that:

a) you're trustworthyb) you're an industry thought leader

So how does being found a trustworthy thought leader affect your bottom line? It lays the foundation for a long and successful career, no matter what the industry.

About the Author: Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send custom media questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free media creation brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key publisher identification for your industry. Visit the Article Marketing blog for article marketing ideas.

Seo Article Writers

2005-11-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

There is this author David R. who seems to fill his articles with nothing but Seo junk. Last week I read on of his articles and it had the term "free internet advertising" 13 times in the body of the article plus once in the title.

This morning I read another of his article and once I began I realize that it is indeed his style of writing. Nothing but junk. I just hate to see people wasting their doing this stuff when they could have easily taught me something and made me a fan or better yet a customer.

What if You Wrote More Articles to Help Your Small Business?

2005-11-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

Often the easiest way to help get new clientele is to write articles. If you are a small business this technique works very well. The more information you give the more inquiries for service you get.

The trick to writing informational articles is not just the information inside, which is important no doubt, but it is just as important to do so in the right medium. That is to say the most bang for your buck. It is most important to be cognizant of where you place these articles. You need to have the largest megaphone.

Indeed these are two of the most important items; good content and a strong medium to get your in formation out there and your company name with it. But there is a very important third component and some people miss this one. It is important for you to get a lot of information out there. In ways that trigger the interests of all people, all your target market segments and anyone who potentially could buy from your small business. So you must not just write articles, but you need to concentrate on writing a lot of articles.

Once you have written 20-30 articles about your industry or market sector next you need to step up and find creative ways to give information on sub-subjects specifically geared towards a larger audience. What if You Wrote More Articles to Help Your Small Business? How much more business would you get then? Are you sure you can handle all that new business coming in?

Think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Targeting Your Article Marketing Campaign to Your Site's Key Conversion Pages

2005-11-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

For many marketers, article marketing is simply a get-links-quick scheme that they use periodically to generate a few home page links from the article directories. For marketers who know the pages on their sites that convert as well as the keywords these pages target in paid and organic search campaigns, article marketing can be far more.

Especially if they're developing both great content and relationships with site/newsletter editors who publish their content regularly.

This article presupposes that you know what the important pages in your site's sales funnel are as well as the keywords you're targeting for these pages.

Some key pages in your site's sales/conversion funnel could be:

Landing pages for your paid search campaigns

Pages that show in your log files as getting the most views

Pages one step away from the shopping cart for your most popular or profitable items

Naturally high-text pages such as FAQ pages, newsletter sign up pages, free trial down load pages

Non-home-page pages that drive organic search traffic

When you have identified which pages are the most important to your site's sales funnel (try starting with your top 3 most important), begin writing articles that target keywords for these particular pages.

These articles should be quite different from each other, and the links in the author bio should be directly to the important pages you identified and include the top keyword for those pages in the link text.

To illustrate what I'm talking about let's take a look at Frank's Fish Shop, an online retailer of live fish for fresh, salt, and brackish aquariums as well as ponds, who decided to implement a more sophisticated article marketing campaign.

Frank's Fish Shop Gets Smart About Article Marketing

Frank's first 900 word article, on how to select the right fish for your tank, linked back to his home page with his main home page keyword, "Aquarium Fish." He saw some definite link increases, and even a little rank improvement, especially in Yahoo and MSN, for that keyword.

More importantly he got a few questions from new aquarium owners that in turn got them newsletter subscribers and sales.

So now he wants his marketing team to expand the article marketing campaign and they determined that the following pages are most important to their conversions:

Newsletter Sign Up Page

Shrimp-Tail Blue Moobly Fish Page (new, very popular fish, high margins)

Aquarium Lighting Paid Search Landing Page

Now Frank has already employed the services of a professional search marketing company, so he has a list, per page, of the key terms he's targeting.

Here's how he determined his article strategy for these important pages:

The Newsletter Sign Up Page

Frank recognizes that business is all about building relationships. He loves talking about fish with the customers who come in his shop, and he found early on that expanding this informative and helpful dialogue online is crucial to his sales.

And so he publishes a bi-weekly newsletter on the latest tips and advice for people with aquariums, and most importantly he answers his readers' questions.

His newsletter sign up page has text that describes the newsletter, some reader testimonials, and a link to his newsletter archive, which is on his site in its entirety.

His keyword phrases for this page include the word "aquarium" as a base and include variables such as "maintenance," "help," "advice," "how to," "newsletter," "guide," "beginner," and other terms his keyword research revealed.

To develop more targeted links to his newsletter sign up page he simply breaks out the articles he's already written for his newsletter, all based on reader/site visitor questions, and creates an author bio with link text that targets the sign up page.

He then submits to the article directories and begins getting links back to his site that really work to position him both in the search engines and to the readers of his articles.

The Shrimp-Tail Blue Moobly Fish Page

The Blue Moobly is an old brackish aquarium favorite. The newly-bred Shrip-Tail variety has a curious looking tail that drives aquarium enthusiasts nuts.

Because of the high margins and the fish's popularity, Frank wants to promote this particular fish. Competition has sprung up, and is especially fierce in paid search.

Frank's main keyword here is simply "shrimp-tailed blue moobly."

He writes 3 articles to target the blue moobly page.

The first covers the introduction of the blue moobly to brackish aquariums, because they have some problems with razor-faced clams.

The second covers the breeding of the shrimp-tail blue moobly, because many see it as a profitable practice, and heck, breeders have to start with a breeding pair, which Frank is more than happy to sell them.

The third is an interview with the shrimp-tail blue-moobly's breeder, Augustus Clayhorn.

All of these link back to the url http://www.FranksFishShop/Brackish/ShrimpTailBlueMoobly with, you guessed it, the link text "Shrimp-Tail Blue Moobly."

Aquarium Lighting Paid Search Landing Page

Aquarium lighting is big in the aquarium business. Frank's landing page for the paid search term "aquarium lighting" is a major point of entry into his site and a major money maker.

Above the fold on his landing page he focuses on images and navigation so that folks coming in from his paid search ads can find exactly what they need, buy it and get back out again.

Below the fold he has a little text about each of the articles he's written about aquarium lighting, from proper set up, to installation, to "artistic" lighting (to Frank and fish enthusiasts aquariums are lit with the attention and care typically reserved for live theatre and movie sets).

He submitted each of these articles to the article directories with author bio links to his lighting landing page from the text "aquarium lighting."

Article Marketing at its Strongest

Article marketing is at its strongest when you combine knowledge of the keywords people use to find your site, the pages that are most important to your site's conversions, and content that serves your prospects and your industry.

It's the last part though, serving your prospects and your industry, that's the most important. It's the willingness to be helpful, complete, detailed, precise and honest in your articles that will deliver not only conversions, but the kinds of relationships that bring you long term business success.

Further Article Marketing Development: Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send article marketing questions and reviews of this article to GFrench@gmail.com for free article marketing brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key media identification for your industry. Visit the Article Marketing blog for more article marketing ideas.

New to Article Writing - Start Here

2005-11-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

First, go back to basics. The whole idea of article writing is to communicate. You have found good information, news, drama, or opinion on a timely subject and feel you have something to say about it. Perhaps you have no more to say about it than any one else but your way of elucidation may help people to see something a little better or something they may have missed. This is good stuff but then comes the business of writing it.

I have found myself getting too long winded in some of my articles. When I found out that the best article length in general is between 450 to 650 words I started to modify my writing to fit that criteria. I still get cramped up sometimes wanting to write more but knowing I’ve said enough. In time I found a way to keep things both simple and readable without sparing important content.

It is so simple I am almost embarrassed to say it. But if a thing works it should be made known. If you were to pick up a pen and write a letter to a friend what form would it take?

Would it have a summary, seven points and a huge wrap up? No it wouldn’t. What it would have is three major divisions, an introduction, two or three points and a conclusion. This may not be the best form for every article you write but it is an excellent place to start if you’re new to article writing. It is also a good place to fall back to when you have gotten far too complicated and bogged down in form and polish.

I am not suggesting that you cease to get all the advice you possibly can to improve your writing skills. I have a few sites I refer to constantly to learn new things. One of my favorites is “Pointeronline.” Every once in a while I have to re-simplify to make sense of something I’m trying to say, try it yourself. Remember, introduction, two or three points and a conclusion.

Rev Bresciani has written many articles over the past thirty years in such periodicals as Guideposts and Catholic Digest. He is the author of two books available on Amazon.com, Alibris, Barnes and Noble and many other places. Rev Bresciani wrote “Hook Line and Sinker or what has Your Church Been Teaching You,” publisher, PublishAmerica of Baltimore MD. He also wrote a book published by Xulon Press entitled “An American Prophet and His Message, Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ.” His book is now being heralded as the clearest book on the subject of the second coming of Christ since Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth" Rev Bresciani’s website is,
http://americanprophet.org

Article Marketing: Danger Signs

2005-11-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

Marketing your articles is a fantastic way to gain needed exposure on the internet. Article directories are being introduced at a breakneck pace, but they are not all equal. In fact, listing your articles on some sites can be nothing but a waste of your time and could cause you to lose your valuable reputation. How so? Read on for more information.

One of the nicest compliments I have been paid is when a manager of an article directory approaches me to submit articles to his or her new site. Generally, this happens when they have discovered that I list a large number of articles to a high quality site, such as Ezine Articles, and realize that I have the ability to produce articles in spades.

Truthfully, I am very selective about joining new sites and only do so after examining how the site is set up and whether it is received by members of the article marketing community. The following list contains some of the danger signs of article directories that do not quite measure up:

No contact information. I want the person who manages the article directory to be personality driven. A little self promotion goes a long way! Sure, if they don’t have what they say they have, it will soon become apparent that they are blowing in the wind. If it isn’t possible to uncover the personality behind the directory, chances are they really aren’t that involved with the day to day operations.

No blog, no forum. Talk to me! Literally speaking. A blog and/or a forum are necessary parts of a successful article directory site, in my opinion. I want to get the article directory owner’s input on article marketing, and I want to leave a comment when inspired. Those article directories that encourage active participation are certainly the high achieving sites. Their success means your success…plain and simple!

Feed it to them. Yes, a news feed that includes the articles submitted to the site is a must. RSS is a terrific way to maximize article exposure. I give article directories that have this feature an edge over all others as it tells me that they are serious about article marketing.

Statistically speaking. What, no stats?! If you cannot measure how many people have viewed your articles, downloaded the same, emailed them to someone, or left a comment, I have no use for you. Article marketing = statistics. You cannot possibly measure the success of what you write without some sort of feedback. Stats provide it!

Page rank. I want the article directory to pull down a Google page rank of at least 5. Heck, if my own article site can pull down a PR6, then I would expect an article directory to do at least the same! I give new sites 2 or 3 months to get their page rank up before deciding whether to submit to them or not.

Things I look for that are pluses: press releases; preservation of back links; easy submission of articles; approval within 48 hours; circulation of my articles via Google; a contact form to get a hold of the directory manager; continual growth of the site; and introduction of relevant new features to attract authors, content seekers, and the like.

Any site that fails to measure up is, in my opinion, a bad neighborhood. You wouldn’t want to live in a bad neighborhood, so why would you feature your high quality articles there as well? Your reputation is golden; submit only to those sites that can enhance your reputation not lessen it.

Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more. Samples from his portfolio are available right online.

15 Questions To Instantly Help You Write A Tips Booklet

2005-11-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

1. What is the single most compelling subject from your experience or knowledge that you want the world to know about? If there are several topics, consider which one you are most passionate about.

2. Can you identify the single most outstanding thing you want people to know? Think about whether it is a new skill, perspective, attitude, or expansion of general knowledge.

3. Why do you want to write a booklet? It may be an altruistic gesture to spread the word about something. It might be a marketing tool for a business or book you have or want to have. The booklet can be a profit center for you. Maybe you would you like it to be both a marketing tool and a profit center.

4. How would you divide your subject into segments? Look at the possibility of those segments becoming additional booklets to develop into a series, or as mini-chapters of one booklet.

5. What are you often surprised by that people do not know about your subject area? There could be something that seems so 'common sense' to you, while being highly helpful or enlightening to others.

6. Does your information need to be presented sequentially or can it be random? Notice if specific entries stand-alone or if they need whatever came before to cause the entry to make sense to the reader.

7. What do you want people to do and not to do, be or not be as a result of your booklet? Think about how this information will benefit the reader.

8. Who besides the reader can benefit from this material? There may be manufacturers, suppliers, or distributors whose business activities can profit by distributing your contents. Those will be large-quantity buyers of your booklet.

9. Is there jargon or language that is peculiar to your topic? Consider how you will monitor and treat that in your content.

10. What surprised you most when you learned about your topic? That is probably useful to pass along to your readers in some way.

11. Which resources are needed to implement any of your suggestions? Look for the easiest ways to accomplish what you are recommending to your reader.

12. What is it that people need to know about you? Tell what gives you the credential to write about this topic.

13. What other products and/or services would also make sense to develop to assist the reader in this topic? Decide whether it is important for those to be products and services of your own, of someone else's, or both.

14. How would short anecdotes be useful in supporting your materials? The anecdotes could get in the way or enhance your content.

15. Do your tips need visual support with graphics to allow them to be more fully understood? Clip art could be adequate or you might decide to use original art.

Are you ready to get started? Or were you already making notes as you were reading this article? Take as little or as much time as you’d like in creating your first tips booklets. You’ll be amazed by the results. Everyone has something they want the world to know about. What’s the starting place for you?

Paulette Ensign has personally sold almost a million copies in four languages of a tips booklet called "110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life," all without spending a penny on advertising. She has had clients match and surpass her results, worldwide.

She has learned her business by doing it, never having taken a formal business course in her life. Her San Diego, California -based company, Tips Products International, offers a range of products and services to support your success regardless of your budget of time or money. Phone 858-481-0890 or visit http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Will This Be Your First 'How-to' Report?

2005-11-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

You've got to start somewhere, but once you've created your very first How-To report and learned to develop your own research tactics - life will never be the same again. You can write a report on almost any topic you like, providing you have knowledge of the subject through personal experience or research.

There are loads of subjects to choose from. How about; solving household problems, hobbies, leisure activities, social activities, science, psychology, computer problems, mon~ey-making/saving, gardening - the list is endless. Simple, basic, informative reports.

These reports are written guidelines that give the reader more information on a subject he/she wants to know more about. You'll find that the better selling reports are well researched, authoritative, factual and helpful to the reader in the achievement of his/her goals. Your report can be 2 or a 20 page document - it doesn't matter, so long as it contains the information they want. Writing your report can be very easy. However, it does take longer for some than it does for others, even if they are equally intelligent and knowledgeable.

Picking a subject to write about, one that has sales appeal, is not as hard as it sounds. Just go to any search engine and type-in your chosen subject and you'll soon see if it's popular or not. You will also find less popular niche subjects as well, to exploit. However, you will need to attract the right customers. Though, choosing the right keywords to attract your targeted prospects is for another report and not this one.

If you don't want to spend months researching your subject, pick something that has a particular interest to you, something you already know a great deal about. Your knowledge and enthusiasm will show through, causing your reader to over look any technical writing weaknesses you may have.

Be factual and clear and don't pad out the report just for fill. Try to outline the report before you start writing the main body. That way, you know exactly what you're going to write about before you get too deep into the subject and end up doing loads of re-writes.

Everything that's written should have a natural beginning, a body and an ending. When writing your report, make it sound as though you are talking to someone on a one-to-one basis. Keep it warm and friendly with a hint of humor, because when analysed, writing is no more than a written conversation.

Ok, now it's time to 'brain storm' - sounds painful doesn't it? Well it's not. Begin by writing down all the subjects you know something about, no matter how small. Start with any we've already mentioned above and include subjects like: horticultural, carpentry, glass cutting, painting, needle patch work, collecting memorabilia, golf, darts, pet training, astrology, astronomy, sleep walking, giving-up bad habits, smoking etc etc. Possible 'How-To' reports can be created from almost any subject.

Once you've made your list, go through the topic's one at a time and keep going through them until you find one subject that you're really comfortable with, even if it's not the one you originally knew most about. You see, that's the one you'll put your heart and soul into, and that's the one you'll be most passionate about.

Now you've decided on the subject, the next step is thorough research. The library, magazines, books, newspapers, search engines - anything that will give you information on your chosen subject. Gather this information based on your outlines we talked about earlier. However, don't get bogged down with a fixed set of outlines, they're just a guide to the way you want to list or discuss each aspect of your subject.

When you've finished with your first draft, be proud of yourself and take a break. Go back to it a few days later, rejuvenated. Scrutinize it with a sharp pencil. Polish each paragraph for clarity, accuracy and flow. Make sure it's easy to read, easy to understand and each sentence follows the one before it. The smoother the writing of the report, the easier it will be to read and the easier it will be to sell.

And finally, place your report in a .PDF file or a .EXE file for easy down-loading by your customers. Now go and make a cup of tea while nimbling-up your research cells and writing fingers.

Ed Bellamy is a webmaster and ezine publisher.For more tips and tricks visit dotBASiCWorld.comhttp://www.dotbasicworld.com Copyright (c) 2004.

3 Tips for Writing Articles

2005-11-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Do you love to write? Do you want to put those writing skills to good use? Perhaps you want to see your name published whether it be in a newspaper, magazine, e-zine or other forms of publication. Here's 3 tips to start off your New Year.

1.BrainstormOnce you've decided what your writing is going to be about, brainstorm. Think of a new angle for your article. For example: If you're writing for your local newspaper about an author, don't necessarily write only the obvious details. Is there something about this author that makes them unique?

What is so great about the book they've written, can you tie it with a current news event and or holiday?

2.Removing the Fluff is a Must!

When writing a first draft, it's expected to have at least some fluff. Fluff is words, sentences, certain aspects of your article that don't necessarily add to your article. An example would be: “I had no energy. My energy had been sucked out of me” Now that's not the great example, but you get the point. A good way to tell if you have fluff is to put your article away for a while. Why? Because wen you leave your article for a bit, the next time you look over you'll see aspects of your article popping out. Certain words, facts and excess information that could easily be removed for a smooth flowing article. 3 fast tips that also apply are:

A. Editing- Proof read your articles and remember to use your spell checker. Grammar and spelling mistakes can easily turn your editor away.

B. Simple Language Structuring- You may be an expert in your field, but for others reading about your topic for the first time, your content should be simple. Make sure your sentences aren't run-ons. Are you teaching something? Break down aspects of your article into steps. This will ensure your reader understands your topic better.

C. Be careful of the word “the”- “The” is a common word that sometimes is repeated too many times in the article, causing your article to become repetitious. Use “the” repeatedly if you're trying to make a point.

3.Passion

No, I'm not talking about romance. Passion and excitement in your article. The topic that you choose to write about should excite you. It should be something you enjoy, something you love. If it's a topic you're not truly interested if, it's going to show in your writing. Especially if it's an article that you put together in 5 or so minute. Use words to “pump” up your article, actions, appeal to one's senses if it's about cooking. Have the reader become excited and motivated if it's a teaching article.

Content Producer and Children's Author of Mysterious Chills and Thrills for Kids.http://www.laurahickey.com

New to Article Writing - Start Here

2005-11-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

Article Writing: A Great Way to Promote Your Website

2005-11-04T07:33:00.000-08:00

There’s nothing quite so satisfying than seeing your name in print, whether it be in the local newspaper or on a website article. And to be quite honest there is no better way to promote your website than writing articles, out of all methods discussed by the online promotion experts this always makes its way to the top of the list as being the must do to succeed in web promotion.

Its sometimes baffling then why so many people find it difficult to write a short article to promote their website and usually resort to many other ways that usually involve great cost.

With the advent now adays of so many online article directories there has never been a better time to start writing articles and having them published on this vast array of article websites.

I always aim to write an article containing approximately 300 to 500 words regarding my chosen subject, try keeping the general wording in easy to understand paragraphs and if possible a little light humour is always an added bonus.

Always try to provide interesting subject matter for the reader so that they want to know more and continue to read the article to the final word, if you can achieve this goal then you have produced a quality item that all website publishers and ezine owners will be willing to place on their websites and in their publications.

Remember that if you place your website address in the resource box at the end of your article they will be more likely to click onto this if they have enjoyed or found interesting information from your article and in turn this will produce a steady flow of visitors to your website.

Having written your first article you will find that writing your second and subsequent ones becomes easier and easier and before long you will have built up quite an impressive portfolio, each one of which will bear a unique link to your chosen website and will be providing a steady flow of visitors for you in the future.

Copywrite 2005 Terry Till

We invite you to submit your articles to Articlebliss.com
http://www.articlebliss.com

What if Nobody Wrote Top Ten Type Articles?

2005-11-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

What if nobody wrote articles that began with “the Secrets of...” and nobody wrote the top 7 or top 10 ways to do something? What if each article was written in a way, which got your mind going and the flow of thought pumping? What if the readers of all the top 10 type and “The Secrets of...” hype were just a little less shallow, were not in such a hurry and actually enjoyed articles of more substance? What if people actually liked to read and enjoyed learning? What if people were fully activated while reading?

What if authors were not forced to write snippets, but could actually attract readers without writing mindless stuff? What if more people read articles and information about things that were above and beyond the shallow subjects of sex, being rich and too thin? What if humans started thinking again and woke up? What if the strategy of writing Top Ten Secrets of “X” were not the articles that people mostly read? What if most people could read over an eighth grade reading level? What if the Internet was a place where more intelligent people could converse rather than allowing it to sink down to the lowest common denominator?

What if no one pointed these things out? What if everyone was afraid to say it? What if all Internet Surfers did not even notice their brains turning to mush? What if no one asked these questions? Worse yet, what if no one ever tried to change it or answer the questions. Think on that.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Article Banks and Google Alerts Harness Your Publishing Power

2005-11-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

Content is the currency fueling the Internet. Yet, article banks, repositories for authors to promote their content, are still the Internet’s best-kept secret.

I learned about article banks through a casual chat at a networking event. A few days later, I posted my first article, Five Secrets to Winning Book Proposals. What happened next made me a true believer in the marketing prowess of free content.

My website stats skyrocketed. In one day, I had 933 new visitors, 40 new newsletter subscribers and six client leads. The days and weeks that followed provided more encouraging results.

Previously, my cat Harvey was my only loyal visitor. His motivation for coming to the website was the heat generated from atop the computer’s monitor that displayed my homepage—cute—but not a business-building strategy. Articles provide a new level of expertise, consistency and ubiquitous Internet coverage for any business.

From my experience, I found that placing an article in an article bank is like dropping a pebble in a pond. The energy expands the rings of influence. Five Secrets, now published in over 20 e-zines, still produces client leads and the occasional fan letter.

If I can do it, you can, too. Here are several tips for getting started with article banks.
With any marketing activity, you want to measure it effectiveness. Web statistics are important. Contact your host provider about receiving regular traffic reports. I suggest reviewing them on a monthly basis.

I also think it is important to track where articles appear. I suggest that your first step is to benchmark where you are today on the Internet by setting a Google Alert for your name or the name of your business. Every time your article is posted to a website by a third-party, Google will send you the link via email. This is a great way to track where you content appears on the web.

Step 1: Go to Google. On the search page, select MORE, this is located directly above the search box in the right-hand corner.

Step 2: Under Google services, the first service listed is ALERTS. It is marked by an alarm bell.
Click ALERTS.

Step 3: You are now on the WELCOME TO GOOGLE ALERTS page. You can create an alert using the form given on this page. Alternatively, you can click the link MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT that will allow you to create a free account in order to set multiple alerts.

Step 4: Set-up a Google Alert for your name. Be sure to put your name in quotation marks. (“Melissa Rosati”). Quotation marks instruct Google to only pull references where these two words appear together. Without the quotation marks, I would receive every generic MELISSA listed on the Internet.

Step 5: Select NEWS AND WEB. This command specifies that Google will search the eight billion pages on the web and will retrieve for you all of the pages where your name appears. You may choose to have Google report to you every day or once each week. Depending on your current web presence, Google will send you your first alert within one to two weeks. As your articles expand on the web, the alerts will come more frequently.

Step 6: Do a search for “article banks.” You’ll find banks that are free as well as sites that may offer promotion for a fee. Personally, I stick with the free sites and find them to be effective. Once you’ve selected an article bank, you may be able to specify that your article appears in more than one section. For example, Alumbo.com will allow you to choose up to 10 sections.
Every site will have its own submission guidelines. By accepting the submission terms, you agree that e-zines, newsletters or other content sites may reprint your article. Most article banks always state that a third-party must produce the article in its entirety and that your name and copyright notice must appear.

Each article bank expects that your submission will contain five key elements.

Headline: Help the reader solve a problem. People go to article banks to find a quick solution to a problem. Construct your headline as a question or in tip form—Five Secrets to Winning Book Proposals, for example.

Description: Make the article description one compelling sentence that addresses the problem.
Article Body: This is your core message. Remember, net readers need short paragraphs and short sentences. Reading is tough on the screen. Think—short and white space.

Subtitles: Include key words related to your topic. This gives your article more pizzazz with search engines.

Resource Box: By all means, highlight your expertise. Always say something like “To learn more, visit…..” This is how you drive traffic to your website.

Don’t let your cat be your only returning website visitor. When used consistently, article banks give you terrific exposure in short period on time and will keep working for you for months to come.

Melissa A Rosati provides readers with her Top 60 Article Banks on her website. She is a co-active coach. Her clients are writers, artists and business visionaries. In addition to her international publishing experience, she is a professor of publishing at Pace University, New York City. To learn more about her services, please visit her website at http://www.melissarosati.com

Dipping Into the Character Well

2005-11-03T14:07:00.000-08:00

I believe that the best fiction is character-driven. Plotlines are of secondary importance, because if we don't care about the characters then the drama that unfolds around them fails to stir our interest. This division is really an artificial one, though, because within a good story the plot is an outgrowth of a writer's understanding of his or her protagonists' true natures. The adventure that beckons them is one that they need, or deserve, so the two are intertwined.

How do we hope to arrive at an understanding of our characters and their destiny whilst faced with the first blank page of a (hopeful) novel or story? The prospect is less daunting if we realize that we don't NEED to thoroughly know our heroes and villains at the onset. We need only a starting point and a glimpse from afar; or a first date, if you will. The rough draft is our "getting acquainted" period. We aren't married to our characters until the second draft, and even then we have recourse to literary divorce.

Allow me to describe two wellsprings where I'm wont to go to fill my buckets with character inspiration.

1. Alter-egos

I'm writing this on halloween, a night when children and adults have license to dress up and assume adopted personas. Many are quite zealous about living out their alternate identities, which oftentimes contrast sharply with their everyday lives. Much of the fun of halloween is derived from the freedom we have to let our alter-egos express themselves for a night.

I am typically a quietly disciplined (albeit ambitious) writer and a doting father. But there's an inner showman in me who aches to be up onstage crooning and gyrating like Jim Morrison. My exhibitionist self loves heavy-metal, grunge, punk and psychadelic rock. He insisted that I make music a core element of my first novel, and even that I include song lyrics. In an opposite corner of my psyche there exists a geek who could easily spend days at the library or on the computer surfing the web. He made some unexpected and fortuitous contributions to my book including such characters as a chemistry hobbyist turned City Father and a diplomat and interpreter living within a tribal culture. Another character, a young woman with a passion for history and literature who also plays Pan-pipes, was the result of "collaboration" between these two secret selves of mine.

If you mine your psyche for alter-egos, you're likely to find that they have surprising stories to tell. Clues to their existence can be gleaned by examining your hobbies, your taste in casual reading and even your daydreams. Isolate these figures and give them a chance to speak their minds. Your pen hand may have trouble keeping up with them before long.

2. Dreams

When we dream we travel through the landscape of our own rich inner world. Our deepest beliefs and feelings are personified and given voices. During the day our inner monologue operates constantly, and our thoughts sway us this way and that. We make myriad large and small decisions, and our motivations can be as varied as our choices themselves. Within our dreams, the collision of our thoughts and belief systems is enacted as an otherworldly drama. This inner play is intended to reflect our spiritual condition. Archetypal psychology has evolved the system of gestalt, wherein patients engage in active dialogue with figures from their dreams.

Writing can be a form of gestalt, with the poem, short-story or novel serving the same function as a dream. So the figures we encounter when we sleep can provide another rich source of inspiration for characters. Dream entities are akin to our literary creations; both represent parts of ourselves, and yet at the same time they are more or other than what we are. They receive the germ of their identity from us, but then they take off and evolve in unexpected direction - just as children will diverge from their parents' footsteps.

For this reason I believe that spontaneity is of utmost importance in any form of creative writing. I begin my novels or stories with only the barest sketches of my characters; and then I give them space to come into their own. You may find that your own characters will inevitably do this too, and your painstakingly-drafted outline becomes redundant by the third chapter of your book. So dip into your inner well for your initial impressions of who will be the main movers in your story. Then let them find their feet as you write.

I'll conclude the parenting analogy with this observation: we want what's best for our characters, but we can't plan their lives.

Seth Mullins is the author of "Song of an Untamed Land", a novel of speculative fantasy in lawless frontier territory. To browse sample chapters, short fiction and related writings, visit Seth at http://authorsden.com/sethtmullins/.

THINGS YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT AND PUBLISH!

2005-11-02T07:13:00.000-08:00

The stories and articles you can write about are only limited by your imagination, ingenuity and persistence. And your ability to dig deep into and write well about a potentially good story or article can make you a published writer.

You can write about many things and here are a fewof them:

YOUR LIFE! No two people on earth have had the exact experiences. Each of us goes through life and experience things which are unique only to ourselves. Your life experiences are fodder for good personal experience articles. To start writing this type of article, brainstorm about unusual, unique, scary or even dangerous events you have experienced. From your list, think of an angle or an interesting way you can present your experience.

I'LL TEACH YOU HOW TO! Do you have a special talent, skill or knowledge? Why not write instructional articles based on those? This type of articles are commonly known as how-to articles and are regularly published in magazines because of their popularity to readers. How-to articles are usually written in a step-by-step manner, using bullet or number lists.

PROFILES! Personality profiles or sketches feature subjects who are more or less famous people -- celebrities, sports heroes, politicians, or someone who is recognized in his/her field. For profile articles, look within your community (town, city, state, region) and see if you can find and interview local celebrities. Usually, profiles are in the form of Q&A so you only need to come up with interesting questions for your subject. You can then submit your profile article to your community paper or regional paper.

INSPIRATIONALS! Articles that inspire, motivate and/or move people to tears or laughter fall under this category. Religious or secular articles are also forms of inspirational articles. If you're new to writing, submitting inspirational pieces for church or religious magazines is a good way to break into the writing and publishing field.

JAUNTS! Travel articles appeal to practically everyone, even to those who have never traveled. Have you been someplace where you found the sights, customs, food, habits, or culture different and interesting? If you travel frequently, start taking down notes of where the best places to stay are, where the interesting sights can be found, where to stay, and how to get to those places. Keep a travel notebook and log your travels. Write your impressions of places, people and cultures.

SPECIAL INTERESTS! Some special interest subjects are parenting, child nutrition, home and garden, and health. There are certainly thousands of publications that cater to special interest subjects. If you have been gardening for years, you can write articles for gardening enthusiasts.

Specialize on your area of interest and over time, you will establish yourself as an expert in that area.

Shery Ma Belle Arrietamailto:publisher@ewritersplace.comShery is the creator and author of the exciting new series of ebooks for writers, SEEDS: Ideas for the Everyday (Non-Fiction) Writer. You can download a FREE sampler at http://ewritersplace.com/seeds.html. The July SEEDS ebook contains 82 idea seeds, all based on historical events. Visit http://www.thepublishedwriter.com/report1002.html

Writer Beware! Is Writing.com Becoming a Scam? You Decide

2005-11-02T07:12:00.000-08:00

Writers Beware! Is Writing.com Becoming a Scam? You Decide.

I will relate to you my personal experience with Writing.com so that you and other hard-working writers out there could take note and avoid getting cheated and abused by the mentioned online service.

Around late September of 2004, I was browsing online searching for a great website where I could share my writing projects with other writers. One search engine brought up result pages of thousands of writing-related services, software, and such. Finally, I found Writing.com listed and I clicked on its link to visit the site. I liked what I read and decided to sign up for a free account on its home page.

After reading its FAQs and other informative material about the site, the idea truly attracted me of reaching literally hundreds of thousands of authors and readers. I loved its dynamic promotional possibilities, the variety of ways to market my writing pieces, and the different tools that became instantly available to me when I signed up.

During my stay at Writing.com, I created a number of poems and articles, made them available to the general public at Writing.com, and received decent, constructive, and honest reviews from well-meaning reviewers. I learned how to improve my poem or article by making a few changes, cutting the "fat," etc. I also regularly reviewed other writers' poetry, book chapters, and short stories, and received kind compliments on my sincere reviews. Every time I reviewed someone's writing, I received what are called "Gift Point." I thought that was a neat and encouraging way to motivate a writer to keep drafting new pieces.

After a year of being an active participant, buying "Gift Points" from Writing.com with my credit card to promote my articles, I went to the home page to log in into my account one night, and I was absolutely unable to do so! On top of the home page it read "Username has been deleted." I received no prior warning, no notice of any kind, or not even a refund of the unused Gift Points I still had.

This unexpected event reminded me of 7Search.com who has been charged by its former marketers of turning into a scam operation. 7Search.com cancelled their account and did not refund their remaining balance. Writing.com is headed in the same exact direction. It's a shame but that's the sad reality. There are thousands of good authors that run the same risk of losing unused Gift Points, their account, and their writing drafts!

I tried emailing the Writing.com administrator, but my email bounced back to me undelivered! When this action occurred, it really made me doubly suspicious. The next day, October 31, I tried logging in into my account at Writing.com and couldn't do so for the second time. For sure this is not a glitch! A glitch does not last twenty four hours!

Beware: If this happened to me, it certainly can happen to you! Tell everyone you know about Writing.com and its crooked practices so that your friends and family members will not become victims as well.

About the Author

Samuel Faris loves to write on a variety of topics varying from health, controversial issues, to specialty products. He also loves to review other authors' works

Ghostwriting for Fun and Profit

2005-11-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

We've all heard of ghostwriters. For some, a ghostwriter is the ghostly assistant to junior detectives on a PBS kids' show. For most, however, a ghostwriter is someone who writes for another, in the name of another.

Many celebrities use a ghostwriter in their forays into writing. Probably the most-noted ghostwriting project would have to be the books by V.C. Andrews, which were taken on by a ghostwriter after the real V.C. Andrews passed away. Surprisingly, there are a lot of writers that would like to break into this type of business, even though friends and family are sure to question them about such a task.

But ghostwriting can be really rewarding. You get the chance to research and write all about topics that you wouldn't normally get the chance to learn about. The old "write what you know" theory for writing doesn't apply here, as your clients will dictate the topic you write about. And you can make a decent living!

If you're new to writing, it might take some time to get clients, but it's possible. It just takes some hard work and perserverance. But there are serveral ways that a new ghostwriter can find clients. First of all, bid on writing jobs on contracted work sites such as getafreelancer.com or rentacoder.com. You sign up as a service provider to begin bidding on posted projects. If you win the bid, typically, you do the writing project as a ghostwriter.

Be sure to place ads for your ghostwriting service on free classified ad sites! It doesn't cost you anything and it's a great way to get your services out there in front of your potential clients.

Surely by now you're a member of at least a few forums. Post responses with a signature that defines your ghostwriting service and an email address or website for people to visit. While in the forums, if you're allowed to introduce your business, you should do it! Definitely seek out writing forums for this. You'll be amazed at how many authors would love to have a ghostwriter!
Have business cards created or create your own! This should showcase your ghostwriting business, and you should definitely pass them out at every opportunity. Write a press release announcing your services. There are plenty of ways to get the message out, even no-cost or low-cost distribution services available online!

Ghostwriting may not be for everyone. If you want credit for your work, it's definitely not the way to go, as you don't get credit, the client does. However, if that doesn't matter to you and you love to write on a wide variety of topics, ghostwriting can be enjoyable and you can make some pretty good money doing it!

About the Author

Amanda Baker writes for All Things Pondered: http://AllThingsPondered.com

Submitting Articles to Ezines

2005-11-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

Ok, your article’s ready to go!

Now, you should take out your list of Ezines that you have chosen to submit to.

If you chose to use a mail merge program to submit them, I have a few good ones listed in the resource section.

If you chose to send them out manually, make sure you do not use the BCC field or CC function for this.

Here are the things you need to include in your message to the editor:

Introduce your article and give personal information about yourself. The editor needs to have your contact information and a little background info on you helps as well.

You need to make your email stand out from the crowd. Personalize the first paragraph and speak directly to the editor about how well your article fits with their Ezine’s content.

Give your editor the number of words in your article

Do not send your article as an attachment . Most editors will simply throw it away because it poses a risk of having a virus.

Your headline should tell them what you are sending – Ex- New Article for Your Consideration
To find the addresses of Ezines publishers, you can use databases such as,

Ezines search database

You can also post your article to several websites where Ezines editors go to search for new material. They are:

ideamarketers.com

Ezines articles

Submit marketing articles

Writing articles for Ezines is a wonderful, free way to get your name out there and establish yourself in your field. Don’t underestimate the power of a well-written article in the right, targeted Ezine!

By: Anne AhiraEditor The BEST Affiliate Newsletterhttp://www.thebestaffiliate.com

Kudos to you the reader

2005-10-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

First I want to thank a very special friend. He told me a few months ago when I began writing articles. “Rose you have to quit saying that you don't see yourself as a columnist because you are one". So to my very special friend you know who you are, I thank you.

Article writing is something very new to me, so when I’m submitting my work to Ezines and webmasters or bloggers are using that free content for their website it really helps me as a writer to boost and develop more self confidence. Starting something new can often make one feel un-confident. Maybe for many writing content and submitting it to Ezines is a way to receive a free plug or up their Google ranking and drive traffic back to their website.

That is not why I submit to EZines. My reason for submitting to Ezines and offering free content is because I’m passionate about writing. I enjoy writing my thoughts down about a variety of topics. Every sense I can remember my dream was to someday become a journalist. However my dreams got put on hold to raise a family. Now I’m almost thirty-six years old and I’m looking at my life and I’m saying Rose it is time that you did something with your writing. The only way that you are going to get further in life is by setting goals and developing a plan to move ahead with those set goals.

That is where you the reader comes in. You are the writers driving force that gives someone like me unsure about her writing the courage to move ahead. When I see something I wrote posted on a website or I receive comments like “I like how you think and the way you write. I will be using more of your articles in my blog “and “it is a good article. Thanks for writing it and distributing it for free for sites like ours to use”, or “KUDOS! What a great article and one that should be read by a lot of people in my line of work. I am sending my association members this article.” It really feels good as a writer and is a great honor. You might feel as the webmaster that you are just gathering content for your website and providing articles for your readers but little do you know that you are actually helping a writer like me with the motivation to write more articles. You are the driving force behind my writing.

Yes you the reader and webmaster are a great access to my career as a writer. Whatever it is as writer that we write it would be nothing without an audience. So today I acknowledge you the reader and the webmaster. Give yourself a huge pat on the back for it was you who just inspired this article and I thank you. I thank you for believing enough in my writing to use it for your website or send me feedback. It is a great feeling when you know that your writing is being enjoyed.

Rose DesRochers, Canadaadmin@todays-woman.nethttp://www.todays-woman.net

Rose is a published author from Canada Ontario and is also the founder of Today's Woman a community for men and women over 18, where writers/poets/columnists meet and exchange ideas, contest, rate and review and help each other succeed in the writing industry.

Article Marketing: Dress Up Your Own Site

2005-10-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Article directories are a great way to submit high quality articles, have webmasters pick them up, and for you to reap great back links to your site. Still, all directories have restrictions and these restrictions can limit the number of quality links you put within the body of your article or strip them out entirely. If you run your own site, these rules have no bearing on how you manage your site. The following are some strategies I have employed that not only have given my site a Google page rank of 6, but have helped me to maximize my articles’ exposure on the internet.

Lots of links. My articles have a similar resource box to those found on article directories, but I don’t stop there. Within the body of an article, I frequently add additional links, sometimes lots of links to other sites. They don’t have to be to sites I run, but to other high quality sites. If I am writing an article about Ford cars, you better believe it that I have links to pages for the Ford Mustang, to the Explorer, and any other vehicles I mention. Google seems to like these types of pages as some of my articles are getting ranked high too. One article already pulled down a page rank of 4!

Add pictures. A picture speaks a thousand words… A picture can help your article look more professional. I also will use a company logo, if I have express permission. With some of my links and pictures I will hyperlink them to other pages on my site or to other sites altogether.

Welcome the robots. I mentioned in another article that Googlebot is my friend. Do everything possible to keep your site crisp, clean, and clear and toss out anything that looks spammy. Most of my articles also have the requisite AdSense ads on them in part for me to make income, but also to tell me if the ads served up are related to the article I wrote. Almost without exception they are, but you need to check back to verify.

So, why go through all this trouble? Hopefully, to bring in additional business for yourself. Most of the work that I get is directly from my site, which I only set up on May 31, 2005! Not a bad track record, don’t you agree? If I can do it, you can do it too! What are you waiting for? Get started today.

Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more. Samples from his portfolio are available right online.

8 Secret Tips To Generate A Massive Income Using Articles

2005-10-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Many of us think that articles are only for traffic and such. But, do you know that there are many ways on how you can use your articles? Here are some tips that might help you with your online business.

1. Create an extra revenue stream with your website's articles or content. Publish the first paragraph of each article and charge a fee for people to read the rest. You could also allow other authors to submit their articles and split the profit.

2. Build credibility for your business by publishing an e-zine and writing articles. Your customers and prospects will see you as an expert thus creating trust towards you. You could also submit your articles to other e-zines for republishing and publicity purposes. Just require them to include your resource box at the end of the article.

3. Take advantage of popular fads. If something is popular at the current time, put up a web site about it. Just promote your main site on the fad web site. Send off a quick article about it to get free publicity. You could also do this with popular search engine keywords and phrases.

4. Add an article section to your web site. People will visit your website to read and learn new information related to their interests. You want to have original content so people can't go anywhere else to get it. You also want to update it regularly so that they will want to revisit your website again and again.

5. Promote your products within the content of your web site. Write and offer free articles, include a mentioning of the product or service you're selling. You could include it in your resource box or subtly reveal it within your article if it's related.

6. Swap articles with other e-zine publishers. You could get your articles published more often if you publish their articles in exchange. If they are hard negotiators, maybe you could offer to exchange two of their articles for one of yours.

7. Promote yourself as well as your products. Use your articles to create a free e-book or a short report. When you endorse other products for commissions, people will think your statement is extra-credible because you have established yourself as an expert.

8. Use your articles as viral marketing tools for your affiliates. You can compile it into an e-book or you can give your affiliates permission to submit it into article directories.

Remember, there are numerous ways to use your articles. Just use your imagination and don’t afraid to try something new. Trust yourself and just do it.

Azwan Asmat is the author of The Ecom Blog and has 1 year experience working with chemical substances. For more tips on online business, subscribe to his monthly newsletter. http://www.ecommerce-newbie.com/ecom

Article Writing Inspiration 600,000 Article Views

2005-10-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

It was midnight and Lance Winslow was watching the clock, perhaps a bad habit from his past. In High School and later in College Lance was a trackstar; he finally accomplished his goal, to run a 4-minute mile.

Since that day Lance has always lived by the second not the minute and sometimes a day seems like and eternity, as at those times in competitive track, you race against world-class athletes all of which are headed for the Olympics or at least that is their goal. It is all about precision, pace and beating your body in to submission.

To compete at that level you must live without limits and believe you will. He still remembers those days, the workouts, the food, the long runs, blisters, tight muscles, hours and hours a day beating himself up for the next race, but not peaking too soon in the year otherwise there would be no chance at winning the championship.

Tonight was another of those intense personal competitions, what drives this guy, many asked, even Lance couldn’t tell you anymore, that is all he knew, it had become a habit in everything he did. Running a business, running in an election, giving a speech or doing non-profit work. He competed, generally against himself, for there were no others willing to go the distance. Often criticized or called into question by seemingly impossible record setting accomplishments, somehow people just assumed he was cheating. Not so, never a steroid, skipped practice, missed class or forgoing a promise in a handshake.

When Lance retired at age 40 from a franchise business he created which set up businesses in 22 states, he decided to help fix some things he had observed in the world. He decided to write about his ideas, concepts, innovations, experiences, observations, but he could find no real good place to post these articles, where many people would see them and he would not be forced to write anything he was not passionate about.

Lance discovered a really cool Internet site called; EzineArticles.com, which worked out really nice and Lance set out to write the most articles. Within a month and a half he surpassed all the others, but he knew if this was going to be something he was going to do in his spare time, then he would just have to compete against himself and Lance’s most competitive adversary was; time. Lance knew a lot about time, in fact he had been competing against it his whole life.
But on this night he watched the clock; his goal was to reach 600,000 article views by midnight having only written 2525 articles many were quite new and although they were gaining views from Internet Surfers to read they were not going to get him to that kind of number right away. He tried every possible way to increase his article views, just like in business or running, trying new strategies, new food, different workouts, better shoes or more efficient machinery; he knew he had to continue to work harder; knowing the old statement; “it is surprising how lucky your are getting when you are working hard.” He had done all that and now he waited to see if he could make the grade of 600,000 hits by Midnight.

It was 11:59.59 and he hit the refresh button to see how he had done. It had taken hard work and it took him “time,” to come this far, but the time had come, the time of truth. He looked down at the number; 599,996; “oh,” he sighed, he had felt like this before but it was so many years ago, once in politics having run and lost in an election, that was so very close and then there were all those times in track, when he had worked and trained much harder than what he saw in the movie; “Rocky” only to come up short by a few seconds, although he rarely ever lost a race, Lance was always racing against time.

Now with 2525 articles and over 111,500 words in seven months and all that hard work, he once again missed by his goal; he was so very close. Almost tasting victory and only missing by a mere 4 clicks from web surfers looking to read his latest titles and articles. Some ask why he does it, but some also ask mountain climbers why they do. In the 20 days leading up to the midnight self-induced contest and somewhat unrealistic goal Lance received 100,000 hits minus the four article views he needed to beat the clock, to defeat time.

He then thought of his next goal; Three Quarters of a million hits, could he make it by New Years? Hard to say that is 150,000 article views through the holidays, often sprinkled with less internet surfers especially around the bigger holidays. The goal has been set, he knows what he has to do, he has to write more articles, while allowing the ones in circulation to press on, it is a numbers game as he races against time and only time will tell. Whether he gets that lofty seemingly impossible goal or not, the next goal after that will most likely be 1-million article views.

- - - - - - - -

Hi, my name is Lance Winslow and I have written this story to illustrate a point. You must not live your life constantly limiting yourself. Live without limits. “Hear no limits, think no limits, accept no limits?” I myself, well I am not a writer, well I guess I am now? I never thought I would ever be a writer, always considered myself a doer. But when you live without limits, well that means you can do just about anything really.

There is nothing you cannot achieve if you set your mind to it, set goals and promise yourself; “No Limits!” Please think on this, I’ll get back to you later, let me know how you are coming along, send good thoughts, I am with you always and I understand. Now, I must go to write more articles? What should I write about today? What are you going to write about today? That sounds good, let’s do it.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Ezine Article Writers - What is in Your Wallet?

2005-10-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

If you are an online article writer and you want to see more cash in your wallet then you must be careful when writing articles to properly title them and also make sure your key words and content all match to attract the readers you want. It is also important to realize that as an online or Ezine article writer that you must make sure to keep your article view counters clicking away. After all it is a numbers game in the end, either you attract people to your site or you do not. The more people you bring in the better your chances of turning them into sales.

To calculate your article view average take the number of articles you have written and divide that by your total article views. My average article viewing is 234.6 up from 177.71 most of this however is from recent “in the news” Articles, but these events and people in the news will no longer be in the news in the next four weeks and even if extended by two-weeks this means my article view average will not go up significantly.

Most authors and myself included would like to see this at 1000 average not 234 and yes you must also realize it is a time factor as many have said. Sometimes you will notice that your old articles are not moving at all not even by 1-2 views due to being no longer in season or in the news or even on the minds of your potential readers in various times of the year.

To counter this you need to be very cognizant of your titles, content and key wording and be smart about you article submissions, think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Effective Editing: It Spells the Difference!

2005-10-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

If you think proofreading equals editing, then you're wrong! Editing is a lot more than just scrutinizing your manuscript for misspelled words or missing punctuation marks.

As a whole:

Edit only *after* you've written the *whole* piece. If you stop to edit after every paragraph or sentence, you will disrupt the flow of your thoughts.

It is better to take a break before starting to edit a long manuscript so you’ll have a fresh perspective.

Revise only *hard copy* especially if your manuscript is quite long. Revising from a monitor is confusing.

Verify the spelling of names, figures, dates, and addresses. These are the most murdered items in manuscripts!

Be sure of what you put between those quotation marks! Otherwise, rephrase the line and omit the quotation marks.

Did you follow the writer guidelines? e.g., number of words required, font/font size specified, spacing, margins...

Edit your content:

Be sure that you did not stray from your topic. Are your paragraphs coherent?

Did you fulfill your purpose for writing that piece? Is your entertainment feature article entertaining enough? Did your personality sketch bring out your subject's unique and distinct qualities?

If necessary, did you provide enough supporting data (graphs, charts, figures) for your piece?
If applicable, did your article answer the 5 Ws and H? Who, what, why, were, when and how.

Edit for tightness:

Remove redundant and useless words.

What about diction? Did you use the right word to express what you mean? For example, "He stared at her" is more intense than "He looked at her." "Devour" is not the same as "eat."
Did you vary the length of your sentences? Combining long with short sentences makes your article easier and more natural to read.

Did you check that the body of your article is longer than the introduction (lead)? Some writers get carried way. They focus on an effective lead to hook the readers but neglect the body of the article!

What about tone and style?

Does your work reflect your writing style or does it sound like a copied work?

Did you use the active voice? Are you consistent with the point of view you used?

Do your title and the words you used match the tone of your piece?

Copyright © 2004 Lizzie R. Santos (lizzie@imusepub.com)

Lizzie writes features, literary pieces, radio and comics scripts, and school supplemental reading materials. She is the author of two print books. Her e-book, Appetizers for Creative Writers: A Workbook for Writers, is published by iMusePub.com and it's at http://imusepub.com/lrsantos-1.php

Writing Well-- 6 Steps to Being Your Own Best Editor

2005-10-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

One of the first important lessons a writer learns is that writing is a process, a series of steps that take an idea from concept to completed work. This is true whether the work is an article, a poem, a report, a short story or a book. Understanding this process -- and the role a writer plays in it -- is crucial to their success.

One of the most important steps in this process is learning to look at one's own work objectively. To focus on the intended message and ensure that it is delivered properly. While that may seem obvious enough, as the work progresses, it can become blurred. As the old song goes, "I have so much to say; but the words get in my way." To clarify that 'blurring' effect, it is essential to be able to edit your own work. But how does a writer edit their own work? While the process may vary depending on the writer, there are six steps that are integral to editing.

1) COMPLETE THE DRAFT Novice writers should not attempt to edit as they write. Even experienced writers, who learn to smoothe over the copy as they go, know this is not editing and must wait for that separate step later on. The most important point of a first draft is to simply get the idea on paper, in whatever fashion that's comfortable for the writer. An outline is helpful and can serve as a rough draft for smaller projects. But if that format seems too limiting, just write out the first draft, understanding it is only the first go-around.

2) WALK AWAY Even if it's only for a long enough period of time to get a glass of water. With longer projects, try to lengthen the time to a few days or weeks. This step allows the writer to gain perspective by "stepping back". Mostly, it allows the writer time for the subject to settle in their mind, plus it gives them time to mentally shift gears from writer to editor.

3) ASSESS OBJECTIVELY While reading over the copy, the writer must learn to view it as a reader. One should be neither overly critical, nor overly attached to certain pet phrases or side remarks, but simply read it as if reading it for the first time. When done earnestly, this will make any errors, flaws or awkward points more apparent.

4) BE BRUTAL This is the most difficult step, especially for the young or insecure writer. Heck, it's tough for the pros. Think of the classic image of an editor-- from the old Superman comics, for instance, wielding his red-ink pen with flourish, only interested in the facts. Especially when writing articles or in business, this is your best ally. With this image in mind, really look at what is necessary to make a logical progression. One trick is to put yourself under an artificial word restriction. Nothing helps cut unneccesary copy better than a specific word limit.

5) CRISP, CONCISE, CLEAR These are the "3-C's" of good writing. While each writer has his/her own way of expressing themselves (and, in the case of fiction, more latitude is acceptable), these three points are integral parts of any successful writing.

CRISP - A fresh or meaningful viewpoint. Take a stand. The purpose of writing is to say something-- so say it!

CONCISE - Do not wander from the point. At least, not without a reason that directly relates to the original idea.

CLEAR - Make a steady progression from beginning to end. Don't leave major gaps in the progression.

Whether a report, a novel, an essay or an article -- even in poetry or song -- this rule applies.

While editing, a writer must ask themself if the work succeeds in these three areas. If it doesn't, WHY? Analyze when and where it strays, even if that means working backward to the beginning.

6) PERSONAL WEAKNESS Just as an athlete must learn to be aware of any physical weakness and compensate for it, so a writer must familiarze themself with their own bad habits or tendencies. A classic example is when a young writer masks their insecurity with a flourish of fancy words. But each writer has their own faults and must learn to guard against them. For example, when I was young, I had a nasty habit of using at least three adjectives whenever I described something. Eventually I saw this as the annoying flaw it was, and learned to choose the very best adjective and commit to it. Seeing this habit as a flaw was difficult. But it made me a stronger writer.

And that is the entire purpose of learning to edit one's own work: to grow and strengthen as a writer.--mo

About the Author

About the Author Marige O'Brien works as a writer, web designer and affiliate/internet marketer. Her website is Tracker Mo's Den. Her previous articles, as well as latest marketing tips, are on her blog, Tracker Mo's Finds

Article Marketing: Savvy Ideas That Work

2005-10-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

If you have been marketing articles for a significant length of time or if you are new to the game - and it is a game - then there are a few things you can do to give yourself an edge. Some you already know about, such as writing material that people actually want on their site while others may not be as apparent to you. Let's take a look at some behind the scenes marketing you can do so that your articles get the circulation they deserve.

Market Everywhere - Well, mostly everywhere. There are plenty of ezines, article directories, and the like on the internet. If you are limiting your exposure to just one site, then you are missing out on something big. Market your articles to at least five sites; however be careful of bad neighborhoods where the directory manager isn't doing a good enough job marketing his or her own site. The best site example of a well marketed site is Ezine Articles. Chris Knight, the manager of the site, has a blog and a forum, and he keeps his members informed with the occasional email. In addition, this particular site has RSS feeds and is considered by many to be the cutting edge article directory site on the internet. I won't name bad sites by name; rather just taking a look at them speaks volumes. If they neglect their site, they will neglect your articles.

Market On Your Own Sites - If you don't have your own site, then you are missing a terrific opportunity to list your own articles. One big advantage of having your own site is that you aren't don't have the restrictions you have with many article directories. No one will strip out or limit your URLs, therefore you can add many additional links to your articles [which is something that Google loves]. The more Google loves your site, the higher the page rank, and the more likely you will get what you really want: more customers!

Market On Handpicked Sites - The best marketing practice is to aim for the moon. In other words, if there is a major site that you want to feature an article you wrote, then design your article to the level that the site manager wants and submit directly to them. Just think of it: if just one of your articles is picked up by a site that has several hundred thousands visitors per day, you stand to gain an awesome amount of traffic. If they pay you for your article, then that is an added bonus. At the bare minimum, one high quality link back to your site will drive traffic your way.

You can also supplement your article marketing campaign via emails to your members with links to your latest articles; posting your information on a site such as Craig's List; and changing your signature on quality forums to which you belong to include a link directly to an important article.

Some prognosticators and pundits are insisting that the internet is reaching critical mass and that article marketing will soon peak. Do not believe them. High quality articles containing relevant and useful information will always find a home online. Write well and they will come... the terrific back links, that is!

About the Author

Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is the owner of a successful article writing, web design, and marketing business based in North Carolina, USA. He manages several sites including the Corporate Flight Attendant Community and the Aviation Employment Board.

How to Write an Uncommonly Good Article - Six Key Steps Part 1

2005-10-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

It is a well-known fact that writing good quality articles and placing them on the internet is a great method for getting exposure. Unfortunately, it is also a great method for exposing yourself in a manner that you would prefer not to.

As an avid writer and reader I spend a few minutes every day reading the thoughts of other contributors. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. Often I am not.

I see the same mistakes made time after time.

Before I list six common errors let me tell you that I spent many years as a professional letter writer, editor, proof reader, report writer and speech writer. I have also penned eight books and have had many letters, articles and short stories published in countless newspapers, magazines and, of course, all over the internet.

If you want to check this for yourself you can look on any search engine and you will see my name come up all over the place. (Now I am really going to be under pressure to perform at the highest level.) Enough about my credentials.

Mistakes...

I am going to list some of the most annoying ones for a reader. Fixing them will definitely make your writing stronger. Here they are:

I know this seems ridiculously obvious BUT please use the spell checker on your computer. It will not pick up every mistake but it will reveal obvious ones. That is a good start.

Too many spelling mistakes will destroy your credibility. People will wonder what other mistakes you make. That leads them to questioning the accuracy of your information.

Space your writing into easy to read paragraphs. If you are the sort of writer who just starts at the top left hand corner of the page and finishes in the bottom right hand corner of the page then you need to stop doing that. Why? The main reason is that NOBODY will read it. Nothing is more confronting to a reader than a massive block of unbroken text.

See what I just did? The paragraph was getting too big. Lots of "white space" around short paragraphs is far easier to read. A dozen or so paragraphs is far easier to read than something that looks like some lawyer's horrible legal document.

I used to place the pages at my feet, stand up, then view them for visual effect. If the paragraphs looked too chunky then I would create more "white space." Eventually I was able to do this naturally from my desk.

Keep your paragraphs to one key theme. Arrange them logically. That is, present one idea per paragraph and stick to it. If you want to say something else that is not in keeping with the theme then start a new paragraph.

Chopping and changing subjects within paragraphs makes your thoughts look jumbled. Do this and you will also lose readers. They will think they are playing a game of mental "snakes and ladders."

Use short sentences. Again, see what I did? That first sentence was only three words. The next was just five. This sentence is only six words.

Several short sentences with an occasional long sentence like this one will give variation. Short sentences are easily understood.

If you use very long sentences people will have to go back to re-read them to understand what you are saying. Is that what you want?

Never use big or unusual words when shorter or more common words will do the same job.
Often people will use big words to impress their readers. Let me assure you - it is not impressive. You will lose readers.

Having said that - if a large word gives a specific meaning that no other word can then you should use it. Just don't make people run for the lexicon too often. Sorry. I should have said dictionary. See what I mean?

Proof read your article several times to ensure that it makes sense. A good method is to read it, make any necessary changes then come back to it later. Only when you are happy with your article should you submit it for publication.

To summarize:

Use the spell checking facility on your computer

Space your writing into paragraphs with sufficient "white space" around it

Keep paragraphs within specific themes

Short sentences are easier to understand

Common words are easier to understand

Proof read your work before submitting it.

If you adhere to these six key points your writing will improve and your readers will appreciate you for it.

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."

Are You Too Quick to Accuse Others? The Case of an Alleged Plagiarized Article With ME the Victim!

2005-10-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

There I was sitting at my computer tapping away at an article that I was writing. I had just cleared my inbox of dozens of emails, some of which were welcome, most of which was useless spam. I heard it come in - "ning-nong." (In case you are wondering, that was my attempt at replicating the sound that my email alert makes.)

"Darn!" I thought to myself. "I just cleared that." So, I checked it again and there it was. One email. A nasty one at that. A person, who I did not know, was abusing me for ripping him off on an article at an article site I had never heard of. He was claiming that I had changed the title of an article that he had written then claimed it as my own using the resource box to point people to my website.

I was given an ultimatum and a date. The threat was clear. "Remove your name and your resource box from MY article!"

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Me? A plagiarist (a copy cat)? Not a chance. Not a chance in the world! So I set about investigating the claim.

This guy was mad and I had no idea what he was going on about. But there was one thing that I knew for certain - his allegations were FALSE. I was innocent. And that was the thrust of the first email that he received from me.

After wasting considerable time looking for the site that this outrage had supposedly occurred at, I eventually found it. I couldn't believe my eyes at first...

Yes, there was HIS article with MY name on it. But then I did a search around the site and found that it was an "article site" that had ripped EVERYBODY off. Several of my articles had been placed there - all of them had been changed and distorted and completely mangled.

I recognized several other authors known to me as well, some quite prominent ones. Every article was full of spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes and every other mistake that I knew none of these authors would ever make. The site was a complete mess, hastily cobbled together. Whoever owned it was ripping everybody off.

I emailed my accuser with my findings. Several hours later he emailed me back, apologizing. In the intervening period he, too, realized that it was a scam site. He knew in his own mind that I was innocent.

That's when I wondered why some people were so quick to accuse and abuse others without investigating the facts fully. Do you do that? I hope not. Sure, sometimes all of us are ripped off by unscrupulous scam-artists. It is a horrible feeling. But, rather than accuse or abuse an INNOCENT person - make sure you know all the facts first.

Back to that fraudulent website...

Oh... it is a truly woeful thing! Not only has it ripped off hundreds of authors but it has also ripped off the home page template from another site. To make matters even uglier it has simply added the letter "s" to the already existing domain name of another ezine article site. I will refrain from mentioning the domain name of this terrible site as I do not wish to give them any traffic whatsoever. I can't see how it will ever be successful anyway due to the unbelievably low quality it displays!

My opinion is that they are taking thousands of articles from reputable article sites, messing them up with shocking mistakes, mixing up author names with other authors' articles (like they did to me and my "accuser") and generally tainting every person whose name appears on the site. There are thousands of innocent authors involved! I believe that it is being put together by scammers in order to sell advertizing space. It needs to be banned.

So, how did I end up with the person who falsely accused me of plagiarism? He realized that he had made a serious error. He apologized, I accepted and we parted on friendly terms. But I'm still lousy about that terrible rip-off article site. Something definitely needs to be done about that!

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."

All Article Authors Are Being Ripped-Off and Made to Look Like Fools

2005-10-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

It sure does pay to investigate credible information when it comes to your attention - especially on this amazing medium known as the internet. You never know what you will find. Sometimes it will horrify you.

Specifically, I was alerted today (October 24, 2005) to a website that is fraudulently altering and posting thousands of articles written by thousands of authors. The site, which I will not name (yet), is riddled with errors. All the articles being cobbled together there have been re-typed (for whatever reason I do not know) and are full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Even worse, again for a reason that I cannot fathom, articles are being credited to the wrong authors. This place looks like a train crash!

The site in question is a total disaster. It makes every author listed there, fraudulently, I might add, look like a complete fool. Unfortunately, along with thousands of others, I am listed there.

My articles have been bastardized to oblivion. I can hardly recognize them through all the mistakes.

I noticed some other well-known authors too. All their articles have suffered the same fate as mine. They are all mangled - every one of them!

Additionally, the site in question has ripped off another article site by adding an "s" to the domain name. As of today, this horrible site is claiming 63,621 articles published. To my mind that is 63,621 articles whose credibility have been completely destroyed. So, it is easy to see the enormous size of the problem.

I am really torn between naming this site. On one hand I want to expose them for what they have done. On the other hand, I do not want to contribute to their success by sending them any traffic.

The best advice that I can give at the moment is to be vigilant about who is using your articles. Do the search.

The lesson to be learned here, I think, is to do a periodic google search to see where your name and articles are being posted. Visit those sites and, if they are taking advantage of you, as this particular site does, then complain until they remove the offensive material.

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice."