If you've read much of our blog (or our articles, books, etc.), then you know that we are HUGE advocates of using content distribution as a primary search engine marketing strategy. It has many benefits: it establishes your credibility as an expert, it gets your name in front of a lot of people, it generates many keyword links to your web site, and it drives direct traffic. However, coming from the perspective of someone who has to write many articles on all different subjects on behalf of our clients, I can honestly say that it can be a grind. Sometimes it is hard to find the research material you need to write an article, especially with all the garbage that you find in a typical Google search. However, we've discovered that Amazon.com can be an excellent research tool to help you write your content.

The way this works is by using Amazon's Look Inside feature. This feature allows you to view and read passages from books for sale on Amazon that contain specific keywords. Amazon, shrewd business people that they are, only allows you to use this feature if you are a registered user on the site and have actually ordered something. So sign up for an account and buy yourself a good book to read. Then you'll be good to go.

To use this as a research tool, you will search books by whatever keyword you are researching. Then, scroll through the list of returned results and find a book that has the "Click to LOOK INSIDE" logo on top of the book cover image. Click on that book cover.

On the next screen, you will see a search box labeled "Search Inside This Book." This is the search box that allows you to specifically search in the book, so type your keyword in that box and perform another search. You will now be returned a list of links to passages in the book that contain the keyword. If you are a registered user with an order history, then clicking on the link will show you that passage. Otherwise, Amazon will tell you Sorry, you gotta order something first.

Searching through a book like this will provide you with all kinds of information about a keyword from a real book written by a real expert. This can be a richer mine of information than other types of online searches, such as searching article directories.

Anyone can be a successful writer of online content for distribution if he takes the time to do his research. This process can be tedious, but using the best sources of information will make the process a whole lot easier.

Labels: article marketing, article writing, articles, blog, blogging, content, content creation, content distribution, internet marketing

Write thirty minutes every day. That is one of the challenges to myself at the start of 2010. Day three (not counting the 1st, which was a football watching, beer drinking, chilling out kind of day; the 2nd, which was a Saturday devoted to catching up on chores; and Sunday the 3rd, which was a church and family day), this is day three of my New Year's writing challenge. Assuming I end up typing for in the neighborhood of thirty minutes, I can check off three consecutive days.

So what's the point?

When I am finished with this piece, I will have three new blog posts or articles, all dealing with my industry, and all containing keywords and keyword links to my main web sites.

If you do that…if you create a new piece of content every single day that gets posted on a blog, or posted to one or a hundred article directories, or to any one of dozens of high quality social media sites…all with keyword links back to your web site…you will accomplish several things:

You will get your name in front of a lot of people.

You will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry.

You will improve your web site's search engine rankings.

You will drive traffic to your web site.

That is an impressive list of benefits. In the general scheme of things, thirty minutes doesn't seem like much, but I can attest (and I'm sure many of you will agree) there are many days when you just can't find a half hour to do nothing but write. So maybe you do it early in the morning. Or maybe you do it at night (it's 10:34PM Central at the time of this writing). Or maybe you just pay somebody else to do it. It's worth the effort.

Normally I write something a bit more technical or specific to some aspect of search engine marketing (see the way I linked the keyword "search engine marketing" to my company's main web site?). My brain is fried from debugging .NET code all day (.NET programming definitely does not fall under the domain of search engine marketing; however, one of the things that Work Media takes pride in is being able to do WHATEVER our clients need us to do to keep selling), so this is what you get.

I'm at 37 minutes…with a couple of lapses to watch a few minutes of reruns of the Office…so I can call this one done.

Labels: article marketing, article writing, blog, blogging, internet marketing, search engine marketing, writing

First off, let me say that I LOVE the concept behind this product. The idea is that you can load up a text article into the system and it will automatically create a video, with a robotic voice that reads certain parts of the article. The web site claims that you can do the whole thing – create a video from an article – in three minutes. You can then distribute it to a bunch of video directories right from the same interface.

Great idea…very poor execution.

This software might be adequate if you make your living from affiliate sales and just want to create dozens of junk videos to distribute to try and generate search engine visibility for long-tail keywords. Personally, I am against the creation of junk content just to try to sell something. I am NOT against the creation of large amounts of content, but I think that content needs to be legitimate and of a reasonably high quality.

If your image is important to your business' success, then you should probably not use this software. The videos basically consist of an audio voiceover combined with somewhat animated still images. There is nothing wrong with the idea of creating videos this way (we do it all the time), but transitions should be smooth, and the voiceover should sound somewhat professional. We were spending so much time trying to tweak on our videos using Article Video Robot, it became apparent after a few tries that it would be much quicker to just create our videos manually using video editing software (even if all you have is Windows Movie Maker).

One of the main problems is that the computerized voice readings of article text tend to need a LOT of tweaking to sound reasonably human. The software gives you the option of recording your own voice for each “frame” (which corresponds to a paragraph of the text article) of the video. But again, by the time we do all that, it would have been just as fast to manually record an audio track and mix it with some still shots using video editing software. As for the creation of videos in three minutes…only if you want your videos to look and sound like garbage.

The Article Video Robot web site claims that the company offers a risk free trial. This is not true. After requesting a refund, having used the product for less than two weeks (well within the trial period), we were denied a refund because we had done four video submissions (which was actually two videos, due to two failed attempts at using the system). What I wonder is how we were supposed to thoroughly try the system out without actually creating and submitting videos.

Trust me, I wish I had the time back that I spent trying to use this junk software.

Article Video Robot is definitely not recommended.

Labels: article marketing, article post robot, article writing, internet marketing, online video, video distribution

I have been trying out an article distribution software package called Article Post Robot, and so far I am impressed. Unlike many other things I have tried, this may actually be worth the money. Article Post Robot has some features that I really like. For one thing, it submits to all of the major article directories, and not just directories that are based on a particular kind of script. It also gives you the ability to add your own article directories that you want to submit to.

And it also does article spinning. It uses the traditional article spinning syntax (only it uses "{{{" rather than just "{") and even has the ability to pull paragraphs from different articles located in a directory on your hard drive to create new articles on the fly. So it offers a lot of flexibility and actually seems to work pretty well.

It may be a little soon, because I really like to hammer on any software I use before recommending it, but I feel pretty confident about this one. So here it is: I officially recommend Article Post Robot.

Here is a link if you'd like to check it out for yourself:

ArticlePostRobot.com

Labels: article distribution, article marketing, article spinning, article writing, articles, internet marketing, link campaign, linking, search engine optimization, seo

We try out new tools for doing our job better and faster all the time. One that I am currently trying out is an online service called JetSubmitter. This tool does two things: it creates spun articles from your seed article, and it distributes those articles to a few hundred article directories. One limitation of the service is that it only works with article directories that run on a particular script, so it does not work with most of the extremely well known (and high PR) sites. But if it works with the few hundred with which it is supposed to, then that's good enough, given the low price of the service.

One weakness is that it does not have any kind of reporting functionality. So the only way to know if your articles are actually getting submitted is to search for your article titles in Google or another search engine. I started using the service late last week, and I have seen a couple of pages with my article show up in Google results (when searching for the exact article name in quotes), so I have verified that it is at least partly working.

Another weakness is the lack of support. User reviews of the service are horrible, with many people saying that is just doesn't work and that there is no way to contact the creator. So far, for me, it has worked, so I am not worried about support at this point. However, I have a good bit of experience with article spinning and using similar software, so I think my personal learning curve was not as great as some other people's might be.

If you decide to try it out, sign up for the free or $1 trial and the $17 monthly service, if you can find the page. Funny story: I had actually signed up at $27, but then I found a page offering it at $17, so I canceled the $27 account and opened another account at $17. The one thing you absolutely should not do is sign up for a year of service up front. Given the lack of communication on the part of the developer of the service, the site could shut down next week and you would never hear from anyone about it (and might not get your money back). So take the pay-as-you-go option.

Obviously, this is not a rousing endorsement, and I really can't speak for the effectiveness of the service yet. All I will say is that, at $17 per month, if the service works like it's supposed to, then it's a bargain. But be forewarned - you may not receive any support. If you are new to article writing or article spinning, you should probably look elsewhere for something that will be easier for you to figure out.

You can check it out at http://www.jetsubmitter2.com.

Labels: article directories, article distribution, article marketing, article spinning, article writing, articles, JetSubmitter

I've read several blog posts and articles lately speaking out against article spinning, which is a practice that we endorse, so I thought it might be a good idea to elaborate on this subject so that our readers don't think we're telling them to practice unethical behavior.

Article spinning is the process of setting up an article with many alternate words, phrases or paragraphs, and then using some kind of automation to dynamically create different versions of the article. The reason we like this technique is that it lets you distribute lots of original, non-duplicated material from a single work, thus giving you greater leverage on your time and more impact from your efforts.

The controversy arises from the improper way some unscrupulous Internet marketers are using the technology. What they are doing is taking an article written by SOMEONE ELSE, without that person's consent, and using article spinning software to create alternate versions of the article. So even though the finished product is somewhat different, you've still stolen someone's ideas and concepts. In addition, the product of this strategy is often something that reads very poorly and looks like it was written by someone with little grasp of the English language.

So don't do it! This is a completely unethical use of the technology. ONLY USE ARTICLE SPINNING WITH CONTENT THAT YOU WRITE YOURSELF!

Another tip is to put adequate time into the process so that your articles are truly different from one another and read like completely different articles.

If you are still having trouble with this concept and need some help figuring out how to use it for your business, give Work Media a call. We'd be happy to work with you. 888-299-4837.

Labels: article marketing, article spinning, article writing, content creation, content spinning, internet marketing

Recently, I responded to a question on LinkedIn (or it could have been Yahoo!) where someone had asked the best way to promote a web site if all you had was $100 per month and a few hours of time. I thought it was an interesting question, but one that I felt I had a good answer for.

Based on our experience, here is what I would do with $100 and 2 hours per week:

With the money, purchase some links from a link broker. You should be able to get quite a few links in the area of PR3, which will help your link count.

With the time, I would suggest writing articles. 2 hours per week is enough time to write and distribute at least one article. Over time, links from those articles will really build up. However, to get the greatest distribution possible, I would also highly advise that you use an article distribution service. I suggest articlemarketer.com. However, you will probably need to subtract $10 or $20 from your $100 monthly budget to pay for that.

To make this work, you need to have one or at most two specific keywords in mind for which you want your site to rank. That keyword then needs to be used in your paid links and in at least one link in the article (or the article author box).

There are other factors that affect your rankings, of course - the age of the domain name, the competitiveness of the industry, how well-optimized your site content and code is - but a strategy as described above will make a significant difference, all else being equal.

If you need some help with search engine optimization or pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: article marketing, article writing, articles, linking, linking campaign, search engine optimization, search engine rankings

In the last few weeks, I've been doing a ton of article writing. It has definitely moved to the top of my list of favored strategies. Article writing serves two major purposes: branding and SEO. From a branding perspective, a well-written article can create the impression that you are a true professional in your field. From an SEO standpoint, it can result in lots of keyword-loaded links back to your web site. If you want to use article writing as a strategy for promoting your web site, here are some tips that will give you more impact.

1. Edit and proof-read your articles carefully. An article can end up on hundreds of web sites, and it never goes away. It basically lives forever as a symbol of who you are and what you represent. So it's pretty important that the article be well-written and grammatically correct. It is a reflection of your professionalism.

2. Try to write in a Web-friendly manner. Reading on screen is more difficult than reading something on paper. So use a snappy writing style with lots of short paragraphs. One structural style that works very well for the Web is a top ten list. It doesn't really have to have ten items. Right now, for some reason, top seven lists are hot.

3. Write in a conversational tone. Use the word "you" a lot to engage the reader.

4. Use an article distribution service. I recommend articlemarketer.com. In the past, I have used isnare.com. Isnare is cheaper, at just $2 or less per article distributed, but articlemarketer.com seems to offer wider distribution and much better reporting as to where your articles have been sent.

5. Use an author box that contains a keyword-rich link back to your web site. This gets to the heart of the power of article writing. If you have an article on lots of web sites that all have a link back to your web site, that is good. However, if the text used in those links contains a keyword for which you wish to rank highly, that's even better. For instance, let's say you sell ostrich skin cowboy boots on your web site. If you write an article and distribute it with a link back to your web site in the author box that says "ostrich skin cowboy boots", that will help boost your search engine rankings for that phrase. You would not get the same boost if all of the links simply had
your web site address.

Obviously, to make article marketing work, you need to have something to write about and you need to be able to write reasonably well. If you have difficulty in this area, seek out an article writer to do it for you. We would be glad to help. Feel free to contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: article directories, article distribution, article marketing, article writing, articles, internet marketing, linking, linking campaign, search engine optimization, seo

Article writing continues to be one of the most effective search engine marketing techniques in existence. It has two major benefits: it is a good branding move because it makes you appear like an expert in your field; and it generates one-way links to your web site which often contain specific keywords in the link text. If you write articles regularly, you will do yourself a lot of good. But there's good...and then there's GOOD.

So how do you write a GOOD article?

We're not really talking about good in the sense of writing that is compelling and interesting. I mean, if you can do that, then that is a huge bonus. We're really talking more about writing that will improve your search engine rankings and close business.

First off, you should have a specific keyword in mind when writing the article for which you would like to improve your search engine rankings. If you don't already have a specific keyword in mind, you might want to visit http://Nichebot.com or a similar service to look for keywords that get a lot (or at least some) traffic that are relevant to your business. It doesn't do you nearly as much good to write an article focused on a keyword that nobody ever uses.

Once you have decided on a keyword, then you need to try and use the keyword in the title (if it makes sense), the article body, and most importantly, in the author's box. The author's box is where you can actually make a hyperlink out of a keyword. If you can insert a hyperlink in the body text, that's even better, but that is often frowned upon.

As far as the content for the article, one easy way to create content is to pull it from your blog (you do blog, don't you?). For example, I just authored an article based on two blog posts. Each blog post discussed a real life example of poor web site marketing at the local level. So I combined the blog posts, re-wrote some sections of it, and titled it "Two Examples of the Damage Done by Poor Local Web Site Marketing".

Now I'm going give you a power tip, so pay attention. When conducting online research for an article, I use Google Notebook to collect snippets of information into a single page where I can view it all. Basically, I'm creating notes on the fly from different sites that I can use as the basis for my article. This technique could save you a lot of time.

When writing your article, use proper grammar and spelling. You can write the article in a conversational tone (which is good), but you don't want to appear ignorant. Remember, there is a branding component at work here. You want to come off as a true professional in your industry.

Once the article is written, it needs to be distributed to article directories. You can do this manually, one at a time, or you can use a directory submission service. The manual way is best, but it takes oh so long to do. You will probably want to use some kind of automation to get your article out to as many places as you can.

If you see the power of article marketing but just don't want to do it yourself, Work Media offers an article writing service. Call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: article directories, article distribution, article marketing, article writing, articles, copywriting, internet marketing, search engine marketing, seo