Welcome To Article Marketing For Beginners
This lense is about my experience with article marketing ,how I got started, why I love it, why it works and how it works. I will also show how you write your first article then submit it for publication.
What The Heck Is Article Marketing Anyway?
Still not sure what article marketing is all about and want to learn it from a beginners perspective?
Article marketing is basically an advertising technique where you write short articles about topics that you know alot about in order to bring targeted visitors to your websites or blogs.
My first article that I ever wrote and published was an interview with fellow internet marketer named Nick Martin. As you can see, it's not really an article per se but nonetheless it falls under that article umbrella.
You can read that interview by visiting this site.
Street Directory.com
That interview article was a joint venture between me and one of my online friends who used to publish a newsletter online, but no longer.
The reason why we wrote that article was Ofa Morgan wanted to attract subscribers to her newsletter and I wanted to introduce newbie marketers to traffic exchange programs and LSN. LSN is Nick Martin's affiliate program which stands for Lifestylenetworker. I used LSN to build my list of contacts, but in the last 2 years the site got hacked and two years of work went down the tube. That's internet marketing for ya!
The above site where our interview article was published, we didn't publish it to that site directly, the webmaster Street Directory.com actually got that article from an article database sites and published it on their website. To tell you the truth I don't even know where Morgan and I publish them, that was along time ago and believe me we publish them to as many article directory sites as we could find.
That's the power of article marketing.
Just by writing and publishing your article to an article database sites your article can end up in so many other sites. Your article has a life of it's own. That's why some guru call article marketing as viral marketing because it can spread like a nasty cold virus.
Sometimes your article can end up on Google's front page whenever someone searches for a particular subject. Go ahead visit Google and search for topics that might interest you like 'article marketing'. I bet you anything that you will find more articles about that particular topic. That's the other way how your articles can bring you more traffic to your websites.
So, that brings us to another question....
WHAT THE HECK IS AN ARTICLE DATABASE SITE !!
An article database site or some people call it 'article directory sites' is just a website where authors can submit their original articles on any topic and other people can read it or re-publish it and post it on their newsletter, website or blog."
Here's an example of an article directory site, it's called Isnare.com
Go and visit that site and you'll notice on the left hand side of the website under the heading 'Recently Added Articles'. Each time you submit an article and it passes inspection and it's approved, Isnare.com will post it there and that's one way people will read your article. The other way for people to finding your article at Isnare is by using the 'search' method. If you look at the top of the main page, you will see a search field, where you can search for articles by title or by author.
If the title of your article catches someone's attention, they will click and read your article and eventually visit your websites or blogs or squidoo lense.
Ok! How Do I Get Visitors When Someone Reads My Articles?
You see when you publish an article at the very bottom of your article there's a section called an ' Author's Box' some people call it a signature box. The author's box includes a link to your website or blog, and also tells the readers about the authors as to who they are, what do they do. There are many techniques how to get people to click on your signature box which I will explain later.
Here's one of my article that got publish at Isnare.com called
6 Eye Grabbing Subject Lines
You will find the signature box at the bottom of that article. I know it's not very persuasive but it's just an example.
My first article that I ever wrote and published was an interview with fellow internet marketer named Nick Martin. As you can see, it's not really an article per se but nonetheless it falls under that article umbrella.
You can read that interview by visiting this site.
Street Directory.com
That interview article was a joint venture between me and one of my online friends who used to publish a newsletter online, but no longer.
The reason why we wrote that article was Ofa Morgan wanted to attract subscribers to her newsletter and I wanted to introduce newbie marketers to traffic exchange programs and LSN. LSN is Nick Martin's affiliate program which stands for Lifestylenetworker. I used LSN to build my list of contacts, but in the last 2 years the site got hacked and two years of work went down the tube. That's internet marketing for ya!
The above site where our interview article was published, we didn't publish it to that site directly, the webmaster Street Directory.com actually got that article from an article database sites and published it on their website. To tell you the truth I don't even know where Morgan and I publish them, that was along time ago and believe me we publish them to as many article directory sites as we could find.
That's the power of article marketing.
Just by writing and publishing your article to an article database sites your article can end up in so many other sites. Your article has a life of it's own. That's why some guru call article marketing as viral marketing because it can spread like a nasty cold virus.
Sometimes your article can end up on Google's front page whenever someone searches for a particular subject. Go ahead visit Google and search for topics that might interest you like 'article marketing'. I bet you anything that you will find more articles about that particular topic. That's the other way how your articles can bring you more traffic to your websites.
So, that brings us to another question....
WHAT THE HECK IS AN ARTICLE DATABASE SITE !!
An article database site or some people call it 'article directory sites' is just a website where authors can submit their original articles on any topic and other people can read it or re-publish it and post it on their newsletter, website or blog."
Here's an example of an article directory site, it's called Isnare.com
Go and visit that site and you'll notice on the left hand side of the website under the heading 'Recently Added Articles'. Each time you submit an article and it passes inspection and it's approved, Isnare.com will post it there and that's one way people will read your article. The other way for people to finding your article at Isnare is by using the 'search' method. If you look at the top of the main page, you will see a search field, where you can search for articles by title or by author.
If the title of your article catches someone's attention, they will click and read your article and eventually visit your websites or blogs or squidoo lense.
Ok! How Do I Get Visitors When Someone Reads My Articles?
You see when you publish an article at the very bottom of your article there's a section called an ' Author's Box' some people call it a signature box. The author's box includes a link to your website or blog, and also tells the readers about the authors as to who they are, what do they do. There are many techniques how to get people to click on your signature box which I will explain later.
Here's one of my article that got publish at Isnare.com called
6 Eye Grabbing Subject Lines
You will find the signature box at the bottom of that article. I know it's not very persuasive but it's just an example.
How Do You Write An Article? Where do you begin, how do you start
Here are a few tips to get your creative juice flowing
Tip # 1. Why do you want to write an article in the first place?
Did you just buy a product that you weren't satisfied with or you love it and want to broadcast it to the whole wide world.
Maybe you read a book that has inspired you so much that it literally changed your life for ever and you want other people to read it too.
Are you sick and tired of hearing about Paris Hilton on the news so much that you have to get it out of your system? you can write articles about that.
For me I write articles because I want to improve my writing skills, to bring traffic to my blog/websites to earn extra money.
Tip # 2 Who Do You Want To Read Your Articles?
If you are a diet guru then you may want to target people who wants to lose weight by eating vegetables or food that contain alot of protein.
Maybe you love to cook italian food, so you can write articles about how people can cook italian food at home and share your receipes with other people with the same interest.
For me, the people I want to read my articles are people who are new to internet marketing and to introduce them to the benefits of article marketing and other effective ways to drive targeted traffic to their websites or blogs.
Tip #3 Where Do You Publish Your Article
So you know why you love writing articles, and you know who you want to read your articles and now you need to find out where to publish your article so that your target audience will read it.
Besides article database sites, there are so many forums where people hang out and talk just about anything and everything even italian food.
For example: I am a fan of traffic exchange programs for years and one of the forum I visit almost everyday is called Netmarketing Forum. This is where owners and surfers hang out.
Anyway..couple of months ago I posted an article titled "how to win a referral contest in traffic exchange" which brings traffic to my blog every day. As you can see the title of the article is about traffic exchange and it's posted in a forum about traffic exchange programs. Do you follow me now?
Check it out:
How To Win A Referral Contest...
What ever the topic of articles you're writing there are hundreds of forums where you are allowed to post your articles. You just have to find them and one way to find your niche forum is to go to site like About.com or go to Google and search.
Did you just buy a product that you weren't satisfied with or you love it and want to broadcast it to the whole wide world.
Maybe you read a book that has inspired you so much that it literally changed your life for ever and you want other people to read it too.
Are you sick and tired of hearing about Paris Hilton on the news so much that you have to get it out of your system? you can write articles about that.
For me I write articles because I want to improve my writing skills, to bring traffic to my blog/websites to earn extra money.
Tip # 2 Who Do You Want To Read Your Articles?
If you are a diet guru then you may want to target people who wants to lose weight by eating vegetables or food that contain alot of protein.
Maybe you love to cook italian food, so you can write articles about how people can cook italian food at home and share your receipes with other people with the same interest.
For me, the people I want to read my articles are people who are new to internet marketing and to introduce them to the benefits of article marketing and other effective ways to drive targeted traffic to their websites or blogs.
Tip #3 Where Do You Publish Your Article
So you know why you love writing articles, and you know who you want to read your articles and now you need to find out where to publish your article so that your target audience will read it.
Besides article database sites, there are so many forums where people hang out and talk just about anything and everything even italian food.
For example: I am a fan of traffic exchange programs for years and one of the forum I visit almost everyday is called Netmarketing Forum. This is where owners and surfers hang out.
Anyway..couple of months ago I posted an article titled "how to win a referral contest in traffic exchange" which brings traffic to my blog every day. As you can see the title of the article is about traffic exchange and it's posted in a forum about traffic exchange programs. Do you follow me now?
Check it out:
How To Win A Referral Contest...
What ever the topic of articles you're writing there are hundreds of forums where you are allowed to post your articles. You just have to find them and one way to find your niche forum is to go to site like About.com or go to Google and search.
How To Write Effective Articles
Step by Step guide how to write your first article
So how exactly are you going to write those compelling, jaw dropping articles that will make your readers drool or hypnotise so that they will read your articles word for word, top to bottom?Step 1. What's the article all about?
Italian food maybe.
Step 2. Create an Attention Grabbing Title for your article.
'How To Create A Simple Italian Pizza In 30 Minutes'
Step 3. Write an Introduction
Whether you are a soccer mom or a busy professional and you need to cook something healthy and delicious but you don't want to slave for hours in the kitchen just to make a meal, this article will show you how you can make a delicious italian pizza in less than 30 minutes.
Step 4. The body of your article.
The first thing you want to do before you even start slicing and dicing is to pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees while you prepare your pizza.
If you think I'm going to show you how to make a pizza dough? think again. You can pick up a bag of ready made pizza dough for less than five bucks and you can also get them in variety of flavours but of course it will cost you more. Personally I love the thin crust pizza dough because they're so crispy at every bite.
So you've got the ready made pizza dough, now what? If you buy the soft and thick pizza dough, put it the oven while it pre-heats so that the dough hardens then take it out of the oven and start brushing it with e.v.o.o or Extra Virgin Olive Oil, cover the whole surface of the dough. Now it's just a matter of adding the main ingredients.
Next, you start adding the tomato sauce followed by mozzarella cheeze and add a little bit of diced italian tomatoes.
Now this is where the fun begins. Because I'm a meat lover myself, I love adding pepperoni, ground beef, slices of mushrooms, italian sausage, green peppers and add some chopped sweet basil.
That's it! bada bing bada boom, stick it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes and your done. Serve it and enjoy.
Step 5. Write the short summary to end your article.
You can pick up the ingredients on the way home from work or from a soccer game . What I love about pizza is that you can either make it really simple or complicated it's all up to you.
Step 6. Write the author's box or signature box
About the author:
Paul Penafiel - Will show you step by step how to write your first article and publish it by visiting http://www.squidoo.paulpenafiel.com
You Are Now Ready To Publish Your First Article
Where, how and why you need to publish your article
Now that you have finished writing your first article, you are finally ready to publish it to as many article directory sites as possible. Before you do that, it is so important to check over your work for spelling and grammatical errors because articles that are poorly written and are hard to understand won't be read that often and will received very little traffic.
The first site you want to publish your article is Ezinearticles.com
Why? because Google.com loves this site due to its high traffic volume and its high page rank which is 6. The higher the page rank the better so keep that in mind when you are publishing your articles.
The second site is called Goarticles.com
It has a pagerank of 3 and it is also very popular sites for ezine publishers and writers to hangout. What makes goarticles.com different from other directories is that they will allow you to link directly to the merchant's website.
So if you are writing a review for an affiliate program as your article, you can add your affiliate link directly in your signature lines.
The other directory site that I like is Isnare.com
What I really love about this directory is that you can broadcast your article to hundreds of other article directory sites in their database for a small fee. Plus it has a page rank of 4 so you know this site gets tons of traffic every month.
There you have it folks! it wasn't that hard was it?
Article marketing is time consuming but the reward in return for those hard work will come back to you 10 folds, it is simply amazing how far your article can go especially if it is well written and with really good contents.
If are looking for more places to publish your article, all you have to do is go to Google.com and search for 'article directories' or 'article database sites.'
Tip: after you typed in the search term and gives you the search results, check out the sponsored sites on the far right hand. People pay top dollars for those sites to be there and they also get lots of traffic so it's a good idea to sign up for them, just the free ones at least.
Good luck.
The first site you want to publish your article is Ezinearticles.com
Why? because Google.com loves this site due to its high traffic volume and its high page rank which is 6. The higher the page rank the better so keep that in mind when you are publishing your articles.
The second site is called Goarticles.com
It has a pagerank of 3 and it is also very popular sites for ezine publishers and writers to hangout. What makes goarticles.com different from other directories is that they will allow you to link directly to the merchant's website.
So if you are writing a review for an affiliate program as your article, you can add your affiliate link directly in your signature lines.
The other directory site that I like is Isnare.com
What I really love about this directory is that you can broadcast your article to hundreds of other article directory sites in their database for a small fee. Plus it has a page rank of 4 so you know this site gets tons of traffic every month.
There you have it folks! it wasn't that hard was it?
Article marketing is time consuming but the reward in return for those hard work will come back to you 10 folds, it is simply amazing how far your article can go especially if it is well written and with really good contents.
If are looking for more places to publish your article, all you have to do is go to Google.com and search for 'article directories' or 'article database sites.'
Tip: after you typed in the search term and gives you the search results, check out the sponsored sites on the far right hand. People pay top dollars for those sites to be there and they also get lots of traffic so it's a good idea to sign up for them, just the free ones at least.
Good luck.
How To Make Money With Articles
Simple techniques that will help you earn some gas money
If you have never heard of bum marketing before, you better hear it now because you are not going to find a better resource on how to make a few dollars using article marketing.
Visit the site now and bookmark it.
www.bummarketingmethod.com
Here's some tips on how to improve your signature lines which will increase your clickthru ratio.
What is a clickthru ratio? it just a fancy word that tells you how many people are clicking on your links compare to how many people are visiting. So if 100 people read your article and 2 people clicked it, you have a clickthru rate of 2 % .
HERE ARE SOME TIPS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SIGNATURE LINE CLICKTHRU RATIO.
...If your article looks hard to
read...it won't be read! Even if
your content will solve world
hunger.
Plus, an article not read...will
not make you ZERO moolah.
2. THIS ONE IS A BIGEEE - Remember
from a "Bum Marketers" stand point
the most important part of the
article is??
Answer: The authors bio box! You
need to make an enticing bio box.
How you do 'dat?
Here's a couple ways:
Look at the merchant sales
page...many times they give away a
free course or free bonus or
SOMETHING FREE.
Folks love that!
Soooo...
Let's say your article targets a
first-time pregnancy and the
merchant is selling a pregnancy
exercise video and is giving away a
free video on the stages of
pregnancy...
Your bio could simply be:
Discover how you and baby can stay
healthy, fit and trim...and get
your free no obligation video:
"Pregnancy Week By Week". Yours
free for visiting www.yourlink.com
Another very good way is to get
inside your readers head...and
think about what and/or why he is
reading your article to begin with.
For example:
Let's say you are trying to sell a
book about improving job
interview skills.
What are a couple reasons that
brought your reader to your article
in the first place?
He may be out of a job.
He may hate the job he is in.
What are some things that may be
going through his mind?
"Please, don't let it take long for
my to find a new job."
"I hope I don't have to settle for
a job I hate to pay the bills."
etc...
So...In your bio...address what is
going on in his mind.
Maybe:
Did you know it takes the average
person 120 days to find a new job?
Can you afford to wait that long?
Disover how you can slash that time
in half...without settling for a
position you will hate.
www.yourlink.com
See what I am doing?
Remember...every product on the
market...solves a problem...or
fills a want or need...address
those in your bio!
Your bank account will love you for
it.
3. Think about the profitability of
your topic.
There is a world of difference
between:
How to lose fat on thighs.
and
How to scramble an egg.
One is going to require something
more than one article can
give...the other is just a quick
search for information, which once
found is very unlikely to lead
anywhere.
Make sense?
Cool!
Travis Sago
http://www.bummarketingmethod.com
Visit the site now and bookmark it.
www.bummarketingmethod.com
Here's some tips on how to improve your signature lines which will increase your clickthru ratio.
What is a clickthru ratio? it just a fancy word that tells you how many people are clicking on your links compare to how many people are visiting. So if 100 people read your article and 2 people clicked it, you have a clickthru rate of 2 % .
HERE ARE SOME TIPS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SIGNATURE LINE CLICKTHRU RATIO.
...If your article looks hard to
read...it won't be read! Even if
your content will solve world
hunger.
Plus, an article not read...will
not make you ZERO moolah.
2. THIS ONE IS A BIGEEE - Remember
from a "Bum Marketers" stand point
the most important part of the
article is??
Answer: The authors bio box! You
need to make an enticing bio box.
How you do 'dat?
Here's a couple ways:
Look at the merchant sales
page...many times they give away a
free course or free bonus or
SOMETHING FREE.
Folks love that!
Soooo...
Let's say your article targets a
first-time pregnancy and the
merchant is selling a pregnancy
exercise video and is giving away a
free video on the stages of
pregnancy...
Your bio could simply be:
Discover how you and baby can stay
healthy, fit and trim...and get
your free no obligation video:
"Pregnancy Week By Week". Yours
free for visiting www.yourlink.com
Another very good way is to get
inside your readers head...and
think about what and/or why he is
reading your article to begin with.
For example:
Let's say you are trying to sell a
book about improving job
interview skills.
What are a couple reasons that
brought your reader to your article
in the first place?
He may be out of a job.
He may hate the job he is in.
What are some things that may be
going through his mind?
"Please, don't let it take long for
my to find a new job."
"I hope I don't have to settle for
a job I hate to pay the bills."
etc...
So...In your bio...address what is
going on in his mind.
Maybe:
Did you know it takes the average
person 120 days to find a new job?
Can you afford to wait that long?
Disover how you can slash that time
in half...without settling for a
position you will hate.
www.yourlink.com
See what I am doing?
Remember...every product on the
market...solves a problem...or
fills a want or need...address
those in your bio!
Your bank account will love you for
it.
3. Think about the profitability of
your topic.
There is a world of difference
between:
How to lose fat on thighs.
and
How to scramble an egg.
One is going to require something
more than one article can
give...the other is just a quick
search for information, which once
found is very unlikely to lead
anywhere.
Make sense?
Cool!
Travis Sago
http://www.bummarketingmethod.com
More Article Marketing Related Resource/Tips
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Lensmaster
David Johnson wrote
Great post! I used this Squidoo lens a bunch of videos I found at http://www.recognizedexpert.com/traffic/article-marketing to publish my first (10!!!) articles! I'm so excited!
Posted September 29, 2008
Susan52 wrote...
Hi Paul, Thanks for your comment on my Squidoo Somebody lens. If you will enable your Contact button on your profile, I'll be happy to contact you privately with some suggestions that might help. We WANT you to succeed on Squidoo!
Posted September 27, 2008
moneyman17 wrote...
Your tips certainly are top-notch. so i want to Invite you
to visit and submit your articles to
Article Directory and visit my lens on Article Marketing
Article Marketing Resources
Posted July 13, 2008
Mark__Thompson wrote...
Excellent lens , well worth the rating.
you may be interested in my lens
http://www.squidoo.com/super-affiliate-toolbox
Mark
super affiliate toolbox
Posted May 18, 2008
