Online marketing has been a vast and rapidly growing outlet over the past decade. Obviously, there are many approaches to online marketing, but very few that come close to the effectiveness of article marketing. Article Marketing has provided a large portion of the visitors for some of the web’s most successful businesses and it has proven to be one of the most cost effective marketing techniques today.

What is Article Marketing and How Does it Work?

Article Marketing is the publication of written content on websites other than your own. Sometimes these websites may have similar content or products as your business. Sound like helping your competition? Here’s the catch. Your article includes a backlink – a link that leads to your own website. Simply put, you provide an article on other people’s websites that ends with a link back to your own website. The idea is that for those sites using your article, they must include the link back to your site.

The quality of your article’s content is a deciding factor in how many people will publish it on their sites. This is why it is very important that your articles be well written, purposeful, and relevant to the subject. If you don’t or can’t write the articles yourself, you might want to consider paying for someone to write for you. In the long run it will be worth it.

Is Article Marketing Effective

Article Marketing has become extremely popular because of the way search engines do their searching. There was a time when the number of visitors to a site was a critical factor in its listings with search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Today, however, the key determinant is the number of backlinks: pointers from other sites to yours. To understand how the backlinks work in relevancy to your page listing, you must first understand the search engine process.

Your page’s popularity, known as the page rank, is judged by two factors: how many backlinks there are to your site; and the popularity of the sites that those backlinks are on. For example, let’s say you have two backlinks to your site listed on two different websites. One of those sites, say Microsoft.com, has a very high page rank. The other, BobsDoItYourselfComputerRepair.com, has a pretty low page rank. Your site will receive more notice from the search engines because of the link on the more popular site. So, backlinks on high-profile sites will inevitably raise your page ranking.

Creating and Submitting Articles

When creating your articles, remember that quality is of utmost importance. People are looking for information, and a well-written, relevant article will position you as someone who knows what they are talking about in a reader’s mind. If you don’t think you can write your own articles, there are many online outlets for finding writers.

Once the article is written, add a link to your site along with your by-line. This is called a resource box and can include a little bit about you and your business as well as the link to your website.

Next, you will need to get your article submitted to other sites. You don’t have to do this yourself. There are literally thousands of article marketing source sites on the Internet that can do it for you. However, the more popular ones are those that produce the most effective traffic. Among these are EzineArticles.com, ArticleDashboard.Com, and GoArticles.Com. Each of these will provide excellent sources for backlinks, but be prepared to submit only well-written articles, as they tend to be quite thorough in their screening process.

Check Your Article Marketing Campaign

Once you have submitted your article, give it a few weeks to make its way out onto the World Wide Web. Then, use one of the many backlink-checking tools available on the net. Most are free and can be found by doing a simple web search. Domain-Pop.com and IWebTool.com provide some of the more popular tools. The larger search engines (i.e. Google.com) provide backlink-checking tools also. These programs are usually easy to use and require no download. Simply go to the site, put the web address of your site into the appropriate space, and hit enter. In a few seconds you will be able to see how many backlinks your site has and, in most cases, exactly what sites those backlinks are listed on.

Article Marketing is not only one of the most effective techniques for building your page rank and popularity, but is also one of the most simple and most inexpensive, particularly if you have good writing skills of your own. Remember to keep your article content similar to the content of your site. People surfing for the information in your articles will only click on the link in your resource box if it is relevant to their own personal interests. Also remember that article marketing takes time and effort. It doesn’t happen overnight. With every article you put out onto the web, you are putting out another way for potential visitors to find you. Over time, this will increase the traffic to your website and will eventually increase your sales.

Author’s Note: This article also published here.

…

Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

Read more articles written by Enzo F. Cesario

Video marketing is gaining in popularity and increases targeted traffic for those who use this method of marketing. By submitting to video sites you get a new distribution channel for your content and more quality backlinks for your websites and blogs. I’m not a technical person but now I can convert my articles into videos quickly and easily.

Yesterday I heard about Article Video Robot and having tried it out free was impressed by how easy it was to convert articles into videos and felt that it was worth upgrading to the paid membership. You can see my first effort below. It isn’t perfect by any means, but when you consider that it was my first try and only took a few minutes to make it isn’t half bad.

Unaltered First Attempt!

You can try Article Video Robot out free before deciding whether or not it will work for you. If you have an ezinearticles.com account you can create your video in seconds by adding the link to your chosen article. Or you can input your article yourself. I think that is probably the best way and then you can adapt your article for the video and control things more.

One small problem when I was trying out the free version with an article about article directory scripts was that where I had used the initials AD for Article Dashboard and AF for Article Friendly those initials were spoken as they read. Without trying it I guess that it would be better to use A. D. and A. F. within my video article when I try it again.

You can edit your videos and add your own images to their stock images. You can also either use their selection of music soundtracks or upload your own. Their are a choice of different voices to use, or you can record your own and add that. That would probably work better if you have a clear speaking voice – with my Yorkshire accent it could be a problem except for converting my articles about Yorkshire into videos!

Video Distribution

You can download the videos to your computer and place them on video sites, websites and blogs yourself, or if you create a monthly account you get 125 credits to distribute your videos to 17 different video sites automatically – 1 credit per site. After you have used them up you need to purchase more, but if the videos are working for me I won’t have a problem with that.

You can also add your videos to several different social networking sites from the distribution screen, that doesn’t cost anything.

I’m pretty pleased with Article Video Robot so far but the proof of the pudding will be in how much extra traffic and sales this product generates. I will update with that once I can assess the results from several videos.

Now I’m going to have some fun and play around with it some more and create a better video!

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase.

Update

I made my second video and feel that it’s much better. Instead of using the ezine articles link I pasted my article in and found that I had more control. I did a bit more editing and you can see the result of my second attempt below. While I was making this one I posted to Facebook and Myspace and then decided to make some changes. Those changes automatically updated on those sites without me having to upload again.

2nd Video

I think that is better and feel that with practice there will be more improvements. One of the things that I liked about this video was that the sea looked to be moving in the photo of the Blue Grotto in Malta. It looked so inviting that I could have dived in for a swim and inviting is what we want our promotional videos to be.

I think that I will make a training video for article marketing next – watch this space!

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase. But before making a decision have a go with the free trial first.

Update: 20th May

I should have updated this earlier but I’ve been busy building a new giving up smoking blog. I did as I said and made a training video for article marketing. It didn’t turn out bad but there are a few errors. What I have found is that the quality deteriorates when submitted to sites such as YouTube, so I used the alternative publishing option and submitted it to my wordpress blog where you can see it in it’s full glory. I tried to post it here but the size was too big for this theme.

I think that the video would have been better split into 2 or 3 parts and the sound quality isn’t brilliant using their mechanical voices. I did try to record my own voice but I couldn’t get my computer microphone to work. If I upgrade to the business package I will get better HD sound quality and more effects, plus an advanced video editor which will make videos easier to edit. I probably will upgrade once I’ve had more time to play with it and figure it out better.

In the meantime I will check to see how my videos are doing in the Google rankings. Article Marketing Directory Submission without quotes is ranked 7th but darn it the video on that site has an error message. With quotes blimey – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 10th. That’s 5 out of the top 10 and the rest of the sites have the video in it’s full glory.

Now I’m going to check the other videos that I made. ‘Singapore Festivals’ hasn’t got anywhere in the top 30, nor did ‘travel for free’ or ‘travel writer’.  Their full titles ‘Travel For Free As A Travel Writer’ and “How To Celebrate And Have a Real Good Time At Singapore Festivals” wiped out any competition. However those titles are less likely to be searched for than the main keywords ‘Singapore Festivals’, ‘travel for free’ and ‘travel writer’.

What I have learned from that is that I need to focus on my keywords when naming the videos and my fourth attempt ‘Singapore Beach Resorts’ is 4th, 5th and 9th in Google rankings and the original article is in 6th place. I haven’t done anything to promote the videos except for submitting them to several sites, so I’m very happy with their rankings and how quickly they got there – within a few hours.

The page I am directing the 3 Singapore videos to has had 1118 views during the last 20 days, whereas last month there were less than half those views for that page altogether. It could be the videos that have made the difference, or it could be the time of year.

I enjoyed making that video and found that by using less speech and more visuals it is more effective. I’m not happy with the sound quality so I guess that I shall have to upgrade sooner rather than later. You can see what I mean below.

Next I am going to make some videos for my new quit smoking blog. I’ve found some pretty good key words and I will be able to see easier the effects on a new site rather than one that has been established for a while.

Coupon Code

If you think that Article Video Robot is for you I can offer 20% off with the coupon code 25F481F3 just enter the code as you purchase. But before making a decision have a go with the free trial first.

The Merits Of Key Word Phrases used in niche marketing

The use of keywords has changed over the years and all the experts seem to have their own opinion, and the biggest question, or discussion that always comes up is :  “Are key words and key word phrases really needed?” Here’s’ my take on this issue: Yes! Yes! Yes! Especially in Article Marketing. It is true that Google primarily scan for content and disregards any keywords in the meta tags, but what do you think the  Google scans are looking for? Google has to have some basis to list your articles or websites when someone does a search and the keyword phrase plays a very big part. For example if your were looking for “fishing equipment”, I am going to search on Google using these same two words. I think you get the picture because google is going to list sites that have this keyword phrase or similar words in their website or article content. Maybe the meta tags do not hold any significance but keywords or a keyword phrase do.

I have compiled a simple outline below broken into two parts, to help you generate a powerful list of key words and Key word phrases to use in your article marketing efforts.

#1 – Identifying your niche market is so important, If you do not know precisely what you want to write about you are spinning your wheels. A niche market is a subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing on. Lets take for example we are looking for specific information about article marketing services, the most broad market would be marketing , then your niche would be article marketing . This information could also be under the broad marketing of Internet marketing but your niche would still be article marketing. My keyword list would be generated from the two words “article” and “Marketing” combined together. If you have not identified what your market and what products you are trying to sell within that market, do not waste your time writing articles yet. You need to complete step #1 if you want to be successful.

#2 - Once you have identified what your niche market is you can now focus on creating your keyword phrase list. Enter the following link in your browser to go to Google’s Awords webpage and sign up for a free account if you can’t access the keyword tools directly.. .

Here’s a link to their tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

These free tools are very easy to use, lets use “marketing” for our example. Enter this phrase into the box that says Enter one keyword or phrase per line: You will notice that the results are way too broad if I were selling information related to crappie fishing. Now , type in the word “crappie fishing” You can see the results are much more refined. Fishing and crappie fishing are only examples, But I think you can see the power of this free tool to develop a list for any niche market. What you want to do now is download the resulting list to you PC, I always Microsoft excel to help build my lists but any software that you can store your results would work well. You will need to pay attention to the two columns “Advertiser Competition” and “Approx Search Volume:” to prioritize and weed out keyword phrases that are too competitive or have a low search volume.

Pay very close attention to the green bar in the advertiser competition. If that green bar is over have half way across the box, delete this key word phrase from you list. I personally have had the best luck concentrating on key word phrases that the green in the rectangle box is less than ½ and the search volume listed is over 1000.

Now you are ready to start writing your articles. I recommend you just start writing what ever comes to your mind then refine your article, it’s a bit like brain storming and works for me so I can get all my ideas on paper. It has been my experience it is better to just start writing your topic and let your expertise flow into your words before you worry about inserting your key words or keyword phrases. Concentrate on writing articles that are from 300 to 600 words. It has been my experience that that the search engines seem to like content of this size and people tend to read your entire article without getting bored. And just click on to somewhere else. After you have written down your ideas its time to refine your article by inserting at least two different keyword phrases that refer directly to your articles content. Pay close attention to how many times your phrases are repeated, it is important that you space approximately 100 word counts between them. You don’t want to get penalized by the search engines for what is called keyword stuffing. Also , for example the keyword phrase article marketing automation or any variation that had the first two words the same then I could only be used them every 100 words. If your article was say 600 words in length, then you could use phrases that had the exact words “article marketing “ six times. You can mix up your keyword phrases so each word is not exactly the same but be careful. Of course if you get creative you could vary your words so they are not exact and get even more value out of this same phrase.

Well folks this concludes my article. May your article marketing efforts prosper , just remember that keywords, and phrases are extremely important when identifying your particular niche market.

Mark Fleagle owner of the article-miracle.com is an expert author at Ezinearticles.com and a silver member at Searchwarp.com Learn how to increase your website traffic using article marketing the right way! Learn why the most successful website owners have migrated to Using Keyword Phrases and Niche Marketing Details Here: http://www.article-miracle.com

Also Click Here For more detailed information on article marketing software

Article Source: http://bb-articles.com

The good news is that this blog’s Alexa ranking has jumped again from 729,497 last week to 674,459 today. Alexa ranking is a loose indication of traffic, but not a total picture.

I’ve heard it said that the figures come from those who have an Alexa toolbar in their browser as I have in my Firefox browser.  I can see at a glance what any site’s Alexa ranking is and those who are more likely to have the Alexa toolbar in their browsers are Internet marketers who are more interested in traffic.

That would explain the huge discrepancies I see with my niche site’s traffic and Alexa rankings. For instance my highest traffic site is a Yorkshire pudding blog with an alexa ranking of 691,569 and my second highest traffic site with about 50 less visitors a day is my main article directory with an Alexa ranking of 95,576 this week, though it was as high as 82,000 last week. Clearly if the Alexa rankings were a total picture the Yorkshire pudding blog would rank higher, but the traffic is highly targeted to those interested in Yorkshire pudding recipes and cooking in general not Internet marketers with an Alexa toolbar in their browser.

However, as this blog is about Internet marketing the traffic I want to target is Internet marketers so Alexa gives me some indication of how things are doing.

My cpanel awstats tell me that from April 1st – 9th there have been 195 unique visitors and 733 visits (3.75 per visitor on average) and 4311 page views. That’s pretty good to me because it says that people are not just looking and going away, they are finding enough of interest to come back again.

On 2 of those days there were 123 visitors and 129 on another. That’s real progress when you think that during the whole of March there was only one day with over 100 visitors.

This week I did something that I should have done when I first set up this blog and that is give the pages, articles and categories search engine friendly URLs instead of the ugly numbers and question mark default URLs.

To set up title URLs you need to go into the settings area of your WP Dashboard and click on Permalinks. You will see a list of permalink settings and at the bottom is Custom Structure. In the space there you put /%category%/%postname%/ for category and title or /%postname%/ for just title.

Because I forgot to do that when I set up this blog I didn’t want to change things because the search engines had already indexed a lot of the pages and to change the page titles would have meant page not founds the next time they spidered the blog and the altered URLs would have meant that the pages would have needed indexing again. Traffic and previous bookmarks would be lost.

Then I found a Permalinks Migration plugin for Wordpress. The plug in allows you to change your permalinks to SEO friendly URLs without affecting your blog’s traffic. It tells the search engines and browsers that the page has moved and that the old URL should be replaced by a new one. This is called a 301 or permament redirect. Hopefully this plug in works and the SEO friendly URLs will help with getting more traffic.

I will only know how this plug in is working by monitoring statistics and seeing if there is a significant jump in page not founds during the next week or two. If there isn’t then the plug in is fine and I will be able to see more easily which pages and subjects are attracting the most traffic and views.

The best so far this month are articles about SEO, Squidoo and website hosting, suggesting that those are the articles visitors are the most interested in. But the most searched for keyphrases are information about offline printing so the good mix of articles is helping to draw traffic.

My article marketing campaign has been limited so far due to lack of time. As I know that article marketing will help me to get more targeted traffic to the blog I’ve decided to outsource the writing of some articles to a lady who has previously written some good articles for me, so hopefully my article marketing campaign will really kick off soon.

Yes I know that I am supposed to be doing this challenge with only free tools and resources but I’m not actually paying for the articles to market this blog. I had already commissioned some to promote my travel sites and the copywriter was offering 2 free for every 5 written, so I’m getting some freebies.

My target for next week is to hit the 150 mark on at least one day. That will take me half way towards my traffic challenge of 300 visitors a day within 6 months.

If you have ever thought of getting into internet marketing, or have recently gotten in, but you do not really have the money to invest in a number of websites, or pay-per-click advertising, you may have asked yourself how you can get the money that you really need to start making money off the internet.

One of the best ways, is to do some work to get that much needed money is commonly called “bum marketing.” The name stems from the man who invented the theory – his wife told him that his plan was so easy, and cheap (free) that any bum off the street could do it. The name stuck.

Well, here are a couple of popular ideas.

- Article Marketing: this is one of the most popular free methods of affiliate marketing available. There are literally hundreds (probably thousands) of websites that are known as article directories (including this one, e-zine articles). By writing helpful articles that address the needs of people looking for help, information or products, and leaving a link to your website, or your affiliate program link, you can drive many of your readers directly where you want them to go – the website where they can buy the product or service you are promoting.To make it easier for yourself, after you write the article, use a article distribution service. This wil let you get you article out to hundreds of sites at one time.

- Forum Marketing: forums, more than any other place on the internet, are full of people looking for answers to their questions and problems. And, there are probably hundreds of thousands of forums on the internet dedicated to nearly every topic you could imagine. Find a great affiliate product that addresses a problem, find a bunch of forums that cover the problem you product solves, make a few friendly posts and then drop in “the link that a friend gave you about a cure/product/story” that addresses and solves the problem.

- Squidoo Lenses: If you do not know how to build websites, or do not have the money to purchase and host websites, Squidoo lenses are just as good. In fact, they are like mini websites that you can make about any topic you want. Load them up with great information related to the product you are promoting, give some of the benefits of the product, offer a quick review and put in a few links to the affiliate page for readers who are interested in learning more and purchasing.

- Yahoo Answers: hundreds of thousands of people use yahoo answers to get answers to their questions and problems every single day. Find some recent questions that are answered/solved by the product/products you are promoting, post a helpful answer, with some useful information and a recommended link to the affiliate product you are promoting.

If you are looking for some free ways to start making money off the internet and get the cash you need to begin buying websites and doing pay-per-click advertising these four resources are great places to start. Also, you should know that these resources, and any free affiliate marketing tool can be used to compliment any of the paid marketing tools you use. The more marketing streams you use, the more traffic you drive, the more money you make.

Author Bio: For FREE Affiliate Marketing videos go to www.MakingScratchOnline.com