Article Marketing Works

One of the most effective ways to disperse content on the web is through article marketing. You’re an expert in your field and you want to share your knowledge with the world. But the idea of writing loads of content each week totally stresses you out.

Hiring a freelance writer is an option. However, with writers you get what you pay for. So if you want top-notch content, you are going to pay a pretty penny for it.

Another option is PLR, or private label rights. This is content that you buy and reproduce as your own. This can be a good return on your investment, but you never know what you are going to get until you actually pay for it.

As a web content developer, I know all too well the importance publishing quality content that drives traffic to your site. So, I’ve come up with a foolproof plan to get your name on the web and visitors flocking to your site in no time.

Soon you will go from publishing a handful of articles each month to pumping out hundreds of incredible articles a year on the web.

Keyword phrases

Before you set off to write great content, you need to know what you are writing about. It’s important to research keyword phrases to find out what people look for when searching for your products or services.

Check out your competitors and see what they use. Think about the content you already have and comb through to find the most relevant terms. Once you have a good list (close to 100 or more), then start to narrow it down to your top 20.

After you find your top 20 keyword phrases, check them out on Google keywords tool to see how they rank. Once you find the best of the bunch, it’s time to build content around those keyword phrases.

Your anchor site

The main site that you plan to drive traffic to should have the most up-to-date and well-written content. That’s not to say that the rest of your writing can be garbage. You want quality over quantity all the time.

But if you are driving traffic to these pages, you want the most juicy and irresistible writing possible. So, the first step is to write articles for your main site. Develop your initial content for your main site and have a place where you host articles.

You can have a static page as the home page, but always have a content-rich site that is constantly updated. Try to publish at least 2 articles a week on your main site. Generate ideas from social media sites, emails, conversations you have with colleagues and clients, and anything else interesting that comes up in your industry.

It’s a good idea to keep a journal of great topics for articles in your niche. Once you get a good list going, you will be amazed at easy it is to produce amazing content in no time flat.

Publish on Ezine

The next step after you build rich content for your site is to start expanding. The first place you want to publish articles on the web is Ezine Articles. Take the articles that you publish on your main site and rewrite them for Ezine.

It’s important that the rewrites are 100% unique. Do not spin these articles. Ezine Articles is very strict when it comes to original content. Get flagged once for plagiarism and you can kiss Ezine Articles good-bye for good.

When you first start publishing on Ezine Articles it takes up to a week to get your articles approved. This will happen for your initial 10 articles. Once those are approved for the web, the process takes a lot less time.

Rewrite the article again

This may feel redundant, but it’s worth the effort. After you publish on Ezine Articles, it’s time to rewrite the article again. Add a little different flavor to it, change up the tone a bit, and you are good to go.

Once you get your 2nd rewrite, it’s time to submit it to other article directories. Most article directories aren’t as strict as Ezine Articles, so you can submit the same article to several different ones all at once.

Here is a list of my favorite ones:

Article Directories:

No Follow (cannot back link)
Buzzle.com
Articlebase.com
Articlefactory.com

Do Follow (can back link)
GoArticles.com
Articledashboard.com

Helium.com
Articlecity.com

Social Media

Once you start publishing content online, it’s time to spread the word through social media and bookmarking sites. Open accounts for your business with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and other bookmarking sites.

Spread the message, but do in an engaging manner. In other words, don’t just post links to your content and expect a mass following. Ask questions, post polls, and build a community that invites participation.

Deciding to republish your first article You never want to republish the original content on your site, but once your Ezine article is approved, you can republish it on the other sites listed above. This is totally to your discretion.

Some Internet marketers feel it’s in the grey area, while others think it’s completely okay. It all depends on how much duplicate content you want on the web. Regardless what you choose, you’ve just turned a single original idea into a ton of online content.

Final thoughts

It’s easy to get caught up in the fear of becoming a slave to your content. But if you want to become an expert in your field, one of the best things you can do is turn your ideas into dozens of useful articles to publish on the web. Follow these steps and you will have hundreds of articles on the web within 12 months.

.

Kellie Davis holds a B.A. in English and owns Mindful Media, a freelance web content development business. She also assists with project development at Inquire Within Media, and is the head writer and marketing coordinator for Ignite Naturals. In her free time, Davis heads MotherFitness.com, a fitness blog for women, and contributes to other online sites devoted to health and fitness.

*Photo By hawkexpress

In traditional marketing a company would attach your ad to a piece of entertaining content. I Love Lucy episodes would break for commercials and you would be presented with an array of 30 and 60 second product pitches. Many call this interruption marketing and this practice continues today.

There are problems with interruption marketing

First, It’s expensive. Many small businesses can’t compete at this level. Purchasing TV, radio spots and billboards costs lots of money.

Second, with the internet there are more effective ways to communicate and sell your products and services.

Education marketing is the model for the 21st century

We see Oprah do it all the time. She brings a guest on her show who TEACHES you something about life, love or work. After they spend time with Oprah (going over the ways they overcame weight loss or discovered how to deal with the pain of divorce) Oprah holds up their book and sales start pouring in.

It’s as if the book was an afterthought.

Now imagine if Oprah and her guests acted like Billy Mays and spent an entire hour pitching products.

Would some sell? You bet.

But she won’t create instant New York Times bestsellers like she does now.

She is educating first – then selling.

How education based marketing works

Because the internet is the place people go to search for information, they are primed and eager to learn.

Your job is to create ENTERTAINING pieces of content (text, audio, video, photos) that teach something.

The selling happens after the learning.

The more niche and specific your content the better. I’m reminded of a something I wrote a long time about going Beyond The 30 Second Ad Mentality.

Take what you do and turn it into education.

If you own an insurance company, you could educate people on risk management in a fun and entertaining way. If you sell vacation homes, educate potential buyers on the culture and history of your region.

Get creative.

Today’s action steps

First, develop one piece of education or training that fits nicely into your product and service offerings. Put this on your website, blog or Facebook page.

Next, let me know in the comments what your plan is for creating online educational content. Also feel free to ask any questions.

Now go take action.

This article is part of the Internet Marketing Basics series where we cover the fundamentals of internet marketing and social media.

.

Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media. He is a producer, author, speaker and social media marketing coach who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

*Photo by World Bank Photo Collection

I’ve written before about the idea of creating massively valuable content for your website. It goes without saying that you need some specific tips on developing content. Here are five basics to content creation.

1) Keep it simple

Simplicity is bliss. Make your content simple to produce and simple to consume. We use Keynote and Screenflow on a Macbook Pro to produce simple training videos. Blogs are a great way to create and release simple content. We’ve used WooTheme blog designs and Thesis Themed blogs to make great looking websites on Wordpress.

2) Make it actionable

Unless you are writing fiction or creating TV shows – your goal is to be more than just entertaining. You need to educate.  Beyond education is action. Get your audience to take ACTION. Without action from your readers/listeners/viewers you won’t have any impact on their lives.

Make your content actionable. Create “how-to” and helpful resources that can make a difference in the lives of your prospects.

3) Make it fun

Don’t forget to make your content fun. We love to learn and watch things that are fun. Think about unique ways to present your content. Is there a persona you can adopt that will entertain? For a great example of making content fun watch an episode of Mad Money with Jim Cramer on CNBC and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

4) Keep it short

Online, two minutes of video is a long time. Five minutes is an eternity. Keep your content bite sized.

5) Make it valuable

Your content should be valued by your audience. Create valuable content and your readers and viewers will keep coming back for more. Plus they will share it with their friends.

Remember, content is the currency of the internet. Keep it simple, actionable, short, fun and valuable.

.

Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

Learning how to make six figures online

Yesterday Eben Pagan released his new Guru Blueprint program. Eben is an expert at teaching people how to make over $100,ooo per year online. He released three free videos showing how he grew his Information Product business to almost $30 Million in sales – starting out at his computer in his bedroom…

You can watch the free videos here

At the end of the first video, he walks you through simple exercises to target and identify the knowledge YOU have that you can turn into an “Information Product” to sell online (and if you own an Info business already, it will give you a new mindset that will really take your success to the next level).

There’s also a free PDF download of the exercise for you to print out – which is cool.

In the first video, Eben talks about:

• How a simple eBook that was written in a few weeks became an “empire” of almost $30 Million in sales – with a business that’s run FROM HOME
• Important new insider trends in the Information Industry that you NEED TO KNOW if you want to succeed
• The mistake that most Information Marketers make that prevents their products from succeeding
• The key mindset shift that allows you to identify market and product opportunities… where there are buyers who NEED to buy Information Products – but don’t have products to buy

These are excellent videos for learning how to create valuable content for your business.

Making six figure training part of your business

Back in July 2009 I attended an event that literally changed my life. It was  Eben’s Guru Mastermind training.

It was like marketing bootcamp. We spent two 12 hour days barely breaking for meals.

And I loved it. Meeting Eben was an experience in itself. He has built multiple online businesses that total over $29 million in annual sales and has a virtual staff of 80 people working with him.

Joel with Eben Pagan in Los Angeles, CA - July 2009

One of the biggest secrets Eben told me that weekend was this…

GIVE AWAY all of my best advice, trainings and resources.

“Give away? That would literally ruin any chance for business!” I can remember saying.

After letting his words sink in a little I realized that by giving away our best stuff we would be earning trust and showing exactly how we can help your small business.

Needless to say his lesson stuck.

I came back from Los Angeles committed to creating and giving away massively valuable content

Immediately after the weekend summit I began to ramp up the value Folk Media was giving people. We’ve been giving away free resources since 2008 – but I began to obsess over how we could deliver even more value.

This caused us to start our free teleseminar series, daily blog postings and weekly email newsletters with the goal of helping your small business increase sales and leads. It’s all working. We are helping tons of businesses.

Eben was the catalyst for me and Folk Media to go down this path. That’s why I’m excited about his new training videos he just posted. These videos are focused on internet marketing strategies – but they are applicable to any small business.

As soon as Eben shared these videos I dropped everything I was doing and watched them.. I took feverish notes and learned at least 10 new ideas for our business. I’d recommend you do the same.

Watch them and let me know what you think. I’d be interested to see how many ideas you come up with.

What I learned from watching these videos

The content is the marketing

The blog posts you write, the videos you shoot and the audio you record are ALL marketing. It all makes a statement about the type of information you share. Instead of thinking about creating ads – strive to create helpful content. A “how-to” focused blog can go a long way in helping to attract prospects and customers.

We are all in the publishing business

It was powerful. In the final video, Eben stands in front of a busy Apple store in Southern California. He watches the people walking in and out of the store buying iPods, iPads, iPhones and Mac computers. And he makes a great point.

These people are buying these devices to consume CONTENT.

They want to read eBooks, view photos, watch video and listen to audio. So the lesson here is that a small businesses needs to reach people where they are.

Your number one goal should be to create compelling CONTENT that can live on these devices and reach your customers where they are. Consumers are already increasing the amount of information they consume. Why not create some content to reach customers in this space.

The truth is…. if you want to be effective in the coming years, you MUST learn how to create and share content. Like it or not, your business is now in the publishing business. Welcome to the new economy.

Give away as much value as possible

Eben has this saying called “move the freeline.” Basically it means that he gives away some of his best trainings for free to illustrate how good his stuff is. And it works. He’s built a $29 million per year business GIVING AWAY thousands of dollars of training and advice online.

How you can create massively valuable content for your business

Solve problems

All of your content should be focused on solving problems that your customers have. Don’t spend time talking about theory or teaching. Look at solving immediate painful problems for your prospects.

One great way to do this is to imagine your grandmother having an issue. How would you write to help HER solve this problem?

For example, let’s asssume that your grandmother has a problem understanding how to play a DVD movie. How would you write instructions on how to operate a DVD player if you knew your grandmother was going to read them?

Would you talk about the benefits of DVDs and why they are superior to VCR tapes? Or would you spend time talking about the menus and other options most DVDs have?

NOPE.

You would be VERY specific and work through the problem of getting a DVD to play.

You would be action oriented. You really care about your grandmother and want to see her to succeed in learning to use her DVD player. You would focus on solving her specific “problem.”

You would give your grandmother step-by-step instructions on how to open the DVD player, insert the disc and start the movie. That’s what your grandmother wants to know. It’s her “problem.”

Eben’s Guru blueprint program could “help his grandmother”

What strikes me about Eben’s videos are his simplicity and focus on results. By creating checklists and worksheets he has created a simple, action oriented, results focused training. I see him practice what he preaches by creating amazing trainings.

He is obviously targeting people who want to start online businesses. But I’m convinced that the principles and information about how to do this can be applied to ANY business.

Today’s Action Step: Watch Eben’s three free video trainings

I’m curious to hear what you learn about creating massively valuable content for your audience/ prospects. After you watch these videos – leave a comment below.

Watch the videos here.

Now go take action.

.

Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

*Photo by nate steiner

Here are three quick tips that will help you attract more customers online.

1. Capturing emails

Email is king for the online marketing world. I’m a huge fan of using social media like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube. But email still beats these with it’s direct outbound communication. If you are not collecting visitors’ emails – why not?

I’ve written about how to create an email marketing strategy here.

2. Dish up some social proof

Social proof is basically using the presence and words of other people to lend you credibility. This is done through testimonials, blog comments, and other things people say about you.

Blogs make this easy to get feedback using the comment feature. I’d recommend using Wordpress to power your blog and a nifty little commenting tool Disqus to power your comments. The idea is to invite feedback on your site. Invite prospects to ask questions, leave feedback and provide testimonials.

One trick to doing this is to have a group of established customers “seed” the conversation. Personally ask your current customers to comment on blog posts which shows social proof. No one wants to be the first to comment.

3. Create more content

Finally, create good content that attracts website visitors. The goal is to have a way to capture email addresses and show social proof first, then start bringing customers to your door.

Good content can include text, photos, audio or video. Focus on helping people and solving their problems. By solving your prospect’s problems you are demonstrating that you are a person and business that cares about helping THEM.

Now go take action and start attracting more customers this week for your business.

.

Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

.

*Photo by ecstaticist

The big deal about time spent on a website

Some websites have millions of visitors each month. What many people fail to note is that many of these visitors stay for less than a second on the site. They land on a page, see that it’s not what they are interested in and click away.

In contrast, there are some sites that have only a few thousand visitors per month, but  a large percentage of their visitors are return readers and spend several minutes each visit consuming content.

When people spend time on your site it means they trust and value your content. If you are giving great value to your audience through your content, then you are in a strong position to capitalize on that by asking them for a sale or other action.

To get started

My first recommendation is to track and monitor what is currently happening on your website. Google has created a great free tool for this called Google Analytics. Once you set up an account you can take a piece of web code and place it on your site to to track all types of statistics. You can monitor the number of visitors, where they came from and how long they spent with with your content. It should take your webmaster only about 10 minutes to install on your page.

Once you have monitored the visitor activity on your site for a few weeks, it’s time to develop a strategy for keeping people on your site longer.

In a nutshell your basic strategy should involve the content you create, helping people find that content easily and capturing their information to help attract them back to your site later. But it starts with content. Without great content on your site, you really have no value to offer visitors.

Content to create

How to content

Online “how to” content is a great start. People spend a good amount of time online searching for information. If you can synthesize and package information around your industry or niche you will be able to keep people reading or watching once they find your website. The goal is to create helpful articles, podcasts and videos that are massively valuable to people. Your stuff should be so good you could sell it if you wanted to.

“Keep them watching” technique

Television networks are brilliant. They scrunch up the credits at the end of a movie or show and begin plugging the next show that is scheduled to come on. We know why they do it. It’s to keep you watching their channel by teasing you with the next piece of content.

You can also employ what I call the “keep them watching” technique on your site. By having headlines for a related blog posts or articles at the bottom of the one they are reading you will drive traffic internally to more and more content. If you are using popular blog software like Wordpress to power your content, there are several plugins that will do this for you automatically.

Think Harry Potter

The first Harry Potter book had to find an audience. J.K. Rowling was a nobody before the first Harry Potter book was published. But by the last book in the series, she was a multi-millionaire. Did she have to go out and create an audience from scratch for each of the Harry Potter sequels? Of course not. She created a series that built on itself which in turn kept her audience red hot to continue consuming her books.

You can do the same thing with your online content. Create a series of posts or articles that build upon each other…. part 1, part 2, part 3 and so forth. This is an easy way to get people to continue reading.

Get early buy-in

A very critical step to getting customers to spend more time on your site is to get them back to your site on a regular basis. I recommend to my clients that they need to get “buy-in” from site visitors as early as possible.

When a visitor lands on your site and begins to read your articles, they are the most interested they will ever be in your content. They will most likely forget you once they click away to another site.

Your number one goal is to get them on your email list as soon as possible. You can do this in a few different ways. One of the best ways I’ve found to work is offer something free in exchange for their email address. A free training video or coupon works well. Then by placing the email sign up form at the bottom of the article they just read and in the sidebar you will begin getting subscribers. Once you have their email address you can follow up with them, provide more great content and drive traffic back to your site.

Your next steps

There are three steps you should take right away to increase the time visitors spend on your site.

1. If you aren’t running Google Analytics on your site, you need to have your webmaster install it for you. You can get all the details by visiting the Google Analytics page.
2. Begin pumping out massively valuable content for your website. Think of ways to help people based on your business or industry. Your content itself is a huge magnet for keeping people on your website.
3. Place email opt-in forms on your website, sidebar and a the bottom of your posts and articles.  The idea is to get “buy-in” as early as possible to drive repeat traffic back to your site. If you don’t have an email service provider we’ve listed four great email service providers here. Currently we use Aweber on this site and are very happy with the results and low cost.

Getting visitors to spend more time on your website is very important. The more time they spend the more they will trust you and the more influence you will build.

.

Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

.

Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo by Menage a Moi