Archive for June, 2008

Article Marketing For Increased Traffic And Sales

June 2, 2008 - 1:49 pm

Article marketing is one of the most popular methods used by internet marketers to increase traffic to their web sites and hence increase their income. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to use articles to drive business to your site. Let’s look at the right ways.

Your article starts with the title, and this is true whether you are writing yourself or using an article ghost writer. Good ghost writers make sure that they fully understand what their client wants of an article before starting. The title should accurately reflect the content of the article, and also contain the keyword being used.

Articles should be based on a keyword since search engine optimization is just as important in an article as it is in the content of your web pages. Your articles can be listed in search engines in the same way as your web pages, even when they are on article directories. A directory is nothing more than a website containing articles as content. The keyword should be that of one of your own website pages that provides information on the article title. If you plan your article in this way, you will make best use of what article marketing has to offer.

The actual content should be specific to the keyword and be designed to tease, rather than provide everything there is to know about a subject. If you provide comprehensive information in your article, why should the reader bother to visit your web site? Make sure that your spelling is accurate and that your grammar is passable. It need not be perfect, but stay clear of fundamental errors such as subject-verb agreement: “the two women was deaf.” This is a turn-off to your readers, so try to avoid it.

Having completed the article, you must design your ‘bio’ or ‘author’s resource’ box. Most article directories allow you this facility, in which you can say something about yourself and provide the URL of your website. This should be worded to offer more information, such as “Peter has more tips how to improve traffic to your website on his web page ——–“. You should provide the URL of a page that provides the readers exactly what they are looking for, not your home page address unless that is the most relevant to the article topic. They are interested only in information.

Having readers click to your site is the first way of increasing traffic through article marketing. Some readers will be interested in copying your article and putting it on their own site. They can do this, but must keep it intact, including your resource box. So you get even more traffic from the visitors to these other sites.

However, the marketing of your article is not finished there. You should submit it to as many article directories as you can. You can do this manually, by the use of submission software, or by using the services of a directory submission service. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to you which of the options suits you best. Personally, I use a combination of submission service and software, and can provide this information if required.

Search engines, especially Google, highly value one way links from another website back to your site. Not only do you get a one way link from each directory you submit to, but you also get one from the websites that copy your articles. This is a very powerful way of building links and improving your search engine listing. A high listing provides you with the most valuable traffic all &ndash free organic traffic from search engines.

There are pitfalls you should avoid, the most obvious being that if you purchase bundles of articles you must not use these for directory submissions. They are of use only as content on your own website, and even then they are of little use due to the problem of duplicate content. Private label rights articles, which many subscribers receive from mini-site subscription sites, are the same. Unless you change them radically the directories will no allow them, and you could be banned from directories for using them without radically rewriting them.

In the long run you would be as well writing your own, when you are at least sure that they are original. Article marketing can provide with a significant increase of traffic to your web site of you are able to carry it out properly. Follow a few simple rules, then sit back and wait for all these visitors to flood your website.

The One You Love To Hate

June 1, 2008 - 1:47 pm

Many of the best stories in fiction have both an antagonist and a protagonist.

The protagonist is the main character or hero that we cheer on and hope conquers all.

The antagonist is the story’s villain. The best bad guys are the ones we love to hate. We don’t need to know why they are bad, we don’t need a play by play of the choices they made early in life, we simply recognize they are bad and we don’t want them to win.

A story can operate without an antagonist; however the use of an antagonist is the best way to demonstrate conflict within a storyline.

Conflict in a well executed work of fiction provides the friction that keep readers tuned in. In most cases the antagonist reigns supreme through the majority of storyline. The reader wants the forces of good to triumph, yet the villain remains in charge of the bulk of events that thread through your tale.

This combination of good versus evil creates suspense and causes your reader to wonder how exactly the protagonist will gain an advantage.

One of the primary benefits fictional conflict is the reader is often forced to consider how they might respond against such odds and in similar circumstances. In a best case scenario the story assists the reader in learning more about themselves.

Conflict can also be used to disrupt a normally predictable plot. By presenting conflict that is, in many ways, worse than the previous conflict you can instill a greater desire for evil to be defeated while keeping the reader guessing where the story may be headed next.

Ultimately the story must provide resolution. For the fiction writer of faith this resolution process often provides the simple message that good will triumph over evil although other threads of faith will likely work their way through your text &ndash sometimes without you being consciously aware of their presence.

If you allow the antagonist to loose the struggle too early in your story it becomes anti-climactic and the fire in the story is reduced to an ember that may leave your audience cold.

The use of a villain (may not be a human, could be an animal, ideal, political agenda, etc.) goes a long way in conveying a story with elements that emotionally involve your reader.