How To Promote With Article Marketing

Getting traffic to your website or blog is the only way to make it pay, but not everyone who launches a website or blog has the money to spend on promotion. Good news. There's a promotional method that really works for attracting site or blog traffic and it's free, free, free. It's called article marketing and it is a sure way of raising a site's profile.

Step 1: Find An Article Directory

To get started, find a suitable article directory. Article directories are sites that have hundreds and thousands of articles and there are new ones emerging every day. Some are all-purpose, covering everything from family issues to healthcare, while others have a niche, such as computer advice or art. All of them are hungry for content.

With so many to pick from, choosing an article directory can be a minefield. To make it easier, look at the directory to see:

• how many authors there are - if only a handful, forget it and move on.
• how many articles there are - ditto; come back when they've got some content
• can the site be found on Google, Yahoo or MSN - if you can't find many links to the site, then no-one will find your articles either.

One of the best and most effective article directories I have used is EzineArticles.com. EzineArticles is easy to use and articles published on the site appear in the search engines very quickly.

Step 2: Start Writing

Once you've decided on the right article directory or directories, write an article. Bloggers will find that blog posts are a good starting point for a web article. If you're not a writer, there are plenty of writers who will whip up an article for a few dollars. Some will even help you get it published. The article you write or commission can be about almost anything related to the site, blog or business you are promoting. The ideal article should be short (say 300-600 words) and error-free, so remember to proofread and spell check.

Many article directories vet articles before publishing. Stick to the guidelines that are published on every site and approval should be a formality. Most article directories prohibit self-promotion in the body of the article. Direct promotion of a site, blog or business is reserved for the resource box.

Step 3: Work That Resource Box

The resource box is where article writers can put all the self-promotional information. Readers who have found the article useful are likely to click on the links to see what else a site, blog or business has to offer. Article directories typically allow up to three links in the resource box. A good resource box has the name of the writer or the person being promoted, the name of the business and the keywords that the site or business owner would like to promote. See the resource box at the end of this article for an example. Other resource boxes may link to a sales letter page (with the product name highlighted) and include a short elevator pitch and call to action.

Step 4: Submit Like Crazy

Once the article has been submitted to the directories the site owner has chosen, it's time to move the strategy to the next level. Article submission services extend the potential reach of an article, giving another opportunity to boost traffic. Like many article directories, article submission services allow people to upload articles for approval. Once the articles are approved, these services send them out to article directories, article groups, ezine publishers and website owners to be considered for publication. Two options for article submission are Article Marketer, which has free and paid options and Isnare, which is a paid service. There are also free and commercial programs to automate article submission.

Pros And Cons Of Article Marketing

The big question, of course, is whether submitting articles to hundreds of directories counts as duplicate content. It's hard to tell. Some of them end up in the sandbox after a while; others don't. Staggering submissions is a good way to avoid this. However, in my opinion, the advantages outweigh the potential disadvantages. With article marketing, sites can receive hundreds of inbound links in only a few days or weeks and thousands of people will be visiting the site that's being promoted. That can't be bad, can it?

Sharon Hurley Hall is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor, who has seen article marketing work for her. Sharon is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor who writes on freelance writing skills and writer promotion for InspiredAuthor.com. For more information or to contact Sharon, visit doublehdesign.com.

Simple and Yet Easy Way to Get Free Advertising

Why Should You Write Articles?
Newsletter and website owners are desperate for content. They will normally do a regularly search on those relevant articles, looking for quality information that will help their readers. In each article you have written, you could publish them with your information and a link to your website.

Why should you be giving out these articles free?
Lets imagine, you will normally need to pay to include your ad in a newsletter or popular website. It could be in the range of hundreds. Would it be nice to have your ad placed for free instead? Look at the bottom of this article, you will see some information with my website included, so you have proof that this method do work.

How do you write an article?
The article could be short and simple but with some valuable contents. I am not a Literary Genius either. So, just start to pick up something you know about, or a challenge that you faced, and start writing. Just do it!

What should you include at the end of the article?
Of course, you should include your name. In addition, you should also mention something that is interesting about you or your website, as well as your website link. You could also include some freebie or special offer if you have one. However, do note that this area should not be used to sell any of your products. The aim here is to get the reader to visit your website.

Patrick Sia is the man behind Income-Internet-Business.com He's a passionate believer in the power of technology to better the lives of everyone and his passion and drive are hallmarks of his attitude to doing business.

Check out more about him @
http://www.patricksia.com and http://www.income-internet-business.com for his step-by-step guide to startup a successful internet business.

The Power of Link Popularity

Getting quality links to your site from related web resources can be very difficult. It is a time consuming process and requires careful research. There are two ways to build your link popularity; 1 Make your site attractive to webmasters or 2 go out and hunt them down your self.

Getting webmasters to come to you:

Having lots of useful content on your web site such as informative articles, online tools, studies, etc will make another webmasters what to link to your web site knowing that you will not only help their site's traffic and link popularity, but adding content to their own web site.

Sometimes you may even get webmasters that like your site so much that they will link to your homepage or to certain web pages that they think their visitors will find useful because this adds to the usefulness of their own site by providing useful links.

Keep it clean by avoiding tricks (Blocking access via robots.txt to robots, linking out with JavaScript, etc.) meant to keep your site from transferring Page Rank to other webmaster's web sites and link to your links page on every page of your site.

Sometimes you will get requests for link exchanges with web sites that are not related to your sites topic, these sites should be ignored and you should focus on only related web sites.

Hunting link partners down your self:

Type your keyword phrases into a search engine and wait for the results. The web sites you see on the first few web pages of the search engine results should be your main targets and should be looked at. Visit their site to see if you can find the site owners name and email them asking to exchange links, remember to email them at the right email address, don't email the email address that's for support.

Type your keywords or phrases into the search engine and see who links to the sites that come up first. After finding a few sites that link to the sites that rank high on your keyword phrases email them and ask if they would be interested in a link exchange. This is great if you can get both the top sites that rank for your keyword phrases and the sites that link to the top sites because not only do you have the top sites linking to you, but also the site sites that made them get there in the first place.

Some webmasters use link exchange programs such as www.linkexchangeit.com, these link exchange program help you find link partners easier because the sites are cauterized into their related topics, so you don't have to search for them.

Use those rules and you should do just fine! Just remember to take your time and don't use automated software, instead hand pick the sites that you link to.

Matt Colyer began as a SEO Specialist in 1997. He founded Superior Webmaster in 2004 as a source of articles and tutorials for Web site owners looking to improve their Web site.

Fast Article Marketing - 5 Practical Steps to Explode Your Article Marketing

If you are a webmasters and you have a knack for writing, you have won half the battle of promoting your website. It's because you can fare well on one of the best traffic-generating techniques these days - article marketing.

Here are the 5 practical steps to explode your article marketing campaign:

1. Make sure that each word that you use on your articles reflects your expertise and professionalism. Eliminate colloquial terms on your copies. Words like "wanna", "sorta", "meany", etc. must not have a room on your articles. Instead, stick with words that are deemed professional and appropriate for content writing.

2. Write to inform not to impress. Some webmasters are sometimes too excited to show off their knowledge without considering if the information they write about are useful to their readers. To quickly build a following, you must make sure that your first priority in writing your articles is to educate your readers with useful, relevant information.

3. Build your credibility. Cite a major accomplishment in your resource box. If have earned $5000 a month in promoting an affiliate product, that is considered a milestone in your career. Include this in your resource box and you can be assured that online users would like to know how you have done it so they can reap the same rewards. In addition, you can also build your credibility by posting testimonials of your most satisfied clients on your website.

4. Submit your articles to publishing sites, blogs, websites, or compile them to create an eBook. In article marketing, you are not limited to article submission sites in distributing your copies. Find other avenues where you can post your articles to increase their exposure.

5. Use your articles as viral marketing tool. You can compile your relevant articles to one eBook and make it available for download. Let your readers know that they can share this eBook to their friends and family members so you widen your reach.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

List Building & Forums Work Together

To start off what is a forum? A forum is an online discussion board where members help each other, asking and answering questions and sharing information.

Using forums to build quality list is becoming more popular. At one time, not long ago this was one of the most overlooked aspects of list building.

Lots of times people who don't know any better jump into forum discussions pushing a product or their website. This is a No-No.

The key to using the forums is to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Don't go in trying to sell something or promote your website. These people don't know you there for not trusting you.

Use forums to build and establish trust. Get to know these people, become friends, and help them with as many problems you can, building trust along the way.

Now that we know what a forum is and how to use it we will move on.

To find forums do a search on your favorite search engine entering your keyword or topic followed by forum. This will bring up many forums to choose from.

It's time to get into a little grunt work now. We need to become members to 25-50 of these forums.

Now we need to go to the profile section and create a signature. This is very important, our signature is going to have our name and a link to our website,(preferably a squeeze page) and that's it. Nothing more.

Next we need to introduce ourselves in the introductory section of the forum. Here's where we say hi and tell a little about what we do offline.

Mention a hobby you may have, or something about your job. Be friendly and get to know these folks. Don't try to sell or promote at this point.

The next day you are going to return and reply to the welcomes you received from your introduction posts. Be polite and reply with a thank-you, that goes a long ways believe it.

Ok, now it is time to start looking through the posts for unanswered questions that you are able to answer. If you know the answer, give it to them.

Don't answer a reply like;

If you buy my e-book you will find all your answers. You don't want to do this. Your main objective here is to become an expert, and don't try sell at this time.

You'll want to continue answering questions on a daily basis. Spend as much time as you can answering these questions. The more quality posts you present, the more there will be an exponential effect that will build.

You are now being seen by many as an expert. And answering them questions makes you just that, an expert. You still want to refrain from putting on a sales pitch. Remember your link is in your signature, if they want to know more they will click your link.

You must be seen as an expert. If not you will never get the click, they won't subscribe, and they won't buy anything.

If you can continue to give these people quality content and information on a daily basis, builds trust and respect.

Give your readers something that they can walk away with everyday and feel good about it.

Once seen as an expert the more comfortable your readers feel with you. The more posts they read of yours the more apt they are clicking your link. They are very curious at this point.

Remember, don't be aggressive in forums. Don't mention your website or products. The more posts you make the more clicks you will get.

Affiliate Home Business Guide
James Veach, Internet Marketing Advisor
Business Guide For Your Marketing Needs
| Linking Strategies | Affiliate Marketing |
| List Building | Article Marketing|
Listbuilding
http://www.affiliate-home-business-guide.com

Article Marketing Success - How To Write Articles That Compels Your Reader To Buy From You?

Did you know that one article can bring you as much as 100 highly targeted visitors? It takes you less than thirty minutes to write a well written and informative article. If you deliver the good, the reader is going to click on your resource box and see what you have to offer.

Some of my most best articles have more than one hundreds click and hundreds of views. But these statistics don't include all the publishers who downloaded my articles.

And what if an ezine publisher with thousands of subscribers like your article and send it to his list with your well crafted resource box?

I am sure this could bring your sales your way.

But if you wrote an article that doesn't make sense, nobody is going to send it to his list. And what do you think about readers who stumble about your article?

This poor surfer was searching for information. He was searching for a real expert he can rely on, and instead, he found a couple of "bizarre" sentences that didn't give him a single benefit.

Do you think he is going to click on your link in the resource box? He won't! Because he knows that this article wasn't written by an expert. Why should he bother?

The reader needs help, he want to solve a problem or relive a pain. If you give him even more troubles and make him lose his valuable time, he is never going to make business with you after that... unless he is forced to do so because there is no competitors.

But this is not the case today, so take your time and write a good article.

To learn more, download my Free Guide: "How To Earn $100K Per Year With Article Marketing".

Franck Silvestre makes thousands of dollars a year from affiliate and article marketing. Wonder what the secret to his success is? Discover how he does it at: http://www.mynetmarketingland.com/article-marketing/

Importance of Backlinks

Backlinks and Search Engine Optimization

The importance of backlinks is often not fully appreciated by the website owners or webmasters. When making changes to your website for Search Engine Optimization for good ranking on the major search engine such as Google, Yahoo or MSN, there are different factors that you should look at.

Website Ranking

If you would like to obtain a good ranking on the search engines you will accept the importance of backlinks. The website content and the Meta tags must of course be in accordance with the appropriate keyword density percentages. The search engines through its bots and spiders then perform a mathematic formula and assign a numeric value to the site. The rank assigned to your website depends for a large share to the number of backlinks that your website has from other websites with a strong preference to backlinks from websites which are relevant to your website and its content.

Backlink and Reciprocol Link

There are two forms of links we are looking at which are back links and reciprocal links. Both the back link and reciprocal link suggest to the search engines that your website should assign a high rank to your website in the search engine results as other websites view your website as a quality website which is why they have linked to your site. By reciprocating the link back to the site that is linking to your website, a firm network connection is build. Google and the other major search engines place high credit on backlinks and reciprocate links and therefore a website with a strong and solid backlink campaign will find their website to end up being rewarded by the search engines such Google and Yahoo.

Dead Backlinks

There is a negative side to the whole backlinks building process. A website that you have exchanged links with could delete a backlink or a page may get removed. When a search engine bot crawls through your site and finds a dead backlink then this could be lead to negative view of the search engines in regards to your website. The search engine would find the dead link and consider that your website isn't taking good care of the content and links published on the site and could assign you a worse ranking then you previously had in the search engine results.

Some of the websites that your site might have exchanged reciprocal links with could very likely check all their backlinks to see if they remain active and present. If the other website finds that the backlink to their website is no longer active or has been removed then the website in question will more than likely remove the backlink to your website. Having your site in a good partnership with your link partners will keep the search engines like MSN and Google engine satisfied.

Bad Neighborhood Link

If your website exchanges links with a site that has been in trouble with the search engines due to spamming or bad content then this could result into your website being somehow penalized for linking with a bad neighborhood website like the one your site is linking with.

James is currently living on Phuket and is working on a number of projects. If you are looking for a great Phuket hotel then do consider staying at Club Bamboo Resort. Read more about Phuket in his Phuket Guide.

Article Marketing Mastery

If you are selling a product or a service online, article marketing can be one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to send traffic to your website. As well as driving people directly to your site, you will also use article marketing to boost your link popularity - a critical factor in search engine rankings.

The first step in mastering article marketing is writing good content. Even if you don't have experience writing articles, this is a skill you can develop over time. At the start, keep it as simple as possible and use short sentences. Try to be helpful and give advice in your article without overloading it with keywords.

Also, make sure you write an excellent headline. The more attention you can grab with your headline, the more times the article will be published. I've read that top copywriters spend more time developing a headline or title than actually writing the article itself.

Secondly, spend some time writing a good resource box that will encourage readers to click on the link to your website. Once readers navigate to your page, you can offer them your products or you can offer them something for free so long as they submit their email address.

Either way, you are onto a winner. You will either sell products or begin to develop a list of potential buyers who you can contact with news, helpful tips, and special offers.

Once you have written your article and resource box, you need to think about distributing your articles.

Article directories are probably the easiest way to get your work out in the public domain. There are hundreds of article directories out there, some general and some that publish articles on niche areas. Find the ones that you think will get your articles the most exposure. I like to make sure I submit to article directories with at least a PageRank of 3.

Submitting to article directories can be a time-consuming exercise. There are software packages that can make automatic submissions, but many directories have measures in place to block automatic submissions. Alternatively you could use an article submission service, but these can be expensive. It is probably best to choose a few directories that suit you and make the submissions yourself. Do a search for "article submission software" to find the lastest article submission software products.

You can also try contacting editors of e-zines in your field and ask them to consider accepting some of your work. Send a sample of your work.

As you submit more and more articles you should become more well known and you will build up trust among website publishers. Be patient, and your article marketing efforts will pay off...I guarantee it!

For more freelance business ideas, visit FreelanceSprout.com

How to Increase Your Web Site Link Popularity

Link popularity is without doubt one of the most important aspects of a search engine ranking algorithm - this variable tells the search engine how many web sites out there are linking to your web site, which gives a really good indication of how popular or important your site is.

Your web site NEEDS links, it can't survive at the top of the search engine rankings without them. In this article I am going to explain how anyone can get good quality links for their web site, without paying for them...

Link building for your web site is not technically difficult, it just requires some time and dedication to do the job properly. If you don't have the time and discipline to do the job right, I strongly suggest hiring someone - WCR Internet Marketing provides this service in some of their Web Marketing plans.

I recommend only looking for links from sites that are related to your site. If you can't determine a relationship between your site and theirs, move along, there are plenty more sites out there that are more relevant!

Always remember why you have a web site - you want people to find your site useful, so make sure you are only linking to useful, relevant content. Think about this - if a surfer is browsing a site about rebuilding a car engine, they aren't likely to find a mortgage broker link very useful, are they? Stick to linking amongst relevant sites, and I guarantee you that in the long term your site will benefit greatly.

This is the 6 Step process we use when building links for clients:

1) Determine what sort of links you want.

This is extremely important. The types of links that you're looking for are industry specific. If you have a web site that is focussed on the rebuilding of car engines, you will be looking for links in the automotive or car related areas in directories. If you are selling electrical contracting services, you will want to look for regional listings or general business listings to find possible links.

2) Find your source of links.

So we're looking for links that are relevant to your web site. The best place to source your links are directories such as DMOZ. Go to a directory, browse through to a category that suits your site (a lot of the time there will be more than one suitable category) and you will see a whole lot of other relevant sites, perfect for sourcing quality links. Try the directories below, they should keep you going for a while:

http://directory.google.com
http://directory.yahoo.com
http://dmoz.org

3) Determine whether or not a site is relevant.

It's time to start visiting web sites. Have a look at each site one by one to see if a link to your site would realistically fit in. A webmaster isn't likely to want to change the structure of their site just to add a link to you, so if you don't think you're going to fit in, close the site and move along to the next. If you think you have a chance of getting linked, move on to the next step.

4) Determine where on the site your link would fit best.

If it's a directory that you're browsing through, find the most appropriate category for your site. If it's just a web site, have a look for a links page or any other pages that have links or might be suitable to have links on it.

5) Submit your site.

If it's a directory that you're on, once you are in the appropriate category for your web site, look around the page for a place to submit your site. Quite often you will find something like "Add URL", "Submit your site" or "Add a link" etc. Use this link to submit your site.

If you're on a relevant web site and there is no "Add URL" function, you will need to find an email address for the webmaster. Keep in mind that when emailing the webmaster, always personalize your request - don't just copy and paste a template to thousands of different webmasters - that's a sure way to have your request sent straight to the recycle bin.

Take the time to look around for a name, it won't always be available, but when it is - use it. Let the webmaster know where you think it might be suitable to have a link to your site and let him know if you are happy to reciprocate the link. At the end of the day, the easier you make it for them, and the more polite your request is, the more likely you are to end up with a link.

6) Document all of your work.

I can't stress this point enough, it is absolutely the most important part of any link building campaign. Create a Word document with all your site information in it (Title, Description, URL). Also in this Word document, have a few email templates prepared for different scenarios - I know I said don't use templates, but you don't have to type out every request every time you want to ask for a link - make up a template that you can fill out specific information on like the web site address, where you would like your link to be placed etc.

Make sure you also document each individual link request you make - every time you ask someone for a link, write it down in your Word document. That way, at a later date, you can go through the list and check who is linking to you and who isn't.

In Closing

Remember to be patient and keep your eye out for new potential links. Improving your web site link popularity won't send your web site straight to the top of the search engine rankings, but it will help you in the long term. If you plan on building a successful web site over a number of years, a properly organized link building campaign will do you the world of good. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Charles Ryder is the CEO of WCR Internet Marketing, a specialist Australian Search Engine Optimisation company. For a free site analysis, visit http://www.wcr-internet-marketing.com.au

List Building: By Whom?

Are you writing articles to drive traffic to your list building page? At the end, you'll use a signature file, a resource or source box. How important is it?

Very, very, very important.

The author's signature box should drive people to your list building page. The links are important in getting your list building page ranked higher in the search engines.

But you shouldn't use the same signature file, AKA source box, AKA resource box, each time you submit an article. Why? Because you want the one-way links pointing to your site from all over the Web to seem natural. Search engines don't like to think that we're trying to manipulate their results by throwing tons and tons of anchor text links that all say the same thing, and it could cause your site to be penalized. So, vary your signatures.

Use the same sig file in about five articles and then change it. EZine Articles is great because their program allows you to upload three different resource boxes, and then, you just pick one to use each time you submit. Be sure to change those signatures now and then, too.

Certain software, like SEO Elite, can tell you which sites have links to your list building page and what the anchor text reads. You can use the information to balance out the wording and help with your search engine rankings, too.

Articles are very effective in driving traffic to your list building page. Just don't ignore the signature. Give it some power by using your keywords wisely.

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. and a master of list building. Learn the 9 Laws of List Building at MyFirstList.com

Article Marketing - My Favorite Way To Drive Traffic

One of my favorite ways to drive traffic to my web site is through article marketing. What is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing articles about topics related to your web site niche ideas, adding links to your web site within the articles, and submitting them to the various online article directories for distribution online. One of the really nice things about article marketing traffic is that the leads generated are usually very high quality; another nice thing about article marketing is that there is generally no cost to submitting the articles to the article directories, so for all practical purposes, except for your time, article marketing is free to use to generate traffic.

So how do you do article marketing? Here is a step by step guide to article marketing:

1) Determine what types of ideas and topics are good for your web site? An easy way to do this is to write a list of ten things that people visiting your web site might be interested in. Once you have this list, write down 10 questions someone might have in reference to each of the first 10 things someone might be interested in. This will give you a total of 100 questions or ideas about which you can write.

2) Write 250-350 word articles about each of your ideas, questions, or topics, using the formula I am teaching in this article.

3) At the end of the article, you must have a call to action. Most article directories will call this your resource box, or your bio. I call it a call to action, because it must be more than a bio and a link. It must be a very specific directive that entices people to click the link and get to your web site. If they do not click the link in the article, your article has been basically unsuccessful, so you must learn to write a call to action.

The easiest way to write a call to action is to first create a free item or product that you can giveaway on your web site. Then tell the reader to click here to collect their giveaway. This will create just about the highest percentage of readers clicking through to your web site from your article and of course that is your primary goal when you are article marketing.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Article Marketing Mastery

If you are selling a product or a service online, article marketing can be one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to send traffic to your website. As well as driving people directly to your site, you will also use article marketing to boost your link popularity - a critical factor in search engine rankings.

The first step in mastering article marketing is writing good content. Even if you don't have experience writing articles, this is a skill you can develop over time. At the start, keep it as simple as possible and use short sentences. Try to be helpful and give advice in your article without overloading it with keywords.

Also, make sure you write an excellent headline. The more attention you can grab with your headline, the more times the article will be published. I've read that top copywriters spend more time developing a headline or title than actually writing the article itself.

Secondly, spend some time writing a good resource box that will encourage readers to click on the link to your website. Once readers navigate to your page, you can offer them your products or you can offer them something for free so long as they submit their email address.

Either way, you are onto a winner. You will either sell products or begin to develop a list of potential buyers who you can contact with news, helpful tips, and special offers.

Once you have written your article and resource box, you need to think about distributing your articles.

Article directories are probably the easiest way to get your work out in the public domain. There are hundreds of article directories out there, some general and some that publish articles on niche areas. Find the ones that you think will get your articles the most exposure. I like to make sure I submit to article directories with at least a PageRank of 3.

Submitting to article directories can be a time-consuming exercise. There are software packages that can make automatic submissions, but many directories have measures in place to block automatic submissions. Alternatively you could use an article submission service, but these can be expensive. It is probably best to choose a few directories that suit you and make the submissions yourself. Do a search for "article submission software" to find the lastest article submission software products.

You can also try contacting editors of e-zines in your field and ask them to consider accepting some of your work. Send a sample of your work.

As you submit more and more articles you should become more well known and you will build up trust among website publishers. Be patient, and your article marketing efforts will pay off...I guarantee it!

For more freelance business ideas, visit FreelanceSprout.com

What are the Most Effective Article Directories to Submit my Articles to?

There are two primary strategies involved with article marketing and article submission.

The first is that of submitting to a small number of high-traffic article directories and focusing on the direct traffic that comes from the article directories when people read your articles and click through to your web site.

The second strategy is that of submitting your articles to as many article directories as possible for the long-term purpose of increasing pagerank and search engine rankings, which will lead to long term traffic from the search engines.

The first strategy will get you immediate traffic, and will help your web site eventually get higher search engine rankings, and the second strategy will help you more quickly get high search engine rankings so that you can get web traffic from the search engines themselves.

Which strategy is better?

In the short term the direct traffic method is probably better, but in the long run, submitting to as many article directories as possible is probably a better approach.

The way I do it is a mix of both strategies.

I regularly submit to a short list of article directories, the ones that have higher traffic themselves, and I also submit, perhaps monthly, to a full list of article directories.

One of the things to remember about article marketing is that you are building a long-term business - not a short term flash of traffic. You see, you will be hard pressed to find anyone successful online that relies on short term flashes of traffic, unless they have found a way to guarantee they get those flashes regularly - and then of course they are not really short term. With article marketing, you must focus on the long term.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Want to learn more about driving traffic like I do? Download my free traffic guide here: Traffic Generation

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1500 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Article Marketing - 3 Idiot-Proof Tactics To Explode Your Traffic From Article Marketing

Did you ever wish that you could get more page views from your articles and more traffic to your website? It's really not that difficult once you know exactly how to do it! Here are 3 idiot-proof tactics to explode your traffic from article marketing:

1. Write A Powerful, Killer Title

The title is essentially the first line of contact between your reader and your article. If you have a compelling article title that speaks to his problems and his desires, he will be more compelled to read your article. Make your title benefit-driven and compelling.

2. Follow-On With A Relevant And Compelling Resource Box

At the end of your article, you'd usually be required to enter a resource box if you're submitting your article to article directories. Your resource box should be relevant to the topic of your article. Ask your reader to click through to your website by giving him a reason why, such as a free report or a free newsletter.

3. Keep Your Articles Short

Some people think that writing long articles is the key. On the Internet, that can be a less effective approach. People's reading habits online are different than when they are offline. They tend to be more impatient when reading. So it's best to keep your articles short and to-the-point if you want to get more readers, leads and sales. Some people might read the longer articles, but you'll lose a lot of readers because many will get intimidated at the length of the article and click away.

Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the popular 51-page Report:

"Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!"

Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!

NEW Link Popularity Fundamentals

Link baiting has been the most important task ever since Google places great emphasis on links popularity. Search Engine Optimizers are constantly looking for new and effective ways to build links both for the users and search engines. This article discusses some of the commonly used link building strategies and highlights their respective effectiveness.

Most web masters submit their sites to countless of directories for backlinks. This method may not be useful anymore as it brings little or no traffic to the sites. Unless sites are submitted to popular directories like Yahoo Directory, other directories simply not worth the effort and money.

A better alternative to directories submission is article submission. Article writing has becoming more and more popular nowadays as these articles will also help to bring in more targeted traffic and quality backlinks. If done probably, articles is a very cost effective way of marketing tool as well.

Some domain experts also publish their sites in their signatures in popular forums like DigitalPoint and NamePros. These signatures not only attract highly targeted traffic but they are also classified as backlinks by the search engines.

Moving into the new link popularity era, search engines are looking more than just pure backlinks. Relevant linking is far more important as this will benefit the users ultimately. Next, we will take a look at those new linking techniques that will emerge useful in near future.

Several websites have been published recently to promote the awareness of some great sites. Stumble, Digg and del.icio.us are the most popular ones till date. Although most of the links from them are not classified as backlinks by the search engines at the moment, they bring in great traffic and help in viral marketing. If we could build links directly to attract potential customers while bypassing search engines, is it not a good way?

One of the latest trend in link popularity is Link Investment. There are already some premier entrepreneurs looking into the possibility of creating a link investment opportunity that will benefit the site by directing traffic to them and at the same time, earn profits by selling these links themselves. LinkVestor is the first site to implement this unique concept.

KC is a SEO consultant with several years of related experiences. His advice has helped several Webmasters to increase their SERP. KC owns USESEO.COM, which provides free SEO techniques. KC is also the founder of LinkVestor, where all link investment begins.

What is Deep Linking?

Basically deep linking is the linking of information to another page from a website page instead of the actual home page itself. A regular link will point to yahoo.com for example, where as a deep link will point to a particular web page inside of yahoo. Or perhaps consider a regular link will point to the MySpace homepage, a deep link will point to a members profile or some other specific feature page inside of MySpace.

Many large companies discourage the practice of deep linking into pages on their own websites as it allows visitors to go directly to a specific page of interest and avoid their sponsor advertising or other such features that may be a source of profitability for the company. Deep linking however is very desirable to an average internet user who is intent on going directly to the relevant pages of interest. The truth is that companies or owners of website can actually benefit by allowing deep linking to pages inside of their websites.

Deep linking improves the usability of a website for their visitor, new internet users or users less knowledgeable in the ways of web world are most likely to easily find what it is they are looking for by going directly to a page within a site by clicking on a deep link. Imagine for a moment you were searching for a particular recipe, chicken casserole for example, when you click on a link that promises a chicken casserole recipe, not a whole lot of other information with little or no clue of how to find that cherished chicken casserole. Allowing your site visitor to go straight to the recipe they are looking for ensures that you will have a returning visit, confusing and disappointing your visitor is not the best way to create interested visitors.

Certainly there are even more advantages for allowing deep linking into your website. Allowing deep linking makes it far easier to follow your website visitors viewing tracks. Your website stats will display exactly what pages and information your website visitor was interested in viewing when they entered your website. This will clearly define what you have that is of value and know the true popularity of your website content.

Deep linking also greatly improves your websites attractiveness for search engine rankings. Take for example a website devoted to dogs that provided links to each specific breed of dog from the homepage, when someone searching the internet is looking for Husky information the search engine will include this website and the person looking easily find what they are looking for on your website.

Pay per click advertising or PPC, as it is often referred to uses deep linking to point to exactly what your advertisement is about, this helps your conversion rates. Let's say that your site is devoted to home furnishings and place an advertisement for beds, deep linking the advertising to point directly to your beds. If this advertisement pointed only to your homepage some visitors may wander off looking at bits and pieces they are not interested in actually purchasing.

You may experiment with these ideas and see the results for yourself. Begin by creating deep liking a blog and link directly to specific content inside of the website. Be sure to include deep links in articles submitted to article directories. Successful results will certainly be evident real soon.

Robert Paul Williams is the Editor of Work At Home Business Website. Are You Promoting a Product or Service Online? Come Visit WAHBWS to Get Your Free and Low Cost Website Advertising Ideas

Search Engine Optimisation Services Specialist Discusses What Is Search Engine Optimisation Part 24

Details have been given about all the various SEO techniques such as writing good original keyword specific press releases, articles, forum posts and blog posts, but we still need to get to the real core meaning of what search engine optimisation is and what it can do for business and how it can affect your business if you do not know anything about it. So let us discuss what it is and also what it is not.

What is SEO? SEO is an art. This means that you need to think at all times of all different kinds of keywords and keyword phrases to satisfy the needs of the search engine spiders. You need to think like a search engine spider. You need to learn how to do this in order to get your websites listed on the first page of the Google search engine. As an example, let us assume that you are promoting a website about leads. The term leads is a billion dollar industry.

If you do intensive research you will find the same result. Companies or people that are on the first page of the Google search engine for the keyword term 'leads' are in it for the money. There is no doubt about that. The company holding the number one position has been holding the 'leads' top spot ranking for a long time. If you start an SEO campaign promoting your 'leads' website and eventually also get listed on the first page of Google, the effort of consistently posting content, titles and original content about the keyword 'leads' will land you in the 'leads' search category of around two hundred million search results.

How do you get the search term 'leads' to the first page of Google? It is not a great secret. It is not a mystery. It is an art to get it here. You will have to work at this art to perfect it as much as possible and to be successful using it. This is not something that will just pop up automatically without you putting effort into it to make sure that it works.

Clyde Thorburn
Search Engine Optimisation Services Specialist
Johannesburg South Africa
http://www.mortgageleadgenerationonline.com
clydesseoservices@freemarketingsystem.net
Landline: 2711 432 2225
Skype ID: clydethorburn
Yahoo IM: crthorburn

Why Do We Use Link Building Programs?

There are a number of effective marketing and advertising methods implemented to broadcast the news of a business, and/or the details of that business to others. One of the most popular methods of advertising companies on the internet, however, is through popular link building programs. When it comes to search engine optimisation, marketing, and building the positive reputation of a company online, internet marketers strive to conduct a campaign that includes a link building program. Why do we use link building programs? That seems to be a common question. Here, we will answer this question for you.

One of the most important aspects of an internet business, or a simple internet website, is to be noticed. The most effective method of doing this is to rank high in all of the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live Search. There are many different ways to accomplish this task, but one of the easiest methods is to participate in sharing links with other websites on the internet that are considered to be "established". The technical side of the search engines will "photograph" the link and then will submit it to the electronic bots that work behind the scene in order to gain all the relevant information about the website, this will rank it higher among all searches.

Link building programs can produce many positive results for the business that owns a website on the internet.

First, these programs can be extremely beneficial when it comes to adding visitors to your website. The great news is that the visitors that you receive will be targeted. This means that they will be looking for the goods and/or services that your business is offering. This is a great way to establish credibility and generate an extremely large customer base that can assist in making your business the success that you want it to be. As you receive more and more visitors to the website of your business, the link that these visitors are following will become more and more popular.

By utilizing the use of link building programs, your business website will quickly gain in rank among all of the major search engines, and probably a few of the not so major search engines. This means when a person types in a keyword that is relative to the information on your website, your website will appear closer to the top of the results page.

This means that people will see YOU, and YOUR website before any other! This can produce outstanding results when it comes to the overall success that your business achieves in the long run! When this occurs, not only do you get the recognition that you want and deserve, but your credibility increases as well. This can be a very valuable aspect when it comes to the business world!

As you can see from the above, using link building programs can be a very effective means of gaining exposure, building targeted traffic, and increasing your ranking in all of the search engines.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who represents many UK businesses. For Link Building, he recommends Impact Media Ltd, one of the UK's leading specialists of Link Building Programs.

Article Marketing - Re-purpose Your Articles in Your Blog and Build "Article Intrigue"

Article marketing is simply getting your information in front of as many eyes as possible in as many consumable forms as possible.

One of the best and easiest ways to do this is to re-purpose your articles in your blog.

The only real challenge is that at 300 to 500 words most articles are too long for your average blog post.So here aretwo ways to create several blog posts out of one article and build a little "article intrigue" while your are at it.

1. Split your article into three separate blog posts over an interval of three days or longer. This is especially simple if you have made 3 major points in your article. It can be done with any article though. In the first post use about a third of your article. At the end of the post, tell the reader a bit about what to expect in the next blog post. And so on.

2. Another great way to do this is to use the "read more" function on your blog. The read more icon on Word Press blogs looks like a sheet of paper cut in half. This is essentially what you are doing. At some point in your article place the read more command and your article stops there, creating a small post. When the reader clicks on the "read more" link they are taken to a new page and the rest of the article.

Bonus tip: To build in a little "article intrigue" place the read more link in the middle of a thought such as "something works really well for me is" and then place the read more link right there.

And now I would like to offer you free access to 2 of my Instant Article Templates when you subscribe to my free Article Marketing Minute, a 52 week audio/video newsletter on Article Marketing. You can get your instant access at http://www.ArticleMarketingMinute.com

From Jeff Herring - The Internet Article Guy & the Great Article Marketing Network

Article Marketing Attract Website Traffic With A Sharp Resource Box

A resource box is the few lines of text found at the bottom of most topical articles one might read on the Internet. And savvy article marketing experts know that the resource box, albeit small, is a prime piece of online real estate for attracting qualified website traffic.

In fact, a great article writer will compose the entire body of an article for the sole purpose of retaining the reader's interest until she reaches and reads the tiny resource box at the end.

When a reader likes the content they just finished reading, it's a case of human nature to want more. So in its turn, the resource box should provide a live link to further related information, or at least to the source of the article. But like the article itself, the resource box must demand the reader's interest, and then motivate her to click the embedded link.

If the article body acts as the bait, then the resource box must act as the hook. Every fisherman knows that good bait is essential, but a sharp hook is what catches the fish.

Here are a few tips toward creating sharp article resource boxes that will reel in highly targeted prequalified website traffic and potential customers, without fail.

1- Pick at least one primary keyword or key phrase from the article body, and use it in the article resource box. That will serve the reader as a strong visual and mental trigger, as well as a lead in to the next set of information you want her to view.

2 - Where possible, use keywords and/or key phrases as the anchor text for resource box links. In other words, 'click here for more candle making tips' will prove much more effective than a link that says only 'click here to read more.'

3 - Clearly illustrate the benefit that the reader will receive simply by proceeding onward and clicking the link to the next page.

4 - Mention the author's name and/or the company name where appropriate, along with a few words to enhance credibility. As an example: 'Master candle maker Jane Doe has operated Doe & Doe Artistic Candles Studio since 1996.'

5 - Use the ad writing principles of attention, interest, desire, and action to craft the text of the resource box.

6 - All unnecessary and transitional words (and, the, or) should be edited out wherever possible.

7 - And finally, we suggest writing at least 3 to 5 versions of the resource box before choosing the final copy for publication.

Expert article writers regard fifty words or about five lines of text including the link - as the optimum length for a sharp resource box. More than that may actually reduce the overall effectiveness of the resource box, and the reader motivation it intends to create.

So, given that much needs to be said in a limited space with very few words, it almost goes without saying that the resource box must be as carefully crafted as any small classified type advertisement that one might insert for fee into any national publication.

While small in size, the article resource box remains as prime real estate in terms of driving prequalified website traffic. Don't underestimate the power that can be unlocked within five short lines of text.

Internet marketing expert Dan B. Cauthron has long been recognized for his No Nonsense approach to doing business on the net. Dan freely offers useful insight and online business wisdom at his main website: http://DanBCauthron.com

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) And SEO

Indexing has always been considered a highly targeted science. Enter a search query into Google search and the pages that are displayed are generally optimized towards that exact word or term. However, in their continual battle to server the most relevant but most natural pages with genuinely useful information Google has injected latent semantic indexing (LSI) into its algorithms.

What Is LSI?

LSI is a unique indexing method that potentially takes Google search one step closer to becoming human in its way of thinking. If we were to manually search through web pages to find information related to a given search term we would be likely to generate our own results based on the theme of the site, rather than whether a word exists or doesnt exist on the page.

Why Search Engines Might Adopt Latent Semantic Indexing

The extremely rigid form of keyword indexing also meant that black hat SEO techniques were easier to implement. Search engines could be manipulated into ranking a site highly by using set formula. Originally, cramming a page with a particular keyword or set of keywords meant a site would rank highly for that search term. The proceeding set of algorithms ensured that your link profile played more of an important part than your keyword density. Reciprocal linking soon followed once again making it possible to manipulate the search engine spiders by exchanging links with tens, hundreds, or thousands of websites.

Reciprocal linking was soon beaten as Google and to a lesser extent Yahoo and MSN gave less credence to a reciprocal link as they did to a one-way inbound link. Latent Semantic Indexing is another, particularly powerful, method to try and make their result pages appear more natural with natural pages filled with natural content.

The Effects

The introduction of LSI has seen some dramatic changes in the search engine result pages already. Sites that had previously performed well because of an impressive link profile based on a single keyword have found their pages slip in the rankings. Other pages with a more diverse portfolio of inbound links are taking the lead with search terms for which they had not previously performed.

SEO is far from dead because of LSI, in fact if anything, it has probably increased the need for professional white-hat SEO on your website. The field of SEO, though, has almost certainly changed. Website content copywriting for Googles benefit is not merely made up of keyword density and keyword placement as it once was and link-building techniques will need to change to incorporate LSI algorithms but it can be done.

Writing Content For LSI

If optimizing solely for Google then a web page can, theoretically, be naturally written and naturally worded. When we write we instinctively include the appropriate keyword in our text. In order to avoid repetition (or keyword optimization, as it was once called) we would often alter some instances of these keywords for other words with the same or very similar meaning. We naturally include the plural or singular form of a keyword as well as different tenses and a number of different stems of that keyword. In the eyes of LSI algorithms this is all good news.

Looking At Your Link Profile

A link profile should no longer consist of thousands of links with the same anchor text (that of your primary keyword). Theres no reason to panic if you already have this kind of profile. Instead you should look at relevant and similar terms and improve your link profile by gaining links using these as your anchor text.

What It Offers Web Searchers

From the point of view of web searchers, LSI offers some distinct advantages over its earlier form of indexing. For example, LSI recognizes that the word engine in search engine optimization is not related to searches for terms like steam engine or locomotive engine and is instead related to Internet marketing topics. In theory, LSI results give a much more accurate page of results as well as providing a broader range of pages still geared towards a particular topic.

Where Google Leads, Others Generally Follow

It is widely acknowledged that Google is the search engine at the forefront of latent semantic indexing. On the whole they try to generate results pages that are literally filled with genuine, useful results and LSI certainly provides another string in their bow. Yahoo and MSN, for now, seem more than happy to go along with keyword specific indexing although Yahoo are known to look at singular and plural keyword variations as well as keyword stemming when judging keyword density.

The Effect On Your Website

How it affects the individual Webmaster is dependent on how they go about promoting their site already. If the pages are filled with natural content including keywords and keyword alternatives, and the link profile is similarly diversified for a number of related keywords then the fact is it wont change very much. However, if all of your efforts have been concentrated, either on-page or off-page, with a single keyword then its time to readdress the balance.

About The Author

Matt Jackson is a homepage content author for WebWiseWords. WebWiseWords specializes in natural web content writing that appeals to search engine spiders and to human visitors.

Fast Article Marketing - 5 Creative Methods to Multiply Your Article Marketing

The surest way to sell products online today is to establish yourself as an expert on your chosen niche and win the trust of your potential clients. When people see that you are really good on what you do, they will be more confident to transact with you. One of the best ways to communicate your knowledge over the internet is through writing and distributing your articles to various publishing sites.

Here are the 5 creative methods to multiply your article marketing:

1. Be convincing. You must strive to make your readers feel that every information included in your articles is fact-based to build your credibility online. Back up your claims with resources, studies, statistics, or with reputable resources.

2. Titles. Give your articles an edge by using striking and attention-grabbing titles. These can help you stir the right kind of attention online and compel more people to open and read your content. Keep your titles short, direct to the point, keyword-rich, and descriptive of what your articles are all about.

3. First paragraph. You must know how to sustain the interest of your readers after they have opened your articles. You can do so by making your first paragraphs interesting, informative, and intriguing. Spill in the juiciest information on this part to convince your potential clients to read on.

4. Multiply the number of your articles. To easily increase your quality inbound links, you must be willing to write more articles. As you know, each submission grants you one backlink.

5. Hone your writing skill. The success of your article marketing campaign depends on the quality of your articles. If you want to make it big in this field, you should not stop learning and improving on your craft so you can offer your readers great articles each time you write.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Are Meta Tags Dead?

People say that the use of meta tags are dead, a useless addition to your web site, but are they wrong? Meta tags still serve a useful purpose in every web site. Even though not all search engines utilize these tags they still hold extremely important information about your web site and it's content.

Not only do meta tags tell a search engine spider about your web site, it also provides instructions telling the spider what you would like it to do and not do.

First let's look at what meta tags tell us about your web site:

The first tag in your meta tags should be your title tag, in my opinion this is the most important tag you can control. This tag should state your company and no more then 3 key words that pertain to that page. An example of this is

<TITLE>SEO ONE, inc. Search Engine Optimization, <a href=http://www.4uwebcash.com/4uwebcash-the-place-to-fing-a-home-base-business>Internet</a> Marketing, SEO.</TITLE>

Keyword tag should be the next in line of importance. This tag is fairly straight forward however there are rules on how many keywords you should have. The rule of thumb is around 10 but I recommend no more then 3 keywords. The reason for this is the more keywords you have the more difficult it is to keep the weighted average where it needs to be above 54%. It also becomes difficult to match the keywords in the site to the keyword meta tags. An example of this meta tag is

<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, SEO.">

The 3rd in succession should be your description tag, in this tag we want to describe the web page we are on, and again we have another opportunity to list our 3 key words for this page. This is important do not over look this. It is also critical to keep the order the keywords appear. An example of this tag is

<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="SEO ONE, Inc has mastered the search engine optimization code. Search engine optimization <a href=http://www.4uwebcash.com/tag/guide-to-making-money>SEO</a> is the art of preparing, analyzing, and promoting your web site so that it is extremely visible and highly ranked. Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, SEO.">

Now we are onto the part of the tags that tell the search engine what you would like for it to do with your web site. These tags are also critical as we can in some cases direct the spider through your web pages.

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW, ARCHIVE, all">

This tag tells the search engine you would like it to visit your home page, follow all linked pages, and cashes all pages it passes through. This is important because it allows the engine to store your site in it's data base.

<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="7 days">

In this tag we tell the spider to come back to our web site every 7 days to search for more content. As a web page changes the content needs to be re indexed in order for it to be relevant. This tag can help us with this point.

There are many more tags, and more detailed information about the tags above, however I only wanted to give a general overview as to the importance of the above tags.

Dan Stalfire is the president of SEO ONE, inc. and Internet Marketing Images, Inc. Dan has over 10 years SEO experience, and is one of the leading SEM's in Dallas, TX. Mr. Stalfire has helped many companies achieve first page results, and has implement and directed hundreds of marketing campaigns.

We have been proudly serving our clients since 1997. With over 10 years of web marketing experience we have gained valuable knowledge, to maximize your success.

SEO ONE, Inc.'s mission is to offer the highest quality web marketing and search engine optimization to you, our valued client. Our goal is to foster a relationship based on trust and results.

SEO ONE, Inc, is a complete Search Engine Optimization and web design company. We bring your company to life in many new and unexplored ways.

Founded in 1997, SEO ONE, Inc. has designed and promoted hundreds of web sites, from Fortune 500 companies to small companies eager to expand their businesses.

For questions or for more information please visit us at http://www.seoone.com or call us at 972-755-4592