You Need To Write-Write Now!

You Need To Write-Write Now!

I've been shouting it for years, and I will probably keep shouting for many years to come. If you want to get some quality, free visitors to your website-You Need To Write An Ezine Article!

You can go ahead and admit that secretly you been toying with the idea anyway. You've fantasized about one day checking your email and seeing your name in the table of contents of your favorite ezine. You've imagine what it's like to know that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people are reading YOUR words. And then there's the glorious payoff: Some of these people will visit your website. People who through reading your article have already established a relationship with you and are therefore more likely to pay real attention to what your website has to offer. Ahh, what a lovely dream...

But I'm telling you today to STOP DREAMING. Open your eyes, open up a new Word document and get started writing!

Of course, you need something to write about. I suggest one of two choices:

(1) Write about whatever subject your website covers. If your website is about Internet marketing, write about some of the ways your website suggests marketing online. If your website sells chocolate brownies, write about chocolate brownie recipes. If your website is a Drew Barrymoore fan site, please send me the URL immediately. Just kidding! Actually you could write and article about Drew's latest movie or her fight with alcoholism. The point is, if you have website-you have a topic.

(2) Write about something you know. We all have areas where we excel, as well as subjects that interest us. For instance, I know a lot about ezine articles so I write about them. One of the benefits of writing about something you know is what I like to call the 'Expert Factor'. If you write enough articles about a certain subject you will eventually get known as an expert in that field online. People will then trust what you say and will be even more inclined check out any websites or offers you endorse. In a nutshell-you gain credibility. And online that's a GOOOOD thing!

I'll just go ahead and blurt this one out because I know it's on your mind: Don't worry about being an expert writer. Don't shy away from writing ezine articles because you think you might misplace a few commas, semicolons or dashes. This is the Internet, not the Oxford Journal of Medicine. You're not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize. Just write your article the best you can, re-read it several times, run spellcheck, and then go from there. I also recommend waiting at least half a day and then coming back and re-reading your article. This allows your brain to basically re-boot and you may find some errors you overlooked before. But don't stress; You should see some of the typos I have made.

I'm not going to bombard you with everything there is to know about ezine article writing today. This article was designed to just wet your whistle a little bit. To get you in the mood so to speak. To get you wanting to write and to give you ideas on what to write about. I assure you there will be other article in the future that touch on all the other aspects of ezine article writing. For now, though, I'll leave you to your writing; Me, I've suddenly got a taste for some chocolate brownies...

You can Master Article Marketing In 7 Days or Less

You can Master Article Marketing In 7 Days or Less

Let me clarify my definition of an "article marketer". An article marketer provides helpful information in the form of articles written about the industry they work within. Article marketers focus on writing quality content and publishing techniques to complement their existing marketing channels.

It is a win/win situation. The author gains many benefits for being published, and the reader satisfies a thirst for knowledge of the topic being discussed.

Have you considered article marketing?

Anyone can enjoy the benefits of writing content articles for the Web. I am living proof.

2 years ago I was introduced to the idea of using articles as a marketing strategy. Like so many other ideas we are subjected to, it didn't sink in right away. Excuse after excuse, I let procrastination stand in the way.

I had never written an article before ...

As I began to see more and more SEO consultants and successful marketers discussing article marekting, I decided to dig in deeper and see what all the fuss was about. It sounded good, and I wanted in too.

Ironically, I begin to read articles about writing articles. Article after article the concepts begin making sense. I understood why article marketing worked, I understood how article marketing worked ... but I still had no clue how to start my first article.

I discovered my first article topic quite by accident one evening. Here's how. (Be on the lookout for conversations like this that may take place between you and your colleagues every day.)

While in a general discussion with another site administrator I realized the KEY to successful articles or any ad copy.

Find a problem and solve it. That is what we all want - we want solutions to our problems!

The scenario went like this. My colleague offered live event webinars and needed a easy way to update specifics of these classes to members. Further more, I wanted a way to tell people about the live training without the burden of updating these live events through HTML on my web site.

Having some background experiences with blogs, and actively testing different blog creation scripts and services, he welcomed my advise on adopting RSS as an option to easily feed us the training class schedules.

It solved his problem of updating the live class schedules to us, and my problem of updating the content for my visitors. Realizing the solution to a problem - the research for the article began.

I started in the search engines, read some forums, and gathered facts.

The facts were then picked apart to determine the benefit of each fact. I used those benefits as the central focal point of my article.

My first article "Got Blog" was written and published soon after. Taking that first step and writing that first article, opened the door for me to be able to write a second article, then press releases, and Ebooks now too.

That article was submitted to only 15 free directories, and then I left it alone and went on to other projects.

By digging through all those articles about articles, I inadvertently learned "top notch" techniques from successful article writers themselves.

I felt that learning by this method was so helpful to me, that I created a free guide called "All About Articles the Marketing Advantage ". This guide incorporates all the great articles and techniques that gave me the confidence to build my first article campaign.

The guide was not created until a year after I had published several of my own articles and seen the successful results for myself.

One year later ... there are over 140 sites - many of which I have never heard of, some of which are high traffic and successful sites, proudly telling people some interesting tips on using RSS - each one with a healthy link back to my website for more information.

I found the above information by doing a keyword search on Google using the exact phrase of the byline used on that article.

Article writing and circulation has been the single most rewarding "free" promotion effort I have accomplished in my years of trial and error! Be inspired, if I can do it, you can too!

***Writing Is Fun!***

***Writing Is Fun!***

When I was establishing my consultants practice in 1990 I set about creating a book. The book was aimed at helping people to progress in their careers and shows how to assess yourself, prepare an interview winning resume', market yourself and win the job at interviews, plus other real life tips.

Anyway I enjoyed the writing process, thought the book was good and sold a few copies. The effort of writing the book was not rewarded by the number of copies sold. I did not really have a low cost route to market.

In building my web site and writing a weekly newsletter I have realised that I do enjoy writing and drawing on my experiences. So recently I have been thinking of writing another book for sale on the internet.

Guess what? I got my original book out, re-read it and I am editing it as my next internet publication. The point of this article is to tell you what I realised when I read my 'masterpiece'.

I had been living in the corporate world and the book was written in corporate style. Formal, the grammar was convoluted, too many long words. It was not easy to read and I did not like the style. The content is excellent but I did not like how the book was written.

Bearing in mind when I originally wrote it 15 years ago I read and re-read it in an effort to do a good job. That I now do not like the writing style came as a shock. Which shows that our skills and perceptions are changing all of the time and no matter how good we think we are at any one thing we can always do better.

If you've got anything that you created a while back it may be worth having another look at it. Your style may have changed and you may be able to improve it.

My son writes for his living and he has experienced the same with some of his early writing.

By writing for the web my style has changed, hopefully to a more readable form because I still like writing.

Tip: learn from the mistakes of others, you can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Writing in the Shower (or Wherever You May Be)

Writing in the Shower (or Wherever You May Be)

I just glanced at the clock. 7:35 am. That leaves me ten, maybe fifteen minutes to write before it's time for me to head for my day job. What can I possibly accomplish in so little time?

A lot, as it turns out. My current schedule only permits me to devote snippets of time to my passion, my true vocation. On some days, despairingly, I spend those precious moments staring helplessly at a blinking cursor, or with pen in frozen hand; on others, my fingers fly across the keyboard and words appear almost effortlessly across the screen. What makes the difference between writer's block and productivity?

The difference lies in how I spend my time away from the keyboard. At work, while driving, or when taking a shower. Sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, standing in a grocery store check out line, working out. When I spend all of this non-writing time thinking about non-writing stuff--my bills, my to-do list, a misunderstanding with a co-worker or whatever--I find that I am not prepared to write when those brief, precious time slots for writing become available.

But when I use non-writing time to think about writing--to brainstorm ideas, actively listen to conversations around me, consciously notice the details of the room I'm in, the person I'm with or how I am truly feeling at any given moment--I come to my tiny slivers of writing time equipped use them well.

Take this morning, for example. Rather than daydream or worry or fret during my shower, I decided to ask myself the question, "What can I write about today?" I had just polished and submitted two short articles to a trade magazine the day before, and was faced with the ugly prospect of staring at a blank screen. What would I put there when the moment came? Ah, I thought, I haven't written an article about writing in a while, and have nearly two weeks before my next issue--could I start a new one today? About what? What would motivate, inspire and/or inform my readers? Perhaps many of them also face full days that leave only short, scattered opportunities to write. What can I tell them?

Hence, the first several paragraphs of this very article. And the satisfaction of knowing that, later in the day or early the next, I can pick up where I left off--no blank screen staring back at me.

Believe me, these 10-to-15 minute time slots for writing add up. In three to four days, you can have the first draft of a 500-800 word article, one or two query letters, a book outline, a scene for your novel, or several greeting card sentiments. Over the following few days, you can polish them. Submit them to appropriate markets when they're ready to go. Grin with a sense of accomplishment. Then start the whole process all over again.

I am completing this article during a 30-minute stint on a Saturday morning, a week before my next issue goes out. I'll have plenty of time to edit and improve it over the next few days, by which time I'll have other projects started as well.

I urge you not to use "being too busy" as an excuse not to write, and not to get published. Certainly you may have only precious moments to spend at your keyboard. Come to those moments consistently prepared, watch those moments add up and those projects take shape, and your writing dream will come true.

Writing For The Web: Where To Get Article Ideas

Writing For The Web: Where To Get Article Ideas

A friend and I were talking the other day about writing. He liked to write, but even so his biggest problem was finding things to write about. My friend was astounded at the volume of writing that I do - at least one article and something as many as six, per day. Where do I get all of the ideas from?

I, in turn, was astonished myself. Why on earth would anyone have any trouble finding things to write about? In fact, my main problem has been I have so much to write about that I often find myself locked in a silent battle over which subject should be put on paper first.

People find it even more amazing when I tell them I try very hard to only write about positive events and provide helpful articles. Only rarely will you find any of my writings containing criticism, complaints or, worst of all, whining. Occasionally I will write an article which recommends against purchasing a product, seeing a movie, reading a book or visiting a web site, but these are the exception.

The world is a huge, amazing, wondrous place. Things are going on around us all of the time. There is so much good to see and do all over the planet, so very many wonderful things going on all over the place, that it's easy to find something to communicate about if only you open your eyes and look.

One of my passions is the internet. I've written over 1,000 articles about all aspects of this massive communication medium. Much of this is taken from my 23 years of experience in the computer field, and the rest is from research, reading and, most of all, questions from other people.

Although much of my writing is about the internet, I also find time to communicate about many other subjects as well. These include relationships (marriage and romance), raising children, building a career, handling office politics, current events, hobbies and history. I have yet to find a subject which I don't have something useful to contribute to other people.

How do I find so much to write about? Let me tell you some of the ways: Many of my article ideas some from real life - For example, I have a long and happy marriage, so I like to write articles which help people with their relationships. I've also worked hard most of my life, as have most people, building a career, which is another area where I enjoy passing along tips to help others.

Question and answer sites - Sites like askme.com and askjeeves.com are perfect places to visit once in a while looking for ideas for articles. I visit and just scan the questions (and there are thousands of them), looking for anything which looks interesting. When I find something, I write an article.

Newsgroups - There are over 70,000 newsgroups. Most of these are worthless, but several thousand of them contain useful information and varied conversations. Lurk in any active newsgroup for a while and you should find something worthwhile to write about.

Yahoo and DMOZ - Visit any big directory site and you will find thousands of subjects to explore.

Egroups and Topica - There are thousands of email discussion lists available at these two sites. Sign up for a few and get articles ideas from them.

There are many other places to look for article ideas all over the internet. I tend to avoid looking at things like ezines, ebooks and web sites for article ideas. Why? Because when I look for article ideas I am not looking for answers.

What I tend to look for is questions. What kind of questions are people asking? Is there a question which begs some further analysis and a little more explanation than a simple sentence? It does not matter if someone else has already answered, as my primary purpose is not to provide raw information. My primary purpose is to help people understand. You can find out raw information from any number of books or encyclopedias, but finding out how to clean up the clutter in your bedroom, well, that takes something different. That requires the experience and knowledge passed from someone who has had to go through the experience of cleaning many times, so many times that it has become easy.

Interestingly, I've found that television is not as worthwhile as one would expect for article ideas. Excluding a few reviews, I've found television to be a vast wasteland, void of anything but the most trivial or violent concepts in our society. The exceptions are, of course, channels such as Nova, History channel and Discovery.

So the next time you are trying to figure out something to write about for your own ezine, web site or ebook, just check out a newsgroup, elist or directory on a subject which you find interesting. Sooner or later, you will get an idea and you can start writing.

Writing Articles

Writing Articles

You say, I can't write an article, I have no knowledge of writing. Let me tell you yes you can!

Why write an article?

It can help you build your business! Yes, writing articles can help build your business. You say how can this help? First, imagine if you will, you have posted your article in an online publication, it has been accepted to be posted online (we will cover how to submit your article latter). Now all of a sudden you have 100 people reading your article, think of what could happen if out of that 100, 10 visit your website or email you for more information about what you are doing.

What has just happened? You have created some potential affiliates or buyers for your products.

If you have a website this can help your rankings in the search engines.

How to start:

1. Think of a subject that you have knowledge of! It can be from cooking to website marketing anything you know is good! You can even ask you favorite relative, friends, whoever for some help, by using their knowledge on a certain subject.

2. Keep notes of what you want to write, the notes should be kept in the order you want to write. This may take you a while to organize but it is well worth the time. This way when you start writing you will not get confused on what you wanted to start with and the order you want to write it.

3. Use a good word processor that can help you with your grammar. I use Microsoft Word; it allows me to set it up to write formal letters it will even give you definitions of why you should change the grammar.

4. Start your writing! Simple isn't it?

5. At the end add a recourse box, with you name, email or website, for example; Joe Smith is an Independent SFI Marketing Group Representative. You may contact him here then post your website or email.

6. Also, include that is free for reprint as long as the resource box stays intact.

Where to place your articles:

Now that you have written your first article, what's next?

1. Find a group to join that welcomes articles.

2. Submit your article to free enzines (on line magazines, on line publications) Do searches for free article submissions sites submit your article. If they like it they will post it, and instantly you are an author!

3. Email me your article and I will post it on my website. I will give you some constructive criticism if there is something I feel you can do better on.

Pretty simple, and you thought you couldn't be an author! Congratulations you are!

Writing Articles For Profit

Writing Articles For Profit

Article writing has suddenly become very popular among online marketers lately. A lot of people are taking advantage of this fact to make extra money.

So just how can writing articles make YOU extra money?

Firstly the obvious answer is to write keyword dense articles on specific subjects and offer them for sale. These will be quickly snapped up by people trying to create niche market sites to sell a product within that niche. They will also be in demand with people setting up content sites to make money from Googles Adsense (you could also do this yourself as you write the articles).

Research the most popular keywords at http://www.wordtracker.com to find a niche which will give you a good idea of what to target your articles at.

Secondly, a series of articles about one niche can be placed in one volume and turned into an ebook, or course which can be sold with very little overheads. Using one or two of the articles to submit to article directories like http://www.ArticleCity.com or http://www.DEBSArticleSite.com and adding your bio with a link to your ebook salespage will quickly add some traffic and lead to sales.

You can also use articles to promote affiliate products. Search at http://www.clickbank.com and find a product you can market from it's marketplace. Make your new link and use a service like TrackThtaAd ( http://www.trackthatad.com/?s=13753) to mask the link. Then write articles using keywords related to the product and submit those to article directories (see above).

There are a lot of ways to make money from writing articles, so get out there and start writing and submitting them today.