Earn money from your articles

Before, you had to settle for just the backlinks when you submitted your articles to article directories and other places. That was your part of the bargain.

This is no longer the case. Now revenue sharing is popping up in more and more places.

One such place is Ask-Us-1st.com - an article directory that is entirely free to use, but that also share its revenue with its authors as well as offering a powerful SEO network that will help you promote your own site or blog.

Essentially you will get a much better "bang for your buck", without actually paying anything. The only thing you have to do is to come up with decent articles.

Learn more about how the revenue sharing article directory Ask Us 1st works here.

So now you know there are places that will pay you for your articles, how does one use this to make more than pocket change?

If you need any help with this, I can recommend Luke Parker's Surefire Success System.

Yes, that links sends you to one of those "typical internet marketing sales pitches", but the difference is that this is actually good stuff.

I was personally recommended to have a look at this guide by my marketing colleague Michelle MacPhearson, and I think she the nail on the head with her description of this guide:

"...one of the reasons I couldn't be happier to let you know about a new tutorial, focused purely on earning an income with Web 2.0 that is ENTIRELY step by step and has one, single, unified goal:

Getting YOU **EARNING** with Web 2.0 as Quickly as possible.

- If you've needed a beginning point for your social media marketing, this is it.

- If you've needed a resource to fill in the Web 2.0 blanks, this is it.

- If you've needed a proven PLAN of action for actually earning hard cash, this is it.

I couldn't be more serious."

I have to agree that this really is one of those rare occasions when a guide on anything related to online marketing actually delivers on some of its promises.

Surefire Success System 2 is actually a plan that will show you step-by-step how to make money online, by producing articles and other content. Like it says on the sales letter, you will learn how to generate revenue directly from every piece of content you produce, an in combination with other revenue streams such as affiliate marketing this system is a winner.

An active user forum and Luke's willingness to keep improving the strategies (without any additional fee) are truly invaluable bonuses.

Check out the Sure Fire Success System page for more details.

Article marketing right now

In order to really make a difference with article marketing, it is true that you absolutely must build high content on the subject or niche your are marketing. The good news is that this is even so a genuinely affordable way to do online promotions, and regardless of your marketing budget article marketing ought to absolutely be a part of your marketing mix. Utilizing articles as advertising is quite a straightforward business.

Advertising with the end goal in mind

As far as long-term promotions and marketing goes (what you in fact need in order to profit from a web site), article writing is absolutely something one shouldn't overlook. To start off with, we have many studies that have proven article writing as a reasonable marketing tool. I'm confident you'll agree that writing at any rate is an important feature of any website. It's typically less difficult to write about things you are knowledgeable in, and have a personal interest in. Try to bring forth the same passion when you are writing for other topics as well, and your general writing skills will improve quickly. Not paying attention to what is happening in the article marketing arena is a blooper each and every web site owner should go to great lengths to avoid making. I have learned the effectiveness of article writing from personal familiarity and, though I don't wish to brag, it's driving a silly amount of traffic my way. As with other marketing tactics, I am quite sure that when you have found something that in fact works, you should do it right and do it big.

Why it is functional

The original reason article marketing found it's accustomed fashionableness, is that this procedure generates inbound links to your website. Many inbound links, in theory, means distinguished search engine placement, more traffic and clients to your website. By syndicating your article to specific article directories the backlink building activity can be most quick indeed, and today we have many article directories online offering you their services - both as a reader and as an author.

As this is an introductory article, we're not going to go in detail into utilizing article marketing for your own purposes. But it is perhaps obvious to point out that that a serious curriculum of article marketing will save you time and money, increase your sales and profits, enhance your image, and expand your reach. The same as saying, article syndication is really advertising your web site through the use of articles. As you publish more articles, your chances of getting visitors to your site will develop. Article marketing is becoming more common right now seeing as how - now more than ever - websites are looking up lots of content to display to their visitors.

With good articles you can fulfill a portion of this demand, and everybody wins - those who need content get precisely that, and you get to spread the word about your website. If you want to get the most out of your article marketing, you should also chose the article directories you use painstakingly.

Before getting around to actually writing an article, you need to come up with an idea of what to write about. To many people this is easier said than done. The fact however remains, that the more ideas you can come up with the more relevant, unique and fresh content you will be able to create for your website.

Let's have a look at some of the ways to get creative when you are staring at a blank sheet of paper and feel you are fresh out of ideas.

There are many ways to brainstorm article ideas that will be of interest to your customers, potential customers and website visitors. Here are a few ideas to get your started. As always, you can and should add to these basics concepts as you gain more experience.

Get influence from television, print media and online news. Stay current with the most recent topics and trends in your industry by watching news broadcasts and skimming newspapers. Also regularly browse through the latest online news feeds. If you notice anything relating to your topic or business that seems to be drawing a lot of attention, it is almost always worth your time to write a few articles about.

Timely articles are more likely to be spread fast across the Internet, and by taking advantage of current events in your articles, you can increase your visibility.
Frequent chat rooms and message boards. With billions of Internet users online worldwide, you are bound to be able to find chat rooms and message boards related to your topic. All those user profiles participating in the discussion are your potential customers. Regularly read through what is being discussed in the forum posts, what is the hottest topic currently and what are people asking questions about.

By doing this every now and then you will not only come up with many relevant article ideas, but might also give you some pointer of where you might want to publish your work. Lastly, remember that if you actively participate in the discussion you should be careful coming off as "salesy" here as well. Active forum users often have a good eye for spotting "commercials" and they are usually not shy to point that fact out right on the forum.

Ideas in season. Use the time of the year to your advantage when brainstorming article ideas. Can you relate your topic to a season, a holiday, or other popular event? Invest in the latest issue of Chase's Calendar of Events or similar publication, which lists hundreds of typical and unusual holidays throughout the year, and look for several you can weave into your content. For example, if you run a website design business, you could write an article about improving your online look for Build a Better Image Week in September. You can also discover more about current hot topics currently on people's tongues by browsing online non-fiction bestseller lists to see what books people are buying.

Don't forget your website and current customers. Last, but certainly not least, you can come up with many article ideas from the questions your customers are already asking! Try to be organized an always keep a record of questions you have had via phone or e-mail. Check your guestbook for important feedback about your products and services.

Another option to let you existing customers tell you what to write about, is to have a survey on you site where you ask what people would like to read articles about.

Certain individuals are genuinely puzzled as to why articles are important for Internet marketing - all they are intrigued by is further sales. Yet, if you use it right, articles may be a pretty compelling marketing vehicle for certain. The kind of article I am talking about here is a relatively quick piece of writing, that present the fundamental concept or idea behind something in an easy going way.

It's perhaps a bit redundant to point out, but you can ask just about any netrepreneur who have learned the secrets of generating repeat visitors to their website, and they will tell you it's all about content (that is CON-tent as in what something is actually made of, not con-TENT which refers to something else totally). Thus, the things folks like about a site is what it has to offer them that includes substance about whatever topic they are keen on.

Articles are the meat of many websites. They are what makes visitors stay on your sites and exactly the stuff search engine spiders are searching out. Both these aspects are equally critical - without one of them, you simply won't have the other either. Having nice looking graphics and images can indeed be attractive to some visitors, but then again a mass of surfers go elsewhere if your site is too slow to load. Another problem is that search engines prevalently find nothing to write home about in graphics, and don't score them as highly as article based websites.

Once your website has content, you're a big step closer to visibility. By offering your visitors something of value, you not only heighten the chance that they'll come back, but moreover that they will tell friends about your site - this being an example of the much hyped up "viral marketing" maneuver. Further, search engines bestow more weight to websites with content as well as those that are frequently updated.

At the end of the day there's no way around it: you can find millions of websites out there in cyberspace. You call for visibility to get visitors. And the more visitors you have, the more sales you'll make.

Whereas it is clear that your website need to have text based content on it for optimum Seo, you must pay attention to the details of how you go about generating this content. You can find good ways to do it and you can find bad ways. Certain ways may even attribute you results that take you further from your goal. this has been a primer article on the area - in expected articles I intend to dig deeper into the art of utilizing articles as an online marketing procedure.