Publishing articles on your website is a great way to generate
AdSense income and get search engine traffic. As we know,
“Content is king”.

Writing content for the major article directories and including a
few lines of signature or “about the author” at the end of the
article with a link back to your website is one of the best ways
of generating FREE traffic. If the article is well written and
about a strong niche topic, the article will get picked up by
many websites for their own sites, which can provide you with a
wonderful set of viral links to your site. The more frequently
your article gets picked up, the more opportunity there is for
another webmaster to see it and pick it up, too.

However, you have a problem if your article is filled with
spelling and grammar errors. Webmasters don’t want ERRORS on
their websites, tarnishing THEIR images, so they don’t pick up
your error filled article.

There is good news, though. Only a few types of errors account
for almost all the mistakes article writers commonly make. You
only have to master a few simple concepts to stay out of
trouble.

One of the most common errors showing up in article directories
is the hated “run-on sentence”.

Read on.

Run-on Sentence

A Run-on Sentence error occurs when two independent clauses are
run together without punctuation or are joined with a comma when
a period, semi-colon, or the use of “and” is required.

Incorrect: “Content is king it’s the heart of a website.”
Incorrect: “Content is king, it’s the heart of a website.”
Correct: “Content is king. It’s the heart of a website.”
Correct: “Content is king; it’s the heart of a website.”
Correct: “Content is king, and it’s the heart of a website.”

OK. What the heck is an “independent clause”?

An independent clause is a complete sentence when taken by
itself. It has a subject and a verb AND EXPRESSES A COMPLETE
THOUGHT. “Content is king” works as a sentence, with no
additional words. “It’s the heart of a website” also works as a
sentence. They are independent clauses, each able to stand on
its own.

It’s an error to run them together. You must make some
grammatical acknowledgement of their independence. The easiest
way to show their independence and fix the error is simply to put
a period after the first one, making each one explicitly a
separate sentence. Don’t forget to capitalize the first word of
the second independent clause, which you’ve now made an
independent sentence.

OK. That’s how to FIX it. How did you get yourself into the mess
in the first place? Wouldn’t it be better to keep OUT of trouble
to begin with?

Most people get into “run-on” error trouble when the two
independent clauses are closely related, with the second one
adding to or expanding upon a thought contained in the first. The
other common characteristic of a run-on trap is the use of a
pronoun to start the second clause.

You probably would NOT write “Content is king content is the
heart of a website” without punctuation or the word “and” in
between them.

When you are writing, notice when you use “it” or “it’s” to refer
back to some subject you just wrote about. You are probably in
danger. Try the sentence using the actual word referred to by
“it” instead, and see how you’d punctuate it. Try it without the
contraction, saying “it is” or “content is” instead of “it’s”.
Don’t let yourself forget “it’s” contains BOTH a subject AND a
verb. Watch out for other pronouns such as “they”, “they’re”,
etc.

Run-on sentences are only one of about 10 common errors article
writers make. Spend a little time with each one of them and
you’ll soon rid yourself of them all. Just do a Google search on
“common grammar errors” and you’ll see lots of sites with great
tutorials.

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Direct marketing’s a tough way to make a living but if you can
master certain skills it can be extremely lucrative. It takes on
many different forms, some of which are easily translatable to
the web.

Although the term may bring to mind door to door salesmen pushing
their wares to housewives in robes and curlers, it also has roots
in print ads such as classifieds and space ads and direct mail.

The internet has created a massive opportunity for the skilled
direct marketer to thrive without doing the customary legwork and
engaging in personal contact with their prospects, basically
expanding on the concept of direct mail.

So what skills do you need to hone in order to succeed at direct
marketing?

The top priority of anyone interested in making money on the
internet should be their copywriting skills. This is simply
putting your sales message into words.

Since the face to face encounter has been eliminated you need to
be able to convey your pitch through the words on the pages that
your prospects are reading.

A great way to polish your copywriting skills, even if you’ve
never written a single word of ad copy before, is to create a
swipe file. This is just a file of already successful ad
campaigns.

Swipe files are incredibly useful tools. Every major player in
direct marketing keeps a swipe file and for good reason.
Everybody gets stuck for words and ideas at some point. When this
happens it’s good to have an example of past successes to go to
and freshen your creative juices and get the words flowing
again.

What should your file consist of?

You should gather any material that has spurred you to action,
whether its purpose was to get you to buy something or just leave
your name and email address. Copy the good stuff and study it.
Realize what was in the ad that made you act on the offer.

Look for layout designs (bulleted lists are a big direct
marketing tactic), action words, headlines and sub heads. You’ll
notice certain words popping up along with questions and
statements that are all fairly alike but are tailored to specific
products and services.

That’s the key to a good swipe file. Gather a wide array of
different styles and mold the message to your particular target
audience. Study the material and write out many different
versions of the same ad. Practice your art and perfect it.

A word of caution though. Never copy an ad word for word. That’s
plagiarism and it’s illegal. Use your swipe file as an aid only,
to sharpen your copywriting skills and make you better at direct
marketing.

Popularity: 25% [?]

You’ve heard it time and time again: if you want to get your name
out there, write articles and allow them to be freely reproduced
(with a resource box pointing back to you, of course). Largely,
that is true. A well-written article can:

– help you build your profile as an expert – draw traffic to your site, and – help you to build a database of potential clients through
associated e-courses or a newsletter.

So far you probably haven’t heard anything you didn’t already
know. What YOU are likely to be struggling with is the process of
actually writing the article. Sure, you can come up with the
content – but how do you really grab those readers? How do you
keep their attention all the way through? And most importantly,
how do you make them want to come back for more?

Let’s assume that you understand the basics of constructing and
editing an article (it has a beginning, middle, and an end and
you know how to check the grammar and spelling.) Most of us can
manage that. But if you’re not content with simply “getting
something out there” – if you want to WIN readers – then you need
to start thinking about what they want to know, rather than what
you want to tell them.

Put your readers first – every time. Give them what they want,
and they’ll be queuing up to read anything you produce. Give them
something bland (or worse, blatantly self-serving) and they’ll
blast by you so fast you’ll be spinning in the back draft.

The following four steps will give you a blueprint for writing
articles that captivate your readers – whatever the topic.

1. Find Out What Your Readers Really Want

Sometimes you’ll know what they want because you’re an expert in
the field, and understand the problems. If you don’t know the
subject area well, you’ll have to do more research. Look for
forums on your topic and see what people are discussing. What are
the problems that need solving? Can you provide an answer? (“If
they have a headache, give them an aspirin.”)

2. Start With An Attention-Grabber

Spend time working on your opening. Try to avoid trite questions
like “Have you ever wondered why so many people find it difficult
to lose weight?” Firstly, it’s dull. Secondly, it’s not targeting
the person reading the article – what do they care about the
difficulties “many people” have with losing weight? They only
care about THEIR weight problem!

Try to come up with an opening paragraph that gives the reader
that warm “Hey, this is about me!” feeling right away. Better
still; try to generate a rush of excitement – “This could be the
answer I’ve been looking for…”

Example: “The diet gurus make it all sound so easy: to lose
weight, all you have to do is expend more energy than you take
in. Huh! If it were that simple, the “Big People” stores would be
out of business in a heartbeat. Luckily for those of us who are
tired of diets, gyms and dull group meetings, there is a
back-to-basics way to tackle this. A way that won’t cost you a
fortune or leave you feeling deprived.”

3. Write As You Speak… Then Edit!

The sample opening above also illustrates the importance of the
tone you use in your article. You need ‘meat’ in each article, of
course, to make it worth reading – but make sure it’s not
indigestible!

You’re better off writing your article in a natural, relaxed
style that’s akin to normal conversation. It doesn’t matter if
the first draft is a little too informal – you can fix that when
you edit. Naturally you don’t want to irritate your readers with
a too-breezy style, but too-formal is worse. Readers may want
facts, tips, and strategies, but they hope to be entertained,
too! Let your personality shine through.

4. End On A High

What’s one of the biggest problems with most articles? They
fizzle out! Writers often don’t know how to end on an upbeat
note. They either just stop dead or they come up with a trite
ending like: “So what are you waiting for? Get started today!”

The beginning and the end of your article are the two parts that
make the biggest impression. Start by creating a feeling of
anticipation… and leave them feeling satisfied (or excited)
when you finish.

If you are offering advice to help them solve a problem (like
obesity) gives your readers a reason to feel optimistic and good
about them. Don’t make rash promises… but do offer hope. If you
are giving hints on marketing or business, sum up the benefits of
acting on your tips. You can also experiment with using a
pithy/humorous quote, or giving readers a specific action to get
them started. Be creative – and don’t rush it.

Here’s a final tip: create an article-writing cheat-sheet for
yourself. Divide it into beginnings/middles/ends and add more
useful strategies as you think of them. (For example, using the
tips in this article, you might write: ENDINGS - end on a high,
offer hope, use funny quote, suggest action to get started.)

Do this, and you’ll be steadily cranking out articles that
everyone wants to publish!

Popularity: 22% [?]

Do you know why your clients buy? Seems like a pretty simple
question, right? Not really, when you dig deeper under the
surface. How you answer is critical to the success of your
business.

To begin, understand one simple fact: prospects and clients buy
for their reasons, not yours. They could care less about your
company and your mission statement or the long list of product
features you so skillfully articulate.

They only care about the outcome your offer provides them. They
want the benefit, the impact, the improvement, the comfort, or
the security it will deliver. Most small business marketing fails
to address these crucial client needs directly. Instead, they
focus on the greatness of their product or service and miss what
is important.

Small business marketers are often their own worst enemies.
Frequently, they are not communicating on the buyer’s level of
motivation. They are too busy figuring out how to “sell” the
product than finding out the reasons the client “buys”.

The problem comes down to the marketing strategy that is
employed. Are you pushing your product or are you pulling the
client through the marketing process?

There is a very important distinction here. Since buyers only
care about their needs and take action for their personal
reasons, why should they pay attention to why you think your
product is so great?

When you push your products, you are essentially telling the
client that they should buy from you because of your reasons.
With this egocentric approach you often run into a stone wall of
objections and delays. Pushing the product forces them out of
their comfort zone and places unnecessary pressure on their
decision making process. A relentless assault of closing
techniques pushes them away from a purchasing decision on their
terms.

Pulling a buyer through the purchasing process is much more
effective. When you pull you are leading them to the purchase
like leading a horse to water. You gently guide them through your
features and benefits and come to a decision on their terms. If
they resist you have not educated them enough with information to
motivate them or you haven’t addressed their objections
sufficiently.

The buyer will only make a decision when they are comfortably
satisfied your offer has met all of their purchasing criteria. As
a seller, you must pull them through the process and always let
them stay within the limits of their comfort zone. It’s by
staying within these boundaries that trust is established and a
long term relationship is built with the client.

Also remember that the purchasing process is completely rooted in
the perceptions of the buyer. They have ultimate control over the
process, not you. Your job as a marketer is to develop all your
communications to make them comfortable and lead them to the best
outcome…purchasing your product or service.

Always be aware of which method you are using – push or pull – and adopt it to the buyer’s personal reasons for purchasing and
you will enjoy continuous success.

Popularity: 23% [?]

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal
WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability
to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and
track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic
to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top
blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with
literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an
average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to
“Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts” by TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo
it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google’s Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS
to Google’s Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links
like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than
simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is
perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software
such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time
you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as
AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ.
Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google.
DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as
possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be
done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy
comments like “I agree.” Leave well thought out replies that will
force readers to wonder “who wrote this?”

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or
quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track
back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few
interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards,
business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible
know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups,
Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE
group services and find like minded people and talk with them.
Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for
advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you
leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get
annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own
site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted
across the web. Sites like Del.icio.us, Technorati and many
others have a social feature that allows you to place your
article under keywords or “tags” that everyone interested in that
tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic
to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your
imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive
traffic to your blog!

Popularity: 30% [?]

In the ‘good old days’ – about three years ago – you used to keep
in-touch with your customers using phone calls, email messages
and face to face meetings. Nowadays the world has changed. People
expect even more frequent updates, yet it’s nearly impossible to
meet with every business contact on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on
your web site – and having an associated RSS feed – means you can
keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers.
Plus you don’t have to email them and they can get your latest
news without having to visit your web site.

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a
web page that gets updated regularly. It’s nothing special. There
are several methods of writing ‘blogs’, but they are nothing more
than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web
page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a
website called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the
key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is
that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want
to read it – you don’t have to send it to them and neither do
they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of
your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them.
There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers
incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed
automatically gets updated in everyone’s Reader program or web
browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in
touch with clients and prospects. You don’t have to do anything
other than produce the content. Equally, you don’t face the
problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your
email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they
have subscribed to them whereas they tend to ignore non urgent
emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs and RSS
Feeds. But it doesn’t stop there. Search engines love them.
That’s because blogs provide fresh and new content – precisely
what searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are
actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. This
means if you don’t have a blog for your business, you are
seriously reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking.
You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web
presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and
prospects more easily. And all the marketing research you can
find will tell you that keeping in regular touch with your
customers is an important component in gaining new business. So
get blogging!

Popularity: 22% [?]

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be the difference between a
small, barely profitable or visible website and a traffic magnet
website. There are a lot of ways, both good and bad, to
influence the search engines. Some search engines react to
certain strategies better than others. Some even have
conflicting strategies that they react to. To document all of
these things would require a significant number of pages and
research that goes beyond the scope of this article.

However, there are a number of things that can be documented that
will work for most if not all search engines. And let’s face it;
there are really only 3 that make a difference between a
successful and an unsuccessful SEO strategy. They are the big
three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines in any
given month are responsible for over 90% of all internet
searches.

So, what is this article about? It’s about what you can do as a
website owner that will influence the search engines using
commonly accepted practices of linking to other websites
(outbound) and getting website links (inbound) back to you.
There are basically 4 strategies that a website owner usually
will employ to increase their website value in the eyes of the
search engine. They are reciprocal linking, one-way linking,
multi-site linking and directory linking. A website owner should
not think that using just a single strategy is the right answer – sure it will help your SEO but it won’t be the Best answer. The
Best answer is to employ all 4 techniques and to do it
naturally.

Each of the four linking strategies has specific descriptions
that can be summed up as:
1. Reciprocal Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links
back to Site A
2. One-Way Linking = Site B links to Site A
3. Multi-Site Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links
to Site C, Site C links to Site D, and Site D links back to Site
A. Could be 3..N number of sites involved.
4. Directory Linking = Site Directory A links to Site A

That seems simple enough but it takes time and effort to perform
all 4 strategies and most website owners aren’t willing to spend
the time or don’t have the time to spend on it. As a website
owner, SEO needs to be one of the highest priority tasks that you
need to address, just after Order Processing and Fulfillment and
Customer Service. Without free traffic from the search engines,
other traffic generation strategies that usually require payment
must be engaged.

Now doing the 4 strategies above is great, but it gets even
harder because you have to do it in a way that doesn’t trigger
the search engines to enforce a penalty upon your website. No
one except the search engine engineers know all of the exact
penalties but we have some good theories for some of them.

The first is the rate at which links are created. There is a
certain threshold for creating links that is too fast. It’s
possible that the threshold is a sliding scale and is related to
the age of the website according to the engine. For example, a
young low-traffic website should not normally be getting 1000
links a month whereas an older website that gets a lot of traffic
could be OK to get 1000 links a month. As you progress in your
linking strategies make sure you keep this in mind, especially if
you are thinking about buying links.

The second is that having a link to every site that links to you
will likely reduce the value of the links. In other words, if
all you ever get is Reciprocal Linking, you will likely move up
the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page’s) but you won’t reach
your sites full potential. Having a mixture of all 4 strategies
will appear more natural to the engines.

The third is having all inbound links to your site on “linking”
pages will make those links less valuable than having a natural
link on a contextually relative page for a percentage of the
inbound links. The higher you can drive this context percentage,
the better your website will rank. These types of links are
often some of the most difficult links to generate an exchange
for because it requires more time and effort for both website
owners.

The fourth is to have links inbound from all different ranking
sites. If all you have linking to you is page rank 6 and 7 sites
then you are likely to be sending the message that you purchased
your links and that is not natural to the engines. Some would
argue that purchasing links for driving traffic is just fine and
it is. However, you should not expect the search engines to give
those inbound links very much weight when calculating your SERP
positions. It is significantly more natural for you to have a
large number of rank 1 and 2 inbound links and a decreasing
number of inbound links as you move up the page rank scale (0 – 10).

The fifth is to have the text of you inbound links varied. It
isn’t natural to have every website that links to you to have the
same text on the link description. The natural tendency would be
to have a certain percent be the sites name, but after that it
should be a wide variety of description. Your link text
description is a key factor for how your site/page will rank, so
make sure that you keep that in mind as you specify your
preferred link text description on your website.

Finally, it would be best for a good percentage of your inbound
links to appear within the text of a page that appears natural
for the reader of that site. And for those links to not all
point back to the home page of your website. It’s most natural
for a good high quality link to appear in the text of a page and
have it point internally within your site.

So, when you begin or continue your SEO activities keep all of
these things in mind and don’t be impatient. Impatience could
incur penalties or worse. Your website could end up in the
“sandbox”. It is rumored and becoming more concrete that Google
supposedly uses a sandbox that questionable sites are put in
until they have aged to a point that Google no longer feels that
they are being manipulated. Many of the search engines use
similar protection schemes to eliminate spam sites and
manipulation sites to keep their SERP’s from being cluttered.

Popularity: 22% [?]