Internet Marketing School

Article Marketing always seems to be a daunting task, especially to the new Internet Marketer. Many Internet Marketing newbies face lots of difficulties in writing suitable articles for submission to the various Article Directories. Coming up with good content for one’s articles is also another major issue faced by these people.

Importance of Submitting Articles to Article Directories

We all know that the submission of well-written articles is an excellent means to build the reputation of oneself and one’s site as the authority in a particular online niche. Article Marketing is also one of the best methods for generating qualified leads to your website (through the Author’s Resource Box at the bottom of each article).

In addition, a keyword rich article with informative content can help you get good search engine rankings for your targeted keywords over time. Article directories tend to be well regarded by the various search engines, and thus, backlinks to your site from your published articles are very useful for your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns.

Remember to include the appropriate backlink text encompassing the selected keywords in this regard. For example, if you are trying to raise your search engine rankings for the term “Internet Marketing School”, make sure that the keyword text within the backlinks comprises this keyword term.

Getting Started in Writing Articles

Apart from the alternative of spending money to hire a freelance writer to do the writing for you, it is clear that the best way about creating articles for submission is to write your own articles!

Many new Internet Marketers however tend to be fearful of taking up their pens (or in our case, using their computers) to start writing quality articles again as it has been a long time since leaving school or university, and inertia or writer’s block tends to be a major challenge when you try to start writing.

However, in our view, the process of writing articles for submission to article directories is not exactly as difficult as it may seem, especially if one adheres to the following simple and easy-to-follow article writing tips:-

Step 1: Conduct Proper Research Prior to Writing Your Article

When writing an article, you should find as much relevant information on your subject niche as you can. You can use the search engines (eg. Google, Yahoo, MSN) to search for your subject to find relevant information and ideas. The top ten to twenty search results of a keyword search (eg. dog training) found from your search engine listings will typically provide you with an excellent wealth of information and good base to start planning for your article.

Even if you are writing on a more niche topic, (eg. toilet training tips for german shepherds), you can still type the entire longtail search phrase into the search engines directly.

You can also surf popular websites like Answers.com, About.com and Wikipedia.org to research and read more about your topic.

In addition to online sources, offline sources of information are also extremely useful places to find the information you need. Try for example, visiting your local library, reading magazines, newspapers, brochures and other printed materials, renting videos, dvds or even speaking to experts on the particular subject.

Step 2: Plan Your Article Properly before Starting to Write

Since the days of writing essays in school, it’s been proven that writing a brief outline of the proposed article in point form, listing down the key points and the conclusion, helps tremendously in keeping the flow and logic of the article with the end objective in mind.

This also helps greatly in the presentation and readability of the article, as the relevant sub-headings can then be easily inserted, and it makes it easy for the reader to know with a quick glance what the article is all about.

Far too many article writers instead tend to lift off chunks of information from other sources without adequately incorporating the same information to become part of their own, hence causing the article to read awkwardly or appear to be a massive rip-off from another source.

It is well-known in Copyright law that ideas are not protectable, but the literary expression of the ideas is - so we would generally not advice that you copy large sections of information wholesale without giving accredition to the relevant author.

At the same time, such wholesale copying does not add much value to your articles, and is likely to attract a reader’s good reviews. Good articles are frequently populated in other websites and blogs, and thus help you reach a much wider audience without the same amount of effort.

As such, after consolidating the research you have done, it is important to sit down and consolidate your ideas and thoughts before you actually start writing. Think about how you can present the information you have found in an interesting and informative manner, and start to sketch out the article’s outline and conclusion.

It is important that you create a personality, or a “sense of you” in your articles, so that your article will stand out from the many many other articles written on a similar topic. Proof-read your article at the end after it is written to ensure that any grammatical or spelling errors are rectified - this maintains the professional feel of your writeup. A badly written article is likely to impact negatively on your personal reputation as an authority in that subject niche, and may even damage the credibility of your site.

Step 3: Persistence and Passion

As with all things, passion and persistance is a very important key towards writing effective and high quality articles, and determining your success in article marketing in your chosen niche in the long run.

If you find that you do not enjoy writing the articles or feel that you hardly have anything to write about even after having gone through the research process above, these are clear signs that you either do not feel passionately enough about the subject matter you are writing about, or that it may not be a suitable niche for you to focus on in light of the lack of sufficient understanding of your chosen market niche (or the specific topic you are writing about).

Learning to write good articles for submission to article directories takes time, and like the good wise saying goes, “Practice Makes Perfect”! It is not all that difficult to write an article, but it is also not as easy as simply twitching a finger.

Therefore, once you have decided on your chosen market niche and area of interest, persistence in writing on a regular basis is the key to producing the requisite quantity and quality of articles you require to succeed.

We would recommend that you start with writing one article per week as a new online marketer, and then increase the intensity to two and then three per week as you familiarize yourself with the skills and techniques of writing an article. Remember that Rome was not built overnight, so like exercise, increase the intensity and number of articles you write gradually.

Last but not least, write your articles with the end goal in mind. If your hope is to succeed in your chosen market niche to create a residual (or even full-time) source of income in Internet Marketing, then keep your objective in mind as you work towards establishing yourself and your site as an authority in the relevant subject niche.

Conclusion

Following the methodology and principles detailed above, we believe that you will be able to harness your energy and drive in a systematic way to achieve results in your respective online marketing businesses.

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