Article Submission Is Useless...Unless You Know What Your Doing

Article Submission is a great way to get traffic to your site, but in some cases, articles are wasted in a directory that have so many articles on so many topics that people looking for a topic just get overwhelmed and look for something else. If you submit your articles to large directories with thousands of other articles about every topic, what is the chance that you article will be viewed? What is the chance that it will be published somewhere else? The truth is that it is not an easy thing to get your article discovered by a website owner and re-published especially if you are not a proffessional writer. The key to making your article submissions more worthwhile is to submit to specialized directories.

You might be thinking that these specific directories are not as good because they do not get as much traffic and they might not. The reality is that they probably get as much traffic or more traffic that is targeted to the specific niche. This way you know that every person that goes to that directory is looking for an article like yours. Broad article directories are great; I only use them when I cannot find a directory for the topic f my article (just like this one).

The idea of submitting articles to specific article directories is revolutionary. This is a way to get your articles published in a place where every single people is looking for an article similar to yours so there is a higher chance of being re-published.  I saw an example of such a directory when I was looking for articles to fill my site about “fishing”. What I found was amazing, the site had many features that a regular information/shopping site would have but they also had an additional area where you could submit and republish articles that they posted. I found a countless amount of information and in no time I had a 50-page website within the day and my site had already been spidered by Google by the end of the month after I wrote my own articles for that directory.

These article directories are not easy to find though when you type “article directories” in a search engine. They use different key words. This is a problem because it is hard to know what key words will be found by imputing a key word in a search engine. To find them you have to type in a more specific search phrase. For example, if you are looking for articles for fishing you might want to type in, “fishing article directory”. This will locate any fishining related website as well as directories for fishing packed with articles on the topic.

Submitting your articles to directories are a great way to get your site many backlinks as well as giving you a reputation for being an expert on the topic. If you send your niche articles to directories with a broad range of catagories and sub catagories and sub sub catagories, you will have a lot of trouble competing with the pofessional writers. What you want to do is find a specified directory with articles focusing on a certain topic, this way you have a higher chance to get you articles published  all over the internet faster then you can imagine.

Article Submission – Your First Viral Marketing Tool

One of the most important aspects of having success online is to use your limited marketing and time resources in the most effective way possible. In other words, you need to get as much return on your investment as you can by spending the smallest amount of resources (which could be monetary or time-related). For Internet marketing, there is one excellent strategy that answers all of the requirements from above – it’s called viral marketing.

Through viral marketing you initiate an action and then allow it to propagate, much like water ripples would do in a pond if you threw a rock in the water. The whole concept uses the “word of mouth” idea, but is ads the speed and efficiency of virtual communication.

On the Internet, a viral marketing campaign may bring your website a huge amount of traffic for an initial investment that is almost negligible.

One of the most important, effective and easy to use tools of viral marketing is the process of submitting articles to directories – let’s have a look at how this works and why it’s so effective in Internet Marketing.

How does it work?

The process is simple and you don’t need any programming skills to initiate a viral marketing campaign. Simply write a high quality article, or commission someone else to do it for you. Choose a topic that is related to your website, but make sure it addresses issues that are of general interest in the target audience.

For example, if you own a site on dog training or dog products, you might want to write a more general article on this topic, as that has a better chance of spreading around. Add a “resource box” at the end of the article, writing about yourself in the 3rd person and describing your website.

Also make sure to add at least one active link in your resource box – note that some directories will require you to place HTML code with your links in order to make them active. Here is what the link code should look like:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com"> Site Name </a>

Of course, replace the URL and the description of the site to suit your needs. Your article is good to go and now it's time to submit it to several directories, for increased efficiency. Make sure to choose the appropriate category where the site will appear. It also helps if you can find some niche-specific article directories. Some great resources to submit your articles to are:

 o http://www.MyContentBuilder.com
 o http://www.MyPetContent.com
 o http://www.Buzzle.com
 o http://www.EzineArticles.com

Getting back to the dog training site example from above, you might want to look for specific, pet-resource oriented directories. The efficiency of submitting to specialized directories is a lot higher than general content directories, but there are also fewer of them and it’s hard to locate more than a bunch of really good ones. A great pet related resource to submit articles is:

 o http://www.MyPetContent.com

If you are already submitting articles, but you're looking for an easier and faster method, you might want to try an automatic article submitter. It will submit your article to over 30 directories in half an hour. To watch a video on how to do this, go to:

 o http://1trac.com/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video.php

Article Submission – Benefits of Submitting to Directories

The benefits of article submissions are often neglected by many webmasters who would rather pay for expensive online advertising (with short to mid-term results) rather than develop a long term marketing campaign. And article submission is one of the most effective long term strategies.

There are few other marketing tools that have such a wide range of benefits as article submissions:

* Article submission is free – this is one of the few Internet marketing strategies that can have better results than expensive pay per click campaigns or other similar forms of paid advertising. Submitting articles to directories is free, because the webmasters of the directories are always looking for fresh and original content.

As long as it meets their quality standards, reputable article directories will gladly publish your article. Some great resources you may want to try are:

 o http://www.MyContentBuilder.com
 o <a href="http://www.zapcontent.com">ZapContent.com</a>

* Submissions are fast – creating an account with an article directory may take around 2-3 minutes, but you only have to do it once. You should create at least 20-30 accounts with different directories to give your submitted articles more exposure.

With the account already created, it may take another 2-3 minutes to input all the required fields for the article (title, summary, keywords, body text, and resource box).

You can submit your article to at least a dozen directories an hour – and it would probably take around 3 or 4 good hours for a very effective submission campaign to a large number of directories.

* There is also the bulk submit option some directories offer – that is also an excellent way to submit your articles, but most directories will charge a small fee for it. In many cases, the fee is so small that it is really effective to submit your articles this way.

Article submission can be tedious, which is why you may want to consider an automatic article submitter. It will submit one article to over 30 directories in half an hour. To watch a video on how to accomplish this, go to:

 o http://1trac.com/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video.php

* They promote your website – when a reader goes through your article and deems it valuable and informative, chances are he or she will want to visit your website for even more resources. They can easily access your URL from the resource box you provided.

Of course, your article has to actually impress the reader and make him want to find out more – so high quality is a necessity here.

* They have the viral power – the nice thing about article submissions is that they have a huge viral marketing effect. Webmasters and blog owners are often readers of the directories and many of them will publish your article on their own websites and blogs, keeping the credentials and resource box intact.

This means that although you may only submit your article to 50 directories, chances are that in a couple of weeks or months, hundreds of other websites and blogs will have the article published, granting you more exposure and, thus, higher traffic numbers.

* Article submissions are great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – since most search engines place a high value on one-way links going towards your website, submitted articles are a real “gold mine” from a SEO point of view.

Combine the power of one way links with the viral effect of high quality articles, and you will soon get the big picture on why article submissions are rated among the most effective online marketing tools.

Personalizing Autoresponders

Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and
been addressed by name? This has probably
happened to you at stores that you frequent often.
The shop owner knows your name, and uses it. He
remembers you, and he wants you to know that he
cared enough about you and your business to
remember you. In the offline world, this is just one
aspect of customer support.

Customer service like this is almost impossible to
achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it
can exist when you personalize your autoresponder
messages. Autoresponder messages can be set up
to address people by their first or last name – or both.
In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information
that can be added, depending on the autoresponder
that you are using.

The information is included in the autoresponder
messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will
use different codes to insert the information in your
messages. You simply write your message, and put
the codes where you want the personalized
information to appear. For instance, your message
may start out with ‘Hello (code for first name)! In this
case, the person’s first name will be inserted where
that code is.

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will
most likely improve your response rate. Research
has shown that emails that are personalized with the
person’s first name are opened more often, and
those people are generally more receptive to the
contents of the email message.  It is usually very
easy to do. You write one message, using the
codes where you want the personalization,
then, no matter who that one email is sent out to,
their personal information will appear where the
codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the
information first. This is done with the use of forms
that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you
are giving away a free ebook, and you have your
visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive
the download instructions for the ebook by email, that
form should collect any type of information that you
want for personalization – such as a first name, as
well as the email address. If that information is not
collected, the autoresponder won’t have anything to
insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your
autoresponder, and find out what type of
personalization you can add to your autoresponder
messages. You may be very surprised at the
improved results!