A Good Business Name Must Be Bold: Oh, Really?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Yudkin Visit just about any blog of a high-priced naming consultant, and they'll tell you with oracular confidence that a business name, to succeed, must be X, Y or Z. This is bluster. It is a branding statement of their own, arguing for the kinds of company names they like to create and against the kinds of company names they personally look down on. Such rules are not a valid-for-every-situation fact.
The naming "must" you'll encounter most often is this one: A Good Business Name Must Be Bold. It must make a statement. It must stand out. It must call attention to itself.
Yes, that's often a good idea, especially for a new operation that needs to earn publicity, word of mouth and market share. But not always. Consider a community bank that is expanding into new territory, across a river that to residents marks a mental boundary. Its number one concern is whether or not its current name encompasses the new geographical area in residents' minds. If not, they may be looking for a new name that provides continuity with their current name yet includes the locations where they're opening new branches. Boldness is nowhere on this bank's list of naming criteria.
Indeed, it's a rare bank that goes for, or should go for, a bold name, one with emotional impact and shock value. Much more important for banks is engendering trust. Other goals might be emphasizing rootedness, history or connection. Banks - and many financial services companies - need different naming criteria than a footwear company or an adventure travel firm.
It might surprise you to know that I have had clients hire my naming company wanting a name that didn't stand out. In one case, a financial advisor was moving to a new city and wanted a company name that would blend into the background, not attract any attention and make people assume he'd been doing business there forever.
I encourage you to wipe the slate clean of what you've read or heard and think first about what you hope the new business name you are looking for will accomplish. Do consider guidelines and "musts" because they point to naming factors you might otherwise overlook. Don't let your goals get overruled by someone else's branding agenda.
Don't be intimidated into looking for or accepting a company name that can't take you where you want to go!
About the Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, a company that brainstorms
creative business names, product names and tag lines for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with an appealing and effective name or tag line, download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line" at
http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm Read more
Articles written by Marcia Yudkin.
Keep Your Search Engine Options Open To Find Better Information
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Copyright © 2008 Trey Pennewell Gone are the days when all research was done in the library and with encyclopedias. These days, students can almost avoid the library altogether throughout their education. The Internet is the main reason for this - online libraries, databases, and the World Wide Web have made nearly unlimited information available to its users. Of course, along with any type of good searching and researching practices, users must be cautious with the information they obtain.
It's absolutely true that there is a lot of information on the web, but it's equally true that not all of it is valid, usable, or based on fact. It is also valuable to switch up your search/research tactics from time-to-time, to find the strategy that produces the most desirable results for you.
The so-called "Big Three" search engines are: MSN, Google, and Yahoo. These three engines are popular for a reason. Nearly 72% of searchers use these three sites for results. At this point, all three of these engines are massive and moneyed.
They are able to employ powerful spider programs that can crawl the Internet, looking for and returning search results. Their funding makes them able to afford more computing power, better spiders, and whatever new technology evolves to comb the Internet in an automated fashion.
The downside to these popular engines is that results lists are becoming highly advertising-focused. The big marketing term that online marketers are consumed with is "search engine optimization" or SEO. With a focus on SEO, search results can lead to articles that are heavily laden with "keywords".
These keywords are often specifically implanted to draw better and higher placement on results pages. That doesn't necessarily translate into valuable or desired information for you, the searcher. In addition, the big three search engines incorporate sponsored-placed results in their lists. If searchers don't notice the "sponsored" classification, they may believe these results are part of the desired information, instead of merely advertisements.
An often-overlooked tool for searching the Internet is a Meta search engine. These Meta engines don't have the budget of the big engines, which is one reason they're frequently overlooked or simply ignored.
Another reason I believe they're overlooked is because they compile the results of multiple search engines. There's no benefit, in the eyes of the Big Three, to meta search engines, because their results are combined with their competitors'. Unless they can guarantee that their particular search results would be the highest ranked, they'd rather not deal with meta engines at all.
Meta search engines dampen the brand power of the bigger search engine companies. Plus, bigger search engines don't want you to find out that you prefer a different engine over theirs!
These underused meta search engines offer different perspectives and results than what you've come to expect from other search engines. Some of the best meta search engines currently available are:
http://www.dogpile.com,
http://www.widow.com,
http://www.clusty.com, and
http://www.surfwax.com.
Dogpile.com is perhaps the best-known of the meta engines. It complies the top 10 results from various sites, including the Big Three. As a comparison, widow.com uses a different mathematical equation to compile results, eliminating the sponsored results found on dogpile.com and minimizing repetition of content.
Clusty.com also compiles results, but separates out the sponsored results at the top of the page, making it far less confusing for users, as compared to digging through dogpile's mix of sponsored and unsponsored results. Finally, surfwax.com lists one-line results, giving you a large quantity of results at an eye's glance.
For a searcher who needs to find and sort through a great deal of information available online, meta search engines are the way to go. They ultimately save time for the researcher, who doesn't need to type in the same search terms over and over in each individual search engine. It also helps to cut down on repeat results if you use the right meta search engine (widow.com, for example, does a better job of not having repeats than dogpile.com, in my experience).
Niche search engines offer different results than the typical search engines, as well. For many Internet users, these niche engines are not even known to exist. However, hundreds of niche search engines do exist, on a wide-ranging set of topics or niches.
Some popular niche engines you may have heard about (and not realized were niche engines) include:
http://www.technorati.com,
http://www.healthline.com, and
http://www.blog-search.com. Technorati.com focuses on the blogosphere of tech topics. Healthline.com is comprised of all things health and medical related. Blog-search.com focuses on, well, just what it sounds like - blogs!
Finally, human search directories offer yet another perspective for your searches. If you are not familiar with these, you really should give them a try sometime.
Directories like
http://www.mahalo.com and
http://www.dmoz.com are two examples of human search directories. In these, actual human beings research topics, providing pages with the most relevant results. They can be really interesting and spot-on, but they can also be highly subjective, according to who is assigned to a topic. As always, be cautious with the information you receive, as there is real potential for human error and human opinion to affect the search results.
Finally, when deciding which search engines to use for your searches and research, think of quantity versus quality. Some search engines will give you a high quantity of results, but they can contain a good portion of sponsored results, and a lowered portion of content results.
The purpose of researching a topic online is to learn new information, and if you are relying on the Big Three search engines, you might just find that there is nothing new to be seen under the Google, Yahoo or MSN.
A quality search engine should save time for the searcher, so keep your options open to less traditional search engines to get a more in-depth understanding of your topic!
About the Author:Trey Pennewell is a
ghost writer, who regularly writes articles for clients of:
http://www.thephantomwriters.com Trey understands that the secret to successful article marketing campaigns is to write articles that publishers want to publish and readers want to read. We hope you enjoyed this article today.
Balancing SEO Against The Needs of Your Article's Audience
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Hunter Waterhouse Article marketing continues to be a proven method for generating traffic to our websites and developing good search placement, even after all of these years. I have been reading articles online since 1995, and I continue to read a few dozen articles per week on subjects that are dear to my heart.
Some Claim That Article Marketing Does Not WorkNow and again, I will read a thread in a forum somewhere where somebody claims that article marketing does not work.
Some article-marketing critics will admit that they have only distributed only one or two articles. Well yeah, I can see why article marketing did not work for them - because they did not work at making article marketing profitable for them.
Article marketing is like any other method of advertising. If you don't make a real investment in it, then you cannot reap great rewards from it.
The Marketing Rule Of SevenAdvertising professionals speak of the "Marketing Rule Of Seven," which suggests that a consumer must see your marketing message at least seven times before they start to pay attention to your message. The pros also suggest that once seven exposures have been achieved, the consumer will make a subtle, subconscious connection to the advertiser. Recognition brings rewards, in that after seven exposures to an advertisement, consumers will start to feel as if they know enough about the advertiser to trust their sales message.
If television, radio and print advertisers understand that a company's sales message must be seen or heard at least seven times, then why would you - the Internet marketer - think that you can write a single article and see the full benefit of the medium?
Successful Article Marketing Requires A Commitment To The ReaderAll commerce on the Internet is driven by information, such as written sales messages and information about products and services. Some websites also benefit from generic information concerning topics that their potential clients will be interested in reading. For example, if a website sells plumbing supplies, the consumer may find the availability of information about how to remove the old fittings and how to install the new plumbing equipment, as an essential element of their purchase decision.
Article marketing when done correctly will not be a boring, blathering of search engine optimized keywords related to a product or service line.
Article marketing, when done well, will provide information that will be of real interest to the person most likely to buy what you are selling.
For example:
If you are selling auction services, give the reader tips to help them make more money from the sale of their goods in the auction environment or how a buyer can find a good deal.If you are selling auto warranties, tell the reader how to uncover the best value in an auto warranty plan and what features to seek.If you are selling resume services, give the reader advice on how to write their own resume.Article marketing when used well can help a company establish itself as an expert in the field, and it can help show a reader why hiring the author's service might be better than a do-it-yourself project. As an example, with the resume advice article, once the reader sees how comprehensive your knowledge is and how detailed a resume should be, the reader may just decide that using your resume writing service will be much more productive than the do-it-yourself resume.
Just Like Lawyers, Writers Specialize TooBeyond the cost of labor, content development is usually the second most expensive expenditure made by the online vendor. It is important to note that just as there are lawyers who specialize in one area of law, there are also ghostwriters who specialize in certain types of content creation.
People who write sales copy are referred to as "copywriters." Copywriters are people who understand the nuances of how to make people buy what you are selling.
They understand that replacing a single word in the sales copy could mean the difference between lukewarm sales numbers and red-hot sales numbers, and they know which words to change.
Some professional copywriters have a proven track record of writing sales copy that has generated millions of dollars in sales - people such as Frank Kern, Dan Lok, and Joe Vitale. These guys know the value of their copywriting skills, and they charge accordingly. If you ask them to write sales copy for you, don't be surprised when they quote you a price in the range of $5-20 per written word.
Other writers might specialize in writing books, brochures, and articles. Some writers specialize in the smaller word counts, like the folks who write greeting cards and book jackets.
Finding The Best Writer For Your NeedsThe kid down the street who writes part-time for the newspaper may or may not be the best person to write your online articles for you. One reason is that people who write for offline publications seldom appreciate the importance of keywords in an article for search engine marketing purposes.
Note this article for example. Our purpose is to show you how you can use article marketing as a successful marketing tool for your business. We also want to show how the articles should appeal both to the reader and the search engine algorithms.
With these thoughts in mind, when you are finished reading this article, read it a second time to see how many variations on the following SEO keyword phrases can be found in this article: article marketing, search engine marketing, keywords, advertising, content creation, writers and copywriting. Of course, copywriting is not the kind of writing we do, but people who do not understand the specialization of writing skills might type "copywriting" or "copywriters" into their favorite search engine to find someone who writes informational articles.
One never knows precisely what the public will use as their search keywords when they go to the search engine to find information. That is the very reason why a good online article writer must strive to showcase a range of similar keywords within the context of an article.
Your Article Marketing Strategies Influence Your Overall SuccessWe know that some people tell you that the only reason to write an article is to get a link back to your website. What most of these people don't tell you is that most websites that accept reprint articles do so, only after a human has reviewed or at least scanned the article.
An article that does not read well will never be published on a top-tier website. Yes, some websites may accept a poorly written article, but more sites will only accept well-written articles.
A reader who is not impressed with your article will seldom reach your resource box, so the link back in the resource box can only give value to your website from the search engines - maybe. The search engines generally only give value to articles on good websites or those placements that have lots of links pointing to the article within the website. Bad articles don't get published on good websites, and they do not attract links.
As the Marketing Rule Of Seven should indicate, multiple articles generate a long-term wave of new links and potential visitors to your website.
Consistency is also important to a successful article marketing campaign, in that releasing weekly articles will enable your readers to see your marketing message regularly.
Finally, the smart use of a variety of related keyword phrases will strengthen the ability of your article to appeal to the search engines and the people who use them.
If you can balance the needs of your article's audience against your need for search optimized content, then you can benefit handsomely from your article marketing campaigns.
About the Author:Hunter Waterhouse is a ghostwriter and editor. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see the quality of the websites that have published his articles, and you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. If you need
ghost written articles, visit:
http://www.reprintwriters.com If you have hired anyone to ghostwrite articles for you, confirm their honesty and the uniqueness of your articles, with the free
Plagiarism Check Tool.
Article Marketing Advice: Increasing the Readability of Your Articles
Article Presented by:
Hunter Waterhouse When it comes to writing articles to promote your online business, it's important to consider more than just your marketing goals: it's essential that you also focus on writing articles that people will want to read. In other words, you don't just want to use words; and you don't want to market and sell your business directly. Instead, you want to make an effort to be engaging and influential.
The first tip that will help you to increase the readability of your articles is to write with the reader's concerns in mind. If you are unsure of exactly how to do that, you may want to look into article ghostwriters who understand article marketing and who only focus on writing articles for Internet audiences. When you work with article ghostwriters, you can focus more on your business and know that someone else is working hard on your behalf to write articles that will be read.
Getting The Best Results From Your Article Marketing Campaigns Still, if you want to keep article writing within your company, rather than outsourcing it, here are some tips for getting more out of your article marketing campaigns:
1. Hook your readers from the start. Article writing is a lot more effective for marketing your business when people will actually read the articles. The best thing that you can do is to catch their interest right away. Your article title will determine if people will open your article, and the first paragraph will ensure that people keep reading the article.
2. Avoid the temptation to overwhelm your readers with a lot of information. Article writing is not about telling the reader everything that there is to know; it's about sticking with a central focus and giving your reader an introduction or overview of the information they want and need to solve their problems. In an article that probably won't be much more than one thousand words, you will never be able to tell the reader everything they need to know to solve a problem, but you can help put your reader on solid footing for moving forward towards a workable solution.
3. Break up information into digestible chunks. Writing articles is about expressing some key points. When it comes to writing articles for the internet, what you are going to find is that many readers skim rather than read your articles. Using numbered lists (like this one) will help you to present your information clearly, and let readers find what they are looking for quickly. Similarly, if you use bullet lists or break up your text with subheadings that are in a larger font and bolded, you can be sure that after reading your article, the article's key points will be easily recalled.
4. When it comes to article writing, particularly when you are working to establish yourself as an expert, it's important to show that you know what you're talking about. A great way of doing that - and to break up the text of your article - is to include quotes from more established experts. If you are writing articles and are more established, you too should quote other sources, possible letting the readers know why you disagree with another writer.
5. Focus on spelling and grammar. Just as someone who is hiring article ghostwriters should take the time to find ghost writing services that are well versed in your point of view, it's also important to be sure that you're writing in the native language of your target audience. American English is different from that spoken and written in England and India. Paying attention to your spelling and grammar shows that you care about what you are saying and that you are a professional.
A good example of the difference between the usage rules in British English and American English is the story of Paul Marshall from Dallas, Texas. When Paul was running his mortgage business, he had hired some Indian writers to develop content for his website. When he received the copy from his ghostwriters, the copy used the word "mortgage scheme" in the text eleven times. Paul was pissed, as you might well imagine. In British English, "scheme" does not carry any negative connotation. Yet, as you may well realize, "scheme" in American English is one of the most negative words that can be applied to any business model. It denotes "dishonesty" and "fraud" in American English. His Indian writers could not understand his anger with their choice of words, but you can understand his anger.
Professionalism In The Article Writing Process Professionalism, unfortunately, is frequently overlooked when it comes to article writing. Great writing flows, not just for the writer whose aim is to get the words and message out, but also for the readers who are consuming the information.
Because of this, one key element of an effective article is not the writing itself: it is the readability of that article. Take the time to look at the articles that grab your attention and jot a few notes about each of them. Specifically, focus on the following:
How did the writer grab your attention (or, if you weren't interested in the first paragraph, what turned you off?
What sort of spacing did the writer use in the article?
What did you come away with after reading the article? In other words, what were the key points of the article?
Writing articles is neither purely science nor purely art at its best; it is a good combination of the two. A great article focuses on a key issue, isn't stuffed with keywords (you do want search engines to find the article, but too many keywords in an article takes away from readability), and is as easy to skim, as it is to read.
When all is said and done, an article that gets read in its entirety will carry the reader to the Author's Bio at the end of the article. Ideally, the reader will read the entire article and feel a desire to visit the author's website to learn more about the writer of the article. It is article marketing at its best, when the reader likes the article enough to click on the link in the Author's Bio and visit the author's website to learn more about what the author is offering.
About the Author:
Hunter Waterhouse is a writer and editor who has been employed by The Phantom Writers (http://www.thephantomwriters.com) for many years. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see just how well his articles have been received by the Internet Marketing community. Then, you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. To learn more about how The Phantom Writers can help you with article ghost writers, please visit: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/services/ghost-writing.html
Seven Tips for Hiring a Professional Article Ghost Writer
Article Presented by:
Hartford Rhodes Writing articles is a great way to market your online business, because it puts you in the position of being able to establish yourself as an expert in your field. The challenge, of course, is that not everyone feels comfortable with the idea of sitting down and writing articles. That's where article ghostwriters come into play.
Ghost writing is a well-established tradition in which non-writers, such as yourself, can hire someone else who will do the actual article writing, while you are able to take the personal credit as the author of the article. That's right: with ghost writing, you pay someone else not only for writing articles, but also for all rights to those articles. As a result, you are able to make any necessary changes and to publish the article with your own bylines and contact information, attached to the article.
Unfortunately - as is the case with many things - there are many article ghostwriters out there, some of whom are more qualified and capable than others. How can you be sure that you are hiring the right article ghost writers?
1. Take the time to identify what you goals will be for the articles. We often argue that your article must speak directly to the people most likely to buy your goods and services. Therefore, your goal is to talk to the people in your target market, in a way that will appeal to your prospective customers' needs. When you are going to be hiring article ghostwriters, you will need to be able to let them know what your goals are and whom you wish to talk to in the article.
2. Do your homework; because there are a number of article ghostwriters out there, it's a good idea to look at the ghost writing services that have a good reputation in the marketplace. More importantly, it's a good idea to look at ghostwriting services to determine where the writers are located and what their education level. (Many writers who live in India can produce excellent articles, but it must be noted that they write in British English. If your customers are generally Americans, then British English may not serve your interests well.)
3. Before hiring article ghost writers, take the time to compare different writers and services. Once you have made an effort to find ghost writing services, ask to see a sample of the work that they have done. Keep in mind that it may be difficult for them to provide samples, as once they have submitted articles to a client; they no longer have the rights to those articles. If you are told that samples are not available, ask for references who you can contact about their experience with the article ghost writers.
4. Check references. Even if the services that you have contacted about writing articles are able to provide samples, ask for references and follow through with an email or a phone call to ask whether or not they were satisfied. If they received great articles but it took a long time - and you need something written this week - you may need to look to a different service.
5. Be clear about expectations - both yours and theirs. Many article ghostwriters will expect at least partial payment up front; most businesses looking for articles want to know that they will have them within a set amount of time. Likewise, there may be specifics that you are looking for in your articles; let the article ghost writers know what you are looking for - the subjects that are the center of the article and the keywords that you want to have used are important things to communicate to the writer.
6. Ensure that, if you are dissatisfied with the article, you will be able to have a re-write included. If there are minor changes, you will be able to make them yourself; if, on the other hand, the wrong keyword focus was used or information within the article wasn't accurate, you should feel comfortable asking for a rewrite and one should be provided.
7. Determine which other services may be included. Some ghost writing services will also submit the articles to publishers and webmasters who will be interested in publishing the article, while others will only focus on article writing.
These seven tips for hiring ghostwriters for writing articles can ensure that you are heading in the right direction, and that's essential because - as article marketing becomes increasingly popular - you will come to rely on article ghost writers to help you to promote your business. Establishing a healthy relationship with your article ghost writers from the very beginning will give you an advantage: you will always know where to turn and you will be in a better position to market your business.
About the Author:Hartford Rhodes is a writer and editor employed by The Phantom Writers (
http://thephantomwriters.com). They will ghost write and distribute reprint articles for the promotion of your online business, and they guarantee that you will like the articles, or they will fix them to your desires. They also employ
American writers, most of whom have degrees in English. Learn more:
http://thephantomwriters.com/services/ghost-writing.html
How-To Make Your Ezine Stand Out From The Masses
Article Presented by:
Bill Platt This morning, I was contemplating the question of how many ezines (electronic magazines) were currently in circulation. So, I tried to do a bit of detective work.
Newsletter Access (http://www.newsletteraccess.com/) has nearly 10,000 ezines listed in their database.
PubList.com shows 150k in their database.
The ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) database has so far registered more than one million periodicals, many of those being in the electronic format. (http://www.issn.org/)
No matter which set of numbers you follow, there are a lot of ezines competing with your ezine for the same set of readers.
With so much competition in the marketplace for ezine subscribers, it is imperative for us to learn how to develop a loyal following among our own subscribers. In this article, I examine a three ezines that are excelling in the marketplace and building a large and loyal following of readers. I will also look at three reasons why these three e-zines are doing so well.
The Electronic Newsletters That We Will Review...
1. Travel by Vasrue Weekly E-Magazine (http://travel.vasrue.com/newsletter/index.html)
2. Your Membership (http://www.yourmembership.net/)
3. SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com/)
Original And Exclusive Content
All three of these electronic newsletters utilize original content at one level or another.
Travel by Vasrue uses only exclusive, original, travel content in their E-Magazine.
The Your Membership newsletter, owned by AEO Publishing, Inc., provides a section of their newsletter for webmasters to submit websites for review, and then they print some of those reviews for their readers to consider. They also allow individuals to submit questions, and then they print the best answers submitted by their readers.
SiteProNews, owned by Jayde Online, Inc., utilizes a lot of first-run, original content written by members of their staff, including articles written by Jim Hedger and Mel Strocen. Some of this content can be seen in other publications later, but you will always see it in SiteProNews first.
Exclusive content allows your ezine to stand far above all of your competitors. While free reprint articles (like this one) are a good source of information, most of your competitors rely solely on other people to create the content for their newsletters.
For most readers, this is not a big deal, except when the particular article used may have been read in competing ezines previously.
Readers tend to favor ezines that utilize exclusive or first-run content in their issues.
A Winning Formula
Successful ezines always have a specific format and formula for their publications.
Travel by Vasrue focuses on giving their readers specific information that they can use to make good travel decisions. They also provide specific information regarding a choice of vacation options within the context of their currently discussed travel destination.
The Your Membership newsletter focuses on offering their readers an opportunity to ask questions and to have those questions answered by other readers who have the knowledge to share.
SiteProNews prefers to provide content that will point you to third-party resources that are related to the current topic.
Once an ezine has found their winning formula, that formula will become their trademark.
They Understand Their Readers
If you do not understand what your readers want from your newsletter, you will never be able to develop a profitable mailing list.
Travel by Vasrue doesn't leave it to chance. They ask their readers what destinations they would be interested to find specific information. Then they deliver exactly what their readers have asked to receive.
The Your Membership newsletter is offered on a dozen or so websites that cater specifically to the needs of webmasters who are looking to develop a commercially viable website. While the source of the subscription pretty much defines what their readers want to see in the newsletter, the fact that they rely on the Q&A process to fill their issues helps them to select articles that would be of real interest to their readers.
SiteProNews is offered to the people who use Jayde Online's many free webmaster tools. Their newsletter caters to the needs of those commercial webmasters who are already utilizing their free tools.
In Conclusion...
Successful ezines are those that are willing to cater to the specific needs of their readers, and then they deliver their information in a consistent format. Successful ezines are also those that are willing to invest the extra time, effort and money into creating one-of-a-kind, original content for their readers to voraciously consume.
While those reprint articles are often very informative, I am sure that you hate it when you see the same article appear in a number of the ezines that you read. A once-in-a-while repeat article is all well and good, but if one ezine is consistently following in the footsteps of another ezine you read, then why would you want to keep reading the second?
The Your Membership newsletter has shown us that utilizing mostly reprint articles can prove successful, when you are willing to mix some other kinds of exclusive content with the free reprint articles. SiteProNews has shown us that you can be successful when you are willing to mix original, first-run articles with reprint articles.
By following the lead of those who have been successful before you, you might just find that you can build your mailing list to be a very profitable aspect of your overall enterprise. It is my hope that this free reprint article has given you some food for thought as to how to follow in the steps of those before you.
About the Author:
Bill Platt owns http://thePhantomWriters.com, which specializes in distributing articles to ezine publishers and webmasters. He has been providing his ghost writing and article distribution services since 2001. You can reach Bill by phone at 405-780-7745 between the hours of 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday. To learn about some of Bill's other services, please visit http://www.PlattServicesInc.com
Self-Promotion Writing Tips for Companies
Article Presented by:
Tammy M. Ratcliff One of the best ways for companies to "get their name out there" is through self-promotion. This is a little different than straight up advertising and usually more effective. Self-promotion involves providing information to potential clients by way of a written article instead of the standard sales pitch. Any company can proclaim their greatness on a banner or a billboard; however, when a company offers free advice concerning their area of expertise, it makes a much stronger statement to the potential clients. Here a few things to keep in mind when writing articles for self-promotion.
Catchy Titles An article's title is one of the most important devices used in getting a reader's attention. The title can literally make or break an entire article since it will most likely determine whether or not a reader keeps reading. If the reader doesn't finish the article, he will not see the link at the bottom that leads to your company's website. So, while creativity is always appreciated, accuracy is much more important.
In other words, the title really needs to say exactly what the article is about. If George Clooney's name is in the title, the article better be about him. People do not like to be tricked into reading something that has nothing to do with the subject they are looking for. The goal with self-promotion articles is to provide useful information to people who might use your services. George Clooney may be the hottest man in show business, but if he doesn't use or endorse your product or service, it is best to keep his name out of it.
Beginning Paragraphs An article's first paragraph is just as important as its title. This is, hopefully, the attention getter! The first paragraph should feed off of the title and set up the rest of the article. It should do so in an informative, interesting way that encourages the reader to keep reading. This is also a good place to set up a general scenario that most readers will be able to relate to. If the first paragraph is successful in grabbing a reader's attention, the likelihood greatly increases that the reader will finish the article, thus discovering the company responsible for its content. Mission accomplished!
Length and Language Time is so important to people today. Therefore, when writing self-promotional articles, keep them relatively short (around 700 to 1000 words). Make sure they are written so they are easy to understand. When a person is seeking information today, they want to be able to find it fast and read/learn it even faster. Big words and long articles are just not compatible with this mindset.
The Professional Edge You may know everything there is to know about cars, but if you can't put your thoughts to paper in a clear, concise manner, consider hiring a professional writer. Self-promotion through writing Internet articles can only be successful if the final product provides a positive representation of your company. Therefore, if your article is filled with misspelled words and dangling modifiers, the only thing it will succeed in doing is making you look incompetent. People who run their own companies often do not have time to spend looking up the rules of punctuation and parallelism. However, writers do! If need be, take advantage of someone else's writing expertise to help promote your business in the most professional way.
Editing Editing is another area where outside help could be needed. Even the most careful writers make mistakes. Unfortunately, once an error is printed, it is too late to correct, and even the tiniest typo can mar the judgment of a potential client. Because of this, hiring an editor may be a worthy investment. An experienced editor will go beyond checking for misspelled or misused words and look for shifts in voice or tense, as well as subject-verb agreement. Using an editor doesn't guarantee an error free article, but it increases the likelihood a great deal.
Conclusion Self-promotion using Internet articles can be a great way to increase your business. This type of instructional marketing emphasizes knowledge instead of gimmicks. Taking the time to create a well-written article may seem counterproductive to your actual business, but the results will speak for themselves.
About the Author:Written by:
Tammy M. Ratcliff. The Phantom Writers specializes in ghost writing articles and distributing them as free-content on the World Wide Web. If you would like to promote your business using
self-promotion articles, the Phantom Writers will be able to help you. If you would like to talk to a person about our ghost writing or
linking services,
call Bill Platt at (405) 780-7745, 9am-6pm CST, Mon thru Fri. --- Tammy M. Ratcliff is a staff writer and editor for
http://thePhantomWriters.com and
http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com
Please Learn From My Mistakes!
Article Presented by:
Tammy M. Ratcliff Lots of people know how to write, but not everyone knows how to write well, especially when it comes to writing an article for publication. In these instances, it is imperative that what is written be as error free as possible. Once something is printed, it cannot be corrected, and unfortunately, people will notice. Here are a few things I have learned not to do when writing for the general public.
Misspelled Words Ever written an article, published it, and then discovered you had misspelled a word? Spell-check is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't catch every error. For instance, if a word is spelled correctly but is not being used in the proper context, spell-check is likely to pass right over it. That is what happened to me when I accidentally typed the word "pubic" instead of "public" in the middle of an article. My computer and I both failed to recognize the error, but millions of readers everywhere were treated to a nice, little chuckle on my behalf. That embarrassing incident taught me to always have someone else check my writing before releasing it to print.
Incorrect Word Choice Some words are not only spelled similarly, but have similar meanings as well. This can lead to a lot of confusion for both writers and readers. Some examples include "it's" versus "its" and "may be" versus "maybe". Again, these are things that may not be recognized by spell-check software. Even if the distinctions between the words are subtle, it is still very important that they be used correctly. Somebody, somewhere will not only notice the mistake, but will have no problem pointing it out to whoever will listen. It is always better to be certain about a word's proper use before committing it to print, than to learn about the error from a reader after the fact. Sometimes, the dictionary is a writer's best friend.
Big Words and Lengthy Sentences In college I studied mostly English and Philosophy. I wrote more papers than I care to remember, but one thing I do recall is being encouraged to write a variety of different sentence lengths and to be creative in my word choices. I was instructed to write down my deepest thoughts as thoroughly as possible and not be afraid to over-explain them. This may have been great advice for writing a theme or an essay, but it doesn't go over very well with most media publications.
I have found that people who read newspapers or internet articles want to be able to find information quickly. They tend to scan articles first to see if they want to read the whole thing. College professors may appreciate flowery words and sentences, but the general public prefers a more straightforward approach. Keep it simple, seriously.
Check the Facts Believe me, there is nothing more embarrassing than spouting off about something, only to have it brought to your attention (by a reader) that your facts are a little off. For instance, I once wrote an article that included a reference to Orson Wells' book 1984. The only problem was, Orson Wells didn't write that book. George Orwell did! I was horrified when I realized what I had done. It no longer mattered what the article was about or how brilliant my observations had been. To those who recognized my mistake, I had lost all credibility.
Tricky Titles I once read an article entitled "Judy Garland's Favorite Vacation Spot". The first paragraph did mention something about Judy Garland and something about "vacation spots"; but the rest of the article was about traveling in the southwestern United States. In other words, the title was not exactly forthcoming. This type of trickery should be avoided at all costs. It does nothing but irritate readers and create a bad reputation for the writer. There is too much deceit in the world already.
Conclusion The moral of this story is, when writing for publication or self-promotion, read, reread, and then let someone else read it too. Be aware of problematic words and double-check them. Make sure the article is easy to understand, but most importantly, that it is accurate and truthful. It's true that everyone makes mistakes, but writers must be especially careful to avoid them. Once our words are printed for the world to see, we cannot easily take them back.
About the Author:Written by:
Tammy M. Ratcliff. When you are ready to leverage inbound links to your website to influence how well your website performs in the major search engine results, then please explore the Links And Traffic
Guaranteed Link Building Services. If you would like to talk to a human being about our services,
call Bill Platt at (405) 780-7745 between 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday. --- Tammy M. Ratcliff is a staff writer and editor for
http://thePhantomWriters.com and
http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com
How to Keep Your Article Content Fresh and Interesting
Article Presented by:
Craig Ritsema Webmasters everywhere are constantly on the lookout for fresh and interesting content for their website. Along with these content qualities is the requirement that it be unique. Everyone wants their website to stand out above the others in the search engine results.
So what is the trick for you to keep a steady supply of this quality content coming your way?
One trick stands out above the others: Personality. Everyone has it. Along with personality some basic research would also be helpful.
There are authors who are very good at writing content or articles and giving them personality. We know them most often as copywriters or professional authors.
We can purchase the services of these professionals and reap the rewards. I've personally purchased articles from such a person, otherwise known as a ghost-writer, and have been very happy with their work.
The downside to this approach is that the good ones cost money. Unless you have a lot of this to spend your supply will be somewhat limited. The other downside is that their personality, no matter how good it is in writing, is not your personality.
If you're really serious about succeeding with an online business, why not learn the art of writing online content yourself? Sure it takes time. Once you perfect it however, you have a quality asset for succeeding in the competitive world of online business opportunities.
The easiest way to get started is to pick a subject matter you have experience with. If you have your own website, hopefully you have chosen an area of expertise or a hobby that interests you.
There are two areas you need to master in your quest to be the ultimate in online content authoring: Techniques for writing and the subject matter itself. If you start with an area of interest to you that you have experience with then the subject matter is easy. You can then simply focus on learning the techniques.
What are the techniques and how do you master them?
The techniques for writing articles are many and beyond the scope of this article. Offline, bookstores have resources for learning the techniques. Online, your best option is to find some good forums and read what others have to say. Much can be learned this way.
The following are some good tips to master the technique of writing articles: Read other peoples articles. Learn what kind of subject matter they write about and how they communicate this to readers. If you come across an author who really draws you into the article, find more articles they have written and study how they write it.
Join forum groups. Read what other people do and how they do it. Ask questions if you need help. You'll find many websites offering email courses to learn the techniques, usually for a price. I've never signed up for one, so I can't speak to the quality of this kind of learning process although I have spent a good deal of time reading thru different online forums and have learned much this way.
Learn how the search engines view your articles. If you want to succeed financially online then knowing how to write for maximum exposure in the search engines is important. Here again, a good forum group will help. Some e-courses delivered via email (free) can also provide good information. Just have to be careful that what you sign up for is quality and not just an opportunity for spammers to flood your inbox.
Practice makes perfect. You will need to write articles, and most likely many of them to succeed. You will not improve or succeed and reach your goals unless you're doing the work.
The internet is forgiving to those who initially start their article creation venture. A poorly written article for the most part goes largely unnoticed. If this is your first online venture, you may be surprised just how unnoticed poor content can be on the web.
Mastering the technique of article writing takes time. However, once you get past the learning curve, you'll be glad you persevered.
Once mastered, move on to new subjects and maybe you'll even find your goldmine of opportunity in the process!
About the Author:
You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:
Craig Ritsema operates a successful part time home business and resides in Michigan, USA. For more details visit his site at: http://part-time-work-at-home-opportunities.com/
Formatting Text for Newsletters, Broadcasts and Articles, The New Way
Article Presented by:
Kathy Sparks 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345
Well, that's one way to format your text newsletter to 65 characters per line, but is it really? I can't tell you how many times I've formatted messages and tested them only to either need to edit them, changing all of the hard returns and line lengths causing me to go through the whole thing and straighten every line out once more. Of course, when I send them to my clients for approval, they normally have a few adjustments to make, add a few lines or words which again causes me to reformat the whole thing again. This didn't happen just once to me and I know if you are reading this article, it's probably happened to you more than once.
How about sending out the broadcast to the whole list with one line twice as long as the rest of the message embarrassing, isn't it?
Frankly, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to this type of project and I'm always on the hunt to make it simpler. I've found numerous sites with templates, instructions, what to do, what not to do, but nothing that is e-a-s-y.
Until now, August, 2006!
I'd like to tell you about a utility that does it for you. Yes. I've found the answer. I've used this utility for the past three months and am amazed at what else I can do with it besides format newsletters and broadcasts. That's a given. I simply copy my text into the top box, choose how many characters I want per line and hit go. It's done!
The name of the utility is
WordWrapMagic at:
http://www.wordwrapmagic.com The one thing I need to do to make the paragraphs come out correct is to double space between each paragraph. If my client has adjustments, I just recopy the whole document into my utility program and reformat it. It literally takes a few seconds and saves hours of time.
Have you ever sent out a text newsletter or broadcast and the result was something like this: Sounds of Spring: Did you know that birds make two different types of songs? One âsongâ is a warning sound. It is flat, sharp and insistent. The other is itâs
See those strange characters? Those are slanted quotes created in the Word document. If they are not changed to straight quotes before you send out your broadcast or text newsletter, they come out something like the example above. WordWrapMagic takes care of that for me automatically! Wow!
And there's more! I've found that I can take a text document that is formatted at 65 characters per line with hard returns the articles you find in Yahoo! Groups for instance copy it into the top box and choose a line length of 500 or 1000 and hit go. This
takes out those hard returns automatically. The document is ready to put in a Word Doc or in a web page without going through the whole article to delete the hard returns.
Then, the other day, I needed to
convert a PDF document into an html web page. Without having a conversion utility, I was able to easily reformat the PDF. Here's how. I loaded the document as a PDF file, chose File, Save As and saved it as a text file. The right margin saved with hard returns in the text format and I needed to get rid of them before adding the document to my html page. Instead of going through every line to delete the hard returns, I simply copied the whole thing in WordWrapMagic's top box, double spaced where the paragraphs were supposed to be, chose 1000 characters per line, hit go and my document was ready to drop into my html program.
If you are looking for a utility to help in your day to day publication efforts, I highly recommend WordWrapMagic...you've just got to try it.
About the Author:Kathy Sparks, Professional Virtual Assistant and Online Business Manager, has partnered with clients nationwide in a multitude of professions and is a past editor and contributor for "The Virtual Advantage," an online newsletter for VAs and their clients. Publications include, "
Internet Business Management, How to Find and Work with a Virtual Assistant," found at
http://www.vasecrets.com , "The Virtual Assistant: A Guide to Creating, Filling & Sustaining Your Virtual Assistant Practice, "Connected Virtually, an E-memo."
Visit: Your Virtual Resource -
http://www.yourvirtualresource.com
Hidden Content Sources for Your Website
Article Presented by:
Kim Roach, All Rights Reserved As I travel through the Google search engine, there is one element that defines almost all of the top-ranking websites. It's great content. People come online for information and those that offer the best content reap the greatest rewards.
Unfortunately, this type of content is hard to come by. In most cases, you either have to spend hours in front of the keyboard or outsource the job to others. Both of these options are very costly. One requires your valuable time and the other requires an investment of around $10 - $20 per article.
That's why I have scoured the net in search of valuable free content sources. I'm still not quite sure why I'm revealing my treasured piles of free content, but I certainly hope you enjoy them.
One of my favorite sources of content is public domain. This comprises the body of knowledge without a copyright. Anyone can use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Below are some excellent sources for public domain material.
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is a library of 18,000 free ebooks whose copyright has expired. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "Pride and Prejudice", "The Time Machine", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and "The Canterbury Tales" have all passed into the public domain.
This means that you can put these on your website or even sell them in electronic or book format.
Explore a wealth of free content at
http://www.gutenberg.org Archive.org At Archive.org you can find thousands of works that are currently in the public domain. Want to put some cartoons on your web site? Check out the "Film Chest Vintage Cartoons", which is full of classic animated cartoons from the 1930's and 1940's. The collection includes Popeye, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, The Three Stooges and Betty Boop.
They also provide tons of other reproducable content including: Brick Films: Commonly called "LEGO Movies". Brick films are dedicated to the art of stop motion animation.
SabuCat Movie Trailers: The world's largest collection of theatrical trailers.
Feature Films: A large number of classic feature films and shorts.
Universal Newsreels: Newsreels were shown before every feature film in the pre-tv era.
Computer Chronicles: Was the world's most popular television program on personal technology during the height of the computer revolution.
Net Cafe: Television series covering the revolution during the height of the dot com boom.
All of these content sources are available for you to put on your website. check them out at
http://www.archive.org .
Another popular public domain destination is Wikipedia.org. Here you will find over 1 million articles ranging from Greek mythology and Egyptian history to business, health, and technology.
Go to
http://www.wikipedia.org for a huge collection of articles you can reprint on your own website.
Creative Commons Every creative work receives copyright protetion as soon as you put pen to paper, hit save, or press record. Because of this, no one can use that work without express permission from the author.
Creative Commons provides a new content license that allows you to share your work with others. If you want, you can even allow other people to expand upon your existing work. This allows for creative co-authorship.
The Creative Commons license has made piles of content available for use on your web site. Whether you are looking for audio, images, video, or text, you can find an abundance of reusable information within the creative commons.
To search for content to put on your own web site, go to
http://www.creativecommons.org Government Web Sites Works produced by the U.S. Federal government are not copyrighted. If you obtain a government document from the net, you are free to copy and distribute the document. I have found plenty of great content about finance, retirement, health, business, and traveling on government websites.
To search for content offered by the United States government, go to
http://www.google.com/unclesam .
Article Directories There are thousands of writers on the internet and many of them would love for you to reprint their articles on your website. You can find thousands of free web articles at the following article directories.
http://www.goarticles.com http://www.ezinearticles.com http://www.articlecity.com
Interviews
I consider interviews to be one of the best sources of quality content for your site. Simply interview industry professionals and post the recording and transcript on your website. This allows you to create original content very quickly.
Don't be afraid to ask for an interview, most experts would be delighted to speak with you. Remember, this is probably one of their greatest passions. If you ask them politely, your chances for landing an interview are good.
You can conduct an interview in person, over the phone, or even through an e-mailed questionaire.
RSS Feeds
RSS is changing the way we consume information online. In addition, it has also provided thousands of new content sources for the online publisher. RSS is simply a file format similar to XML that is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be easily understood by web publishing software and content aggregators.
By using RSS feeds, you can enhance the content on your site without ever writing a single word. And remember, on the Internet, content is King.
Want to put Amazon products on your site, updated news from the New York Times, financial advice from Motley Fool, or press releases from PRWeb?
This is all possible with RSS. No matter what type of information you are looking for, RSS can provide you with a constant stream of updated content for your web site.
To search for an RSS feed to enhance your own website, go to http://www.syndic8.com .
You can even mix and match a variety of rss feeds at http://www.rssmix.com/ .
Facts & Statistics
Looking for facts or figures to put on your website? Take a look at some of the sources below. You'll likely be surprised how many facts, figures, and definitions are available in the public domain.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html : The CIA World Factbook provides a number of statistics on countries, territories, and dependencies. Each profile tracks such demographics as population, ethnicity, and literacy rates, as well as political, geographical and economic data.
http://www.census.gov/ : One of the largest repositories for data and statistics related to the U.S.
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Main_Page : One of the best encyclopedia's ever written was published over 90 years ago. Search over 40,000 articles, all of which are available for publication on your own site.
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/3/257/frameset.html : A searchable interface of the 1913 public domain Webster's dictionary
Private Label Articles
Private label articles can be bought for pennies per article. This is possible because they are sold in bulk.
Many people criticize these articles and have declared them as worthless. However, I am here to tell you that private label articles can be very powerful when used appropriately.
Unless you have hours of free time every day, it is unlikely that you are going to be able to create the amount of quality content that your web site deserves. This is where private label content enters the picture.
You can use private label articles to:
Add content to your web site. Acquire hundreds of inbound links by syndicating the articles to article directories. Create a free report for your visitors and other website publishers. Create an information-packed RSS feed.
However, the key to using private label articles effectively is to optimize them. Straight out of the box, these articles are near worthless. To give them value, you must add your own touch.
Inject your personality into the article. Combine multiple articles and do some additional touch-ups to ensure that the article is in top shape for your readers.
Once you are finished you can add your resource box and send it off to article directories and website publishers.
If you are looking for one of the top private label article providers, go to http://www.infogoround.com
Images
Quality images can make your content much more inviting and keep people at your site for longer periods of time. Fortunately, there is a site that offers thousands of pictures completely free of charge.
Check it out at http://www.sxc.hu
Quotes
Quotes can give your website a special touch. Quotes provide interesting content in addition to an element of credibility. I often like to add related quotes to my web site simply to engage the reader's attention.
To find some quotes for your website, go to http://www.quoteland.com
In the end, you always want your content to be unique. Not for the search engines, but for your visitors. With quality content comes quality links. Once you have built up a reputation for delivering unique content, you will never have to worry about having an audience eager to visit your website.
About the Author:
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com) & SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com) newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim@seo-news.com
This article may be freely distributed without modification and provided that the copyright notice and author information remain intact.
Great Big List of Sites Where You Can Find Articles
Huge List Of Sites For Locating Reprint Articles
Articles About Education
A lot of you have websites and ezines that are concerned with helping parents make appropriate decisions about schools and a school education for their children. For most of us parents, we are deeply concerned about helping our children get the best education we can provide for them. Here are a few mailing lists and websites that can help you to find articles on these topics:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/submityourarticle-referenceandeducationArticles about Reference Topics and Education.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/education_articleblasterEducation related articles only.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Helping-Our-Kids-SucceedContent based on homework help, learning help, home schooling topics, teaching aids, etc. Any topic that would be of interest to parents seeking to improve the education of their children will be accepted to this group for distribution.
http://groups.google.com/group/Education-ArticlesEducation Articles ONLY.
http://groups.google.com/group/Historical-Reprint-ArticlesHistorical facts and stories at least one year in the past. Must be delivered in a informational & educational format.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Historical-Reprint-ContentHistorical facts and stories at least one year in the past.
More than one thousand Education Articles available at: http://www.InvisibleMBA.com/.
Where to Find Articles Specifically about Sales And Selling
These are a few of the known article mailing lists that specifically address Sales And Selling. If you would like to find content on these topics, these lists are great resources to watch:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_that_helpTopics accepted: Salesmanship and Self-Improvement.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sales-and-selling-articlesTopics accepted: Sales and Selling in general.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sales-marketing-tipsTopics accepted: Sales, Selling and Sales Conversion through Marketing, Online or Offline.
