- How Do You Know What Topics Strike A Nerve With Your Target Market?
A key aspect of article marketing is providing valuable educational content for your target market, but how do you know what sorts of information your target customers are looking for?
Of course we always write on the topic of our websites, but beyond that, where can we get specific ideas for articles?
The crazy thing is that we (the experts) oftentimes are so waist deep in our field that we overlook the most obvious questions and topics.
As business owners who are marketing focused, sometimes our brains are not completely customer-centric when we're deciding what to write about.
That is just human nature–in order to get a read on questions that are circling through our customers' brains, we need to venture beyond ourselves and our expertise and journey into the turf of our customers.
But where do you find that turf, and how can we get into the minds of our customers?
Please check out these 5 main areas where you can get a read on your target customers so that you can then produce content that will satisfy their needs:
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: December 1st, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, free reprint article, writing
Categories: Creativity, Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo
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- Go Keyword Crazy: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #10
This is the thrilling conclusion 
of the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
We're all in the same boat here–all of us are at various stages of learning how to market and drive traffic to our websites.
If you're like most folks, when you first start marketing your website you probably didn't have any idea about any of the SEO stuff, such as keywords.
Then after a while, you learned what keywords are and what their purpose is, and you got the general impression that you're supposed to be using keywords in your website and in your article marketing campaign.
Perhaps you've overheard bits and pieces of information, such as "use your keywords in your articles to attract Google's attention" and "putting your keywords in your titles is extra effective."
And then you take that information and try to do the best you can with it.
No one can blame you for that–even the most experienced SEO junkie is constantly learning, constantly trying to figure out how things work.
But I have to tell you, I see more articles than I'd like to admit that look like they've been peppered with a keyword machine gun, with keywords just sprayed throughout the title, the article body and the resource box with no attention to the writing quality and educational content.
This is not what you're going for!
When it comes to keywords, balance it the key.
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 25th, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, keywords, SEO, submit article, submit articles, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, SEO, SubmitYourArticle.com Info
Comments: 1 Comment
- Run Out Of Stuff To Say: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #9
This is Part 9 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
You may have been running strong with your first few articles, coming up with ideas for your articles pretty easily, but I think pretty much everyone at some point runs into a writing inspiration brick wall that has us saying:
"Um, I think I've written about everything I can possibly write about in my niche."
And this is when an author does one of the following:
a) Gives up
b) Starts writing off topic articles (and we know that that is a no-no!)
c) Finds a way to tap into a limitless supply of article ideas
Let's choose option "c", shall we?
Yes, our imaginations run thin every now and then, and no, it isn't easy to come up with article ideas sometimes, but I promise you–no matter what the topic of your website, you can always generate new and interesting ideas for articles IF you follow these guidelines…
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 22nd, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, free reprint article, free reprint articles, HowTo, SEO, submit article, submit articles, unique article, writing
Categories: Creativity, Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, Productivity for Writers
Comments: 13 Comments
- Write Off-Topic Articles: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #8
This is Part 8 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
Every now and then someone will write in saying that they are not seeing the results they were hoping for with article marketing, and they'd like some feedback as to where they could be going wrong.
Then I look at their list of articles and start wondering,
"Hmmm, were all of these articles written to drive traffic back to the same website?"
You see, some of the articles are on the topic of "stereo systems" and others are on the topic of "ballroom dancing" and then others are on the topic of "parenting".
I check the resource boxes and sure enough–all of the articles are trying to drive traffic back to the same website…a website that sells stereo systems.
What is wrong with this picture?
When you're trying to get a grip on what you should write your articles about and why it's so important to stick to a certain topic, it helps to start with the basics.
First, let's refresh our memories about why we're actually doing article marketing in the first place:
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 20th, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, keywords, submit article, submit articles, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, SEO
Comments: 5 Comments
- Slap On A Lackluster Title: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #7
This is Part 7 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
You are submitting articles consistently. [check!]
You are writing articles that serve your readers and please publishers.[check!]
Your resource box is sticky and lures readers to your site. [check!]
You've created some really superb content in your articles. [check!]
Yay for you 
, but what if you're not getting as much traffic from your articles to your website as you would like?
Whenever someone asks me what one thing they can do to take things up a notch with their articles, I've got just 2 words for them:
Your TITLES!
Imagine you're going to a job interview.
You may be extremely qualified, inventive, creative, a real team player, but if you do not present yourself in such a way that you stick out from the other applicants, you'll just be looked over.
In a way, every article that you write has to pass a job interview–it will be judged from the outside first, and a reader's first impression will determine whether they want to take a closer look.
With your articles, your title is your first opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
The truth is that you can have an absolutely breathtaking article and an enticing and irresistible resource box, but it your title is totally ho-hum, then you won't see the traffic you're looking for.
Why?
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 18th, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, keywords, submit article, submit articles, writing
Categories: Creativity, Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo
Comments: 2 Comments
- Phone In Your Content: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #6
This is Part 6 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
Article marketing is where art, craft and technology meet.
When we think of SEO and technology, we sometimes think that things are super-complicated, that you need to think like a machine, but actually that couldn't be further from the truth!
Your ability to write a thoughtful article is much more crucial to your success than understanding the technical stuff surrounding article marketing.
Surprisingly though, sometimes the area where people slip up the most has nothing to do with technology, but involves more the "art" and "craft" part of the equation. Instead of producing well-written educational articles, folks can fall into the habit of phoning in content.
To determine if you've fallen into this trap, let's look at the 2 areas where "phoning in" of content occurs:
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 15th, 2008
Tags: article marketing, grammar, SEO, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, SubmitYourArticle.com Info
Comments: 5 Comments
- The Last Minute Resource Box: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #4
This is Part 4 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!
I think it's safe to say that we've all been there–
You've just finished writing your article.
You're excited to get it submitted and out to the publishers.
You login to your account at SubmitYOURArticle.com and start entering your article into the article submission page (or you go to an article directory to manually submit your article there), and lo and behold you're asked to fill in the Resource Box field. At this point many folks think:
"Doh! I forgot about that part. It's just a little author bio–no biggie. I can just come up with a Resource Box on the spot and get that part out of the way so I can finally submit my article."
Then, as I have done in the past, and as many others have done and are still doing, you throw together a Last Minute Resource Box and proceed on your merry way toward the "submit" button.
HALT!!!!
STOP!
Wait a sec!
Little do you know that you've just sashayed over perhaps THE most important part of your article submission–and it's not even part of your article!
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: August 11th, 2008
Tags: article distribution service, article marketing, articleleverage, submit article, submit articles, submit your article, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, SubmitYourArticle.com Info, Resource Box Rehab
Comments: 7 Comments
- 9 Must-Do Editing Tips That Will Improve Your Article Writing
You many not consider yourself to be a "writer", but the truth is if you are using article marketing as one of your marketing and link building strategies you will have to figure out a way to produce quality articles on a consistent basis.
Not only does the article need to be well-written and free of grammatical errors, but there are word count limitations, as most quality publishers don't like extremely short or extremely long articles.
Keeping this in mind, at SubmitYOURArticle.com we have word count boundaries of 400-1500 words.
I myself am naturally prone to write the epic 1500 word articles , but I have learned to edit my articles so that they stay between 700-800 words, which is the sweet spot with article marketing.
Well-written articles that are 700-800 words not only have a better chance of getting picked up for publication by online publishers, but they are also ideally suited to being published by ezine editors. Now, that's a plus!
Okay, you've written your first draft, now what?
Dustin Wax at Lifehack.org has a great list of editing tips that a writer of any skill level can do. Here they are (these are Dustin's tips with my commentary):
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: June 10th, 2008
Tags: article marketing, editing, grammar, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo
Comments: 10 Comments
- The 5 Most Popular Grammatical Errors Of All Time (and how to fix them)
Oh, how I love this post over at CopyBlogger: Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb
I'm sure from time to time we've all helped make these grammatical errors "popular". I think it's just a matter of trying to write quickly, and a number of these errors are homophones (the words sound the same but they're spelled differently), so they're easy to get mixed up.
Let's take a gander at each, and see if any of these hit home:
1) Your vs. You're
Your is a possessive pronoun, whereas you're is a contraction for the words: you are. If you're not sure which one of these to use, try using "you are" instead, and that should make it pretty evident which version to use.
2) It's vs. Its
I think for many of us it's not that we don't know the difference between it's and its, but that we're so used to typing "it's" that we go on auto-pilot and automatically put it in.
Just as a refresher, it's is a contraction for the words it is or it has. Example: "It's so gorgeous outside!"
Its is a possessive pronoun. Example: "Did you know that your article list has its own RSS feed?"
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: May 5th, 2008
Tags: article writing, grammar, writing
Categories: Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo
Comments: 4 Comments
- 3 Secret Tricks For Luring Readers Back To Your Website
Have you ever spent hours on your article, been eager to get it submitted and off to the distribution network, and then at the last minute threw together a resource box that didn't have much thought behind it?
I think we've all been there, especially in the early days of our article marketing campaigns before we realized the power of that little box. Yes, that's the place where you get to include a link to your website, and some folks put little more than a link back to their site in that precious area underneath the post.
But the resource box has the potential to do much more than just build links to your site–your resource box is the one place where you can talk about your own business/website and entice the reader to click through to your site.
But how do you entice and lure in 450 characters or less? Great question! Don't worry, it's not difficult, but it does take some strategy. If you want to get the maximum benefit from your resource box, just follow these 3 tips:
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Author: Steve Shaw
Date Posted: April 23rd, 2008
Tags: article marketing, HowTo, writing
Categories: Creativity, Writing, Article Marketing, HowTo, Resource Box Rehab
Comments: 29 Comments
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