Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2007-2008 Bill Platt
Wikipedia is the center of the online encyclopedia universe. Millions of entries on every conceivable topic makes this website an authority source that many young students and adults turn to from all corners of the globe.
The widespread popularity of Wikipedia has made it an easy target for quite a bit of controversy and critique. Many academic institutions disapprove of any use of unverified Internet sources, including Wikipedia articles. Ironically, Wikipedia prides itself on the idea that its information is verifiable. Read more about Wikipedia's Verifiability policy here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
Wikipedia Basics
Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is a free content resource that anyone can submit information to according to certain submission rules. Articles are written and submitted by anyone interested in the topic being discussed.
Authenticity is supposedly ensured by the ability of others to edit previously submitted information and correct any errors. Grossly inappropriate or incorrect articles can be nominated for deletion. Wikipedia users are given a week to vote on the appropriate response to a deletion nomination.
These safeguards have been built into Wikipedia's design as a way of preserving both its credibility and authenticity. While Wikipedia's systems of checks and balances are not failsafe, they do eliminate quite a few of the errors that would otherwise occur.
The fact that the website's content is made up exclusively by donated content and that it has over 2 million topic articles is a testament to the popularity of this style. While there are no basic rules for submitting articles, there are basic guidelines that Wikipedia asks submitting authors to follow.
Maintaining a neutral tone and presenting the information in a fair unbiased way are the perfect tones that dictate encyclopedia articles. Authors and editors are expected to be respectful of the work of others and not to modify anything without a good reason or verifiable references.
Controversy
Academic institutions and authority reference sources such as encyclopedia companies have been less impressed with Wikipedia than the general public. There are many reasons for the less than enthusiastic response from institutions of higher learning and professional reference companies.
The publishers of Encyclopedia Britannica became enraged when a study claimed that the accuracy of Wikipedia was comparable to the accuracy of Britannica's long-standing published encyclopedia. They widely disputed the results, insisting that their publication is by far the more superior publication.
Public opinion sides with Britannica. The majority of most people, when polled, have great faith in the reputation of Britannica and hold it in much higher regard than its online counterparts.
The convenience of the Internet encyclopedia version is where a lot of its competition with Britannica arises. Being able to access any information with the click of a mouse brings research to a whole new level.
Wikipedia and Academics
Studies are regularly inconsistent on the accuracy of Wikipedia. There is a wide range in the quality and accuracy of the Wiki articles online.
Articles are constantly being modified and improved upon. When doing research, it is very important to double-check all information. Wikipedia is a great resource, but it should never be trusted as the final word on any topic.
Members of academia are prone to carry negative feelings towards to the use of Wikipedia. Most become agitated when their students source Wikipedia, because they feel their students are not able to tell the difference between a good resource and a bad one – a truthful fact or an erroneous statement.
A commonly held belief is that a student lacks the common sense or ability to differentiate between a good article and a biased, inadequate presentation of a story as fact. Academia also points to the general lack of solid research supporting most Wikipedia articles.
Lazy Research
There is no excuse for laziness, but the blame for it is often placed on the presence of technology instead of where it actually belongs – on the people who rely on technology to provide them the shortcuts they take.
The modern age is one of advanced technology and many students are more than willing to take advantage of the ease of relying on computers and minimal online research.
The primary function of schools is to teach children. Not only are they responsible for teaching them facts, but also for teaching them how to think and solve problems for themselves. When students are no longer able, or willing, to logically decide something, academics are quick to blame the ease of access to technological advances, separating themselves from the blame.
Unfortunately, schools hold as much blame as the technology they bash, for the falling ability of students to produce results on their own. When I was in high school during the early 1980's, calculators were prohibited in all classes except for the advanced mathematics classes that required the use of scientific calculators. By the mid-1990's, the children of friends were telling me that they were required to bring a simple calculator to the classroom to assist them in their basic math calculations.
Academia is generally as responsible for the falling academic performance of students as website sources such as Wikipedia. Although academia shares in the blame for falling academic performance with poor resources like Wikipedia, this shared blame should not excuse Wikipedia's less than ideal service record.
One Thousand Monkeys Typing The Next Great Novel
Wikipedia and all of its sister projects are not perfect. They are websites dedicated to providing knowledge to everyone. Those willing to share what they have learned donate to this knowledge base in hopes of helping others. At least, that is what they do in theory.
The Wikipedia frontier has real possibility for the future, but behind the scenes, it is rife with "monkeys learning to type the next great novel," as sourced in the Infinite Monkey Theorem at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem). There are some areas of the Wikipedia that are definitely lacking in information and credibility, and yet when someone makes a gesture to add to the Wiki knowledge base, some editors frame these new contributions as unsupportable and unacceptable additions to the Wikipedia world.
The Wikipedia world relies upon its published Code Of Conduct to drive the decisions of its editors. Examples of the Wikipedia Code Of Conduct include:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BIO
The Wikipedia Monkey Brigade
One extreme example of the "Wikipedia Monkey Brigade" is the story of how Danny Sullivan noticed the attempt by some editor to delete the Matt Cutts chapter in the encyclopedia.
For those involved in the study of search engines, Danny Sullivan is one of the most recognized experts in the field of search engines, and has been since 1997. As the founder of Search Engine Watch, and now the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, Danny even has his own page in the Wikipedia world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Sullivan_%28technologist%29
It seems some Wikipedia editor decided that Matt Cutts was not notable enough for his own chapter in the Wikipedia. For those of us who work in the search engine optimization community, such a suggestion is absolutely obscene. As a quality control engineer for Google and the voice of Google's spam detection department, people in the search industry pay close attention to what Cutts says about the future of search placement within Google.
Sullivan suggested that the attempt to delete the Matt Cutts page was at the very least an example of how "inept" the Wikipedia editors have shown themselves to be. You can read Sullivan's heartfelt argument here: http://searchengineland.com/070108-170335.php
Almost as interesting as Sullivan's blog post about the suggestion to delete the Matt Cutts page from the Wikipedia, was the page where people argued the decision about whether the page was worthy of deletion. You can read that interchange here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Matt_Cutts
Those supporting the deletion of the page were quick to point out the Wikipedia guidelines on Notability at: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BIO) Strangely, I had read the guidelines myself and I felt that Matt Cutts was a slam-dunk for inclusion.
The Good Faith Argument
Much to my own surprise, the fellow who originally suggested that the Matt Cutts page should have been deleted got into the fray that resulted from his action. He even made reference to having read Sullivan's comments and chose to use them as a springboard to belittle Sullivan:
"The sources provided by Sullivan in his blog are interesting and some would even make great additions to a number of AfD-submitted articles to help fulfill notability (it's a shame he spent the time to make personal commentary about me on his blog than to improve these poorly drafted articles, but to each his own)."
For a guy who quotes the Wikipedia guidelines about "assuming good faith" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AGF) as frequently as he does, I think his own comments about Sullivan betray his double standards about "good faith".
It is true that one would not expect anyone who studied Bioinformatics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics) in college to understand who the players are in the search industry, but then one would also not expect a person who knew nothing about an industry to judge who is notable in that industry either. It would be like me assuming to be able to identify notable people in the bioinformatics field... Yep, that would be dishonest and silly.
Final Thoughts
The one thing that makes the world of Wikipedia both great and terrible is the same; it is the ability of people to make corrections to the Wikipedia encyclopedia when they see the need to do so. But, the truth is that any monkey with a keyboard and an Internet connection can create and edit documents in the Wikipedia community.
Even I am a Wikipedia editor... I may even be a monkey editor, but at the end of the day, I don't monkey around editing information about which I am clueless.
About the Author:
Bill Platt helps his customers with link building for their websites, through his program at: http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com. By writing original informational articles that would be of interest to his client's potential customers, he is able to provide keyword-embedded links to his client's website from contextually relevent pages on the Internet. If you have more questions, you may visit Bill's website or give him a call at (405) 780-7745, between the hours of 9am-6pm CST, Mon-Fri.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Will Companies Like Apple Eliminate Employees' Ability To Email?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2006-2008 Wesley Berry, AAF
Although Apple is a big company that's at the forefront of technological advances, it would seem there's one technical advance that heads of other companies are beginning to wish had never been made available to their employees-email. Email has become such a time waster and producer of problems between employees that many companies no longer consider it an appropriate way to communicate and are sharply curbing, or even eliminating, their employees' ability to use it.
HR Magazine, published by the Society for Human Resource Management, recently asked experts whether or not they felt small businesses are beginning to rely too much on computers. The response was loud and clear-"YES!"
One of the experts, Herb Greenberg, CEO and president of Caliper (and HR consulting firm in New Jersey), said, "I want to outlaw [email] from my company. Email is a guarantee that unintended messages will be disseminated. I've seen people not talk to each other, turf wars break out, and people quit their jobs as a result of emails."
Greenberg isn't the only one to feel that way. Most of the communication experts that HR Magazine spoke with agreed that emails are misinterpretations waiting to happen. As a result, lots of companies are starting restrict email in the workplace. Some allow only certain employees to send messages to the entire staff and others allow only certain types of messages to be sent. For example, no emails with bad news, counseling, negotiations, or coaching may be sent.
There's no doubt that email has its place in the world and can be an efficient means of communication, but it certainly does take the personal touch out of employee interactions-a trend that's all too common today.
To put the personal touch back into employee relations, I suggest the liberal use of flowers. Flowers are an excellent way for superiors to let their employees know how much the work they do is appreciated. They can say, "thanks for a job well done," "happy employment anniversary," or "congratulations on your promotion." A gift of flowers can boost morale and, what's more, a recent study conducted at A&M University showed that employees who are exposed to flowers in the workplace produce more creative solutions than those who work in buildings where there are no flowers.
So, while Apple may be pioneering advances in the technological industry, those of us in the floral industry will just stick to keeping things personal with flowers!
About the Author:
Wesley Berry is member of the American Academy of Floriculture (AAF) and President of Wesley Berry Flowers, a successful multi-million dollar floral business that was established in 1946. As a member of the Henry Ford Hospital Community Relation Board he has contributed to the community at large. He owns both a brick and mortar and an internet flower delivery business. Visit Wesley Berry Flowerson the web at www.800wesleys.com.
Copyright © 2006-2008 Wesley Berry, AAF
Although Apple is a big company that's at the forefront of technological advances, it would seem there's one technical advance that heads of other companies are beginning to wish had never been made available to their employees-email. Email has become such a time waster and producer of problems between employees that many companies no longer consider it an appropriate way to communicate and are sharply curbing, or even eliminating, their employees' ability to use it.
HR Magazine, published by the Society for Human Resource Management, recently asked experts whether or not they felt small businesses are beginning to rely too much on computers. The response was loud and clear-"YES!"
One of the experts, Herb Greenberg, CEO and president of Caliper (and HR consulting firm in New Jersey), said, "I want to outlaw [email] from my company. Email is a guarantee that unintended messages will be disseminated. I've seen people not talk to each other, turf wars break out, and people quit their jobs as a result of emails."
Greenberg isn't the only one to feel that way. Most of the communication experts that HR Magazine spoke with agreed that emails are misinterpretations waiting to happen. As a result, lots of companies are starting restrict email in the workplace. Some allow only certain employees to send messages to the entire staff and others allow only certain types of messages to be sent. For example, no emails with bad news, counseling, negotiations, or coaching may be sent.
There's no doubt that email has its place in the world and can be an efficient means of communication, but it certainly does take the personal touch out of employee interactions-a trend that's all too common today.
To put the personal touch back into employee relations, I suggest the liberal use of flowers. Flowers are an excellent way for superiors to let their employees know how much the work they do is appreciated. They can say, "thanks for a job well done," "happy employment anniversary," or "congratulations on your promotion." A gift of flowers can boost morale and, what's more, a recent study conducted at A&M University showed that employees who are exposed to flowers in the workplace produce more creative solutions than those who work in buildings where there are no flowers.
So, while Apple may be pioneering advances in the technological industry, those of us in the floral industry will just stick to keeping things personal with flowers!
About the Author:
Wesley Berry is member of the American Academy of Floriculture (AAF) and President of Wesley Berry Flowers, a successful multi-million dollar floral business that was established in 1946. As a member of the Henry Ford Hospital Community Relation Board he has contributed to the community at large. He owns both a brick and mortar and an internet flower delivery business. Visit Wesley Berry Flowerson the web at www.800wesleys.com.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Using Domains Expired To Make Online Profits
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 John Khu
Good and novelty domain names could be a great asset for you, when you consider their immense commercial value and perceived online utility. When the internet appeared first time, almost year's back, no one knew the potential value of domain names. With each passing day and as the concept of internet grew up down the years, people started identifying the potential money making values of good domains. With the impeding dot com bubble burst, several millions of domain names suddenly became orphaned and lonely over the wide expanse on internet. This was the unfortunate time when millions of net entrepreneurs lost everything they had, and they did not even have enough money to renew those domain names.
However, there were a fortunate lot of intelligent people, who anticipated and visualized the future prospects of holding all these domains expired. Soon, there was a new trend of people, who were racing against time to grab and buy domain expired. A new form of business took its birth, when intelligent domain name traders gobbled up millions of domains expired within days and months.
Why did they purchase such a huge number of domains expired? What were the real reasons? It seems that with the stabilization of internet and net business opportunities, new and enthusiastic people are looking for a good and old expired domain, so that they can use it for developing meaningful web sites. Secondly, trading in domains expired provides unlimited wealth and online riches to people within the shortest possible time.
Right now, people understand and perceive the commercial importance of buying very good domains expired. With a sustained rush for domain names, everyone is trying to test the waters to make some money online. As of now, the demand for good expired domain names is slowly increasing. A good domain name expired can cost you well under $100 to buy and register. But, it is possible to sell the same domain for an amount as high as $300, provided you sell it an auction process.
If you have a series of domains expired at your disposal, you can earn some decent income by using the power of expired domain names. One of the best ways to earn a simple income is to sell it straightaway to an interested buyer. But, with this option, you may not really earn a large income. So, you will need to devise a strategy that will provide you an opportunity to earn more income. One of the most preferred ways of earning small incomes by using domains expired, is to park it with a parking service. Parking service provides you a facility, where you can create a simple web page to host your expired domain name. When online surfers click on your page, they will navigate to other useful web site that can provide very good services, sell excellent products or provide useful online information. For very successful click, you can earn a small income and when pooled, this can be a very big source of income to you.
Other simple methods include registering your domains expired with convenient PPC and affiliate engines that provide a tiny share of income that arises out of successful sales or clicks. You can also use a good expired domain name to build a web site, develop it with good content and later sell them at premium rates to any interested parties. These are some of the simple methods that allow you to use the hidden power of domains expired to make a large pool of income. If you are careful enough in using your expired domains, you can earn a hefty profit and a sustained residual form of income.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Copyright © 2008 John Khu
Good and novelty domain names could be a great asset for you, when you consider their immense commercial value and perceived online utility. When the internet appeared first time, almost year's back, no one knew the potential value of domain names. With each passing day and as the concept of internet grew up down the years, people started identifying the potential money making values of good domains. With the impeding dot com bubble burst, several millions of domain names suddenly became orphaned and lonely over the wide expanse on internet. This was the unfortunate time when millions of net entrepreneurs lost everything they had, and they did not even have enough money to renew those domain names.
However, there were a fortunate lot of intelligent people, who anticipated and visualized the future prospects of holding all these domains expired. Soon, there was a new trend of people, who were racing against time to grab and buy domain expired. A new form of business took its birth, when intelligent domain name traders gobbled up millions of domains expired within days and months.
Why did they purchase such a huge number of domains expired? What were the real reasons? It seems that with the stabilization of internet and net business opportunities, new and enthusiastic people are looking for a good and old expired domain, so that they can use it for developing meaningful web sites. Secondly, trading in domains expired provides unlimited wealth and online riches to people within the shortest possible time.
Right now, people understand and perceive the commercial importance of buying very good domains expired. With a sustained rush for domain names, everyone is trying to test the waters to make some money online. As of now, the demand for good expired domain names is slowly increasing. A good domain name expired can cost you well under $100 to buy and register. But, it is possible to sell the same domain for an amount as high as $300, provided you sell it an auction process.
If you have a series of domains expired at your disposal, you can earn some decent income by using the power of expired domain names. One of the best ways to earn a simple income is to sell it straightaway to an interested buyer. But, with this option, you may not really earn a large income. So, you will need to devise a strategy that will provide you an opportunity to earn more income. One of the most preferred ways of earning small incomes by using domains expired, is to park it with a parking service. Parking service provides you a facility, where you can create a simple web page to host your expired domain name. When online surfers click on your page, they will navigate to other useful web site that can provide very good services, sell excellent products or provide useful online information. For very successful click, you can earn a small income and when pooled, this can be a very big source of income to you.
Other simple methods include registering your domains expired with convenient PPC and affiliate engines that provide a tiny share of income that arises out of successful sales or clicks. You can also use a good expired domain name to build a web site, develop it with good content and later sell them at premium rates to any interested parties. These are some of the simple methods that allow you to use the hidden power of domains expired to make a large pool of income. If you are careful enough in using your expired domains, you can earn a hefty profit and a sustained residual form of income.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
The Quickest Way To Get Cheap Sustained Website Traffic
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford
During a recent radio interview, one of the callers asked for several ways to get fast, cheap, sustained website traffic. She added on top of that "tall order" that she didn't want to use pay-per-clicks!
Digging deeply into my toolkit of traffic generation techniques that had actually work beautifully for me, I suggested joint ventures and article marketing. Then I had to admit that article marketing often doesn't produce an immediate flood of traffic but that it can be sustained and highly targeted.
Joint ventures get you fast and cheap traffic because you're arranging for those who already have the attention of your ideal customers to send them to you. You're convincing those who already have the trust and respect of your ideal customers to point out to them that you can help to solve their pressing problems.
My "answer" to the question of the quickest way to generate sustained, inexpensive website traffic still is joint ventures. As a joint venture broker, and Executive Director of The International Association of Joint Venture Brokers, I've seen first-hand how large, successful joint ventures with just the right partners can deliver 7-figure days.
However, the joint ventures that so typify product launches in the Internet marketing niche often miss delivering real "sustained" traffic. They are mostly "flash in the pan" launches where the traffic flow dies-off even faster than it builds up.
A better option for generating inexpensive, sustained, targeted website traffic is an affiliate program, or strategic partnerships. The strategic partnerships can even BE an affiliate program, where the partners have agreed to promote certain products within that affiliate program contributed by various members of the alliance.
In ultra-competitive niches, such as Internet marketing, where you often see dozens of new product launches per week, strategic alliances are almost a "requirement." It's sometimes so difficult just to get noticed that the secret to breaking through the clutter is TEAMWORK.
You often need to find a group of likeminded individuals, and then work to jointly develop, launch and promote group products and projects.
An example of a product launched using this model is the ebook "20 Ways To Make $100 Per Day Online." This ebook was written by members of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle (http://TIMIC.ORG), then group members created the buzz that got the product noticed and eventually started other affiliates promoting it.
The "20 Ways" ebook had a viral twist to it too though, and that's what created and will sustain it's growth. That viral aspect is the customer-only affiliate program. A customer is eligible to register as an affiliate, and then use their affiliate link to sell the ebook at 100% commission. The 20 Ways Ebook was indeed launched via a strategic alliance, an affiliate program, and viral marketing. It's a launch formula that you could easily model, and use to generate a steady stream of quick, inexpensive traffic.
Some would look at the "20 Ways" ebook though and ask "What's the point - if you then give away 100% commission?" The answer is that you need to build-in backend sales. Add links to your product that drive repeat customer back to you, or offer additional products to those customers on your download pages.
When I further contemplate the question of the fastest, easiest, cheapest ways to generate sustained website traffic, I would still have to say joint ventures... and an affiliate program. An affiliate program fits the "inexpensive" criteria because you only pay for performance. If the traffic doesn't convert to sales, it costs you absolutely nothing. Any costs involved in an affiliate program comes from revenue that you wouldn't otherwise have anyway.
The only twist missing from the "20 Ways" model that I would incorporate in hindsight... is to perhaps make some part of the ebook rebrandable. Perhaps use software such as Viral Document Toolkit to allow customer who buy resale rights (as an upsell) to change links within the ebook. No kind of resale rights are offered for the 20 Ways ebook, but it is a twist that you might want to consider for one of your products.
Anyway... joint ventures, an affiliate program, and releasing viral rebrandable products are all proven methods of quickly, easily, and cheaply setting in motion a sustainable flow of traffic!
About the Author:
Willie Crawford is an Internet marketer with over 11 years of experience at generating massive website traffic, and sales using viral marketing techniques. Viral Document Toolkit is his favorite tool for creating rebranded PDF ebooks in minutes. Checkout the demo video at: http://ViralDocumentToolkits.com
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford
During a recent radio interview, one of the callers asked for several ways to get fast, cheap, sustained website traffic. She added on top of that "tall order" that she didn't want to use pay-per-clicks!
Digging deeply into my toolkit of traffic generation techniques that had actually work beautifully for me, I suggested joint ventures and article marketing. Then I had to admit that article marketing often doesn't produce an immediate flood of traffic but that it can be sustained and highly targeted.
Joint ventures get you fast and cheap traffic because you're arranging for those who already have the attention of your ideal customers to send them to you. You're convincing those who already have the trust and respect of your ideal customers to point out to them that you can help to solve their pressing problems.
My "answer" to the question of the quickest way to generate sustained, inexpensive website traffic still is joint ventures. As a joint venture broker, and Executive Director of The International Association of Joint Venture Brokers, I've seen first-hand how large, successful joint ventures with just the right partners can deliver 7-figure days.
However, the joint ventures that so typify product launches in the Internet marketing niche often miss delivering real "sustained" traffic. They are mostly "flash in the pan" launches where the traffic flow dies-off even faster than it builds up.
A better option for generating inexpensive, sustained, targeted website traffic is an affiliate program, or strategic partnerships. The strategic partnerships can even BE an affiliate program, where the partners have agreed to promote certain products within that affiliate program contributed by various members of the alliance.
In ultra-competitive niches, such as Internet marketing, where you often see dozens of new product launches per week, strategic alliances are almost a "requirement." It's sometimes so difficult just to get noticed that the secret to breaking through the clutter is TEAMWORK.
You often need to find a group of likeminded individuals, and then work to jointly develop, launch and promote group products and projects.
An example of a product launched using this model is the ebook "20 Ways To Make $100 Per Day Online." This ebook was written by members of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle (http://TIMIC.ORG), then group members created the buzz that got the product noticed and eventually started other affiliates promoting it.
The "20 Ways" ebook had a viral twist to it too though, and that's what created and will sustain it's growth. That viral aspect is the customer-only affiliate program. A customer is eligible to register as an affiliate, and then use their affiliate link to sell the ebook at 100% commission. The 20 Ways Ebook was indeed launched via a strategic alliance, an affiliate program, and viral marketing. It's a launch formula that you could easily model, and use to generate a steady stream of quick, inexpensive traffic.
Some would look at the "20 Ways" ebook though and ask "What's the point - if you then give away 100% commission?" The answer is that you need to build-in backend sales. Add links to your product that drive repeat customer back to you, or offer additional products to those customers on your download pages.
When I further contemplate the question of the fastest, easiest, cheapest ways to generate sustained website traffic, I would still have to say joint ventures... and an affiliate program. An affiliate program fits the "inexpensive" criteria because you only pay for performance. If the traffic doesn't convert to sales, it costs you absolutely nothing. Any costs involved in an affiliate program comes from revenue that you wouldn't otherwise have anyway.
The only twist missing from the "20 Ways" model that I would incorporate in hindsight... is to perhaps make some part of the ebook rebrandable. Perhaps use software such as Viral Document Toolkit to allow customer who buy resale rights (as an upsell) to change links within the ebook. No kind of resale rights are offered for the 20 Ways ebook, but it is a twist that you might want to consider for one of your products.
Anyway... joint ventures, an affiliate program, and releasing viral rebrandable products are all proven methods of quickly, easily, and cheaply setting in motion a sustainable flow of traffic!
About the Author:
Willie Crawford is an Internet marketer with over 11 years of experience at generating massive website traffic, and sales using viral marketing techniques. Viral Document Toolkit is his favorite tool for creating rebranded PDF ebooks in minutes. Checkout the demo video at: http://ViralDocumentToolkits.com
Monday, June 2, 2008
Search Engine Optimization And The Magic Fairy Dust
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2007-2008 Bill Platt
There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon... They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffic and consumers to their website.
The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.
For any given search term at any given time, there are only ten web pages on page one of the search results, and there are millions of web pages that did not make page one, who may or may not catch a few stragglers from the search engines.
How Can A Website Break Into The Top Ten?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that has sprung up around the concept of helping their clients improve their rankings in the search engine results.
When you talk to SEO professionals, they generally point to a two-pronged approach to search ranking optimization. A website owner needs to optimize their on-site real estate for the search engines, and they need to build inbound links to their website.
On-Site Search Optimization Challenges
The trick with on-site search optimization is that you must cater to multiple audiences on your website.
You must provide simple navigation and an attractive interface to the human visitor;
You must provide good sales copy to your human visitors, for the purpose of converting them from shoppers to buyers;
You must provide text copy for the search engines to read; and
You must optimize your content to help the search engines know what topics and keywords they should pay attention, so that they can give their users the right web page for the right search terms.
A web page that draws good search rankings is useless if the web page cannot convert the human visitor to a buyer. Many website owners get caught up in the process of optimizing a web page to get it to the top of the search results, and they forget that the human visitor knows where the Back Button is in his or her browser. Once your visitor has hit the Back Button, they will go to someone else's website and buy from them, instead of you.
Most website owners have the alternate problem. They consistently convert a significant number of visitors to buyers, but they have to rely on various forms of paid advertising to get visitors to their websites, since they do not rank in the search engines.
I recently spoke with an individual who spends $60,000 per month on pay-per-click advertising to get targeted traffic to his website. He said he consistently earns back his money, but he was still looking for a better way to get ranked in the search engines, so he joined my client list.
On-Site Search Engine Optimization Basics
According to the search engine companies, there are more than one thousand calculations that determine how well a website will rank in their search engine result pages (SERPs).
The Google engineers are fond of saying that if you build your website for human beings instead of search engines, then your website should rank well in their algorithms. To a certain degree, this is a good strategy.
Think about how magazines are constructed:
The Table Of Contents shows story titles, brief descriptions, and page numbers telling you where you can find a story.
On the story page, the title will be in big, bold font. Sometimes, the magazine will include a brief blurb about the story, in italics or font that is a bit bigger than the story font.
Pictures support the story with captions that further develop the story, by describing the picture.
Major subsections of the story have their own subheadings. And, the primary body of the story is in regular plain text, with only an occasional bolded or italicized word or phrase.
By analyzing the title and other large text on the page, a person who is flipping through the pages of a magazine can quickly assess the story content and make the decision as to whether they want to read the full story.
In the most simplistic way, this is how the search engines analyze a websites' content to decide which web page will best serve their users' needs.
Off-Site Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Basics
Since the inception of Google, and with Yahoo and MSN recently, the number and quality of links pointing to a website play a significant role in determining how well a web page will rank in the search results.
I have heard people suggest that as much as 75% of the value given to a web page in the search results is based solely on the number and quality of links pointing to a web page. I tend to believe a more conservative number (50.1%) will apply.
Inbound Links Are More Important Than Page Content
To prove this point, type "click here" without the quotes into Google, Yahoo and MSN and check the Adobe pages that come up in the search results: #1 in Google, #2 in Yahoo, and #1 in MSN. When you pull up those pages, search the page to find the individual words "click" or "here" in the text of those pages. They are not there. This has happened because millions of people have linked to these Adobe pages with the embedded anchor text, "click here".
Next, let's analyze those specific web pages from the perspective of each of the search engines:
Google's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) Links to this web page: according to Google (31); according to Yahoo (nearly 12 million); according to MSN (6,400).
Yahoo's #2 result - Google PageRank 10. (www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer) Links to this web page: Google (15,200); Yahoo (700 thousand); MSN (32).
MSN's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash) Links to this web page: Google (0); Yahoo (2.9 million); MSN (778).
On Google's top result, they show 31 inbound links total for that web page. But, Yahoo claims that there are more than 12 million links to this page. That is a huge difference.
On Yahoo's #2 result, MSN gives 32 links, Google gives 15,000 links, and Yahoo claims it has 700 thousand links! That is another huge difference between the link counts from the search engines.
On MSN's #1 result, MSN shows a strong link count, but still nowhere near Yahoo's 2.9 million links. But, how does a web page with zero links in Google get a PageRank 8?
What Do These Numbers Mean?
Google has always said that they will never show us all of the links that we have pointing to our websites, because anything we can see in the public search results, our competitors can see also. So, for me it really is no surprise that we cannot see all of the links that point to Adobe pages, or to the links we have created that point to our clients and ourselves, by querying the search engines.
Also, the sheer numbers of inbound links do not rule the roost. Google's #1 result (PR8) is actually shown in Google, before Yahoo's #2 (PR10) result.
The Proof For Link Building Is In The Search Engine Rankings
Recently, a fellow who works as a SEO "professional" told me that be believed my link building system was a sham.
I showed him that on the top 51 keyword phrases we use to market our original commercial website, we had 11 number one results, 31 top five results, 34 top ten results, 47 top thirty results, and 51 top 100 results within the Google search results. Additionally, it was shown that only three of those results competed with fewer than one million search results according to Google, with the remaining 48 pages competing with one million to 533 million pages.
Ole boy tore up Google trying to track how it was possible for me to have accomplished what I claimed. He finally concluded that since Google would not show HIM how I was able to rank so well in their search engine results, then I must have been lying.
According to Yahoo, we have over 12,000 links from third-party websites. According to our site statistics, we received traffic from more than 16,000 unique web pages during 2006. And Google still swears that we only have 42 inbound links to our website!
Magic Fairy Dust
My nemesis concluded that since HE could not prove through Google how I was successful in getting good search rankings, then I could not have accomplished such results by the methods I claimed.
Okay, I admit it.
I used the exact same method that Adobe used to get to the top of Google's search engine rankings. I have a pocket full of magic fairy dust. Whenever, I do not like how my websites rank in the search engines, I sprinkle my magic fairy dust on my modem.
If you don't like where you are ranked in the search engines, then I suggest you forego the search engine optimization companies altogether and instead run over to the corner store to get your own magic fairy dust. You might have to shop around a bit, but it is out there.
About the Author:
Bill Platt has been involved with link building since 1999 for his own promotion and for search engine marketing purposes, and he has been doing it professionally for clients since 2001. Visit http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com to learn more. If you would like to talk to Bill in person, he can be reached at (405) 780-7745 between 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday.
More Article Marketing Tips can be found at: http://www.keywordtext.com/
Copyright © 2007-2008 Bill Platt
There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon... They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffic and consumers to their website.
The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.
For any given search term at any given time, there are only ten web pages on page one of the search results, and there are millions of web pages that did not make page one, who may or may not catch a few stragglers from the search engines.
How Can A Website Break Into The Top Ten?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that has sprung up around the concept of helping their clients improve their rankings in the search engine results.
When you talk to SEO professionals, they generally point to a two-pronged approach to search ranking optimization. A website owner needs to optimize their on-site real estate for the search engines, and they need to build inbound links to their website.
On-Site Search Optimization Challenges
The trick with on-site search optimization is that you must cater to multiple audiences on your website.
A web page that draws good search rankings is useless if the web page cannot convert the human visitor to a buyer. Many website owners get caught up in the process of optimizing a web page to get it to the top of the search results, and they forget that the human visitor knows where the Back Button is in his or her browser. Once your visitor has hit the Back Button, they will go to someone else's website and buy from them, instead of you.
Most website owners have the alternate problem. They consistently convert a significant number of visitors to buyers, but they have to rely on various forms of paid advertising to get visitors to their websites, since they do not rank in the search engines.
I recently spoke with an individual who spends $60,000 per month on pay-per-click advertising to get targeted traffic to his website. He said he consistently earns back his money, but he was still looking for a better way to get ranked in the search engines, so he joined my client list.
On-Site Search Engine Optimization Basics
According to the search engine companies, there are more than one thousand calculations that determine how well a website will rank in their search engine result pages (SERPs).
The Google engineers are fond of saying that if you build your website for human beings instead of search engines, then your website should rank well in their algorithms. To a certain degree, this is a good strategy.
Think about how magazines are constructed:
The Table Of Contents shows story titles, brief descriptions, and page numbers telling you where you can find a story.
On the story page, the title will be in big, bold font. Sometimes, the magazine will include a brief blurb about the story, in italics or font that is a bit bigger than the story font.
Pictures support the story with captions that further develop the story, by describing the picture.
Major subsections of the story have their own subheadings. And, the primary body of the story is in regular plain text, with only an occasional bolded or italicized word or phrase.
By analyzing the title and other large text on the page, a person who is flipping through the pages of a magazine can quickly assess the story content and make the decision as to whether they want to read the full story.
In the most simplistic way, this is how the search engines analyze a websites' content to decide which web page will best serve their users' needs.
Off-Site Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Basics
Since the inception of Google, and with Yahoo and MSN recently, the number and quality of links pointing to a website play a significant role in determining how well a web page will rank in the search results.
I have heard people suggest that as much as 75% of the value given to a web page in the search results is based solely on the number and quality of links pointing to a web page. I tend to believe a more conservative number (50.1%) will apply.
Inbound Links Are More Important Than Page Content
To prove this point, type "click here" without the quotes into Google, Yahoo and MSN and check the Adobe pages that come up in the search results: #1 in Google, #2 in Yahoo, and #1 in MSN. When you pull up those pages, search the page to find the individual words "click" or "here" in the text of those pages. They are not there. This has happened because millions of people have linked to these Adobe pages with the embedded anchor text, "click here".
Next, let's analyze those specific web pages from the perspective of each of the search engines:
On Google's top result, they show 31 inbound links total for that web page. But, Yahoo claims that there are more than 12 million links to this page. That is a huge difference.
On Yahoo's #2 result, MSN gives 32 links, Google gives 15,000 links, and Yahoo claims it has 700 thousand links! That is another huge difference between the link counts from the search engines.
On MSN's #1 result, MSN shows a strong link count, but still nowhere near Yahoo's 2.9 million links. But, how does a web page with zero links in Google get a PageRank 8?
What Do These Numbers Mean?
Google has always said that they will never show us all of the links that we have pointing to our websites, because anything we can see in the public search results, our competitors can see also. So, for me it really is no surprise that we cannot see all of the links that point to Adobe pages, or to the links we have created that point to our clients and ourselves, by querying the search engines.
Also, the sheer numbers of inbound links do not rule the roost. Google's #1 result (PR8) is actually shown in Google, before Yahoo's #2 (PR10) result.
The Proof For Link Building Is In The Search Engine Rankings
Recently, a fellow who works as a SEO "professional" told me that be believed my link building system was a sham.
I showed him that on the top 51 keyword phrases we use to market our original commercial website, we had 11 number one results, 31 top five results, 34 top ten results, 47 top thirty results, and 51 top 100 results within the Google search results. Additionally, it was shown that only three of those results competed with fewer than one million search results according to Google, with the remaining 48 pages competing with one million to 533 million pages.
Ole boy tore up Google trying to track how it was possible for me to have accomplished what I claimed. He finally concluded that since Google would not show HIM how I was able to rank so well in their search engine results, then I must have been lying.
According to Yahoo, we have over 12,000 links from third-party websites. According to our site statistics, we received traffic from more than 16,000 unique web pages during 2006. And Google still swears that we only have 42 inbound links to our website!
Magic Fairy Dust
My nemesis concluded that since HE could not prove through Google how I was successful in getting good search rankings, then I could not have accomplished such results by the methods I claimed.
Okay, I admit it.
I used the exact same method that Adobe used to get to the top of Google's search engine rankings. I have a pocket full of magic fairy dust. Whenever, I do not like how my websites rank in the search engines, I sprinkle my magic fairy dust on my modem.
If you don't like where you are ranked in the search engines, then I suggest you forego the search engine optimization companies altogether and instead run over to the corner store to get your own magic fairy dust. You might have to shop around a bit, but it is out there.
About the Author:
Bill Platt has been involved with link building since 1999 for his own promotion and for search engine marketing purposes, and he has been doing it professionally for clients since 2001. Visit http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com to learn more. If you would like to talk to Bill in person, he can be reached at (405) 780-7745 between 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday.
More Article Marketing Tips can be found at: http://www.keywordtext.com/
Aged Expired Domains-Are They Really Good Enough?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 John Khu
Determining the real commercial value of an aged domain is quite difficult and tedious. Domain traders make it a point to grab aged domains from auction houses just to taste their hidden powers and commercial advantages. However, experienced and seasoned domain traders always doubt about the commercial viability of such domains. According to domain name experts, considering the actual age of a given expired domain is a very small factor.
Expired domains that are really old, say 12 years, may provide you some undeniable advantages due to their ripe, old age; lot of people can identify its name because of the old acquaintance. Now the big question is why do domain name traders desire the issue of age so badly? Is there something that you and I do not know? One conventional bit of thought says that all good quality domains were registered first and in actuality, they should be too good to be neglected. This seems a valid argument and a sensible issue as far as the issue of age is concerned.
On the other hand, some domain name traders are too skeptical about old domains, just because they may have nothing to offer you, except that they have a past record of continuous and consistent renewal. An old domain may just be a simple domain with no established history of traffic and inbound links. Experts also suggest that an old domain may have belonged to two categories of owners- an established business or industry that will never let their domain slip out of their hands, or an old domain owned by small businesses or individuals, who might have lost their control over their domains due to some unknown reasons.
However, there is one single significant advantage associated with old domains, especially when they relate themselves with the leading searching engines. Google has a verifiable system of grading domain names according to their age; its massive and humongous search technological algorithms ensure that really old domains are placed at their relevant search engine rank positions. However, at what position such domains get their ranking is still uncertain and unsure.
Fixing the actual price for such domains are actually very difficult and you may decide it going by the current market trends, while buying one such domain. However, one thing to note here is that people are ready to pay a fair price for such domains, just to utilize them for developing meaningful web sites. If you wish to buy an old expired domain, ensure that you are checking its age; if the age is more than say 8 years, you can definitely go for it. Age factors can help you find out the quality of generics, as this is a better indicator of finding the value of an expired domain name. Most of the premium and better quality domain names sprout from an internet boom era of late 1990's.
However, buying expired domains based on their perceived age could be a tricky issue and you may need to learn and understand how the age of a given domain expired can really help you in your domain trading business.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Copyright © 2008 John Khu
Determining the real commercial value of an aged domain is quite difficult and tedious. Domain traders make it a point to grab aged domains from auction houses just to taste their hidden powers and commercial advantages. However, experienced and seasoned domain traders always doubt about the commercial viability of such domains. According to domain name experts, considering the actual age of a given expired domain is a very small factor.
Expired domains that are really old, say 12 years, may provide you some undeniable advantages due to their ripe, old age; lot of people can identify its name because of the old acquaintance. Now the big question is why do domain name traders desire the issue of age so badly? Is there something that you and I do not know? One conventional bit of thought says that all good quality domains were registered first and in actuality, they should be too good to be neglected. This seems a valid argument and a sensible issue as far as the issue of age is concerned.
On the other hand, some domain name traders are too skeptical about old domains, just because they may have nothing to offer you, except that they have a past record of continuous and consistent renewal. An old domain may just be a simple domain with no established history of traffic and inbound links. Experts also suggest that an old domain may have belonged to two categories of owners- an established business or industry that will never let their domain slip out of their hands, or an old domain owned by small businesses or individuals, who might have lost their control over their domains due to some unknown reasons.
However, there is one single significant advantage associated with old domains, especially when they relate themselves with the leading searching engines. Google has a verifiable system of grading domain names according to their age; its massive and humongous search technological algorithms ensure that really old domains are placed at their relevant search engine rank positions. However, at what position such domains get their ranking is still uncertain and unsure.
Fixing the actual price for such domains are actually very difficult and you may decide it going by the current market trends, while buying one such domain. However, one thing to note here is that people are ready to pay a fair price for such domains, just to utilize them for developing meaningful web sites. If you wish to buy an old expired domain, ensure that you are checking its age; if the age is more than say 8 years, you can definitely go for it. Age factors can help you find out the quality of generics, as this is a better indicator of finding the value of an expired domain name. Most of the premium and better quality domain names sprout from an internet boom era of late 1990's.
However, buying expired domains based on their perceived age could be a tricky issue and you may need to learn and understand how the age of a given domain expired can really help you in your domain trading business.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Balancing SEO Against The Needs of Your Article's Audience
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Hunter Waterhouse
Article marketing continues to be a proven method for generating traffic to our websites and developing good search placement, even after all of these years. I have been reading articles online since 1995, and I continue to read a few dozen articles per week on subjects that are dear to my heart.
Some Claim That Article Marketing Does Not Work
Now and again, I will read a thread in a forum somewhere where somebody claims that article marketing does not work.
Some article-marketing critics will admit that they have only distributed only one or two articles. Well yeah, I can see why article marketing did not work for them - because they did not work at making article marketing profitable for them.
Article marketing is like any other method of advertising. If you don't make a real investment in it, then you cannot reap great rewards from it.
The Marketing Rule Of Seven
Advertising professionals speak of the "Marketing Rule Of Seven," which suggests that a consumer must see your marketing message at least seven times before they start to pay attention to your message. The pros also suggest that once seven exposures have been achieved, the consumer will make a subtle, subconscious connection to the advertiser. Recognition brings rewards, in that after seven exposures to an advertisement, consumers will start to feel as if they know enough about the advertiser to trust their sales message.
If television, radio and print advertisers understand that a company's sales message must be seen or heard at least seven times, then why would you - the Internet marketer - think that you can write a single article and see the full benefit of the medium?
Successful Article Marketing Requires A Commitment To The Reader
All commerce on the Internet is driven by information, such as written sales messages and information about products and services. Some websites also benefit from generic information concerning topics that their potential clients will be interested in reading. For example, if a website sells plumbing supplies, the consumer may find the availability of information about how to remove the old fittings and how to install the new plumbing equipment, as an essential element of their purchase decision.
Article marketing when done correctly will not be a boring, blathering of search engine optimized keywords related to a product or service line.
Article marketing, when done well, will provide information that will be of real interest to the person most likely to buy what you are selling.
For example:
If you are selling auction services, give the reader tips to help them make more money from the sale of their goods in the auction environment or how a buyer can find a good deal.
If you are selling auto warranties, tell the reader how to uncover the best value in an auto warranty plan and what features to seek.
If you are selling resume services, give the reader advice on how to write their own resume.
Article marketing when used well can help a company establish itself as an expert in the field, and it can help show a reader why hiring the author's service might be better than a do-it-yourself project. As an example, with the resume advice article, once the reader sees how comprehensive your knowledge is and how detailed a resume should be, the reader may just decide that using your resume writing service will be much more productive than the do-it-yourself resume.
Just Like Lawyers, Writers Specialize Too
Beyond the cost of labor, content development is usually the second most expensive expenditure made by the online vendor. It is important to note that just as there are lawyers who specialize in one area of law, there are also ghostwriters who specialize in certain types of content creation.
People who write sales copy are referred to as "copywriters." Copywriters are people who understand the nuances of how to make people buy what you are selling.
They understand that replacing a single word in the sales copy could mean the difference between lukewarm sales numbers and red-hot sales numbers, and they know which words to change.
Some professional copywriters have a proven track record of writing sales copy that has generated millions of dollars in sales - people such as Frank Kern, Dan Lok, and Joe Vitale. These guys know the value of their copywriting skills, and they charge accordingly. If you ask them to write sales copy for you, don't be surprised when they quote you a price in the range of $5-20 per written word.
Other writers might specialize in writing books, brochures, and articles. Some writers specialize in the smaller word counts, like the folks who write greeting cards and book jackets.
Finding The Best Writer For Your Needs
The kid down the street who writes part-time for the newspaper may or may not be the best person to write your online articles for you. One reason is that people who write for offline publications seldom appreciate the importance of keywords in an article for search engine marketing purposes.
Note this article for example. Our purpose is to show you how you can use article marketing as a successful marketing tool for your business. We also want to show how the articles should appeal both to the reader and the search engine algorithms.
With these thoughts in mind, when you are finished reading this article, read it a second time to see how many variations on the following SEO keyword phrases can be found in this article: article marketing, search engine marketing, keywords, advertising, content creation, writers and copywriting. Of course, copywriting is not the kind of writing we do, but people who do not understand the specialization of writing skills might type "copywriting" or "copywriters" into their favorite search engine to find someone who writes informational articles.
One never knows precisely what the public will use as their search keywords when they go to the search engine to find information. That is the very reason why a good online article writer must strive to showcase a range of similar keywords within the context of an article.
Your Article Marketing Strategies Influence Your Overall Success
We know that some people tell you that the only reason to write an article is to get a link back to your website. What most of these people don't tell you is that most websites that accept reprint articles do so, only after a human has reviewed or at least scanned the article.
An article that does not read well will never be published on a top-tier website. Yes, some websites may accept a poorly written article, but more sites will only accept well-written articles.
A reader who is not impressed with your article will seldom reach your resource box, so the link back in the resource box can only give value to your website from the search engines - maybe. The search engines generally only give value to articles on good websites or those placements that have lots of links pointing to the article within the website. Bad articles don't get published on good websites, and they do not attract links.
As the Marketing Rule Of Seven should indicate, multiple articles generate a long-term wave of new links and potential visitors to your website.
Consistency is also important to a successful article marketing campaign, in that releasing weekly articles will enable your readers to see your marketing message regularly.
Finally, the smart use of a variety of related keyword phrases will strengthen the ability of your article to appeal to the search engines and the people who use them.
If you can balance the needs of your article's audience against your need for search optimized content, then you can benefit handsomely from your article marketing campaigns.
About the Author:
Hunter Waterhouse is a ghostwriter and editor. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see the quality of the websites that have published his articles, and you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. If you need ghost written articles, visit: http://www.reprintwriters.com If you have hired anyone to ghostwrite articles for you, confirm their honesty and the uniqueness of your articles, with the free Plagiarism Check Tool.
Copyright © 2008 Hunter Waterhouse
Article marketing continues to be a proven method for generating traffic to our websites and developing good search placement, even after all of these years. I have been reading articles online since 1995, and I continue to read a few dozen articles per week on subjects that are dear to my heart.
Some Claim That Article Marketing Does Not Work
Now and again, I will read a thread in a forum somewhere where somebody claims that article marketing does not work.
Some article-marketing critics will admit that they have only distributed only one or two articles. Well yeah, I can see why article marketing did not work for them - because they did not work at making article marketing profitable for them.
Article marketing is like any other method of advertising. If you don't make a real investment in it, then you cannot reap great rewards from it.
The Marketing Rule Of Seven
Advertising professionals speak of the "Marketing Rule Of Seven," which suggests that a consumer must see your marketing message at least seven times before they start to pay attention to your message. The pros also suggest that once seven exposures have been achieved, the consumer will make a subtle, subconscious connection to the advertiser. Recognition brings rewards, in that after seven exposures to an advertisement, consumers will start to feel as if they know enough about the advertiser to trust their sales message.
If television, radio and print advertisers understand that a company's sales message must be seen or heard at least seven times, then why would you - the Internet marketer - think that you can write a single article and see the full benefit of the medium?
Successful Article Marketing Requires A Commitment To The Reader
All commerce on the Internet is driven by information, such as written sales messages and information about products and services. Some websites also benefit from generic information concerning topics that their potential clients will be interested in reading. For example, if a website sells plumbing supplies, the consumer may find the availability of information about how to remove the old fittings and how to install the new plumbing equipment, as an essential element of their purchase decision.
Article marketing when done correctly will not be a boring, blathering of search engine optimized keywords related to a product or service line.
Article marketing, when done well, will provide information that will be of real interest to the person most likely to buy what you are selling.
For example:
Article marketing when used well can help a company establish itself as an expert in the field, and it can help show a reader why hiring the author's service might be better than a do-it-yourself project. As an example, with the resume advice article, once the reader sees how comprehensive your knowledge is and how detailed a resume should be, the reader may just decide that using your resume writing service will be much more productive than the do-it-yourself resume.
Just Like Lawyers, Writers Specialize Too
Beyond the cost of labor, content development is usually the second most expensive expenditure made by the online vendor. It is important to note that just as there are lawyers who specialize in one area of law, there are also ghostwriters who specialize in certain types of content creation.
People who write sales copy are referred to as "copywriters." Copywriters are people who understand the nuances of how to make people buy what you are selling.
They understand that replacing a single word in the sales copy could mean the difference between lukewarm sales numbers and red-hot sales numbers, and they know which words to change.
Some professional copywriters have a proven track record of writing sales copy that has generated millions of dollars in sales - people such as Frank Kern, Dan Lok, and Joe Vitale. These guys know the value of their copywriting skills, and they charge accordingly. If you ask them to write sales copy for you, don't be surprised when they quote you a price in the range of $5-20 per written word.
Other writers might specialize in writing books, brochures, and articles. Some writers specialize in the smaller word counts, like the folks who write greeting cards and book jackets.
Finding The Best Writer For Your Needs
The kid down the street who writes part-time for the newspaper may or may not be the best person to write your online articles for you. One reason is that people who write for offline publications seldom appreciate the importance of keywords in an article for search engine marketing purposes.
Note this article for example. Our purpose is to show you how you can use article marketing as a successful marketing tool for your business. We also want to show how the articles should appeal both to the reader and the search engine algorithms.
With these thoughts in mind, when you are finished reading this article, read it a second time to see how many variations on the following SEO keyword phrases can be found in this article: article marketing, search engine marketing, keywords, advertising, content creation, writers and copywriting. Of course, copywriting is not the kind of writing we do, but people who do not understand the specialization of writing skills might type "copywriting" or "copywriters" into their favorite search engine to find someone who writes informational articles.
One never knows precisely what the public will use as their search keywords when they go to the search engine to find information. That is the very reason why a good online article writer must strive to showcase a range of similar keywords within the context of an article.
Your Article Marketing Strategies Influence Your Overall Success
We know that some people tell you that the only reason to write an article is to get a link back to your website. What most of these people don't tell you is that most websites that accept reprint articles do so, only after a human has reviewed or at least scanned the article.
An article that does not read well will never be published on a top-tier website. Yes, some websites may accept a poorly written article, but more sites will only accept well-written articles.
A reader who is not impressed with your article will seldom reach your resource box, so the link back in the resource box can only give value to your website from the search engines - maybe. The search engines generally only give value to articles on good websites or those placements that have lots of links pointing to the article within the website. Bad articles don't get published on good websites, and they do not attract links.
As the Marketing Rule Of Seven should indicate, multiple articles generate a long-term wave of new links and potential visitors to your website.
Consistency is also important to a successful article marketing campaign, in that releasing weekly articles will enable your readers to see your marketing message regularly.
Finally, the smart use of a variety of related keyword phrases will strengthen the ability of your article to appeal to the search engines and the people who use them.
If you can balance the needs of your article's audience against your need for search optimized content, then you can benefit handsomely from your article marketing campaigns.
About the Author:
Hunter Waterhouse is a ghostwriter and editor. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see the quality of the websites that have published his articles, and you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. If you need ghost written articles, visit: http://www.reprintwriters.com If you have hired anyone to ghostwrite articles for you, confirm their honesty and the uniqueness of your articles, with the free Plagiarism Check Tool.
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