Article Marketing Part 1 - Content Is Still King

Since the beginning, you've been told that "Content Is King" but there are so many website owners - who have been trying to win the search engine battles - ignore the rules and try to be 'smart'. They used software and tools to trick the search engines to get their websites indexed highly but only to find out that their websites were banned a month later.

Don't get me wrong! There are actually some legitimate tools that can help you get your websites ranked higher. People pay a hundred dollars or more just to own them. That is fine as long as it works and does not violate the criteria search engines are looking for on a website.

But why are they doing it?

For an obvious reason, I guess - to get as much traffic possible to their websites, which in turn produces more revenue to the website owners.

And then, there are really smart marketers who go by the "Content Is King" rules and are really winning the search engine games day by day. These marketers use words to turn into traffic. With a single 500-word article, within time, they can create hundreds of backlinks to their websites – resulting in more web traffic, more sales, and more profits. Then, they write one more article, and some more.

That's right – we call them article marketers. You can see their names when you search a keyword and their articles appear on the main page of the search engine. You click on the links and their articles come up.

Now let me tell you a little secret. These marketers don't write these articles and post them only on their websites.

First, they write these articles and at the same time allow others to reprint them for free. That makes you able to forward these articles to other people and these other people can also forward to more people provided the content of the articles are not changed or modified. In short, these articles are viral.

Second, they submit these articles to various article directories and online publishers to get maximum exposure. The more publishers they can find, the more audience they can reach. Thus, the more sales they can make.

Think about it. If the pros are doing it and they are getting tons of traffic and sales, then you too can have the same privilege - only if you follow their steps.

Wouldn't you want to generate sales without having to pay a single red cent?

If the answer is a resounding 'yes', then consider article marketing seriously.

Article Marketing Myths And Facts

By now everyone has heard of article marketing and so many people out define it in so many different ways there that it has become hard for people new to article marketing to understand.

First of all, most of the SEO Gurus caught on to article marketing late in the game, then scrambled to create their own definitions of it at the last minute so it didn’t appear they were ever not aware of the power of article marketing.

In general, article marketing is where you write an article on a topic that is related to your website topic. Not a promotional article for your website, but an article about something that is informative to the reader. In the article you use keywords and phrases that relate to your topic as well, much like you would optimize a webpage. Your article when reprinted will be the text of a webpage or webpages.

In the author bio section at the bottom is some info about you and links to your website. It is suggested that you put in one link to your main page and one to an interior page that fits the article you are writing.

If your article is submitted to websites that take article submissions and offers free content to webmasters, then webmasters choose to repost your article on their websites, the links in the author bio section become links from their websites to your website.

Now lets go on to the myths and facts about article marketing.

MYTH: Article marketing doesn’t really help you all that much.

FACT: Article Marketing can help you increase your link popularity and be a source of some of the most targeted traffic you can get.

MYTH: Reprinted Articles only get indexed as supplemental pages, therefore it doesn’t help enough to make it worthwhile.

FACT: Depending on where the article gets submitted to, the article itself can get a top 10 listing in major search engines and not as a supplemental page.

MYTH: Submitting your article everywhere creates duplicate content and the search engines will punish or discount those pages as a result.

FACT: If search engines punished duplicate content in the way that myth suggests then all rss feeds that cause a post in a blog to be reproduced to be discounted or published and they are not. The New York Times articles and CNN stuff is blasted all over the web and are not punished or discounted.

Duplicate content is two webpages that are around 70% similar, not two webpages that have similar text on them.

MYTH: The only way article marketing works is you write an article then submit it to thousands of article submission websites.

FACT: There is more than one way to make article marketing work for you. The way mentioned above works okay if you are looking to get a lot of links back to your website whether they are related or not and can be effective if you currently have very little or no link popularity at all.

Another way is to hand submit your article to article submission websites that only accept articles related to your topic. This is more difficult but the links help you more just through the submissions and it’s more likely that the websites that pick up and repost your article will be also related to your topic which can help you with better links and targeted traffic.

Yet another way is to write a very high quality article that you really take your time on and research. You then choose a very high traffic website related to your topic. One that has great PR and a lot of visitors.

Email them your article and offer them an exclusive if they will print your article with your links included in the bio. If your article is of good quality and they get an exclusive you have a good chance they will post your article there.

This one posting of your article can be more powerful than the mass submitted article method if you choose the website you submit it to carefully.

Last but not least, posting your article exclusively on your own website is a great way to add fresh content and if the article is good, people will link directly to the article increasing both traffic and PR for your webpage where you posted the article. But for this to work you need to already have some traffic to work with.

MYTH: You should always post your article in your website first, then wait to get crawled by the search engines before submitting the article elsewhere.

FACT: Adding articles to your own website is called adding content. Submitting those articles to other websites is called article marketing. With article marketing you don’t want the article indexed on your website first.

Yes you read that right. You do not want the article indexed on your website first. You are or should already be doing SEO on your website and adding fresh content to your website for the search engines to get traffic from them.

Submitting articles to other websites and having the search engines find it there first gives another gateway that people can find your website through.

If the websites that you submitted your articles to get crawled often, then having your article appear there with the links intact will get your website crawled as well.

If the websites you submitted your article to are getting indexed well by the search engines, then your article being found on their website first might get it in the top 10 results.

Placing it into your own website with no or low PR might not have gotten the article indexed at all.

I hope this article will clear up some of the myths about article marketing and that it has helped you understand how and why it works.

Making Business Easier With Autoresponders

In the online world of business, an autoresponder can do a lot for your company.  Also referred to as mailbots, email and on demand, and automatic email, these tools can help you put your business on autopilot and spend more time doing other things.  Autoresponders are great to have, as they are designed to automatically respond to any email they receive with an instant response.

Over the years, autoresponders have increased quite a bit in popularity.  They are best known for their automatic email responses, which will save you a lot of time.  By using one of these programs, you won’t have to spend countless hours answering emails again.  You can feel free to do other things and always know that your customers have access to the information they need anytime they want it.

To set your business on autopilot, all you need to do is get your copy ready and load it into your autoresponder.  Once a potential buyer or current customer sends your autoresponder address a message, the information he or she is seeking will automatically be delivered to them.  Autoresponders are very quick – delivering information via email in a matter of seconds.

Autoresponders can also help you send out free courses, articles and information, reports, information regarding your products and services, price lists, welcome and thank you letters, confirm orders, and tell others about your advertising rates.  You can preset information such as this into your autoresponder, so it will automatically send the information out whenever someone requests it.

Unlike mass email messages, autoresponders can be set up to your specifications.  You can send personalized messages with them as well, which will make your client feel as if the email was made specifically for him.  Autoresponders will also follow up with emails as well, to ensure that you get a sale.  The better autoresponders out there will notify you each and every time someone has requested your information, so you know when you have potential customers.

You can also update your autoresponder messages anytime you wish.  From time to time as you get new products or information to send to your clients, you can update your log.  When running a business, it’s very important that you keep your customers up to date.  This way, your customers will know that you have new products available and ready for purchase.  If you have a good relationship with them, they will be anticipating your new offers.

If you run a business over the Internet, an autoresponder can make life a lot easier.  You can let your autoresponder handle a majority of the tasks, including technical support and sending out information about your company and your products.  These days, autoresponders are the best tools for online business – as they give you plenty of free time for other things.