Article Marketing Connects you Directly to Readers
Even brilliantly-written articles can’t “toot your horn”
unless they get in front of people who’d care enough to read
them. And widely posting articles online is the most direct
way to make that occur. Posted articles bring a business
many benefits
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/benefits.html.
Keyword-focused and information-rich articles appeal to both human
readers and search engines.
Your List for Article Submissions is the Crucial Link that
Makes it Work
The quality of your submission list determines how many
people get to read your message. Unless places you submit to
are in synch with your message, products and services, most
of your efforts are wasted. It’s worth your time to
customize and polish your list.
1. Expanding the List
I spend at least as much time each week tweaking my list as
writing articles to post. As I travel the Internet, my
antenna stays tuned for suitable websites and ezines.
Assessing Websites
- Is this a quality, visitor-friendly site? – That’s totally subjective – but if not, I won’t send articles there
- Does it reach the readers I write for?
- Does it use articles? If so, are they by authors unaffiliated with the site?
- Is there a submission form or author guidelines?
Their authors are considered. Am I familiar with their work?
Is it worthwhile? Sometimes I Google an author’s name to
see what else they’ve written and where it appears. Often I
discover a slew of appropriate websites unknown to me.
I regularly query search engines for targeted keywords, or
the group I want to reach (chiropractors). From those
results, I use Google’s “Search within Results” feature and
type in phrases like, “Submit Article” or “Newsletters.”
That links me directly to possible candidates. I won’t
include a site without visiting a website and feeling that
it’s a match.
Whenever someone requests permission to post an article of
mine I offer similar (and future) ones also. They found me!
That’s another emotional payback from posting articles.
2. Culling and Upgrading Listed Sites
Starting a week after posting an article, I query Google
with the title (in quotes) in the search box. I notice where
it shows up, then re-check regularly. Results are logged for
each article. When it appears on websites not already on my
list, they’re added.
Requests to be removed from the list are honored
immediately. Addresses for undelivered submissions are
updated or removed.
3. Organizing the Addresses on the List
I consider Ezine Announcer, http://tinyurl.com/53wo9
invaluable for posting articles. Its auto-fill feature
completes online submission forms easily. And it does a good
job sending customized email submissions. But I find its
most important use to be mailing list management.
My own submission list exceeds 1000 addresses, so it became
too difficult to keep organized and updated. Ezine Announcer
comes with 1700 addresses included (plus purchasers receive
future up-dates). That’s a good start if you haven’t
developed your own list already. However, I found that my
own tested list was much more extensive for topics where I
submit the most. By merging my list with that one (and
eliminating overlap) I’ve now got the best of both. And
they’re arranged logically.
Customized Categories Save Posting Time
Ezine Announcer has several general categories (like Article
Directory) and numerous narrow topics (like Finance or
Health). It’s a simple matter to move an address from one
category to another, or to add additional categories.
I split the Article Directory into several parallel
directories, which simplifies posting. Reorganizing
categories further streamlined the posting process – saving
hours on each article.
New Directory Categories
- My A list (and high Google Page Rank)
- Password required (which tend to have more complications)
- Submit by email
- Must exchange links
- Special requirements
- Many topics (not primarily business)
- Troubled sites (below)
When I encounter a site with problems (temporarily down,
weird error messages) I move it into the troubled category.
They can be checked or removed later. But such
irregularities no longer delay the posting process. And I
can deal with them when convenient.
Speed up your Learning Curves
Article marketing is a potent method to promote yourself,
your business, your website, and your book. However, there
are plenty of tricks to achieving the most mileage from your
efforts. Discover in-depth how-to for every step of the
process at http://www.promotewitharticles.com – Article
Marketing Academy. You’ll get better with practice, and more
momentum with every article you send out into the vast
Internet. But you have to get started…
© 2004, Lynella Grant
–Dr. Lynella Grant http://www.promotewitharticles.com – Article Marketing Academy – Promote yourself, business, website, or book with articles posted online.
Author, Yellow Page Smarts, http://www.yellowpagesage.com/smarts.html (719) 395-9450