Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Death and Resurrection of Quality Content

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2011 Bill Platt



No matter where you go online, you are bound to find someone complaining about the quality of content available online. When we want to find information that answers our questions for us, the last thing we want to do is to land on a MFA (Made For Adsense) website with questionable content. And yet, many of the people who complain about this state of affairs also contribute to the problem.

Believe it or not, you have the ability to become part of the solution, rather than to continue being part of the problem. Keep reading to learn how...

As the people who create the content that the world consumes, through the World Wide Web, we are in a very unique position. We have the power to change the future of the Internet... We have the power to change the world for the better...

We have the power to turn the Internet into something our children and grandchildren could value...

People who do not market goods and services online wonder why the Internet has become a cesspool or irrelevant and badly written content... They wonder why the information they find online is littered with so much junk and garbage... They wonder why marketers are willing to ruin the Internet in a quest to make a few extra dollars...

Google, more than any other website, understands the battle that they must win... They must devise systems that will conquer and destroy the wealth of junk content online... It is a battle that that Google must win, in order to ensure the longevity of its value in the marketplace...

Over the last year, Bing has been eating into Google's market share, in its effort to capture more eyeballs and more advertising dollars...

The wizards behind the curtain at Google understand that Google needs to change to survive. They know that Bing is winning market share, because Google's search results are littered with a vast empire of junk content, masquerading as quality content. Information consumers have begun to take notice the heaps of junk in Google's search results... And they are starting to notice in large numbers...

Google must adapt or die...

As a result, Google is becoming somewhat more aggressive to weed out the kinds of content that people are afraid that they cannot trust...

There are still vast opportunities for marketers to take advantage of Google, in order to convince Google's search algorithms that a filthy, stinking piece of dog poo is good quality content... So if this has been your business model until now, you will still have opportunities to play that game into the future...

But the reality is that the dog poo method of creating content for the Internet is one that can only promise short-term gains... Up until Google figures out how to recognize the dog poo on the Internet...

As online marketers, we are in a unique position of power... If we are willing to make a commitment to raise the bar on the quality of content we provide to the global community, we can start cleaning up our own corner of the Internet, one day at a time...

And if we are willing to make a commitment to better quality information, we can ensure a more long-term viability for our online businesses, because our content will be at a level where Google does not feel a need to whack our brand of Internet Marketing...

When the Google Spam Team looks out on the vastness of the Internet and sees our content as an example of the kind of Internet they want to endorse, we will find Google technicians making a commitment not to cleanse our websites from its search results.

As web content creators, we have the power to raise the bar... We have the power to create the kind of content that our children and grandchildren will be happy to share with their grandchildren...

We have the power through the words that we choose to improve the quality of the Internet, and to make it a community more people are happy to participate...

We have the power, and our power begins with a simple idea:

If we make a commitment to using less automation and investing more personal time into our topics, with more regard for building an audience and less focus on trying to snatch another link, then we could position ourselves to ride the wave of great content to personal financial success...

Yes, it really is that easy...

We only need to make a decision to do the right thing, lead by example, and take action to bring the dream to life...


About the Author:
This simple article writing guide will teach you how to create good-quality, profit-producing articles reliably and in 20 minutes or less. Sign up to receive our FREE twice-weekly marketing tips via email. If you are available on Friday or Saturday night, join Bill Platt and other online marketers at: http://LiveMarketingChat.com/


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Monday, March 14, 2011

21 Tips for Defeating Writer's Block

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2011 Trey Pennewell



One of the most difficult aspects of article writing and marketing, once you have been doing it for a longer period of time, is how to come up with fresh topics to write about. It is even more difficult to put your finger on ideas that are hot and related to your topic.

Here are some suggestions to help you get those creative juices flowing again.

  • Visit forums related to your niche. Spend 30 minutes a day in forums related to your niche. Write down common questions or inquiries and use those to craft articles.

  • Visit the Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. If one person has asked the question, chances are there are many more who have it but are afraid to ask. Answer the most common questions you see with a new article.

  • Check the news. Being on top of the industry news will help you be able to write related articles as the news events take place. This can also be a great way to grab expanded exposure. By piggy backing off the hot topic you can grab way more readers then you would with a normal topic. And not just the big news stations either. Some of the smaller more local stations may have topics not covered by the larger ones and can be a potential goldmine for ideas.

  • Set up a Google alert for your topic. This way you'll be emailed how ever frequently you choose, with up to date blogs and posts and new stories related to your topic that you can get and gain ideas from.

  • Spend 30 minutes brainstorming. Do not allow yourself to focus on anything but your topic. This will get easier the more times you do it. It can be difficult the first few times to get your mind to actually produce something, but once you've done it a few times your mind will know you mean business and will help you populate ideas quite quickly.

  • Use Google's wonder wheel for ideas. Instead of using it to get keywords, use it to help you get some ideas as to what to write about.

  • Create a mind map about your topic. And then each and every sub-topic that you come up with, until you have multiple mini mind maps and plenty of ideas to source article topics from.

  • If you're really stuck, check out the competition. Seeing what they are writing about may give you ideas of what to write about.

  • Re-purpose old articles. But, not by rewriting them. Instead approach the same topic from another angle. If your topic was say 5 tips to succeed in article writing, a new approach would be 5 things to avoid in article writing, or 5 tips to improve, or a better way to do it. Just using the same general idea, and giving it life in a new way can be the perfect method to get unstuck.

  • Check out the bookstore or the library. The ones that have real books. Look at some of the ones related to your niche and see if you can't gain some writing ideas from them.

  • Go to e-book sites as well. Do the same thing as you did with Amazon and the library. Look for titles in your niche, and use those to help you get new creative ideas to write about.

  • Use seasonal events to your advantage. Instead of just writing about autism, write about how to help autistic children cope with Christmas, or other such seasonal event related topics.

  • Carry a notebook with you. Ever feel like you've got the perfect idea but are not at home and able to write the article right away. Carry around a notebook so that when the idea strikes you can jot it down before you forget it again.

  • Get away from the computer for a bit. Real life and real life situations may give you ideas you never would have come up with by simply sitting in front of your monitor. Use real life experiences and events to create ideas and creativity for your articles.

  • Talk to industry leaders. Just a quick Q and A with someone in the industry may prompt ideas you would have never thought of otherwise.

  • Read. By reading what others have wrote on the topic you may be able to come up with ideas of your own, or a new twist on an old idea. The best writers and the most avid of readers.

  • Along the same lines as reading, read articles in some of your favorite authority blogs and websites. One of my favorite blogs is Mashable.com. They may bring to mind a thought or idea you may not have thought of otherwise.

  • Join a mastermind group. Being able to float ideas around with others and discuss your topic can help breathe new life into a topic you found going stale. And, it is a great way to set up potential cross promotions with others in your niche for the future.

  • Use your imagination. Put yourself into the mind of your target audience, and figure out questions and topics that may be important to them and write about them. Just a little bit of imagination and role playing can lead to many new ideas.

  • Watch movies or television shows related to your niche. They may cover topics or ideas you may not have previously covered or thought about.

  • Think about your own personal experiences. There may be things within them that you can revisit and create topics about, with a good solid base of reality to make for a more interesting and informative article.

  • Hopefully these ideas will help you come up with and create your own ideas and topics to write about. Ideas are limitless, you just need to develop the skills to mine the topics and ideas out of the things around you. The more you write and the more you strive to generate ideas, the more ideas you'll eventually come up with.




    About the Author:
    To make your article marketing more profitable, get your copy of, "Article Marketing Secrets: Turning Words Into Dollars". Or improve your writing speed with, "How To Write Articles Fast In 20 Minutes or Less Without Sacrificing Quality". Subscribe to our twice-weekly general marketing tips here: http://thephantomwriters.com/karmaonline Author: Trey Pennewell


    Read more of Trey Pennewell's articles.

    Friday, March 11, 2011

    14 Tips to Improve Your Article Writing and Article Marketing

    Article Presented by:
    Copyright © 2011 Trey Pennewell



    Everything online requires content, and articles are just one form of content. Learning how to write articles and create content should be a focal point for anyone looking to start a business or even a hobby online, after all like the saying goes, content is king.

    Here are some tips to help you write better articles:

    1. Write with an end goal in mind. Different types of articles work for different reasons. If you are looking for syndication and publication on authority websites, you're not going to want short, full of fluff 300 word articles. Instead, you'll want to go with long informative 800-1000 word articles that actually deliver quality information on your topic, in a format that works well for ezine and authority publishers.

    2. Do your research beforehand. The better you know the topic, the easier it will be to write for it. Simply by knowing your topic, you can drastically cut down on the time it takes to create informative articles your readers will enjoy. Attempt to comprehend your topic, before you sit down to write.

    3. Just write. The more you write, the better you will get at it. And not just on your topic. Challenge yourself. Write on anything and everything, and your overall writing skills will improve, not to mention your typing speed. Both things will help you reduce writing time in the long end.

    4. Write with the reader in mind. Instead of writing for your own purpose, think about it from the readers perspective. What is the reason they are reading your article? Are you addressing their needs and concerns? If you can get into the mind of your reader and what they are seeking from you and your writing, you'll be better equipped to write an article they will appreciate.

    5. If you are writing for back links, keywords matter. If you are writing for readers, forget about them. Keywords only help you get found in the search engines. If you are preparing high quality articles for syndication, you'll get the readers from the sites you are published to. That's not to say you want to go completely off topic, simply that keywords aren't vital, and if you are writing on topic anyways, the search engines will figure out where you belong in their search results. As Google recommends, create your content for your reader, to improve your chances of ranking well in Google. In my articles, I have found that to be true.

    6. Learn to craft captivating titles. Titles are one of the most important parts of the article marketing and writing battle. It doesn't matter how informative or well written your article is, if the title doesn't make readers open the article. Spend some time on your title. Actually focus on making it reader friendly and interesting. Your bottom line will thank you for this.

    7. Write with passion. If you are bored to tears by your topic, chances are your writing is going to reflect your boredom, be dry and present less than glamorous prose. If you are in love with your topic, it will shine through your words and come across to the reader. This is one reason many suggest when you are just getting started to go with a passion. It is much simpler to write about something that you get emotional about, than to write about something you have no emotional investment in.

    8. Don't proof read and spell check as your write. Stopping and changing your mind frame from creation to editing can interrupt your flow of thought. Instead focus on getting the thoughts and ideas down, and then go back and do the spelling and grammar checks. You'll find your mind thinks and writes that much quicker by using this method.

    9. Focus on quality. There will forever be the debate over quality and quantity. Few take into consideration that quality will naturally breed quantity, through syndication and other methods. If you are consistently providing high quality articles, publishers will love utilizing your content and do so on a regular basis. And the more publishers that take notice of your work, the more targeted traffic you will be getting. Much more targeted traffic then that coming from article directories and other such places.

    10. Turn off your word count tool. Stop checking the word count and simply write until the idea has been fully explained to the reader. If that takes 300 words so be it. If it takes 1000, then let it. Stopping the flow of ideas simply to stay in line with a word count is a sure fire way to leave your articles lacking that finished feel.

    11. Read. Yes, read. The more you read and the more you expand your horizons, the better your writing will be. Simply taking in the written word, exploring and understanding other writing methods and formations will help you in your own writing. It can also help you increase your vocabulary and find styles that really reach out and grab readers by the eyeballs.

    12. Check out what the competition is doing, and do it better. If your competition is providing lackluster articles, that barely wet your taste for the subject, go above and beyond, and your readers will notice. By knowing what kind of content you are trying to compete with, you can improve your own skills and marketing mindset.

    13. Use the language of your target audience. If you are writing for highly educated people, your writing should reflect that. If you are writing for mass appeal, stick to relatively lower level writing, think grade 8 levels. If a grade 8 student could read and interpret what you are saying, you have succeeded. If they cannot, you may want to revise your writing style and language.

    14. Understand that writing is a skill. And as such, needs to be constantly worked upon. Malcolm Gladwell stated in "Outliers" it takes 10,000 hours to master something. Master writing by continually working on it and the improvement of your skills. And by the time you reach 10,000 hours of work, you'll have mastered the skill and no longer need others tips and technique to make your writing vibrant and a success.

    Hopefully these tips will help you master article writing and marketing. In the end, all that matters is that you actually do it. No amount of tips or tricks are going to help you if you don't just get started and get that writing underway. Begin writing and over time your skills and abilities will improve, and your writing will reflect your growing knowledge and skills. Writing starts the same way for everyone, with a blank page waiting to be filled. Get started filling yours today.


    About the Author:
    To make your article marketing more profitable, get your copy of, "Article Marketing Secrets: Turning Words Into Dollars". Or improve your writing speed with, "How To Write Articles Fast In 20 Minutes or Less Without Sacrificing Quality". Subscribe to our twice-weekly general marketing tips here: http://thephantomwriters.com/karmaonline Author: Trey Pennewell


    Read more of Trey Pennewell's articles.

    Friday, March 4, 2011

    Cutting Through The Information Overload: Grab Your Readers' Attention With a Great Title

    Article Presented by:
    Copyright © 2011 Bill Platt



    As avid readers, we have trained our brains to scan the headlines looking for something that might suit our desires... This article will give you a solid understanding of how to grab your readers by the eyeballs and get them to open and read your articles...

    You Have Only a Split-Second To Make A Good First Impression

    Think about how you browse the Internet, and you will know this to be true. We scan the titles / headlines, looking for something to pop off the page...

    When something reaches up and grabs us by the eyeballs, we take a closer look...

    We look at the title with a greater attention to detail, and if a description is available, we will look at the description to see if it agrees with the title enough to merit our continued interest.

    The decision to look at a title with more attention is usually made within a split-second. The decision to open the article is usually made in ten seconds or less.

    Keywords in a Title Help

    There are certain keywords that when seen in a title will be the trigger someone to look closer at the article title.

    Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, it is not always necessary for your target keywords to be in the front part of the title.

    Your keywords only need to be "in the title" somewhere, in order to attract the readers' eyeballs to your title.

    The title should be constructed to build curiosity in the article and to lead the reader to make a decision to open and read the article.

    Let me reiterate this point, because it is that important. The purpose of the title is to get the article opened, and the inclusion of keywords in the title is to attract eyeballs to the title.

    Let The Article Description Build On The Progress Made With The Title

    In some cases, your article title will be accompanied by an article description, but not always.

    Your article description should be constructed to create even more interest in the article by giving some additional details about what can be expected to be found within the article itself.

    Often times, the first paragraph of the article is used as the article description.

    If both are the same, that is fine. But if both the article description and the first paragraph of the article are different, then both should be constructed with the same goal in mind. Both should be constructed to build more interest in the article, to ensure that the reader makes a decision to keep reading.

    The Goal Is To Get Someone To Your Resource Box To Take An Action

    As article writers, our goal is always to get the reader to our articles' Resource Box to get them to take the actions we want them to take.

    But there are many hurdles that we must overcome, before the reader can take the action we want them to take.

    We must get our articles into a location where people are likely to find them.

    An article that never gets opened, never gets read.

    An article that does not hold the readers' attention until the end of the article will fail to deliver on its intended goal of getting the reader to the resource box.

    A closing paragraph or resource box that tells the reader that they have come to the end of the article, before the reader has been presented with a call-to-action is also an article that fails to achieve its real potential.

    And a resource box that does not get read is a resource box that missed the mark.

    After all that could have gone wrong in the process of the article, the writer faces one more challenge that is often more difficult than all other challenges to overcome...

    Writers Must Be Able To Overcome Writers' Block and Get The Article Written

    I'd be lying if I said that I never experienced writers' block, even after having written thousands of articles in the last decade.

    2009 was a turning point for me as a writer.

    That was when I discovered an awesome method of increasing my writing speed reliably and consistently.

    To be honest, when I had my revelation, I was able to cut my average writing time from around two hours to just under 20 minutes.

    My new article writing strategy begins with good research. If you get my 20-Minute Article report, I will teach you how to do your research and organize that research in such a way that you will be able to write most of your articles in less than 20 minutes as well, without having to sacrifice the good quality content that you need to attract readers and keep them on your article until they have seen your call-to-action.


    About the Author:
    Get your copy of my 20-Minute Article Writing Strategy Guide here: http://thephantomwriters.com/article-writing-guide/ And sign up to receive my twice-weekly email that delivers Free Marketing Tips. My name is Bill Platt, and I thank you for reading. If you are available on Friday or Saturday night, join Bill and other online marketers at: http://LiveMarketingChat.com/


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