article 539

The Pen is Worth it's Weight in GOLD!

How do you get traffic to your web site? How do I get traffic to MY site?

Actually, I employ elves. Not exactly the ever so famous green elves that put spare change in our shoes on St. Patrick's day, rather something different. Something special.

Okay, you've got me! I'm pullin' your chain but I DO employ something a little different to get traffic. It's often overlooked, but important.

Something powerful.......

It's a PEN. Or at least, a *digital* device that gets the SAME job done, the KEYBOARD. You see, a powerful yet overlooked way to get traffic is to write articles for other ezines!

There's a shortage of good articles out there yet ezine publishers are HUNGRY for fresh, good content. If you can write (and you CAN. I believe in you. :-), then you have a gold mine at your fingertips. Ezines exist in HUGE numbers and they're one of the BEST ways to get exposure. Write for them and you'll get some FREE traffic and hopefully some sales to boot.

Okay, lets cut the chin waggin' and lay this out! Here's how to get the ball rollin'

1. FIRE UP THE COMPUTER.

You will not get far if you forget this step.

2. WRITING IT ALL DOWN.

First things first, write what you know or at very least, are comfortable with. The WORST thing you can do is to attempt to pass yourself off as an expert in a fiend in which you're not. In doing that, you'll only harm your "ever-so-important" reputation.

Then, get organized. Remember when you were in junior high school? They had us put our writings into outlines FIRST, BEFORE we started that essay assignment we were to do. Well, that applies here too. (It's a good thing we studied eh? :-)

If you were like me, you spent time in English class NOT studying but "clowning" around instead. Here's a quick refresher course.

Take a blank piece of paper and write your article's topic in the center. Circle it. In this case, I wrote "ezine article writing". Now, around that circle write down your ideas about the article (like sub-headlines for example).

The outcome will look sort of like a spoked wheel. The title (or main idea) in the center and the supporting ideas radiating out around it. This is called mind mapping. It's one of the best and easiest ways to organize your thoughts.

While we're on the subject of organizing and gathering information for your masterpiece article, try to find some resources to include with it. Just go to any search engine and search for free (but informative) stuff to include in your article. (Like web sites, ebooks, etc.) Although I don't always do this, I like to try. Better still, if you've got resources of your own on YOUR site, include those.

Now that you're organized, it's crunch time. Now you have to write the article. If you "mind mapped" your ideas, all you need to do now in organize that into paragraphs - and into an article.

Here are some quick blips about writing your article......

A. Format the article to no more than 65 characters per line. To be safe, I publish mine at 60 per line. Then, you need to break each line with a hard return, hitting "enter" at the end of each line.

Why?

Email programs are not standardized and some wrap differently than others. This means that even though your article looks awesome in your inbox, it may look like jumbo in another.

By formatting your article, you're insuring that your article looks great in ALL programs. An ezine publisher will not format it for you. They don't have time. They'll just skip it and you don't want that.

Don't worry. I've found a cool program to make this easy for you. It's called Ultra Edit and you can set it up to cut the lines at ANY character (60, etc) you choose AND insert the return. Best of all, it does this AUTOMATICALLY, whilst you type. Once set up, all you do is bang out your article. In fact I'm using Ultra edit right now! http://www.ultraedit.com

B. Don't make your article an obvious sales pitch. Don't write just to make the sale. Write to REALLY help those who you're writing for. Save the sales pitch for your byline. By doing this you'll earn a great reputation and believe me, NOTHING is worth more then that. In the long run, it'll pay off.

Ezine publishers, myself included, will not accept articles that are blatant sales pitches. There are ways to sneak in a "soft sell" like educating the readers about topics that pertain to your product and then inviting them to your site in your byline.

C. Oh yeh, the byline. Be sure you include this. It's like an ad in EVERY ezine and site your article gets published in.

Basically, a byline is an ad at the end of your article - an invitation to YOUR site. Here's a quick example of a byline. Of course, be original and use your OWN ideas.

>------------------------------------------------------------------
>John Doe is the Publisher of the highly acclaimed
>ezine, The "Whatever" eGazette. Subscribe today
>and get "xxx" free! http://www.yoursite.com/ezine.htm

Do you see how this works?

Don't forget to include the RIGHT email address and/or URL in your byline. As foolish as this may sound, I'm guilty as charged. Cyber "you-know-what" happens!

D. Spell check your work. I don't need to rant on about this. It's the obvious. Make sure that your work is clean of any spelling errors before you publish it.

E. Never and I do mean NEVER, EVER send your article out the same day you finish it. Set it down and come back in a day or two and read it. I can almost GUARANTEE you that you'll find changes to be made.

NOW THAT YOU'RE DONE - GET OUT THERE!

Okay, now that you're done (wasn't that easy? ) it's time to get your piece of wisdom to the masses!

How do you do that?

Well, there's two ways actually. You can submit your articles to "article archive" sites and you can send them out to ezines publishers

ARCHIVE SITES

Although our main focus in this article is submitting your piece to ezine publishers, lets talk about these "archive sites" a moment.

Basically, the name of these sites says it all. You submit your article to them and it is added to the site's archive.

Lots of ezine publishers use these sites (myself included) to find good content. If your article is "a cut above" you can get some great exposure from these sites.

I have ONE site that I use most of the time and it's called Marketing Seek. Marketing Seek is co-owned by a fellow named Rick Beneteau. When it comes to writing and publishing articles for ezines, this guy's a king. http://www.marketing-seek.com

And some other archives? Here they are.......

1. MakingProfit.com http://www.makingprofit.com is an extensive article directory owned by "Wild" Bill Montgomery. You can submit your work there. To find out how, go to http://www.makingprofit.com (once there, click on "Submit Article!")

2. EzineArticles.com http://ezinearticles.com is another great resource. Simply go to http://www.ezinearticles.com and click on "submit your article"

3. Here are some others to keep you going.
http://www.isyndicate.com
http://www.mediaspeak.com
http://www.web-source.net

With archive sites, you stand the chance of getting a little more exposure for your article with less effort.

EZINE SUBMISSION

Here's how to submit your article to the ezines. This is where this tactic gets *real* powerful.

If an ezine publisher publishes your article, you'll get your message (and byline) in front of *thousands* of targeted prospects. It's like getting a free ad in an ezine because your byline is in fact, an ad of sorts. Due to your article, you'll also gain some credibility to boot.

How do you do that? Follow my lead!

1. Go into some ezine directories and look up the ezines in your TARGET MARKET. I put "target market" in all caps because this is crucial to make this work.

Investigate the ezines you find and collect their publisher's contact info. I say "investigate" because you'll want to know if these publishers have guidelines for article submissions like If they have an online form for submitting articles (if they do, use that), article length, etc. You'll also want to find out their names (for personalization) and enter all of the info (email, name) into a database program like Microsoft Access. This does take some time but believe me, it's worth it!

2. Now that you've got a database of ezine publishers handy, it's time to submit your article! First though, you need to write a cover letter. It's not good practice to just send an article alone. The publisher will not know what to do with it and delete it. More importantly, it's not good "netiquette" to do it that way.

Include a short cover letter with your article explaining who you are, what you're doing and WHY they should publish your article. Also, thank them for their "kind consideration."

Here's an example of a cover letter I used.

>Dear John Smith,
>
>
>My name's Ben Pedersen from ProfitQuick.net.
>Here's an article that you may use in your fine
>publication.
>
>I am certain that this article will provide your
>visitors with a fun and powerful read. This
>article, "Shots Fired! Marketers' Down!" addresses
>an issue that needs addressing - professionalism on
>discussion boards in a warm and humorous way.
>
>Please feel free to include this article in your
>fine publication with the byline included. Email
>notification and a sample issue of your ezine would
>be greatly appreciated. The article is below.

>Kind regards,

>Ben

Then, you would past your article below the letter.

Do you see how this works? Feel free to twist this to fit your needs.

3. EMAIL IT OFF!

It's important to personalize your messages to your ezine publishers. This will impress them and if it's your first time submitting to them, you'll want to make a great impression. There are many inexpensive email programs out there that will do this for you. Go to http://www.profitquick.net/software.htm and check out World Merge. (Under eMail Tools)

If you want, you can also use your email client such as Outlook or Eudora to send your articles. Just remember, these programs do NOT personalize your messages and the publishers will know that you sent your article out to more than one ezine.

A WARNING: Never and I mean NEVER post your email addresses into the CC field of your client. If you do that, all of the addresses will show and that will IRRITATE everyone. Use the BCC (BLIND Carbon Copy) field instead. This will prevent the list from showing and protect everyone's privacy.

If you want to start this way that's fine. Simply insert everyone's email addresses into the BCC field and send the message to yourself.

EMAIL TIPS:

A. As I said before, make sure that your email wraps at 65 characters with a hard return.

B. Spell check everything.

HERE ARE SOME "CAUTIONS" ABOUT ARTICLE SUBMISSION.

1. We talked about that BCC rule. Make special note of it.

2. We're in business to make money but don't pitch products and services at the publisher.

3. Don't over use your welcome. Never send more than two articles per month.

4. Don't send out a "dud." Only publish your best work. Remember, it's YOUR reputation at stake. You'll want to be professional.

5. You need not send an attachment with your email. Just past the article as described above. If you sent an attachment, your recipient will think it's that "Happy99" virus.

So, there you have it! I'll tell you, if I can write ANYONE can! You can do it. Just be yourself and write WHAT YOU KNOW. You won't believe the power of the written word.

I'm going to go one step further here and offer you a free ebook on this very topic. This is the "mother of all ebooks" when it comes to writing for promotion purposes.

Here it is! http://www.profitquick.net/eBooks/ezinemoney.exe

If you study this article - and that free ebook, your pen will be smokin' as you write your first article!

Until next week, kind regards.

Ben Pedersen

________________________________________
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