By now you should know how effective article marketing is for your online business. However, there’s another way in which you can use your articles that a lot of people overlook or never think of.

There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of ezines (electronic magazines) available on the internet. In fact, if you have an email list of subscribers, then essentially you own an ezine. And I’m guessing you provide your subscribers with useful ezine articles on a regular basis.

Keeping this in mind, have you ever found it difficult to keep creating ezine articles to send to your list? A lot of successful ezines have been around for years and have tens of thousands of subscribers. That’s a long time to try to keep creating ezine articles to keep the subscribers interested.

So, what does an ezine owner do in this case? It’s very simple. They allow other people to submit ezine articles to them which will be sent to their subscribers. Can you see the possibilities here?

This opens the doorway for you to get your message out there to thousands of people that might have never known about you otherwise. This is absolutely huge!

Here’s how it works…

You first find ezines that are related to what you do or what you provide. If you own a website or online business, then find ezines related to that. Next thing you’ll want to do is contact the ezine owner and ask if you could write articles for their ezine on a weekly basis.

If they agree, you’ve just set up a very good proposition for yourself. Now all you have to do is create an article every week for that ezine. It shouldn’t be very difficult as you should already be familiar with the niche.

Now, the most important part is to then create an “about the author” section at the end of your articles. This only has to be one or two sentences about yourself, what you do and what you provide. Of course, you’ll want to leave a link to your website so that the readers can check it out.

This results in getting interested people to visit your website. The goal is to get them to subscribe to your ezine (newsletter), make a purchase, fill out a form, click a link, etc. You want them to take action!

Ezine articles can be an effective way to promote your website and should be part of your overall marketing strategy. Now, a problem with this is that it can take a lot of time to search for and find related ezines.

I recommend you use the Directory of Ezines to find ezines to write articles for. Not all ezines will allow article submissions, but the Directory of Ezines has an awesome search interface that will allow you to search for only ezines that do. There are many other search parameters as well, including categories, specific keywords, ezines that allow solo ads and more.

There are many perks to becoming a member of the Directory of Ezines, especially if you become a lifetime member, which is what I am. At least check it out and see if it’s right for you.

No matter how you find potential ezines to partner with, just remember, this is free advertising for your website that has a lot of positive potential, so don’t ignore it. Ezine articles can have a huge impact on your online business.

Writing top quality articles is very time consuming. You may have an idea of what you want to write about, but when it comes to actually writing the articles, it just takes time. You may be asking why you would even have a need to write articles, and the answer is very simple. Articles help you grow your online business.

Articles allow you the advantage of getting your name, business and message in front of thousands of readers and seen as an expert… all for FREE. For internet marketers and online business owners who have multiple tasks to complete every day, writing can be a chore.

Introducing…  David Hurley, expert internet marketer, English professional and article writer. David is the owner of Grasp-The-Nettle.com and provides an article writing PLR service for internet marketers. His articles are internet marketing and online business related.

What sets David’s service apart from other PLR services is this:

• High quality, relevant and useful articles – NOT the usual run-of-the-mill, thrown together stuff
• Free from grammar, spelling and syntax errors commonly found in other PLR article packages
• Limited membership – Articles exclusively available to only 100 members
• Reasonably priced

David’s service provides you with 10 internet marketing related articles each and every month to use for your own use. Why spend countless hours writing your own articles, when you can have David save you the trouble?

I’m a personal friend of David’s and have worked side by side with him for several years through various forums and internet marketing communities. I have been impressed with his professionalism and all the work that he does with his various online businesses. I can assure you that anything David does is top notch!

To learn more about David’s article writing service and his risk-free guarantee, check out his Article PLR Service. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Article marketing is one form of marketing that I think will never lose ground. It’s been around for a long time and still remains a proven method of promotion and link building. If I had to choose just one marketing method, it would be article marketing.

Here’s my list of sites that I submit my articles to, some are more important than others, but I have found all to be quality sites that bring in traffic or at least get exposure.

My top 31 Article Directory List:

1. The Free Library
2. Hot Article Directory
3. Hubpages – Must be unique
4. Qassia – Must submit here before anywhere else
5. Scribd
6. eHow
7. Helium
8. Google Knol
9. Associated Content
10. Ezine Articles
11. Go Articles
12. Article Archives
13. Free Articles Directory
14. Article Dashboard Directory
15. Article City
16. Article Cube
17. Article Alley
18. Buzzle – Must be unique
19. Isnare
20. Amazines
21. Articles Base
22. Article Marketer
23. Article Rich
24. Articles Factory
25. Drop Jack
26. eArticles Online
27. Get Your Content
28. Idea Marketers
29. Best Syndication
30. Niche Article Directory
31. Google Base

Which article directories do you get the best results from? Do you use any not listed?… Add them in your comments below.

I’ve been hearing from different sources on the web that EzineArticles.com would be implementing changes that would have a serious impact on every article marketer out there. If you use article marketing as part of your marketing strategy, as you should, then listen up! This is important, and you’ll want to know how to stay on top.

The recent changes involve new Adsense ad placements on your article pages. They’ve added more and placed them in such a way that might just decrease your article click-through rates. Scary huh? The whole point of writing articles is to have it read and then get your links clicked.

Now, EzineArticles, one of the best article sites around, is making it tougher for the average marketer to make it in this big internet marketer game.

But, don’t fret just yet. I received an email from Travis Sego the other day that just might be the solution to these recent changes. If you’re not familiar with Travis, he’s the bum marketing genius that takes homeless guys and teaches them how to write articles and make a fortune, being a bum. Gotta love it!

I really like what Travis is doing. Plus, he’s a down-to-earth, fun loving guy (you’ll see what I mean in the email he sent me). What’s better is that he wants to help people, and by doing so, allows me to help you.

Here’s the email Travis sent and what he had to say about the new EzineArticles changes and how you can keep your click-throughs high:

Hey!

What’s da haps?

As you may have heard…

EzineArticles.com has made some

changes that will affect YOU!

Wanna talk with ya about them…

I’m in a silly mood though so…

How ’bout a little light hearted fun first?

Have you heard this one?

*********************

Confucius say…

Man who run behind car…get exhausted.

Man who run in front of car…get tired.

*********************

Heeeee….hee…

I know I’m corny…but I luv that one!

Now here’s how a man, woman or Bum

can get on top of the EzineArticles.com

changes.

Without getting exhausted or tired!

They’ve recently made the decision to

add more Adsense to the articles.

Which MIGHT make it a little tougher

to get YOUR links clicked on.

I ain’t worried though.

You won’t be either.

Learned this trick from reading

PotPieGirl’s One Week Marketing

System.

(I had to see what all the new folks

were RAVING about).

Here’s what you do:

1. Shorten your articles! Your article body

only has to be 250 words!

2. Make your authors box…L-O-N-G-E-R. You

have up to 300 words you can put in your authors

box.

You should be able to make your authors box…look

like it’s part of the article!

You follow?

Using just this one little tip from One Week Marketing,

and I’m pullin’ in a 34% click through on one article…and others look like they’ll do even more.

Yipee Skipee!

I wonder if you can figure out a couple other

reasons I am so happy about this?

Betcha can?

==>Short articles are FASTER to write.

==>Short articles COST LESS to outsource.

==>Short articles = More Articles = More Sales!

Have any more great ideas on how to get around these new changes? I’d love to hear them.

There are many people who dread having to write papers or articles. Many just feel like it seems to be too much work and it all just goes to waste when no one reads them. To some people, reading articles seems like work too, especially if the article is boring and very bland. Well, articles are supposed to be read, that’s their purpose to impart your message and information. If it is not read then it is a waste of time and effort.

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But all the same, articles have to be written to be read. It’s just a matter of making them good. Making a good article doesn’t have to be strenuous and straining. There are just some points needed to be reminded of, and some guides to follow. Once you get the hang of it, writing articles could be fun, as well as profitable for you and your site.

Of course, writing articles must be about something you know about, that’s why if you own a site, you probably is knowledgeable about that certain topic and theme. When you write about it, you won’t have a hard time because you already know what it is and what it’s about. It’s just a matter of making your articles creative and interesting.

To make sure that your articles get read and enjoyed, here are six red hot tips to get your articles read. These tips will make your articles readable and interesting.

1) Use short paragraphs. When the paragraph are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it It can get quite confusing and too much of a hard work to read. The reader will just quickly disregard the paragraph and move on to much easier reading articles that are good to look at as well as read. Paragraphs can be a single sentence, sometimes even a single word!

2) Make use of numbers or bullets. As each point is stressed out, numbers and bullets can quickly make the point easy to remember and digest. As each point, tip, guide or method is started with a bullet or point, readers will know that this is where the tips start and getting stressed. Format you bullets and numbers with indentations so that your4 article won’t look like a single block of square paragraphs. Add a little bit of flair and pizzazz to your articles shape.

3) Use Sub-headings to sub-divide your paragraphs in the page. Doing this will break each point into sections but still would be incorporated into one whole article. It would also be easy for the reader to move on from one point to another; the transition would be smooth and easy. You will never lose your readers attention as well as the point and direction to where the article is pointing.

4) Provide a good attention-grabbing title or header. If your title can entice a person’s curiosity you’re already halfway in getting a person to read your article. Use statements and questions that utilize keywords that people are looking for. Provide titles or headers that describe your articles content but should also be short and concise.

Use titles like, “Tips on making her want you more”, or “How to make her swoon and blush” .You could also use titles that can command people, for example, “Make her yours in six easy Ways”. These types of titles reach out to a persons’ emotions and makes them interested.

5) Keep them interested from the start to the finish. From your opening paragraph, use real life situations that can be adopted by the reader. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point, just don’t over do it. Driving your examples with graphic metaphors and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about. Making the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.

6) Utilize figures when necessary and not just ordinary and insipid statements. Using specific facts and figures can heighten your article because it makes it authoritative. But do not make it too formal, it should be light and easy in them and flow. Like a friendly teac her having a little chat with an eager student.

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Grab helpful ideas for free traffic – welcome to your personal tips store.

Writing articles is an art form. Developing content for the net takes time and practice. Writing effectively and getting your readers to respond is the first benefit in building traffic. This results in direct traffic as readers are inclined to click on your link(s) in the resource box of your article.

I suggest you take a moment to visit Patricia Makhulo’s Article Marketing Made Easy post which gives you many great pointers on getting your article noticed and read.

Article marketing has two main traffic benefits: direct traffic and search traffic. Both are important and should be utilized to their fullest potential. You want to get as much bang for your buck as possible, so there’s no point in wasting a good article by only getting half the potential traffic.

Article marketing is one of the best ways to create long-term, targeted traffic to your website. I’m going to explain both traffic benefits.

An article is made up of different elements that are essential to getting direct traffic. These elements include:

• Defining the product/service you need to promote – Most articles have the purpose of providing useful information in order to pre-sell a product or service.
• Using the “useful, but incomplete approach” – Provide useful information to your readers, but make sure it’s incomplete and that they could better use the information by visiting the link(s) in your resource box.
• Using a tips list or tutorial format when applicable – If your article can be broken down into a list format, then do it. This will direct your readers along towards realizing their need for your product/service.
• Expanding on your main points to build the content of the article – as I’m doing with these key elements, provide information that expands on the main points of the article.
• Providing a closing or “call to action,” usually in the resource box, also known as the “about the author” section – Most people fail to do this. The resource box is there for a reason. Tell your readers to visit your link(s) to make better use of what they read.
• Re-reading and proofreading the article to avoid errors – Don’t do this yourself as most people fail to catch their own mistakes. Have someone proofread your article for you so that it reads well and is error free. The best thing you can do when crafting an article is to write in a clear and concise manner. You need to convey your message to your readers so that they can understand it. Your article should read as though you were talking face to face with them.

If you focus on these key elements, your article stands a much better chance of receiving clickthroughs and your website getting targeted, direct traffic. Also keep Patricia’s models in mind as they work very well too.

The other main benefit involves getting natural search engine traffic from people searching for information. Aside from direct traffic, search traffic is just as good because it’s also highly targeted. Most searches performed in a search engine are for information. That’s why it’s so important that you provide useful information to your readers because there’s a better chance that they’ll convert to a customer.

There’s two elements that you need to be aware of when striving to get search traffic as a result of your articles. As people search for information, they enter keywords into the search box. The keywords they enter determine what results are displayed.

It is your job to find out what keywords those people are searching for. I recommend Google’s External Keyword Tool. Once you determine the keywords you’re going to focus on, the two elements soon come together. The first element is writing your article for specific keywords.

You need to determine what keyword phrase you need your article to rank for in search engines so that it is displayed when someone searches for that keyword phrase. This may sound complicated, but all you need to know here is that as long as you provide useful and unique content, your article will get noticed.

Websites are primarily ranked based on how many backlinks (links pointing to your site from other relevant sites) they have. The key here is containing the keywords you need your website to rank for within those backlinks. This you can completely control with the use of your article resource box.

The second element applies to your website. This involves the use of your article resource box. While the resource box can be used as your call to action as discussed earlier, it also has another use. As you need to get your article ranked high in search engines for a particular keyword phrase, you also need to get your website ranked high for keywords as well.

While developing your call to action phrase, create a link to the web page that you want to send your readers that contains your keywords you need your page to rank for in search engines. Every article you create will contain your resource box with your call to action and a backlink to your website. You see how your resource box serves two purposes in one?

If all of this sounds a bit confusing to you, then you should read some of my other posts on SEO:

Web Page Optimization

5 SEO Tasks You Should Do Every Day

I also recommend Suzanne Morrison’s 3 Steps to Search Engine Success.

Applying these methods to your article marketing efforts will ensure direct and long-term traffic for years to come. Both forms of traffic are equally important, so don’t ignore these methods. Article marketing, when done properly, will help you build your business and set it up for long lasting success. Remember, your website must have traffic, and article marketing can help you achieve it.

Last week I made a post titled I Hate Thieves! Blogger Steals My Content! and ranted about a blogger who took one of my articles and deleted my links. I sent the owner of the blog an email via the contact page and hadn’t heard back.

Well today I received an email from the owner after two weeks of having sent the email. Here is what the blog owner said…

Thank you for your check my blog, I have already put your website link in my article with keyword “work from home online business” in my webpage http://www.getcashonline.org/work-from-home-online

Now obviously the owner doesn’t speak very good English, but you get the idea. This came as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course, I actually went to the page and made sure that he really did add my link. It’s there, along with the other million links he added of his own.

I need to correct him, though. He stated that he placed my link in “his article.” The fact is that he placed my link in MY ARTICLE. My link deserved to be there all along from the beginning when he decided to use my article.

This problem has been around forever, and it’s impossible to fight it completely. Most scraper blogs (blogs that scrape content from other sources, usually through RSS) steal content all the time with no recognition or link back to the source. I don’t think this is a scraper blog, but if you’re deleting links intentionally, then it might as well be one.

If you market your work from home business using article marketing then I’m sure you’ve been faced with this issue before. It’s not something you should get real worried about as it doesn’t happen too often, but it’s something you should be aware of. Not everyone is going to be honest. That’s just how it is.

There’s some rare cases, such as this one, where you can actually contact the owner and try to resolve the issue. This is the best case of action you can take. It really isn’t worth your time to pursue content thieves. Like I said, they’re the minority, not the majority.

Writing content for the web and marketing your online business comes with this risk. I just want you to be aware of it and realize that it’s going to happen. Fortunately for me I was able to revert this issue. If you want to eliminate this risk and get a much better reach for your articles then be sure to check out the Free Traffic System.

This also brings up another point and one I push quite heavily. If you haven’t heard of Google Alerts or don’t use it, you’re doing a disservice to you and your online business. It’s important to keep track of who’s talking about you and who’s linking to your websites. There’s no better way to do this than by setting up Alerts for your name and website domains. It’s fast and easy to do.

I hope my experiences here can help some of you. Don’t let this discourage you from writing content for marketing your work from home business. It’s an excellent way to get your name and business out there. Be sure to check out my Article Marketing Works video to see how its been helping me.

I’m a big fan of article marketing, and anyone who knows me will agree. I wouldn’t have created a whole article marketing proof video if I wasn’t 100% positive that it helps build your business for the long term. In fact, here’s my video below…

So what’s this whole Free Traffic System all about? Free Traffic System is the new age of article marketing: it has its advantages and does not have any disadvantages.

The advantages of both article marketing and Free Traffic System are obvious – Google and other search engines welcome and will always welcome the creation of new, useful, non-duplicate content and that is why search engines look favorably upon the backlinks generated this way.

Due to this “benevolent attitude” from search engines towards links built via article marketing, thousands of people have been successfully using article marketing for years to improve their positions in search engines for their targeted keywords.

BUT, unfortunately article marketing has some serious disadvantages – let’s have a look at them:

- when others republish your article they can delete your backlinks from the article

This is a huge problem! And my previous post was exactly about this topic. The owner of GetCashOnline.org decided to use one of my articles on his blog and remove MY links from MY article and insert his own self-serving links. I hate thieves!

After you have submitted your article to one of the major article directories – you lose control over your articles. Today, lots of people are using different automatic tools to “harvest” these directories for content and republish the articles on their sites. Now, probably 95% of the people that republish these articles are honest and will keep your links, but there’s always the other 5%.

The problem is that more and more people are starting to steal your content from article directories and automatically DELETE your backlinks from the resource box. OR, they steal just a tiny portion of your content (1st paragraph of your article, for example) and give a backlink to the article directory. This is great for the article directory, but not for you! This happens quite a lot to me, and I have to be honest… it PISSES me off!

With Free Traffic System you are guaranteed that pages where your content is republished will remain with YOUR backlinks. Those blogs who break this rule and touch your links (modify them/make them invisible/delete them) will be deleted from the Free Traffic System and lose access to quality content.

- duplicate content problems

You see, when one and the same article is republished, Google quickly “understands” this is duplicate content and “sees” that a big portion of your backlinks are built from duplicate content pages. This is not dangerous and Google will not punish you for doing that, but it is rumored that Google seriously lowers the SEO value of backlinks built from duplicate content pages, or just ignores them all together.

The other problem with this is that your duplicate articles will be competing against each other, and most likely Google and other search engines will just choose only one of your articles to show up in search results.

With Free Traffic System you have all the tools necessary to make each of your articles be non-duplicate, even if the article is republished on 20, 40, 100 or even more blogs. With the help of simple procedures – that will take you only an extra 5 minutes per article – you will create dozens or even hundreds of READABLE and CONCISE versions of article titles and bodies that won’t be considered duplicate. It is all in your hands: if you decide to spend 5 minutes and use the diversification tools provided by Free Traffic System, then each of the articles republished will be unique for Google and other search engines. And this will instantly increase the value of your backlinks.

Look at the comparison table to see Free Traffic System compared vs traditional article marketing.

Now I understand there are some tools available that do the same thing for your articles, like Unique Article Wizard. I also believe Submit Your Article will let you spin different versions of your article as well.

BUT… these are quite expensive, ranging from $30 – $70 per month!

Explore these advantages of building one way links with the new level of article marketing for FREE with the Free Traffic System.

Okay, this post is pretty personal, but there is a lesson here if you’re a marketer online.

Basically what happened is that one of my articles ended up on another blog. Thanks to Google Alerts I found out about. I highly recommend using Google Alerts to keep track of your name and domain name.

Anyway, what this blogger did was take my article from one of the article directories that it’s posted on and put it up on his blog. No biggie, right? Well at first I thought… “awesome, someone likes my article and wants to share it with their readers.”

Well after investigating, I find that, while the person aknowledges that I’m the author, he completely removed my resource box from the article. If you’re familiar with article marketing, you’ll know this is in violation of the author’s copyright.

This guy went even further by not only removing my links, but adding his own throughout the entire article. When I saw this I was quite irked to say the least, and still am.

Luckily (or maybe not) for me he has contact information on his site, so I emailed the owner and asked him to include a link to my site since he blatantly had removed it. Of course, I have yet to get a response. I also told him I would take further action if he didn’t comply (which seems impossible now).

I then went to Whois.com and looked up the contact information and web host for this domain. After finding out the host, it turns out you can’t contact them unless you have an account with them. How convenient, right?

I then decided to leave a comment on the page that my article is on. Well, I found out that the owner had conveniently deleted it. What’s the point of allowing comments if you’re just going to delete them anyway!

My last resort is to post about it here. People like this make me mad. They can’t come up with their own content, so they steal other people’s content and don’t give credit back by at least keeping their links. Yes, my name is there, but that’s just not enough, and it violates the terms of the article directories and the author.

You can view my article as well as check out the blogger who stole my content at http://www.getcashonline.org/work-from-home-online.

I absolutely hate thieves and hope this guy gets what he deserves. I know this problem is everywhere and can’t be avoided. It’s people like this that give the honest people a bad name.

What’s your experience with this? How did you handle it?

As I discussed last time, the first step in building a successful online business is web page optimization and SEO. If you haven’t read that step then go re-read Steps for Building a Successful Online Business – Part 1 now because that is the foundation on which you will build your online business. You can’t skip that step! These next steps will mean nothing without proper web page optimization, and your work will be in vein. You don’t want that to happen. This is your online business we’re talking about.

Okay, so without further delay, let’s get to the next step…

Step Two: Article Marketing

This is perhaps the easiest method to building your online business. Article marketing is the basic idea of writing an article on a particular topic or niche and then submitting that article to article directories. It helps build your brand, and you’re seen as an expert in your field. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in… article marketing works!

Now before I go any further I need to mention about the overall benefit of article marketing and how it directly relates to building your online business. This is where the SEO factor comes in.

You see, Google rates a website based on how many one way backlinks the website has pointing at it. The more backlinks, the better. This is where article marketing comes into play. In the resource box of your article you have the opportunity to place a link to your website, but not just any link. You want to use an anchor text link that uses the keyword phrase you optimized your website for. See, this is why step one is so important.

Write an article related to the niche of your website. Use your keyword phrase in the anchor text for your link in the resource box. It’s that simple. But… were not done yet. Now you have to get your article out to as many people as you can, building backlinks for your website. Read my article on the proper way to write an article and use the resource box with Article Marketing – Getting the Most Out of Your Marketing Efforts.

You want to submit your article to as many article directories as possible. This will create numerous one way backlinks all pointing to your website. The problem is that this can be quite time consuming, but it’s well worth it. There are also automated software submissions you can use to do this for you. It’s your choice. I will tell you what I do and what has worked for me.

Take a minute to watch my video to see PROOF that article marketing actually works…

I submit my articles to EzineAritcles, perhaps the most trusted and used directory. I also use Article Marketer, which distributes your articles to thousands of directories. They have a free and paid distribution, but I only use the free distribution. I also submit, by hand, to a number of other article directories, which you can find by visiting the link below.

Here is a list of resources to help you in your article marketing effort:

A list of high Page Rank article directories (the higher PR, the better for your website), Article submission software, article writing software and much more.

Everything is all on one page, so be sure to check it out. Here’s to your article marketing efforts…

Be sure to check back as I will discuss the third step in the online business building system.

Oh… and leave me a comment if you found these tips useful. Thanks!