Article Writing – Two Types

Posted by A blog for Newbies about Internet Marketing on February 19, 2011

Recently I had a discussion on a forum about the kinds of articles written for marketing. I argued that there were two kinds, informational and promotional. Both informational and promotional articles need a little of each to succeed in article marketing.

Informational articles are just that. They provide information. They are the “quality content” we hear so much about. Filled with facts and figures they give your visitor food for their brains and subtly lead them to your call to action. I use them to populate the bulk of my websites. They give visitors valuable content.

On the other hand, promotional articles emphasize selling, more like sales copy. They are more like copy writing. Although these articles have “quality content” their intent is to satisfy or quell an emotion like fear, lack, or love. The bulk of their words are intended to convince the visitor that no other option exists than to sign on the bottom line. I use these as the index or landing page for my sites.

I was reminded that all that matters is the bottom line. Whether you construct informational articles or promotional copy, at the end of the day only the number of conversions is what counts. Let’s face it, we are article marketers and selling is what we do.

Nevertheless, I still have reservations about populating my blog sites with strictly promotional material. If someone is searching for, say, “tractors on farms” and I have a website with that for a domain name, I would think the searcher most likely wants hard information about tractors on farms and not a sales pitch for the latest John Deere model.

That is not to say that in the course of that article I wouldn’t allude to or link to my John Deere sales page. I would. After all, I am trying to earn a living from my article writing.

If I had a website “TractorsonFarms-dot-com”, and filled it with nothing but articles on how much more fun you could have buying and using my tractor for the summer hayride, or how you could win the annual state-fair tractor race with my tractor, or how much better it is than driving a mule, I guess I would have a very entertaining website and come to think of it I might get some sales from it.

As opposed to a “TractorsonFarms-dot-com” that has lots of info about tractors, specs, how to best use them, maintain them, etc. I can see that those visitors looking for free information would flock to the site and maybe buy or maybe not.

I can see that the verdict may be up in the air. But in the end, it’s the bottom line. I’m beginning to think I might buy from the entertaining site. Hmmmmm.

What’s your opinion?

Click on the links to learn more about the art and science of article writing and copy writing.

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Submitting to Article Directories

Posted by A blog for Newbies about Internet Marketing on November 17, 2010

Submitting articles to directories is a chore. It is very time consuming. I limit the number of directories that I submit to no more than about twenty-five sometimes to just the top ten.

You log in to each directory separately and it seems as if every directory has its own set of formatting rules, anchor text rules, html rules, and resource box rules. It’s a madhouse.

What can you do?

You want to submit to as many different directories as possible. And then, there is the issue of duplicate content. As you well know, some directories will not accept articles that have been submitted or published elsewhere except for your own website or blog.

That issue makes a case for spinning/rewriting your articles. If done correctly your articles will never be labeled as “duplicate content”. Read this article, “Spinning an Article – A Tool to Increase Your Traffic”.

I do not condone article submitters that automatically submit your article to 1000+ directories. In the first place, just what are the directories that are being submitted to? Are these directories just adsense farms? What is their page rank?

Second, I have no knowledge or control over the formatting and content that actually is published. I am too much a perfectionist to allow the slipshod submission of my content to any directory. When submitting to article directories I want control of the content.

Thirdly, it is an insurmountable task to keep up with the changing requirements of each of these directories and I do not trust that one type of formatted submission fits all the different requirements of every directory.

And finally, every directory has a different set of categories to categorize your article. If it’s placed in the wrong category, it will never get read.

It takes manual intervention to properly submit your article to a directory. Anything you can do to automate the process will save you hours of work.

Any program or software that tells you that all you have to do is push a button and presto your article is submitted to hundreds or thousands of directories is misleading you.

If you have ever submitted to multiple directories, you know the effort and time needed to do the task.

Listed below are 25 directory sites with PR2 or better.

articlesbase.com PR6 few ads

buzzle.com PR6

ezineArticles.com PR6

goarticles.com PR6

helium.com PR6

promotionworld.com PR6

isnare.com PR6

articlebiz.com PR5 fewest ads

articlecity.com PR5

articlealley.com PR5 few ads

searchwarp.com PR5

articledashboard.com PR5 few ads

articletrader.com/ PR5 few ads

ideamarketers.com PR5

articleclick.com PR4

articlesfactory.com PR4 few ads

articlesphere.com PR4

articlecompilation.com PR4

articlefeeder.com PR3

amazines.com PR 3

articlerich.com PR3

articlewarehouse.com PR3

free-articles-zone.com PR3

web-source.net PR3 few ads – techie directory

ultimatearticledirectory.com PR2 few ads

Not all directories are created equal. Just because a directory has a PR6 does not mean that your article will bring you traffic or link juice from this directory. The home page of that directory may have a PR of 6 but the articles within it are most often ranked with a PR of “n/a” or “0″.

Directories generate revenue by selling ads on their sites, some more than others, or by charging a subscription for publication in their directories.

You must realize that some of these directories are adsense farms and are more concerned with their bottom line than with promoting your article. I personally no longer submit to ezinearticles because they are an adsense farm.

You will notice that I have noted those directories with few ads. Of those articlebiz.com has the fewest ads surrounding articles in their directory. The directory with the most ads is ezinearticles.

There is another alternative. That is a paid subscription to a directory. It is a good investment in that you pay them a fee and they publish your article and in some cases they promote your article.

Publishing and promoting your articles with only SEO is no longer the ideal in article marketing. You must promote through social marketing to achieve success.

I have added an interesting video about article directories that you might find interesting. It is 15 minutes long but well worth the time.

Article Productions provides the tools to accomplish success in article marketing. Read my review of Article Productions at http://NewbieAffiliatesDirectory.com. I have used AP for over a year with excellent and outstanding results.

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A Keyword Tip – How to Find More Keywords

Posted by CA Perez on November 9, 2010

Here’s a little tip when doing your keyword research. The gurus all tell you that you should use quotes around your keyword to determine how much competition you can expect and to decide whether or not it is a good keyword to rank for. The gurus tell you that if the competition is too high, ignore that keyword and go on to the next one.

Consider this. Google does not “index” all of the results for any given keyword. Google is aware of the listings but chooses not to list them. In that sense they are not “indexed”. Don’t discard that keyword yet. It may be easier to rank than you think.

Let’s look at an example. Using the keyword “vegetable container gardening” without quotes, search for vegetable container gardening. The Google search returns 338,000 results. So if you do a search for “vegetable container gardening” (in quotes), as of this writing, Google returns 44,000 results. That is a ratio of about 8:1. It is a formidable amount of competition. It would appear that we should consider discarding this keyword.

Before we discard our keyword, let’s look a little closer. Scroll down to the bottom of the Google search page for the keyword you chose in double quotes and you will notice that you can look at the first ten pages of Google’s results. Click on the tenth page and you can see another nine pages of Google results. Keep clicking on the last page and eventually you will reach page 66 of Google results.

Now this is where it gets very interesting. Just above the Goooooooogle icon there is this curious message:

“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 656 already displayed.”

What it’s telling you is that only 656 of the most relevant sites are displayed and for all practical purposes your true competition is 656. That is a ratio of about 515:1. That is a big difference from 8:1! It is a significant reduction in your competition. All those other returns are still in the Google database. Google just doesn’t bother to list them because Google doesn’t think they are relevant.

That could mean that the results are articles that are written by the same author posted on different sites or article directories. It could mean that the keywords are only casually mentioned on some site and do not relay any relevant information. Or, who knows what criteria Google is using to decide that the results are not relevant. The point is you do not have to compete against those other 43,344 listings.

That is not to say that you will necessarily have an easy time of ranking for that keyword, but it may be a lot easier than you think. You still have to back link to your keyword by publishing your article, promoting your website, and bookmarking in social networks. Test it out. I think you may be surprised with your results.

If you want to dominate your competition and rank your keywords, get serious with the Dominator at Article Productions.

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