Article Marketing Savvy: Are all Article Submission Services Created Equal?

March 9th, 2010

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Is article marketing a significant part of your web marketing strategy? If so, then the article submission service you choose is crucial. It may be tempting to choose the one that costs the least or has the flashiest website. However, this would be like buying a car simply because it’s your favorite color or because the dealership offers you a free television. The product itself may not be worth the price.

All article submission services, in reality, are not created equal. Just like any product that you buy, you’ll be able to find multiple “brands” and varieties. You’d never buy the first house or computer that you looked at. Neither should you sign up with the first article submission service you stumble across. Always shop around.

How, exactly, do you determine which article submission service will provide the most bang for your buck? Comparing features and benefits is a good place to start. The most important ones to consider when you compare are:

1) How many publishers will an article submission service distribute your articles to? An effective article marketing strategy dictates that you get your article out to as many publishers as possible. One service provider may upload your article to 100 publishers. Another may submit it to 300. This should play a role in determining which article submission service to use.

2) Are your articles reaching their intended destinations? Internet article directories come and go, literally, on a weekly basis. New ones keep emerging while old ones sometimes fold.

How old is the list of directories that your article submission service sends articles to? A list that’s older than a few months could already be outdated. Your article submission service may claim to send your article to 300 directories. However, a list that’s too old may mean that 20 of those directories don’t even exist anymore. You, the consumer, will not get what you paid for in this case.

3) Does the article submission service follow up on submissions? Most article submission services submit articles electronically. Sometimes e-glitches occur as a result. Articles may not end up at their intended destinations. Will the article submission service follow up on these “glitches” and submit your article manually if this occurs?

Sometimes other errors occur. For example, an article may not be formatted in the way a publisher wants. Again, this requires follow-up and possible manual submission. Will your article submission service do this for you?

4) How will your article submission service communicate with you after you order? When you hand over your credit card information, you are trusting that your service provider will do what you’re asking. Otherwise, you’re losing your money. How will you know that you’re receiving what you’ve paid for?

A reputable article submission service will provide you with reports on the status of your submissions. Once the submission process is completed, will your service provider alert you? Will your service provider let you know if there were issues with any of the submissions? Will they let you know when those issues get resolved? Open, detailed and regular communication should always be part of what you pay for.

You may have noticed that “cost” isn’t on this list. That’s because cost is relative, and not all article submission services are created equal. The more benefits a particular article submission service offers, the more they’ll probably charge.

Decide which ones are most important to you and then pay what is necessary to get the best possible results. It’s probably worth paying a little bit more to get the best possible results that meet your specific needs.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

How to Build Your Business With Writing and Article Marketing Automation

March 9th, 2010

You may be considering creating a series of articles to promote your home business. You no doubt read how useful content is crucial to building a business online. Hearing this is true is one thing. However, knowing how writing, and article distribution via article marketing automation builds your business, is equally important.

We’ll look at actual content creating first. Then, we’ll look at what constitutes a good distribution service. You need them to get your writing to your target market in a cost-effective manner.

You, the Content Producer

It all begins with words well written. You start the process of building your reputation as an online marketer through writing quality articles. Publishers want top-notch content rich with information for their readers. Their reputation is at stake. If they present sub-par content to their readers, they eventually lose those readers.

Your writing must offer unique, not stale, old information like much that abounds on the Web. This means content that digs deep and presents new nuggets of vital information to readers. Your niche has certain interests unique to their field of interest. They go to specialty publications looking for excellent information as pertains to this field.

Your writing for this field must have a ring of authority and expertise to it, at all times. If it doesn’t, why would anyone bother to continue to read your pieces? Therefore, make sure you present great information, clearly, and build the trust factor with your readers.

What results is that you develop a connection with them. They search out your blogs and websites through links you provide in your author’s resource box. They look to you to provide them more quality information. As you do, you strengthen the connection so that they trust you to recommend products and service to them.

This is when you can begin the selling process. Your sales pitches any time prior to this would probably have failed. You would have come across as “too in a hurry to sell.” However, now that you have established yourself as someone truly offering useful information, your readers listen. They see you as a helpful information provider first, and a marketer second.

A Quality Content Distribution Service, Your Distributor Extraordinaire

Okay, you have all your writing set to go out. You want to reach as much of your niche as possible. You know manual submission of your content, one at a time, to publishers is time-consuming.

You know you can better spend your time in other activities. Therefore, utilizing the services of a quality content distribution service is your best option. The best service, for an affordable cost, sends your writing to the best publishers in cyberspace.

They have efficient systems for doing so. This efficiency contributes to significant return on investment for you the internet marketer. You save time, energy, marketing money, and headache pill expenditures when you choose a good service.

A quality service charges a one-time fee for unlimited article submission in a period. They provide a monthly, yearly, or lifetime subscription. Whichever one you choose, you submit as much content as you like. You don’t pay extra costs or pay per-article.

A good service also has live article review. With this, you get expert editors who are current on all that marketing with content concerns. They ensure your writing rings with clarity and meets publishers’ expectations. They offer a best practices guide and other writing resources to help you grow as a content producer.

In addition, the best content distributor offers article marketing automation. They make it so you easily input your content once and then set distribution times. They offer autopilot distribution up to a year in advance. Therefore, you don’t spend inordinate amounts of time setting up weekly and monthly distribution.

A quality service stays attuned to new opportunities for getting the word out about your writing. They provide links from your author account to popular social media sites. In this way, your followers know exactly when your articles hit the market.

Finally, a premier service focuses on automatic distribution of any of your previously submitted writing. Your older content still works for you, even as you create new pieces. The best service keeps an eye out for new publishers on the online scene. They send your older content to these places to ensure they find a new audience.

Good writing, and good article distribution via article marketing automation is essential to your online business. Your potential customers want valid, useful, current information from you. They get that faster when you use a quality content distribution service to get that content to them. The result is greater traffic to your website and greater income for you.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the Author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. Article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status, and she recommends Content Crooner for article distribution. Why? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Your Article Marketing Strategy Begins With a Good Article Submission Site

March 8th, 2010

Writing articles to promote your business is a worthwhile endeavor. It certainly is a way to drive relevant traffic to your websites. However, the mileage you get out of your content depends on who’s doing your distribution. Your article marketing strategy begins with a good article submission site.

What constitutes a quality content distribution service? A good service has numerous features, which they bundle into an affordable subscription package. Here’s a quick rundown of them:

Unlimited Content Submission

The best service allows you to submit as many articles as you can write in a subscription period. They don’t set a ceiling on how many they will accept in a period. This affords you the opportunity to get a myriad of links onto the Net.

A Money-Back Guarantee to Try Their Service

A service very confident in what they can do for you offer a guarantee. When you sign up, you give their service a whirl for a few weeks. If it’s not for you, within 30 days of purchase they give you a refund, with no questions asked.

A Significant Publishers List

A good article submission site has a large publishers list. They work with the best online publishers in the business. This means your writing goes to popular publications that have many loyal readers. This is great exposure for your internet marketing enterprise.

Hundreds of Categories to Choose From

A quality content distribution service lets you select from a plethora of categories. You target your writing to unique niche audiences in your field. With hundreds of categories, you know the service is burrowing down to find those truly specialized publications.

Allow You to Add a Pen Name

Do you want some of your articles presented under a different name? A quality service lets you choose a name and your membership level for that pen name. A premier service offers pen name accounts at a discounted price. In addition, they allow you manage all your names from your master page.

Offer Live Article Review

Live article review means expert editors look at your articles upon you submitting them. They offer advice and guidance to help you create articles that present clear information. This is the kind of content publishers love. This ensures your work meets publishers’ stipulations. It also ensures your articles present in a professional manner to your readers.

Offer an Article Review Checklist

A premier service offers tools to help their members succeed with their campaigns. One of these tools is a checklist. A checklist helps your writing get through the review process quicker. A checklist ensures your titles, description, article body, and author’s resource box meet publishers” requirements.

Offers Writing Resources

A quality content distribution service focuses on helping their members become excellent content producers. They facilitate this by offering reports on how best to achieve success with content.

A good service offers a best practices guide on building traffic and search engine exposure with your content. This guide assists writers in understanding the right approach to writing content that appeals to publishers and readers alike.

Offer Automatic Distribution

A service that understands the time constraints internet marketers are under offers article marketing automation. This allows you to set your distribution schedule in advance. This can be months and even a year ahead of time. Therefore, you don’t have to perform scheduling functions each week.

Ongoing Exposure

A quality content service constantly works to ensure your articles reach new publishers. Every week new publications come online. The best service keeps an eye out for them. They get your older pieces and your recently submitted work to these new publications. As you write new pieces, all your other ones are still gaining exposure for your internet business.

Distribution Reports

The best service offers detailed distribution reports. With them, you always know where your articles are going and when. This lets you keep close tabs on your campaigns.

Exposure Reports

They also offer reports that let you know how popular your content is on the Internet. You can gauge which pieces are receiving the most exposure. This lets you know what topics your audience finds interesting.

Social Media Tie-Ins

A good service lets you “let others know.” They allow you to link from your author’s resource box to your social media accounts. You get to keep your followers updated on new content of yours that publishes.

Explore the options available to you when it comes to choosing an article submission site. Make your article marketing strategy a sound one through using all the tools an expert service provides. Let a good service put your content in circulation, to all the places they need to be.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Distribution, Article Marketing Automation and Other Ways to Use the Web

March 8th, 2010

As an internet marketer, you’re already using a platform that has exploded with growth over the past decade. Within that platform called the Internet is the power to reach a vast audience. Article distribution via article marketing automation is one method for reaching them. In addition, other methods exist that can help you grow your online business.

You build a strong foundation for future business success through using the Internet to its fullest. Here are a few ways you can achieve this success online:

Article Marketing

With this type of marketing, you put on your producer’s hat. As a “content producer”, you write useful articles on topics related to your business. Your goal is to provide first-class information to your target audience.

You hope to make a connection with this audience through your writing. People who find value in your writing can then link to your website from your articles. You have pre-sold traffic arriving on your site ready to listen to your product recommendations.

You get these useful pieces to your niche through using a quality content distribution service. They, through their extensive publishers list, get your work to specialty publications within your niche. They automatically distribute your articles to new publishers.

They also provide article marketing automation. Here, you set up distribution of your content for up to one-year in advance. You sit back, take a break, and don’t worry about scheduling distribution each week. According to your pre-set schedule, your articles, on autopilot, fly across the web to important publishers.

Social Media

People are talking about a host of topics on a host of social media sites. It’s become increasingly important that you utilize some of these sites. Social media is ‘right now’ communication the digital way. Used properly, you build your reputation as a quality businessperson.

Some sites are in the process of getting ready to offer paid services for business. This will allow enterprises to focus their “talk” to select groups that can provide additional income streams.

Social media is a way to get in front of a significant user-base. You hinder the growth of your online business if you don’t use at least one of these sites. It’s where people are engaging in discourse and it’s your chance to reach a new audience.

Word spreads fast on social network sites. Offer useful information and helpful advice as you engage in discussions. Present links to your quality products and services as well, in a thoroughly professional way. Social media is highly relevant to online businesses needing exposure.

Focused Advertising

Focusing your advertising to certain online platforms is targeted marketing. An example would be creating a promotional video for a popular video site. Another example would be creating ads that are solely for mobile devices.

In addition, focused advertising would include ads, which are suited specifically for social sites. Placing ads on a particular social site means you are targeting a specific user group. You fine-tune your ads to appeal to this group.

Focused advertising also includes writing ads about specific product lines. These ads would not necessarily trumpet your business as a whole. You may write an ad about one product only. You submit it to a free or paid classified site.

This ad could direct readers to a microsite concerning this product. Your goal is to gain additional sales for this product. Everything about this ad campaign focuses on that intent. You can do this for each product you promote through affiliate programs.

Quality Content Overall

Use online platforms to their fullest through creating quality content of all types. Not just articles need to be of high quality. Your website content must not be of the “fluff” variety. Your blog posts, no matter how short, must be gems of useful information.

Videos you create to highlight your business, products, and services must be high quality. That means well-chosen words, sharp visuals, and clear sound. Even photos you post in ads, your website, or blog must be crisp and vibrant.

Quality content overall sends a consistent message that you’re a professional. All of these combined speak volumes about your business. Make a concerted effort to present yourself this way to build credibility as an internet marketer.

Take advantage of all that the Web has to offer you as an online entrepreneur. Spread the word about your business with effective article distribution using article marketing automation. Use new social media and provide great content in many forms. Combined, these efforts contribute to a strong bottom line for your business.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the Author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. Article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status, and she recommends Content Crooner for article distribution. Why? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Tracking Clicks in Your Article Distribution Campaign

March 8th, 2010

Smart marketing means tracking results. Now you can easily integrate Google Analytics into your article distribution efforts. This kind of data can be collected using the powerful “click tracking” features of Google Analytics.

Using an article submission or distribution service is the smart way to get your content out there and build backlinks. It’s a proven method to boost your SERPS and build exposure. But as any article marketer knows too well, some articles do great and others just don’t. Use this tracking technology to get a better handle for which articles are getting the most traffic.

Track Clicks in Each Article Your Distribute

So you’ve written a terrific article and you’re ready to post it to your article submission service. If you have a feature-rich distribution service, you’ll get comprehensive distribution and exposure reports so you can see where it went, and how much traction it’s getting in the search engines. That’s a great start.

To really understand what articles do the most work, you want to know how many readers actually click through that article and onto your site. For that, you’ll need to add a tracking link to your resource box. Fortunately this is easy and free, thanks to the URL Builder from Google Analytics. The process is easy:

1. Enter the landing page URL.
2. Fill out the campaign source info fields. These are up to you to decide; make it easy to understand.
3. Hit the button to generate your customized link. That’s it. Once a reader clicks on that link it will be logged in Google Analytics and you’ll quickly see how each article is performing.

Add Links to Emails, Blogs Posts, Etc.

The same process will help you track any of your outbound email campaigns, blogs, press releases, etc. As long as you add a new custom link for each, you’ll be able to track returns on every campaign.

Avoiding the Long Link

You’ll notice that the custom link is long, and includes a question mark and lots of other info. Many article distribution services and content publishers don’t allow question marks in links. It’s a common way for affiliate links to be formatted, and is often a flag for spam. Don’t worry, there’s a workaround.

Add a Redirect If You Like

To avoid problems with the customized link, simply add a redirect. For example, you can add a link to www.mysite/articletitle and simply redirect any traffic to that link on to the custom link you’ve created with the URL Builder. You get a nice short SEO friendly link in your resource box; Google Analytics gets the data it needs to track the clicks.

Article marketing has evolved along with web technology. Take advantage of this with the help of your article distribution service.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Distribution via Article Marketing Automation

March 7th, 2010

When you start a new workweek promoting your home business are you a model of consistency. In other words, do you have a set routine for doing work that produces results? If not, you can begin today. Embrace article distribution via article marketing automation and other ways to promote your business consistently.

Being consistent means doing things on a regular basis to achieve desired results. For example, you may be studying the article marketing discipline. You’re new to writing content and want to learn to do it right. Therefore, you sit down for 90 minutes after supper, five nights a week, and write.

You’re being consistent. With this continuing effort, you reach your desired result; you become an excellent content producer. Now, apply this principal to a host of other tasks you perform to promote your home business online. Here are areas where you can apply the consistency principle:

Consistent Article Distribution

Upon completion of a set of articles, you have to get them to your target market. You do this through a quality content distribution service. You want consistent distribution of your writing. You achieve this through setting up future times for your content to go out to your readership.

How do you do this quickly and easily? You do it with article marketing automation. You submit your content once. You then let the service get to work systematically sending out your work to popular web publishers.

It’s distribution on autopilot. You can schedule your writing to go out for up to a year in advance. That’s certainly consistent delivery of useful content to your niche each month. This regular process gradually builds web traffic each month.

Consistent Forum Posting

Frequenting forums within your niche is a great way to perform market research. You catch the pulse of what’s happening and what the hot topics are in your niche. This helps you formulate good content for distribution and for your website and blogs.

Are you visiting these forums on a regular basis? It helps to do so. Of course, you don’t have the time to visit all or even most of them. However, pick a few that you really find useful. Set up a time each week to visit them and make insightful comments to help others.

Consistent forum posting helps you build credibility with your audience. You address questions asked on forums with a genuine concern to help others. You start to earn the trust of forum members. It’s like how you build that trust factor through your articles.

Consistent Newsletter Distribution

Do you have a newsletter where you offer useful information and promote affiliate or other products? Did you start out on fire with enthusiasm with your first issue? Are you sending this newsletter out like clockwork each week or month?

Alternatively, are there big gaps in time between issues? Sending out a newsletter in February, then another five months later isn’t conducive to building loyal readers. This is especially true if you advertised your newsletter as a monthly offering.

Lack of consistency here tells your opt-ins that you’re unprofessional and flighty. You made promises, but didn’t deliver. Be consistent in getting those promised newsletters out each week or month.

Consistent Blog Posts

If you have a blog that drives traffic to your website, you must be consistent in posting. Blog readers want timely, fresh, interesting information if not daily, then certainly a few times a week. Blogs are mini daily newspapers for your home business.

People like keeping up-to-date on the news. Be a professional reporter and report on topics related to your business regularly. The more you do the more web links you can include in your posts. The more links back to your main website, the faster you grow sales.

Consistent Knowledge Gathering

Content you create, for distribution through a quality content distribution service or for a website, demands quality information. Be consistent as a knowledge gatherer. Research what your niche wants to know. Keep current on upgrades to products you promote.

In addition, keep current on topics related to the products you promote. Knowing the latest concerning holiday golf resorts is useful information to people buying your affiliate golf products. You can write a piece on this topic and include a link to your website from it.

Be consistent when it comes to promoting your home business online. Be consistent in article distribution via article marketing automation. Be consistent in all of the other ways you choose to market your venture. Consistent effort builds robust businesses poised for future growth.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the Author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. Article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status, and she recommends Content Crooner for article distribution. Why? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Social and Tech Meet in Article Submission

March 7th, 2010

With the easy tie-in of technology and social marketing, two worlds have collided. Does your article submission and distribution service leverage this brave new world?

Back in the good old days of article marketing, a site owner simply wrote a bunch of articles, posted them to her favorite article submission service, and waited for the traffic to role in. Because article distribution was relatively new on the scene, most keyword phrases had little competition, and it was fairly easy to nail the top spot in Google.

Article marketing, especially when you use a solid article distribution service, is still a great strategy. It’s a key part of a comprehensive strategy that will build exposure. What’s new is the social tie-in.

Article Distribution and Social Media

If you use an article submission and distribution service, you can leverage that to make more inroads in the social sphere. After your article is distributed, be sure to send it out through your Twitter feed, update your blog and post it in your LinkedIn status.

A good article distribution service will make this easy for you, with quick links from your author account to Twitter and other social outlets. If not, check out a social site like Ping.fm, which lets you update all your profiles with one post.

Either way, be sure to maximize your exposure from each article you submit. While the exposure you get from your article distribution service is irreplaceable, it can be leveraged with a few simple clicks to reach even more audiences.

After The Article, Then What?

Internet marketers fall prey to a common syndrome: I call it post and go. They will post an article, then send it out through their social networks. All well and good, but what’s truly the value in simply pushing your content out there?

If you use the social sphere to push your content, you have to give something back. Use that social network to engage other users, re-tweet interesting ideas, and generally participate in the discussion. You’ll get back as much as you give.

To recap, use your article distribution service to get your articles into the world. And, if they offer it, take advantage of your service’s social media tie-ins. Then use the social sphere to engage your new market and grow your prospects. It’s the new face of article and content distribution.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Don’t Get Bamboozled by Your Article Distribution Service!

March 6th, 2010

Do a quick search on “article submission service” or “article distribution service” and you’ll find a lot of choices. You’ve made a good call deciding to go with an automated service. Just make sure it’s got the features and technology you need. The last thing you want is any nasty surprises.

How Big Is Their Distribution List?

Many article submission services promise “wide distribution,” and a lot of them do deliver. How do you know if yours does? Check their publisher list before you buy. Make sure they tell you all the places your article might be distributed. Keep in mind, not all publishers accept all categories of articles. Still, be sure the list is healthy and includes places like GoArticles.com and other big article sites.

Where Was Your Article Sent?

Once the article distribution service sends out your piece, make sure you can get a quick report on where it was sent. This is key, guys. Some companies will claim to do submission to a ton of article sites; that’s fine, as long as they can prove it. Ask for a distribution report; if they can’t give it to you, go elsewhere.

What Is the Cost Per Article?

Most experts agree that to really knock it out of the park with article marketing, you need to send a solid, consistent stream of new content out into the world. So when you are signing on with an article submission service, be sure to check their policy on cost per article.

Many places charge a fee for each article distributed. Look for an article distribution service that offers unlimited articles for one price: this way you can market to your heart’s content and not worry about the cost.

Does It Tie In To Your Social Networks?

Social marketing has become mandatory these days for anyone looking to expose themselves to new markets. Does your article distribution service offer an easy way to link in to your own personal social networks?

Every time you distribute an article through your article submission service, make sure it gets to your Twitter account, Linked In profile, etc. Look for a forward thinking article submission site that makes this a one-click affair. It’s the evolution of content syndication, and if you’re article distribution service isn’t doing it, they are woefully behind the times.

To recap, make sure whatever article submission service you choose offers a transparent publisher list; article distribution reports; unlimited article submissions; and easy tie-ins to your social sphere. Oh, and don’t pay more than $40/month.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Distribution Using Article Marketing Automation and Other Methods that Work

March 6th, 2010

As you work each day promoting your home business, do you follow a plan of action? Alternatively, do you take a less structured approach to marketing? Having a set plan is the best way to garner the traffic results you desire. Article distribution using article marketing automation along with other methods should be part of that plan.

Marketing a home business online allows you to use the power of the Internet. You have numerous online marketing options to choose from, which work well. Let’s consider a handful of them that can be part of your marketing plan:

Article Marketing

Article marketing is one method for getting extensive exposure for your business. In effect, you’re a content producer who provides quality information to your niche consistently. That means running multiple campaigns each year. It’s an affordable way to get your web links spreading throughout the Web.

However, using this method, you need a quality content distribution service to get you that far-reaching distribution. A good service offers unlimited submission and they automatically distribute your work to new publishers. They also assist you in promoting your content via social media tie-ins.

In addition, a quality service offers article marketing automation. You set up the distribution of your entire campaign upfront. You don’t have to revisit the site each week to schedule distribution. Schedule your writing to go out up to a year in advance. This is time-management extraordinaire.

Email Marketing to Your Current Customers

It’s easier to sell to a customer you already have a business relationship with then to secure a new customer. Therefore, you must continually get information to your loyal clients. Regular, informative emails offering excellent information, tips, advice, and product deals do work.

Send these out consistently, but don’t overdo it. Offer value to your regular customers at all times in emails. You can sell and promote, but tie this in with offering useful information as well. A simple email message can have nuggets of useful information just as your articles do.

Free Classified Ads

While this isn’t the be all and end all way to get traffic, it still pays some dividends for no expenditure. Numerous free ad sites exist. Explore them and write unique ads promoting your affiliate or other products. Slot these ads into the proper categories on these sites.

You may surprise yourself with some of the traffic you drum up. Remember, your only investment is the time to write a short ad and submit it. Many free ad sites have significant traffic volumes. Check them out and gain some new visitors to your website.

Develop Microsites Devoted to Specific Products

A microsite is an individual web page or group of pages. Their purpose is to function as a supplement to your primary website. On this page or pages, you include highly detailed information on a product or product group. Your intention is to focus attention solely on this product or category.

With a microsite, you write keyword-specific content related to the product you’re promoting. Your goal is to have search engines rank your microsite highly when search engine users look for such content topics. You’re performing highly targeted marketing with a microsite.

Go Viral With Vibrant Video

Search engines are indexing video more. Web searchers find that visual representations of information suit their needs. Try converting some of your articles to video. In addition, make a video that focuses on a new product you are adding to your lineup.

You may promote a rather complicated product, maybe a complex software program. Use a video to explain this product more clearly to your niche market. Of course, include a link on your video to where they can gain further documentation on the product. Upload your video to the popular video portals on the Net. Useful videos often spread quickly around the Web.

Consider a Mobile Website

The trend in marketing digitally is toward creating websites specifically used for handheld portable devices. Mobile users are increasingly migrating to gadgets with bigger touch screens and those with internet browsers. Don’t ignore this trend as its popularity increases.

Developing a mobile website is to take advantage of users who are using smartphones in place of traditional handsets. As mobile search grows, internet marketers have to make sure they’re creating websites for handheld devices.

Implement the above methods into your monthly marketing plans. With article distribution using article marketing automation and the others, you hasten the growth of your business. Don’t take an unstructured approach to your marketing. Plan it, work it, and reap the benefits of your consistent effort.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the Author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. Article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status, and she recommends Content Crooner for article distribution. Why? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Marketing Automation Beats Manual With A Big, Big Stick!

March 5th, 2010

Thanks to automation, search engine marketing with articles has become almost too easy. Still, some folks continue to work the old way, posting their article to submission sites by hand. Automate yourself! Choose an article distribution service that lets you input the article once, and distribute it far and wide.

Unlimited Article Submissions For One Set Price

Google is clear about this…new fresh relevant content is key to staying in the SERPS game. You can’t distribute one or two articles and expect to stay on the front page of your search term. You’ve got to continue to post new articles, two or three per week for each category you want to dominate. So look for an article submission and distribution service that offers unlimited articles for one price, not a “pay per article” deal.

Easy Tie-Ins to Your Social Networks

Old school article submission services work like this: they take your article and distribute it to their favorite article submission sites and publishers. You’ll get some results this way, for sure. Forward thinking article distribution companies know that you need to reach new markets in new ways…and those people live in your social networks.

Use an article distribution service that offers an easy tie-in to your Twitter account, Linked In profile…even RSS feeds. This broadens the exposure you’ll get, and puts your content in front of entirely new markets, for no additional cost.

Easy To Read Reports So You Can Track Results

The mantra for anyone who is serious about marketing is return on investment…what kind of results did I get from this effort? Make sure you can answer that question. Does your article submission service tell you where the articles were distributed? Do they give you an easy to read report so you can see the actual exposure you’re getting? If not, why not? Tracking results is key. Don’t neglect it.

Article Scheduling Lets You Set It and Forget It

The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.”

The solution? Do as much as you can in one sitting. This goes for your article submissions as well. Write up a bunch of articles, and then input them all at once. Schedule them go out over time, using your article distribution service’s auto-pilot or scheduling feature.

Your service doesn’t offer this? Time to shop around. Consider the huge cost of switching tasks and the fee for a good service easily pays for itself time and again.

In summary, use the automation that is already available for your article marketing efforts. Choose an article submission and distribution service that allows unlimited articles, social network tie-ins, complete reports, and article scheduling. Anything less and you’re just doing drudge work.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

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