Cynthia Minnaar is going to show how to use the magic of article marketing to keep your website at the top of the search engines and also to make your articles more profitable for you. Cynthia gives a step-by-step instruction on how to market your articles correctly and much more effectively (I would add this to favorites for future reference if I were you). As Cynthia told me, " ...it is the method by which I have built my business so far and hope others will realize the power of article marketing."
Cynthia, why is article marketing so important for promoting your PIPS website?
"From my experience, the magic of article marketing is that it can affect your business positively in so many ways. It is one of the most effective Internet marketing methods and can be totally free, so it is ideal for those on a tight budget. Article marketing helps build the all important back links to your website, which will push your site higher up in the search engine results, bringing free, targeted organic traffic to your website.
Article marketing also works for years to come because once you have submitted your articles to the directories they get indexed by the search engines and so, will be around for a long time. They may also be spotted by Ezine Owners who publish your article in their ezines or other site owners copy them to add content to their websites so it has a tremendous snowball effect.
I like to think of article marketing as the way to build a solid foundation to your business. It is also a great way to build your own reputation and brand yourself. The amazing thing about article marketing is that it leads to so many more opportunities and really opens doors, such as being invited to be a guest author on the authority sites, or to submit an exclusive article to a high traffic blog."
What are basics things to remember when writing an article?
"Be sure to optimize your article for keywords related to your website. Add the keywords in the title of the article, a few times in the body and most importantly in the anchor text in the Author’s Resource Box, because that is what will generate the back link to your website.
My advice is to write from the heart and write about what you know and if others benefit from the knowledge that you are imparting they will most likely click on the link in your resource box and end up on your website.
Keep your paragraphs short and write the article in such a way that it holds the reader’s attention right to the end of the article. Try and hold back a little information that will make them really want to click on your link in the author’s resource book to find out more."
What are the best ways to submit your articles?
"The best ways – I am not really sure because my article submitter and I didn’t see eye to eye and so I resorted to submitting by hand!!!! But, the options available are to use an article submitter, submit your articles yourself, or you could pay an article submission service to submit them for you. I tend to believe that quality is better than quantity. You need to ensure that the articles you are submitting do in fact have the anchor text intact.
When submitting your articles, especially to the high PR article directories, it really does pay to spend time completing your profile because here you can add quite a long story about yourself as well as being able to use html to link to your sites. You can also add your photo to brand yourself and some give you the opportunity to add free e-books, so you can add Dotcomology as well."
What if you are not a writer? Can you get tutorials on how to write them or can I hire someone to write them for me?
"If you think you are not a writer my advice is change your mindset and become one. I sat back for four months and said “I can’t write articles”. Then I realized I would have to write articles as nothing else was really working for me and from that day forward my business started making headway.
Some of the article directories have excellent information about how to write articles, for example Ezine articles and Article Marketer have a section and let’s not forget the PIPS Forum has some excellent posts on Article Marketing and Article Optimization.
You could also hire a ghost writer or an article writing service. Jeff Schuman, a great PIPS veteran, offers an article writing and submission service. The PIPS 30 Days Training gives you so much to write about. You will be learning something everyday and I found that I started writing articles based on what I had learned, as I felt it would help others too."
How can keywords make a difference to make the article more attractive to the search engines?
"Optimizing your articles with keywords related to your website can make a huge difference in the positioning of your site in the search engines results. You want people looking for what you have to offer to be able to not only find your site but also your articles which will lead them to your site.
Let’s say for example that your site is on page 3 of Google for your main keyword. If you write and submit a couple of articles using your main keyword in the title, body, and anchor text you will find that your site will move up higher in the search engine results.
Something that happened to me that made me realize the power of article marketing was on a couple of occasions, for some unknown reason, my site did not appear in the search engine results for a few days, but my articles were there and therefore my traffic did not slow down that much. This was because my articles were optimized with the same keywords that my site is optimized for and they also appear high up in the search results.
Another tip that I have found works wonders – I try and utilize two of my keyword phrases in the title and body. The first phrase aimed at my main website and the second phrase at my PIPS sales page and then in the resource box I link to both sites. Bit like hitting two birds with one stone."
I wrote an article and posted it on my blog. Now what?
"What I do Doug is firstly create a new page on my website for my new article and optimize that web page for the keywords in the article. Then I post a snippet of my article on my blog and link it back to the new page on my website, so those who want to read the whole article will click on the link and that will take them to the new page on my site. Hopefully, from there they will then explore my site.
I also have a section on my home page for Latest Articles and I put a snippet there too and link it to the new page I just created for the new article. Internal linking on your site is also important and that is why I do this.
Then I create 10 new versions of my article all optimized for different keywords and I submit 8 unique versions to my top 8 favourite (high PR) article directories, 2 to the sites where I am a guest author, and the remaining one I submit to the smaller directories by hand (about 40 of them)."
Can I post one of my articles to all of my blogs or do I need to change the content first?
"Ideally, you want unique content on each of your blogs, so I would change the article by using different keywords. Change the first few words and last few words of each paragraph so that you have a unique article on each blog.
They say you should aim to change your article by a minimum of 30%, but to make it easier to find out by how much you have changed your article you can use a nifty piece of free software I found called Content Checkup that you can download from Jason Potash’s blog at: Content Composer ."
How many articles should I write per week?
"Quality articles are important, so I aim for 2 a week (sometimes this doesn’t happen), but if you can produce more good quality interesting articles you will build your back links quicker and increase your exposure."
Check out more of Cynthia's fantastic work:
Online Business Ideas Blog
Online Home Business Articles
Online Home Business Ideas
Start Your Own Online Home Business
Anyone within eye shot of this article now has no excuse to not write and submit articles. Cynthia has truly presented the magic of article marketing for your PIPS Business. Read it, learn it, and apply it ASAP!
"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed from one another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all."
--Voltaire
Doug Gorman
Work Be Gone Online Home Business
Find Faith in Online Internet Home Business
Work Be Gone Home Biz Blog
