Web Marketing Strategy Update

I don’t republish articles these days, but here’s a good piece Kim Roach asked me to post that shares some fresher, rarer tips on article marketing.

Confessions of an Article Marketer

I have a slight confession to make

I am addicted to article marketing. You can try and entice me with a number of other internet marketing strategies, but article marketing will always be my favorite.

You probably know about the many benefits of article marketing. Syndicating your articles will increase your targeted traffic, turn you into an expert in the field of your choice, brand your name, and help build your opt-in list. However, article marketing boasts a number of other benefits left mostly undiscovered and I want to share them with you.
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I came across Blog Submitter Pro 7.0 through an emailed affiliate recommendation. The site headline reads:

“New Blog Submission Software Takes TOTAL DOMINATION To A Whole New Level, And Allows Complete Control Over Any Market and Any Product You Sell. — Renders All Other Marketing Methods Totally Useless by Comparison”

Quite a claim, eh? Totally ridiculous hype of course. But that seems to be the norm these days. My issue is with the software itself.

I might wear a grey hat sometimes, and Google may think I’m a bit thin in places, but even to me it’s clear that this new, “killer marketing app” crosses the line.
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Writing articles related to your site’s topic and
syndicating these articles all over the web is
a very effective way of marketing your site. This
simple, yet effective marketing strategy will
deliver targeted visitors, increase your
rankings and boost your sales.

In essence, article writing will ‘TurboCharge’
your site!

Although it sounds more like a catch-phrase from
a marketer’s hype-fest, its the most appropriate
phrase to describe the effect article writing will
have on your web site. It perfectly sums up
the major benefits of article marketing.

Article writing will quickly:

* boost one-way links to your site
* help you brand your name or site
* help sell or pre-sell your products
* bring in plenty of targeted traffic
* give you and your site more creditability

The effects can sometimes be jarring…

One minute, your site is humming along at its
regular pace, then suddenly, you check your
web logs and your stats has doubled or even tripled.
There is a massive flood of visitors coming to your site.
Sometimes, it may only be one site which picks up
your article and features it in their ezine, bringing
in targeted visitors to your site. Other times,
it may be many sites and ezines displaying your articles,
causing a large influx of guests to your site.

All of the above has happened to me!

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First, some background, I had heard other marketers sing the praises
of article writing for so long I decided to do a test-run and see
the proof for myself. Writing over 30 articles since January of
this year, I kept track of my results over this six month period
- to view these articles and find out where some of them
ended up, just google my name "TITUS HOSKINS".

Finding and researching material for articles
was not a problem. Online forums, subscribers' questions,
and my own marketing tasks were a great source of ideas.
Compiling and writing original articles that would stand
out from the crowd was the hard part.

Here are some pointers that I learned about article writing
that may also help you:

Find the Right Title - Choosing the right title will make or
break your article, keep it short and put the main benefit of
your article in your title, i.e. what will readers actually
acquire from reading your article?

Keep Your Article Short and Concise - If you want your article to be
pick up by ezines and placed on sites, keep it short (300-1200 Words)
and to the point. I find articles in the 700 - 900 word range do
very well, longer articles less so.

Do A Spell and Grammar Check - Use a spell-checker or
WordPerfect to check your articles. I also use Google as my
proof reader. Not sure of a word or phrase, just Google it!

Resource Box - Like the title, you must point out the benefits of
clicking your links in your resource box which is displayed
at the end of your article. Offering a free ecourse or ebook I found
will improve your 'click thru rate'. Newsletter subscriptions
also works. If you're keyword marketing, place your keyword or
phrase in the anchor text of your resource box links. Google will
reward you handsomely for this simple little detail. So will
the other search engines.

Be Unique - Find your own voice. Be distinctive. Make yourself
and your site stand out. But don't go overboard, writing concise,
informative and helpful articles will bring enough interest and attention
to your site. Narrowing and focusing in on one subject area will
eventually make you an expert on that topic or subject.

Syndicating your Articles - Online article directories are very
good for this. Listed below are the major ones I use to get my articles
'out there'.

www.goarticles.com
www.ezinearticles.com
www.ideamarketers.com
www.articleally.com
www.articlemarketer.com

Simple tracking tips, if you want to check the performance of
difference article directories - just make a minor change in
your article as you place it in each directory. Then as your
article is spread around the web - you can check its source.
To find out just how far your articles have traveled, just place
your article's title between quotation marks and Google it...like this:
"TurboCharge Your Site With Article Writing"

My experiences with article writing were very beneficial to me. I
was a little surprised at the high quality sites picking up and
displaying my articles: addme, sitepronews, thetechzone,
bonafidereviews, wwwcoder, buzzle, icemelon, devshed... and many more.

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It has tripled my site's links since January, Google indexed my site
and started sending significant traffic my way. My traffic according to
Alexa, is under 50,000 many weeks - my site even made it into the top 15,000
for a very short while. Those spikes in traffic also means more subscribers
and more sales. I recently had over 200 subscribers to my ezine
in one day - my site normally receives around 5-10 new
subscribers each day.

I also found more people 'bookmarked' my site - resulting
in more long term targeted traffic. My affiliate sales have increased,
and since my page views are up, my Google Adsense earnings
have also increased. I also believe article writing has helped
in branding my site and also giving myself more creditability.

In fact, my results have been so positive, I feel a 'disclaimer' coming
on! Your results will vary according to your skill, effort and resources but
article marketing is one of the best free marketing strategies you will ever
have at your disposal. If you try only one new marketing technique this
year, make it article writing.

So go ahead, give your site the boost it deserves, 'TurboCharge'
it with some of your best writing and experience the effects for
yourself. Buckle up and both hands on the wheel!

About the Author
Well respected Marketer Jason Potash has released some handy software that
will syndicate your articles. Check it out here: Article Announcer
Copyright © 2005 Titus Hoskins of www.bizwaremagic.com
This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Whether you are an affiliate marketer, a website designer or you make your living creating and marketing infoproducts such as ebooks, discovering profitable niche markets to exploit is probably at the top of your “to-do” list. The following is a four-step system you can apply anytime you need to find a new niche audience to target and profit from.

1. Initial Brainstorming

This first step is best approached with a very open mind and a notebook and pen handy. The idea is to seek topics that are outside your current realm of knowledge. One of the best ways to do this is by reading blogs.

Bloggers come from every walk of life, and you will find blogs with information on almost any niche topic imaginable. Best of all, bloggers provide fresh, timely information.

Start spending some time reading some random blogs. A good starting place would be at blog directories such as Blogdex – http://www.blogdex.net . As you are reading, you’ll discover many different topics being discussed. Many of these you may have never heard of before. Start writing these down.

Example: You found yourself reading a blog post that described the blogger’s recent experience at a demolition derby. Maybe you don’t know much yourself about this niche, so you add “demolition derby” to your list.

2. Keyword Research

Once you have a list of several possible niches, the next step is to find out what keywords and keyword phrases people are using to search for this and related information via the major search engines. Good Keywords – http://www.goodkeywords.com for example, is a free Windows software you can download that will help you do just this. With this program, you can type-in a topic from your list and the software will begin to uncover many related keyword phrases being actively searched for.

It takes time to get the hang of this software, but once you master it you will be able to generate large and valuable keyword lists. After you uncover at least a few dozen related keyword phrases, save your list and move onto the next step. If you are not able to uncover many related keyword phrases, chances are there is not much potential here and you should start over with another topic from step one.

Example: Using Good Keywords or a similar tool, you enter the term “demolition derby”. You soon have a large list of related keyword phrases people have been using to search for information on this topic, such as “demolition derby video” and “demolition derby car for sale”.

3. Secondary Idea Creation

Read through the keyword list you generated. Some of your keyword phrases are going to give you ideas for other target audiences you may want to explore in the future. Take some time now to write these new ideas down while they are still fresh in your mind. Save this information for later reference. You can never have enough fresh ideas to explore when trying to uncover under-exploited niche markets.

Example: One of the keyword phrases in your “demolition derby” list was “demolition derby game online” – you note that later you should explore what other types of online games people are searching for.

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4. Niche Potential Analysis

If you used Good Keywords to mine for keyword phrases, you will have also been provided with an approximate number of times each of these terms was searched for during the past month. The next thing you need to do is compare this number, representing potential search engine traffic, with the number of websites already catering directly to these searches.

To do this, start by taking your keyword phrases and do an exact phrases search on each of them at Google, making certain to surround your keyword phrase in quotes. Write down the number of results google brings back for your search. Next, compare the number of monthly searches for each phrase to the number of Google results.

If you are lucky, you will discover that some of your keyword phrases with good monthly traffic don't have many results in the search engines yet. If you find that you have uncovered a niche that has several keyword phrases with a high number of monthly searches and at least a few of them have a low number of results in Google, chances are you have found a very good niche to exploit with your next online project. If not, go back to the list you created in step one and repeat the process.

Example: You discover that the phrase "demolition derby car for sale" is searched for around 700 times monthly, but brings back only 486 results in Google and the term "demoliton derby pic" receives several hundred searches a month but only returns 258 results in Google. You are very happy to have discovered a potentially hot niche with good under-exploited keyword phrases to target.

Although there are several costly and difficult to master programs available that can help you discover unique target markets, the system above has proven to be an effective free method for uncovering niches to profit from. Apply it today and be on your way to niche marketing success.

James Allen is a niche market researcher who provides his clients with valuable information on untapped niche audiences. He has just released a brand new compilation of his latest niche market research that you can use to profit from right now at:

http://www.NichesExposed.com

Copyright 2005 James Allen. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article.