The Whole Concept Behind Internet Marketing Articles

Every business must have a strategy on how to spread the word out about its products and services. It doesn't matter if it is an online business or an offline one. If it is sales that you want to achieve, then you must do everything to market out your products and services. One effective way to go about this is through Internet marketing article.

Business Strategy

Look at your own notes. How do you plan to promote your business? It doesn't really have to be a big time venture that would eat up most of your budget. You need to be practical. Times are hard and not everybody can afford the likes of a broadcast ads.

Now you have two choices when it comes to affordable advertising. It is either you use the print medium or you take advantage of the Internet age. The cheaper means when it comes to print ads are the direct mailing pieces like postcards, catalogs, brochures and flyers. The idea here is to find the right printing company to process your materials.

If you will choose the second route, this will be much cheaper but you won't really able to track down certain names on a targeted list just like how it goes with direct mailing. But the advantage of this is that many people are browsing the web and you can tap all those people to become your probable clients.

Sit Down and Write

This is how most business owners do it these days. They create good contents, establish themselves as experts in their chosen categories and invite people to click on their links leading them to their web sites.

How do you go about this? You have to choose what areas or categories you want to focus your articles on. Make sure that your intended target audience will be interested on those categories. This is already minimizing the wide range of types and kinds of people who will be reading your articles. This is just like you are making sure you are talking to the right people.

Choose the right article submission sites. Do not submit to every site that offer free article submission. Your business must first be associated with good choices. And this is the first choice that you have to make. To help you with your decision, you can join web forums about such topic. You can also check the Google ranking of the site. Check out also its Alexa's ranking. This way, you will know what sites get high volume of traffic.

Stay away from the spammy types. That will not do you any good. Yes, your articles may have higher chances to be crawled. But who would want to read materials that are rich in keywords but lack sense? You must convince people that you can help them. You must gain their trust. This way, there are higher chances that they will click on the links that you will provide on your author's biography box.

Your author's bio is a small space allotted for you to tell people who you are and convince them that you are that good that they must click on your link to find out more. This is the whole concept behind Internet marketing article.

This was created to help you promote whatever kind of business you have by first piquing people's curiosity then leading them your way, or in this instance, your web site.

Simple Ways to Start Creating Marketing Article

If your web site contains everything about your business or if it is your business in itself, well you have to hard about getting the word out about it. Have you ever heard about marketing article? This is a very effective way to capture many people's attention by way of informing them and providing them with details that they would want to know.

How to Write

Do you ever blog? Or have you written to a loved one? You are off to a good start. Everybody knows how to write. But how to write for an audience takes a different course. But the reason remains the same. You are writing because you want your materials to be read.

Professionals writers may do the task for the salary but ask any passionate writers out there and they will tell you that they are writing first and foremost because they love what they are doing. They want people to read their stuff. They want to help in a way. They want to inform.

Read, Help, Inform

Remember these three principles. These can be your guide when you've already sat down writing your first article. So when do you begin? Easy. First, what is your business about? Who is your target market? They are the people whom you are going to address your articles.

So let's say your products are flowers. You are targeting professionals, married couples, young couples. Actually, anybody can be interested with your product. You can also focus on hotel management or the restaurateurs, even funeral homes and services. You can write articles that will go like, how to improve your hotel's business with flowers. You can also write something about, flowers – your restaurant's ambience at its best.

Now that you know whom to write for and what to write about, you must also know that in Internet writing, there are rules that you must abide in order to succeed on this venture.

1. Short paragraphs

Your articles must be written for easy reading. You must understand that the people who will search the web for information don't really have much time. And added to that, they will only be scanning your articles first before they read the whole thing. Why? The web will provide them with a lot, if not better choices for the subject that they are researching about.

2. Article submission sites

You must first join in the forums regarding this matter to get a feedback of your chosen sites. You must check the sites' Google ranking and their ranking in Alexa. You must choose the ones that rank high and has a high volume of traffic.

3. Word count

Upon knowing to which sites you are going to submit your articles, you can go over their rules about the word count and abide by it. There are sites that will accept a minimum of 300 word count for articles. Others will ask for a 500 or more minimum word count. You have to check and make sure to make sure that your materials will not get rejected.

And lastly, in creating a marketing article, do not forget to fill out the author's bio box. This is your space to create a link to your own web site. This is how you earn your keep in submitting articles. Include you name, your business name, the call to action and the link to your site.

A Beginner's Guide on How to Syndicate Articles

You have a business. And you have a web site for that business. But you are lacking the desired traffic. You want to get the word out about your site. For this reason, you choose to write articles that are intended for marketing. Your problem now lies on how to syndicate those articles?

Step by Step

There are many ways that you can go about in syndicating your articles. Here are only some that you can consider as your basic guide especially if you are new to the concept.

1. Good content

You have to tap on to your target market in the very vast cyber world. And how are you going to do this? By providing what they are looking for. For example, you are selling mattresses and you want to capture people in the medical industry. Your articles can go like tips to finding a good mattress after an endless shift, or how about the medical benefits of a good mattress for someone in the medical field.

Those were just samples and at top of the head thoughts. The idea here is to know who you want to listen to you and make sure that they will really do.

2. Usually, the articles are short, from 500 to 2000 words depending on the requirement of the article submission site. The way to do is to establish yourself as an expert in the field of interest where you will be able to tap the kind of market who will be interested in buying the products that you are offering.

The articles should not be directly promoting your products. You may get banned from the article submission sites if you do so. There is an allotted space for you to advertise your web site and that can be found on the author's bio. You can link that to your web site so the people who will be interested with you and what you have to offer would know where to go.

3. Decide on the article submission site

Use the vast resource available on the web to know what these good sites are. Stay away from the spammy type. You wouldn't want to be associated with such. Track down which sites rank higher and which of them cater to the people whom you are targeting. Enlist on those sites and start submitting good articles.

4. You can also syndicate your articles to offline mediums such as newspapers or magazines. You will be able to tap onto a larger field this way. And you can also direct those people to your web site address.

5. RSS

This means Really Simple Syndication. This will distribute your articles widely suing an automatic process. Not only will you able to reach a broader audience, you will gain important backlinks to your web site.

At this day and age, syndicating your articles is easier. You just have to settle on how you will go about it. This will help you a lot in promoting your business because you will be able to get noticed by more people.

Now that you know some of the steps on how to syndicate your articles, you can start on pounding your brain and the keyboard to create articles that will really be helpful in helping you achieve your goals.

How to write great articles for article marketing

Article marketing is the new way to promote products nowadays. After all, what better way to reach the target market than to produce materials that directly affect them and articles that they can directly relate with. For instance, if you have a product that treats diabetes, one way to reach your market and reach your target audience is to write articles that will benefit them like tips on how to prevent increase in sugar levels.

This is especially true with the range that the world wide web has brought us. With the faster connection and the amount of information that one can get with a single click of the mouse, more and more people are starting to recognize the importance that article marketing in raising the awareness of consumers.

In recent years that article marketing has gone online, it has not only been used to promote products and services over the internet but also in promotion of the site itself. Site owners use the articles that they have in their sites to increase their ranking in search engines like Yahoo and Google. The more articles they have that correspond to the keyword being searched on, the better their ranking will be in the search results.

This is done not only to increase the viewers that will be able to look at the sites but also the advertisements that will be placed on the site. More viewers and visitors of the sites will also mean more advertisements on the sites. This will mean more revenues for the site as they get a percentage for every person who will click on the advertisements.

But the proliferation of articles in the internet has lowered the quality of the posted works. More and more articles are being posted without proper editing. There are many articles that have wrong spelling and wrong grammar. There are also a lot of articles that have been copied from other sites. Some will be copied verbatim while other articles will only get the essence of the piece.

But you don’t have to sacrifice quality over quantity. Even with a lot of articles to do, you can create great articles. Here are some tips on how to do it.

1. Write as if you are talking to your readers

The best way to make your articles easy to read is to make it conversational. Write the articles in such a way that you talking to your readers. This way, they will be able to relate more with the article and absorb the piece.

2. Use simple words

There is no sense in using words that can only be found in the dictionary. After all your readers are not scholars who have a wide vocabulary. Articles that use complicated words are also boring to read and hard to understand. By using simple words, you can create a connection with your readers right there and then. That way, you will be able to accomplish what you came out to do, inform readers and promote your product and site. Besides, if they did not like the article, will they be coming back to your site?

3. Write short articles

You are not writing a novel. With online content, shorter is better as most people who use the net will have really short attention spans. They will not have the time or the patience to weed through the additional words that you added just to lengthen the article. As much as possible, make short succinct articles that go straight to the point.

How to Go About Writing Article on Internet Marketing

Going over an article on Internet marketing, you will gauge how the term has changed through the years. It used to be focused on ad placements. The way to do it then was to create a web page and place banner ads on other sites so that you can have links to your own sites.

There are also some money making scheme that evolved wherein you are advised to join a program for you to earn through the Internet.

But as of today, Internet marketing has become synonymous to advertising. And the best way to do this is through creating valuable articles. This way, it is less costly especially if you have the knack for writing and you are going to create your own materials.

Writing the Articles

Writing for the web is a lot different as compared to feature writing on magazines or even in the newspapers. This can be easy to do once you get the hang of it. All you've got to have are ideas about a specific topic that you want to become an expert on. But if you really do not have the knack for this craft, you can always hire freelancers to do the task for you.

First thing that you have to remember when writing the articles is that you must have a specific audience in mind. You will address your materials to them. You are vying for their attention that is why you are writing your articles in a way to reach out to them. This is the kind of topics which they are interested to, so you write about it until you are considered and expert. That will not be hard to do especially when you have good content which your target market is always on the lookout for.

You have to be subtle in promoting your own web site, products and services. This rule applies when you get your articles published on different submission sites. Most of the time, you will be allotted a box, an ample space wherein you can create an author's bio. That's the part where you can have a link to your site. The idea here is when you already got the trust of your readers, they will be interested enough to click on your specified links.

Take note of the word count. Other submission sites would accept 300 or so words for articles. But most sites prefer 500 to 550 minimum word count. Read the rules thoroughly so that you won't get banned from any of those useful sites.

Also be careful in using keywords. Do not use it too much to the point that it will annoy your readers. Stuffing your articles with keywords will just make your readers turn away from your materials as long as your motives become very obvious.

Lastly, choose an article submission site that ranks high on Google and in Alexa. You don't want to submit your work on spammy sites. That will not do your business any good. You can also study where your competitors do their submissions. This way, you can zoom in on those sites and start on your submissions.

Read through an article on Internet marketing just like this one before you plunge into a territory which is still unknown to you. This way, once you've entered the battle, thetre will be no turning back.

The Importance of Article Marketing to Improve Business

Writing is a passion. It is a profession. It is a craft. It can be a hobby. It can also be a marketing tool. How? If you have a business and your aim is to get the word out about you, one way to go about such task online is through article marketing.

Marketing Strategies

If you own a business, whether it is a startup or a big company, you would always think of ways to promote your stuff. This is the main reason why creating web sites are popular these days. More and more people are getting hooked with how the cyber world works wonders.

If you own a web site, the next thing that you will think about is how to drive traffic to it. Just like how you do it offline, you have to reach out to your target market and lead them into clicking your URL.

Article Submission Sites

With the advent of many credible article submission sites on the web come entrepreneurs who are seeing opportunities open for them to speak out and pique the interests of their potential clients.

And how do you go about this?

1. You create good contents. What does this mean? For example, you are a printing company who caters to business people and professionals. You offer postcards, business cards, brochures, newsletters and the likes. When you write the articles, you will not only think about ways to design your postcards, you will go and direct the material to your target market. You can write an article about ways to design your postcards to help your food business.

This way, you already are capturing a niche market. These people will be interested with the products that you are offering. They will be more interested if they will get a view of how they would be able to utilize such tools. And the perfect avenue for you to do so is through the good and functional contents that you make available for these people.

2. Take time to fill out your Resource Box

When you submit articles to directories, they allow you a space to have your author's biography. No, this doesn't mean that you have to brag that you are a good looking, 40 something, with bank savings. You are not looking for a partner. You are looking for clients.

To do this right, include your name, your web site address, a tag line or your business' unique selling proposition and a call to action for your readers. This is the venue where you will promote your own stuff and lure them to click on your links.

Now do you understand why it is important to create quality contents for this purpose? People must trust that you can deliver what you have promised. They don't know you. But in establishing your name as an expert in the field where they need help, they will learn to appreciate you and may later become interested as to what you are offering them. You cannot achieve that with crappy articles.

If you don't have the knack for it, you can always hire freelancers to do the job for you. This way, you will be able to provide article marketing to submission sites while you reap the benefits of such move through time.

4 Secrets to Article Marketing

Let’s say you started up your own business. The only way for the business to succeed rather than fail is for you to promote it. You can do this by paying for advertisements or get the same attention for free through article marketing. To help you get started, here are 3 secrets.

1. First, you must come up with a catchy title to promote your business. Ever heard the line, “Curiosity killed the cat”, in this case no one is going to get hurt. But could you just imagine what would happen if people would like to know more about the article just by reading the title? It would also be helpful if you use keywords so people who type it will see your article. At the same time, you can mention the benefits of what reading your articles can do for them.

2. Second, make sure that your article is well organized. Instead of just writing your article paragraph by paragraph, maximize the use bullets or numbers to stress important points. This will make their reading experience a memorable one because they are able to remember it.

3. Third, your articles have to be informative and not just impress the reader. You can do so by using simple words instead of using big ones by putting this in a way that the average person can understand. You may have had an experience at the hospital where the doctor told you of your condition using some medical term that sounds serious but in English simply means you have a stomach ache.

Once you finish writing the article, read it over and see if you understand it. Better yet, give this to someone and see what they say. If there are some concerns, edit it because although you may be an expert in this matter, your readers may not and the reason why they want to read it is to learn more about what you have to offer.

Don’t forget to check on your article to see if there is anything new you would like to add. This is where variety comes in as there are different ways of stressing a point when the bottom line is that you want people to visit your site.

You can get new information by joining and posting in online forums and blogs. Some even put snippets in their articles. You should add something daily and don’t forget to put a link to your site.

4. Lastly, each article has an article summary. Most websites require this so in just 3 or 5 sentences, get down to it and say what your article is all about and why should they spend their time reading the entire thing. If you don’t put any effort here, you may have already lost the opportunity to make it look interesting for the reader to find out more.

Promoting your site thought article marketing is very easy. You just have to follow the 4 secrets mentioned and then use this to your advantage. Again, you need to have a catchy title, make sure it is well organized and informative so people will be encouraged to visit your site.

If done properly, you will undoubtedly get more traffic which is what this form of advertising is all about.

Article Marketing Must Always End With a Resource Box

When we look at books in the store, we always see the cover with the title and the name of author printed on both the front and the side. In article marketing, details of who wrote it the article and other important details about the individual must always be placed at the bottom which is known as the resource box.

The resource box is the “author’s bio.” It is also called “sig” which is short for signature. There are certain things that should be placed here which you must never forget to include so people will know who you are.

First, is your name. Some people use their real names while others use a pen name. If you are a doctor, mention your title as well because this adds credibility to your article.

If the article that you wrote is promoting a business and you want others to see your previous work, don’t forget to indicate your website address.

To create a teaser, you need an elevator pitch which is usually composed of 1 to 3 sentences that gives a brief summary of what you are offering.

You will also need what is known as a call to action which is much shorter than the elevator pitch. It could be something like.

"If you want to know more about my product... visit http://www.mysite.com."

Other items which you can include in your resource box could be the ezine subscription address. This will allow you to send them fresh articles and information about new products which you are selling. If you decide to do this, make sure there is a separate ezine subscription address.

Your contact information can also be included in the resource box. This will allow people to contact you by phone if they want to avail of your services since you won’t be in front of the computer 24/7.

There is also the free report which will strengthen or justify your call to action.

Some things which should not be added to your resource box include a list of previous websites which you have worked on in the past because this information may not be relevant to the article you have written. Given that the resource box is not a resume but merely a short summary of who you are, you should not mention every accomplishment you have ever done because no one cares.

If you post your article, make sure the ads are applicable or related to your topic otherwise don’t post any at all.

Don’t make the resource box too big because what you want the readers to focus on is what you painstakingly wrote. As much as possible, this should only occupy 10% to 20% of the webpage.

Article marketing is a give and take sort of agreement because you contribute articles which reach out to a specific audience in the hopes that people will be able to visit the site without any cost to you. The resource box which is found at the bottom of the article is the key to making this happen so it is important to put your name, website address, elevator pitch and call to action.

So in order for you to reach a larger audience, it is best to post your articles in different sites.

How article marketing changed the face of the Internet

With the Internet the new venue for business, article marketing has become the new trend for advertising and marketing products to consumers. These articles do not only provide information on a variety of topics, it also allows visitors to see the sites. It is because of this wide range of content why it is so easy now to research over the Internet.

Article marketing, to those who are not yet familiar with the field, is the use of articles to help introduce the products that the sites are selling. These articles will often contain a bio box and a byline that will include the name of the business and the contact information. Article marketing is also used in increasing the rank of a site in search engines like Yahoo and Google.

You see, the more articles you put into the directory, the better will your site's search results will be. Of course, websites that are on top of the sites will have more visitors and in turn better sales from the increased consumer viewing.

A site that has reliable and good content will not only expect the support of the online viewers but also advertisers who feel that they will be viewed more in the website. These companies are called online advertisers.

Some online advertisers can post their advertisement for free in exchange for a percentage of the income generated by the ads or the number of views of the ad. Some sites however sell their space to online advertisers. The pop up advertisements that you see in yahoo every time you open the search engine is an example of this paid advertisement.

But this usage of articles in article marketing has also led to the decrease in content and structure quality of the write-ups. Because many sites are putting in more articles than they can finish, the articles are often haphazardly done and unfinished. Many will contain grammar mistakes and even wrong spelling. Some sites will even have unfinished articles with the paragraph all about the topic you searched on but the body of the article about an entirely different topics. It will take you a while before you can sort out everything.

The trend of article marketing has also led to a lot of copied content or rephrased content. When you try keyword search and click on the websites that come out in the results, you will notice that a lot of them will have the same content. Some will have the same exact content while others will just be a re-written version of the original that was posted.

From being used as a way to increase the credibility of the product and giving information to the consumers and researchers, article marketing has become a business that has squeezed out the quality from the articles that are posted.

Because of this, researchers on the internet have been cautioned to only check the websites that are being kept by reliable sources such as universities, government agencies, foreign organizations and research facilities. Some sources of information over the internet are not actually to be trusted when it comes to content and originality.

Article marketing have definitely changed the face of the Internet. The question is: Is it for the better or for the worse? We will have to wait and see in the future.

Some Important Notes about Article Submission Software

Marketing your business has never been easier. With the booming state of the cyber world, reaching out to your target market has become a breeze. One of the most popular ways to do this is through writing articles and send it to the directories using article submission software.

Writing the Articles

You have to start the process with a good content. Words are powerful so you've got to put them into good use. You will lead your clients your way through these articles. They surely wouldn't be led of something crappy.

The usual way to go about writing articles is to start with the word count. This is regularly 500 to 2000 words and talks about the field of your expertise. For example, you are selling furniture. On your article, you can target interior designers, home owners as well as business people on how they can make use of the different furniture. You can give tips on how to design their space using the pieces that you are selling

In your articles, you should not blatantly sell your furniture. The way to do this is establish first your expertise about the product, teach people how to use them and give them ideas of how others have utilized such.

In those article submission sites, you will have the resource box that is intended for you to create an author's bio with the link to your own web site. This is your chance to sell what you've got and make people interested enough to click on your link.

There are many free article directories available in the web. But you cannot submit in all that. It will be better if you check on the rankings of the sites that you have chosen to submit to both in Google and Alexa.

The Software

In submitting to the sites manually, you have to copy your every article, its description and your links then paste it on every submission site. This is what the software addresses. It does the job for you much easier. This is available now for the price ranging from $90 to $200.

The software will be able to do your multiple submissions at once. This comes with an auto formatting aspect. Most of these products come with the complete package including the compatible article directories that will accept the format that this software is going to produce. You just have to fill in the required details once and the software will do the rest for you.

With everything being handy, you no longer have any reason not to take advantage of this opportunity to market your products and services. The writing itself can be outsourced. There are a lot of freelancers that you could approach to do the job for you. All you have to provide them with is your goal, what you are selling, what the articles are for and some basic guideline if you have a preference with regards to the style.

The web is not only a vast resource of information. It is a vast source of people who would be interested to try what you are offering. Your task is to be seen by these people and lead them to click on to your links.

This way, you will be able to contribute with the good contents and information that can be useful for other people who will be searching for such finds. Let the article submission software help you accomplish that goal easily.

How article marketing has changed online research

Article marketing has become an overnight online sensation. Before, the use of articles for promoting products and services is only done through newsletters and leaflets that are being distributed through mail or through flyer giving. Article marketing has also crossed over to the newspapers and magazines with more and more articles coming from companies that have products to promote.

In recent years however, article marketing has been widely used over the internet to also sell products, lend credibility to the site and to increase the site rank in search engines. Article marketing now does not only promote products, it also promotes the site itself. Through the use of these articles, the rank of the site in search engines like Google and Yahoo, will increase.

The use of article marketing is actually one of the reasons why the world wide web has become a treasure throve of information. In order to promote their sites, site developers and owners will need to submit fresh materials everyday. This will increase their page views fro site visitors as well as improve their site rank. With your website appearing in the first page of a search engine result, you are guaranteed more views and of course the support of online advertisers.

But the wide use of articles for site rank has made the quality of the articles suffer. Just look at the way article are written when you click the sites in the search engine results. Most will have the same exact content as the other. Some may not be the verbatim version but the principles and essence of the article is the same. A lot of them will have typos on the articles as well as misspellings. Articles are also not well-written. They will have structure problems, cohesion problems and of course mistakes in grammar.

Another problem with the articles found over the internet as a result of article marketing is the absence of a byline. Without a byline, the articles will not have any credibility and reliability. When before medical topics are written by doctors, now most of them will only be done by individuals who also research over the internet.

Because the idea of the websites is to promote their sites and to increase the rank, they are coming up with articles that are written just for the heck of it. They are not anymore in the mission of providing information to readers. What they are doing is for their benefit. This is why some of these websites will also feature information that are unreliable.

Only a couple of websites feature articles that are bylined. There are also sites that may not have any bylines but are being kept by people who are experts in the field. This is why it is also important to check the websites first before you cite them for your research. Sites that are being maintained by the government will of course have pretty reliable content. The same goes with international organizations like those of the United Nations. Some local sites being run by non-profit organization also have reliable content. Medical sites that are maintained by universities and hospitals are also great sources of information.

Before you research over the internet, check your sources. Article marketing online has definitely changed the way we do research. It might have made researching easier but it made discriminating harder.

What Lies Beneath an Article on Marketing

Are you thinking of ways to promote an online business or simply your web site? Are you an expert with regards to your line of business or profession? You need not know everything about it at all. All you've got to do is start doing article on marketing or simply put, the articles that you are going to send out to submission sites and article directories.

Article Directories

If you are new in this venture, you don't have to get too intimidated. There are many article directories where you can submit your materials to. The first thing that you have to take note is how your chosen sites rank on Google and Alexa. This way, you will gauge what sites get the most traffic. And so you can start from that idea and choose the sites where your target market can be found.

You just have to be very careful in following the specified guideline for each site. While some will accept articles even with the minimum word count of 300, most sites will only publish articles with a 500 minimum word count.

Second, look at the rules about URLs. There are some web sites that will allow you to embed URLs on the content itself. Others will only allow such to be embedded on the author's bio box. In any way, this is your chance to link the article to your own web site so be careful that you follow the specified guide of the submission site of your choice.

Watch out on how you write you articles. You must not sound like you are hard selling your web site, your products and services. Remember that the idea here is to sound like an expert giving an advice or a general knowledge about a specific topic to your target audience.

You will have a space to do the promotions. And that is on your author's bio field. You must fill this little space with valuable details. You can start with your name, your business, why they should try out your services and a call to action from the readers. You are going to place your links on this part. That will be the readers guide to follow where you are leading them to.

Writing for the Internet

Writing for the net and for the article submission sites is far from writing features for the dailies or magazines. First, it should be light to read and easy on the eyes. Most people who browse the web for articles will only scan through your pieces. So you have to get your points across even if they do not read the entire material.

You can achieve that by having shorter paragraphs. You should use the word you often as to address the reader in a personal manner. The tone must be casual and friendly, but the article itself should be informative.

Blogging about your products and services is good. But to be able to reach to a larger market, you should try your hand at submitting articles to directories. You can even link your articles to your blogs and web sites.

An article on marketing can do wonders for your business. Just make sure to follow the guidelines, create good and quality contents, establish yourself as an expert in the category of your choice and submit on the right article submission sites.

Basic Guideline about Article Directories

The Internet has given birth to a new way and purpose to article writing. It used to be solely for the love of the craft and the glee that a writer feels when their work gets published. But the cyber world has created concepts like article directories that prompted business people to think about articles in a different way.

Marketing Your Biz

Have you ever tried writing articles for directory sites? The first thing that you have to do is to establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field of interest. This doesn't actually mean your personal choice but rather the one related to whatever your line of business is.

You see, this is all about spreading the word out about your business and promoting your products and services. But you will not do such task in a bold manner. Creating articles is a subtle way to let people know about you, get interested with the information that you are giving or writing about, then click on the link that you provide them with.

Why is it important to write good contents? Not because you can submit to these directories for free means that you will no longer care about the quality of your work. You need to get readers' attention. And the only way to do that is by giving them what they want. You must give them useful information that they would definitely like to know.

You must have them hooked on what you wrote for them to take interest to click the link that you will provide on your author's bio space. That link will lead your probable clients to your own web site. And there you can sing a different tune. That is the time you have to aim for the sale.

Basic Guide

You will actually find a lot of free submission sites once you delve on the task of looking for such. There are certain guidelines to each site. But here are some of the basic ones that can help you prepare and start on your articles.

1. Word count

Be very careful with this aspect. Some submission sites will reject your articles for the mere fact that you lacked some words in your piece. While others allow 300 word count for the articles, most sites prefer a minimum of 500.

2. Avoid spamming

Choose a category where you think your articles will best fit in. Do not post your material on multiple categories for each site. This will result to spamming and the site can ban you for such act.

3. URL

Read carefully what the site's guideline is about placing your URLs. Some may allow this to be included on the body. And other sites would only accept URLs if these are included on the author's bio box.

4. Language

Basically, the language of your articles must be in English. You can use other languages and look for submission sites catering to such market. This can be done if you really want to broaden the reach of your materials.

You must remain professional sounding when it comes to your work. Do not use any obscene language as this may be taken as a negative thing against you.

Choose the right article directories that you will be submitting your materials to. You can check the web page rankings on Google and Alexa to gain more knowledge if such sites have high traffic or not.

7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Engagement

By Bryden McGrath
Published May 2, 2013
Is your company’s social media as stale as last month’s bread?
Would you like to get more people-to-people interaction and begin a real conversation with your audience on social media?
No matter your company’s industry or size, you can encourage these deeper connections and improve your social media engagement.
Here are some tips to help you encourage people-to-people interaction, whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare or Instagram.
Your company is only as good as your hardworking employees—so don’t be afraid to highlight them.
SEOmoz uses Facebook photo albums to highlight their employees.
The SEOmoz Facebook Page does an excellent job of this. Two examples in particular really jump out.
The “Then and Now” photo album: Employees provided photos from their youth along with recent photos of themselves. This is a great way to show fans the human side of SEOmoz. Plus, the baby pictures are adorable.
SEOmoz does a wonderful job of featuring employees, like in this “Then and Now” photo album.
The “What are Mozzers listening to?” photo album: All it took was snapping photos of employees with their headphones on and asking them what they were listening to. The result is an inside look at company culture.
The MLS team Seattle Sounders FC creates Facebook Events and invites their fans.
The MLS team Seattle Sounders FC creates Events for both their games and promotional events like player meet-and-greets.
Is your company holding an event that’s open to the public?
Then create a Facebook Event so followers can RSVP and add it to their calendars. This is a feature that is often overlooked by businesses—even many professional sports teams don’t create Facebook Events for their home games.
To get your juices flowing, here’s a short list of the types of gatherings where a Facebook Event could be perfect:
SeminarsWebinarsOpen housesCharity eventsConferences
In the example below of the 500px Facebook Page, they use Facebook to feature their fans.
For the photographers who are lucky enough to be featured, it means tremendous exposure to the Page’s almost-300,000 fans. As for everyone else, this type of post makes them feel part of a community with the possibility that they could someday be featured.
As a photo-sharing service, 500px is a natural fit to share user content on their Facebook Page.
Social media gives companies the ability to easily recognize their customers and fans.
Depending on your company’s niche, there are numerous ways to feature your customers and fans. For example, you can highlight contest winners or encourage users to submit their own photos and videos.
Get creative by using video to connect on Twitter.
You can use Twitter Vsnap to send personalized videos. Vsnap is a tool that allows you to record a video message with a maximum length of 60 seconds. Use this to send a personal video message to a follower on Twitter.
Every new follower Vsnap gains on Twitter is sent a personal video message through the service.
Making these short video messages personable is easy. Look at your target’s Twitter bio to see if something interesting jumps out and use this to craft your message. Or say thanks to someone who shared your content or became a new follower. Or answer a question someone has about your company.
Businesses have already found several creative uses for Twitter’s Vine app, which allows you to take 6-second video clips.
These short videos can be fun to watch and encourage viewers to connect with you further.
Your Vine videos don’t have to only be about your products. Here are some other uses your company might want to consider to connect with your audience:
A tour of the officeIndividual Vine videos for different teamsEncouraging customers to Vine about your business
Let people know who’s tweeting.
Have you ever noticed companies who include the initials of the person tweeting at the end of each tweet? Or companies who include the Twitter handle of the person(s) tweeting in their bio?
Both of these strategies are a great way to make a branded Twitter account feel a little more human and the interactions more personal.
Time
lets you know who is responding to their account on Twitter. The TIME Twitter account includes information on who is authoring the account’s tweets in the bio section.
Be part of the conversation.
Don’t ignore people who take the time to tweet to your company.
The Whole Foods Market Twitter account makes it a priority to respond to tweets.
Sometimes just acknowledging a tweet can make someone’s day—potentially making that person loyal to your brand for a lifetime. If you take the time to tweet, take the time to respond to complaints, compliments and questions in a timely manner.
Use humor to make your followers laugh.
Old Spice is known for their quirky marketing and branding, and it shines through on Twitter as well.
You never want to force it, but humor can be an effective way to make your company seem less robotic. And with the constant stream of information on Twitter, breaking it up with a laugh is always appreciated.
Create and share Google+ Circles your followers will find useful.
One Google+ feature that is sometimes underutilized is the ability to share Circles.
Your company can become a resource for users looking for more people to follow related to your company’s industry. After sharing the Circle on Google+, you can copy the link and share it in a blog post or on Twitter.
This is an example of a recent Circle featuring almost every speaker at SMX West.
Furthermore, this allows your company to connect with the people in the Circle you’ve created and build your audience. They may see the Circle you’ve made and decide to share it on their own profile.
Here are some examples of the type of Circles your company could create and share:
Industry leadersSpeakers at conferencesFavorite writers
Get active in the right Google+ Communities.
Google+ Pages are able to take part in Google+ Communities like any other user: Pages can create, join, moderate and participate.
Chances are there’s already a Community that fits your company’s industry. If so, join the discussion. If not, make a new Community and invite others to join.
To learn more about Google+ Communities, check out this article from Mike Delgado.
Use Google+ Hangouts.
With Google+ Hangouts, your Page can start a video chat with up to nine people. This is a great opportunity to connect with your audience.
This Google+ Hangout with chef Nigella Lawson isn’t just solid content; it’s a fantastic way to have followers interact with The New York Times Google+ Page.
This New York Times
Hangout featuring Nigella Lawson is a perfect example. It features a host—Lawson—and three home cooks who wrote in describing how they fared making Lawson’s pasta recipe and why they wanted to be included in the Hangout.
LinkedIn Company Pages can feature up to three groups on their page in an effort to have more people join the group(s).
Much like Google+ Communities, participating in LinkedIn Groups is another opportunity to join the discussion in your company’s industry and answer questions. As an added bonus, more professionals in your field will see your company.
This is a great opportunity for you to get more visibility for your company and to interact with people who may be interested in your products and services.
Your company’s Pinterest boards don’t have to be limited to just company pins. Collaborate with other users to give your account a more personal feel.
For this style challenge, Home Depot invited others to pin.
To invite other Pinterest users to pin to a specific board, go to the board and click Edit. Next to “Who can pin?” type the users’ names or their email addresses (Note: in order to invite someone, you must be following at least one of that user’s boards.) Click Save Changes.
Once the invited users accept your invitation, they’ll be able to pin to the shared board. However, you can always remove the user and remove their pins. Moreover, invited users cannot change a board’s title or description.
Pinterest is just as much a community as any other social network. So remember to make the time to interact with other users by commenting on and repinning their pins. While you’re at it, follow users’ boards that fit your company’s industry so you have a fresh stream of related content every time you login.
Use Foursquare to leave tips.
When a Foursquare user visits a location page, they’ll also see tips from other users.
If your company has a location (or multiple locations) on Foursquare, leave tips at your own locations to show users the personable side to your company. These can be simple, or perhaps even offer an inside joke.
Leaving tips at other businesses in your area provides a way to offer your authority on your industry. Best of all, Foursquare users get insightful tips and tricks.
For example, maybe you own a travel agency and leave tips on the feedback you’ve heard about particular attractions. Or maybe you own a food website and leave tips at popular restaurants.
You’ll find fun facts from the History Channel in the tips section of several landmarks.
In the above image, the History Channel provides some fun facts.
Again, you’ll be actively adding to the community.
Use Foursquare to create interesting lists.
Creating lists of places based on a general theme can help your company be seen by more people on Foursquare.
Lists are something Foursquare users appreciate because they act as a resource that’s easy to save. For instance, your company could create a list of its employees’ favorite lunch spots. Or the list could be the best places for company outings.
The Travel Channel has some food tips galore from Adam Richman.
Travel Channel has a list with the places Adam Richman has visited on the show “Man v Food Nation.” Over 8,000 users have saved it.
If you do decide to create a Foursquare list, login using the desktop version of Foursquare and make it from there. Compared to doing this on your phone, it’s much easier to find and save places to your list with more screen real estate.
Creating a hashtag and encouraging users to submit their photos is a smart way to stand out and be personable on Instagram.
The NBC News
Instagram account recently asked users to tag their winter storm photos with the hashtag #NBCNewsPics. After the weekend passed, they chose four of their favorite user-submitted photos and featured the photos as a single image. In the description, they gave credit by including each user’s Instagram username. By creating a hashtag, NBC News encouraged users to submit content AND was able to feature their favorite user-submitted photos.
Featuring user photos in this fashion on your company’s Instagram account adds to the community. It also shows that you’re on the social network to contribute more than just your own photos. There are several examples of companies doing this, including those in industries like journalism, sports and travel.
The easiest way to feature another user’s photo is through the use of third-party websites like Statigram and Webstagram. Both websites have the option to repost underneath all photos. Before reposting, don’t forget to obtain permission from the user first.
Use These Tips for More People-to-People Interaction
Use these examples to inspire your social media efforts and you’re sure to increase your social media engagement as you connect with more people in your community.
What do you think? What other strategies do you see companies using to connect with their audience on a deeper level? Leave your questions and comments below.
About the Author, Bryden McGrath
Bryden McGrath is a social media strategist at Portent, Inc. in Seattle. He also has a background in news and music journalism. Follow him on Twitter @Bryden13. Other posts by Bryden McGrath »
http://www.jretechnology.com

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Facebook App Chat Heads: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published April 20, 2013

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news.

To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Updates iPhone App With Chat Heads and Stickers: “Now you can keep chatting even when you’re doing other stuff on Facebook, like checking your news feed. Tap Chat Heads to reply, drag them around or flick them down to close.” And you can also add stickers to your messages.

The Facebook iPhone app's new Chat Heads make it easy to follow chat conversations on the go.

LinkedIn Unveils a New Mobile Experience: The new LinkedIn phone app provides a completely revamped experience “with the general professional and everyday use case in mind.”

Discussion From Our Networking Clubs: Thousands of social media marketers and small business owners are asking questions and helping others in our free Networking Clubs. Here are a few interesting discussions worth highlighting:

Twitter Releases a Music App: The Twitter #music app is “a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists.”

"You can navigate to #NowPlaying to view and listen to those songs."

Twitter Trends Now in 160 New Locations: Twitter introduces Trends “in more than 160 new locations. Included in that list are a number of countries that will be getting Trends for the first time: Belgium, Greece, Kenya, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine, plus more than 130 new cities in countries that already have Trends.”

Twitter Trends are now available in many more countries.

Google+ Comments Come to Blogger: “You can bring Google+ Comments to your Blogger blog. Once you’ve enabled the feature through your Blogger Dashboard, you’ll enjoy a number of important benefits.” Will Google+ Comments expand to other platforms in the future?

To get started with Google+ Comments, just visit the Google+ tab of your Blogger Dashboard, and check Use Google+ Comments.

Here’s some interesting social media news to follow:

Facebook Launches Open Graph Mobile: Open Graph Mobile “takes Facebook’s social graphing product to the mobile platform for the first time.”

Here’s a couple of useful tools for social media marketers:

The Rollup: a free tool to help you manage your inbox by combining and managing selected subscriptions into one convenient daily digest email.

The Rollup helps you to manage your email subscriptions.

Wajam: a free tool to find out what your friends share by adding a social share section to your Google search page.

What do you think? Please share your comments below.

About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

http://www.jretechnology.com

5 Mobile Video Apps to Boost Online Engagement

By Meaghan Edelstein
Published April 17, 2013

Do you want to use videos to market your business?

Are you wondering if there are simple mobile apps to make this possible?

In this article I’ll review five mobile video apps and share how they can boost your online engagement.

Vine, Twitter’s mobile video app, has business and marketing professionals considering the numerous ways video apps can be used to increase engagement.

Ekaterina Walter, social innovator at Intel and author of Think Like Zuck, recently predicted that “2013 will be the year of visual marketing”. Walter based this prediction, in part, on the fact that “…visuals and video done right are highly effective in cutting through the noise.”

This prediction has already proven true with a burst of new video apps and upgrades hitting the market. And some of these offer unique opportunities for savvy marketers.

Here’s five apps you should consider.

With only 140 characters to work with, it can be a challenge to create rich content on Twitter. To date, catchy headlines, creative hashtags, promoted tweets and images have been the best methods for grabbing attention on Twitter. But with the introduction of Vine, there’s a new way to generate and share highly engaging content.

Vine is a simple and fun way to create short, beautiful, looping videos for your friends and family to see.

Vine’s six-second looping videos are easily consumed and highly shareable. And as a result, these videos naturally boost engagement. Marketers can use them in a variety of ways. You can create mini-advertisements, behind-the-scenes tours, announcements, contests and much more.

Your followers can view and share your videos directly from within Twitter. And you can encourage followers to shoot and share their own six-second videos to further increase likelihood of engagement.

Now’s the time to jump into Vine because it’s easier to capture audiences’ attention. Early adopters almost always enjoy a higher level of exposure. With Vine, you now have an opportunity to stand out among the millions of tweets posted daily.

Happy valentines #valenvine vine.co/v/brMraJq2aW3

— London Lazerson (@londonlaz) February 14, 2013

According to Facebook, the use of images and video results in the largest visual impact on their platform.

Instagram increased the ease and popularity of photo posts.

However, the use of video has lagged. This can be attributed in part to the hesitation many feel when it comes to filming, editing and sharing video.

Facebook’s recent integration with iOS 6 makes the creation and sharing of video less daunting. If you are an iPhone user, you can record and post without ever leaving your Facebook app. This makes sharing video on Facebook instantly very easy, even for novices.

Video posts on Facebook encourage engagements in the form of views, shares, likes and comments.

The key with video on Facebook is creativity and consistency rather than fancy editing. With the iOS 6 upgrade, you can give fans exclusive inside access. Record major events and breaking news, then post immediately to your timeline.

To encourage community participation, create fun video challenges, ask for honest reviews and acknowledge those who take the time to post their videos to your Page.

One of the most enticing aspects of social media for business is its ability to expose a large number of people to your brand messages in a short period of time. However, as more and more businesses use social platforms, your messages are easily diluted.

Video offers a way to stand out from the masses, draw attention and leave a longer-lasting impression.

With the mobile app Socialcam, you can create videos with no length restrictions, use an assortment of filters and post to numerous social sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Socialcam allows mobile users to quickly and easily upload videos to social networks and share with others via SMS or email.

Lars Schmidt, senior director of talent acquisition and innovation at NPR, shared NPR’s strategy for exposing potential new hires to what it’s really like to be an employee at their organization.

“We used Socialcam to capture and share a more realistic perspective of what it’s like to be an NPR employee.” He went on to explain how, exactly, they did this: “We would record NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts using Socialcam, then push the videos out to our various social sites.” This visual element helped NPR “show the true experience, the energy and buzz of what it’s like to work at NPR.”

The Robert Cray Band jamming at NPR's Tiny Desk Concert.

The decision to create and grow a presence on social platforms should not be taken lightly. Platforms emerge constantly and it would be virtually impossible to build and cultivate communities on all of them.

However, there are key platforms every business should seriously consider: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and at least one video-based social network. Because video platform members feel comfortable engaging with and creating video, you’ll see an uptick in interest and views of your video content.

Viddy is a video app for both iPhone and Android that creates “a simple way for anyone to capture, beautify and share amazing videos with the world”.

A simple way to share well-produced, bite-sized videos with the world.

Viddy is also its own social network with major brands like Southwest Airlines and General Electric actively engaging through posting compelling video and running contests.

With a presence on Viddy, you can post your own 15-second videos, follow other members and be followed. There’s also plenty of opportunity for daily engagement in the form of comments and likes.

One of the most appealing reasons to utilize Viddy is that it’s integrated with Open Graph, allowing all actions on Viddy to be automatically published on people’s Facebook timeline.

This creates a unique environment and allows you to grow a community where it’s easy to encourage user-generated content.

People like, follow and subscribe to businesses because of a desire to connect on a deeper level.

Once someone has initiated an interest in connecting with your business, it then becomes your responsibility to build the relationship. This can be done through various activities and correspondences, video being one of the more successful avenues.

Videolicious is an extensive app with a variety of business-focused plans. You can edit videos and photos and turn them into film, use built-in video ideas and share across multiple platforms all at once.

Make and edit professional-quality video, automatically. Just choose your shots and Videolicious does the rest.

The app even provides extensive how-to’s for creating video thank-you notes, product reviews and news reports. And, if you want to boost views and engagement even more, there’s an option to promote your video content.

With a plethora of ways to engage via a video, Videolicious has the capability to drastically increase people’s affinity for your business.

As you can see, these tools offer a variety of ways to increase engagement on your social platforms. And as more marketers adopt these video apps, you’re sure to find other ways to improve your social media marketing with videos.

What do you think of the mobile app phenomena? Are there mobile apps you’re using that have helped move the engagement needle? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

About the Author, Meaghan Edelstein

Meaghan Edelstein is the Senior Social Strategist for Tilson PR and RingCentral. She is an event producer, journalist, attorney and owner of MobileDealin’. Follow her on Twitter @megse34. Other posts by Meaghan Edelstein »

http://www.jretechnology.com