Jan 30
Jan 29
Anyone with a business presence online wants and needs to attract visitors to their website and not just any old visitors at that. We need quality, targeted, visitors, people who are genuinely interested in what we have to offer, not just tyre-kickers. The problem is, how do we attract these quality, niche focused people in any numbers?
There are a number of methods; some of the Traffic Exchanges let surfers not only choose the category into which their website fits, but also to choose the categories that they wish to visit; online directories give the opportunity to list your website in the appropriate category which makes it easier for potential visitors to find you; meta tags in your web page code will tell search engines how to categorise your page so that people who use those search terms will be directed to your site. That only works of course if the search engine happens to index your site and there’s the rub. By far the greatest amount of traffic will come to you through the search engines but how do you make sure that your site is indexed?
Well, we’ve all heard of Search Engine Optimisation, in other words, making your website search engine friendly. Search engines send out “spiders” or “bots” to crawl websites and they are hungry for original content. If you have content on your site that doesn’t appear elsewhere, you will make the spiders very happy and they will be more likely to index your site. If your pages contain nothing but content identical to that found on other websites, they may not be indexed, in fact the spiders may not even bother to crawl them.
The way to provide those hungry spiders with original content is to write articles which are closely related to the topic of your site, your “niche”. Use keywords within your articles which reflect what you think are common search terms, which will help the spiders too. However, don’t forget that your ultimate aim is to attract human visitors so don’t overdo the keyword usage or your readers will become bored and leave your site for pastures new. Make sure, too, that the keywords you do use are relevant to the topic of your article. There’s nothing more irritating than searching for “wild flowers” and finding yourself on a web page relating to interior design.
Your articles should be a minimum of 500 words and should be informative and authoritative. In this way, your visitors will learn to respect your views or the information you provide and will be inclined to return. If you sound like you know what you’re talking about, they will also be more likely to take notice of your product recommendations and earn you some affiliate commissions.
This is just scratching the surface of the benefits of writing original content to publish on your website or in article directories, so look out for future articles which will look at planning and researching your articles, the importance of spelling and grammar and how to make the search engines notice your website.
If you would like detailed tips about the dos and don’ts of article writing, visit my Liz-e-Biz website and download my ebook.
Jan 29
There are many reasons why you may want to write articles but in terms of publishing for profit, there are really only two.
The first is for direct and immediate profit. In other words, you write the article and someone pays you for it. At this point, you lose all rights to what you have written, so don’t imagine that you can regurgitate even one sentence and re-use it. Of course, you still have the knowledge and are free to continue writing and publishing on the same subject. Just make sure that the content isn’t recognisable and that you don’t inadvertently use an identical complex sentence to one which was in the article that you sold.
The second reason for writing articles is to attract visitors to your website and/or to purchase your product for longer term profit. In this instance, you can’t sell your article because to need it to carry your name and your business details and web address, not somebody else’s. You retain the rights and can do what you like with your masterpiece, but you will probably choose one or several of the following.
- Publish on your own website but use your blog or newsletter to tell people where to find your article. If you “ping” your blog, certain search engines will be updated and others will detect of their own accord that your site has new, original content and will send their spiders along to index it.
- Publish in an ezine. Many ezine owners are looking for content and may agree to a swap, otherwise you may have to pay for your article to appear. However, if you choose the ezine carefully, it can be well worth the expenditure.
- Publish in an article directory. This may well lead to other websites using your work for content or distribution via RSS feeds. Each time your article appears, so will your link, attracting even more visitors to your site or product.
If you join MPAM and follow the 20 Steps course, you will learn about all of the above. The course lays out a detailed plan for the successful creation and population of a content-rich, search engine friendly website.
Whatever your reasons for writing articles and wherever they end up, before you start to scribble or tap away at the keyboard, there are a few basic things that you will need to know.
A good standard of English grammar and spelling is required. Without that, your articles will remain unread and other than on your own website, where you can do what you like, unpublished. The major article directories check spelling and grammar quite carefully and will reject out of hand, articles which are not of a sufficiently high quality.
Original, informative content is a must. It’s worth doing some research to find out what the internet population are interested in before you even start.
A well-structured, cohesive piece of writing is necessary. There’s nothing more likely to lose your readers’ attention than muddled or contradictory ramblings.
If you would like detailed tips about the dos and don’ts of article writing, visit my Liz-e-Biz website and download my ebook.
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