More Article-Marketing Questions - For Alexa Especially

Yes, im waiting for her response as well.

Where is she when we need her

Doug and Bill,

Thanks a bunch!

Okay, so I don't wait around for someone to pick up my articles. Do I just find some likely sites and contact the owner, saying something like this: "I have written the most wonderfullest articles you can imagine for niche X. Would you be interested in putting them on your site?" Is that the way it works?

I can write well enough--been doing that for years (along with copy editing). I've also been writing articles for other folks for about a year. It's just that everything else . . . overwhelms me.

Michael

I never re-purpose my blog content for any of the directories either. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot, but I've always wanted original content on my own site. I do try to send high quality articles to the directories though, so it's not that I wouldn't be caught dead with those articles on my own sites.

Seriously...

She knows what she's talking about though. I've posted false advice before(unknowingly) and swiftly got corrected.

I put my articles at my own site first. They are there for the bots. I don't bring them to the attention of my customers. They have to really hunt to find my articles. But the search engine bots have no trouble finding them. So my sales page stays in front of my potential customers and the search engines believe I have an authority site in the niche.

You are beginning to overthink the process. If you start marketing in a new niche and want to use articles for promotion, you can find ranked sites and blog in that niche and offer to provide a unique article to them. Bloggers especially are looking for content all the time and may be happy to accommodate you.

Many of my syndicated articles were taken directly from EZA and placed on other sites with the resource box intact. I've seen little of the "publishing without giving credit" in niches I'm in and think that occurs most often in niches related to IM activities and make-money sites.

As for EZA - right now it's a tossup as to how long it takes to get approved or whether an article in a certain will be acceptable. Until the changes made last week settle in and EZA is "business as usual" we're all just feeling our way.

kay

Well, almost anything "context-relevant" is worth trying, really.

Good signs are if it just looks like a "good site" (I want their traffic if their articles/content are literate, and so on, because those are potential customers I can convert), or if they have a bit of page-rank, if they don't have too many backlinks on their site (I don't want a backlink on a page with 40 others, it's not worth bothering for that, because the link-juice is already divided too thinly), or if they've syndicated other content before (in which they'll probably say yes) ... but I don't exactly over-analyze it, to be honest.

I just err on the side of doing so, unless it looks awful. There's no downside, really. The time-consuming part is finding them. Once you've found them, it only takes another few seconds to send out a pre-written email to them.

I hired a writer one time who was very fond of his "stylistic cleverness" (because it impressed him as to his cleverness).

I fired him after only three weeks on the job, because he would not stop doing that.

If your style gets in the way of the goal of the article, which is to attract readers, drive traffic your website, and to put people into a mindset to consider buying what you are selling, then your article will be a failure.



I rarely follow "The Associated Press Stylebook" guidelines... And maybe it hurts me to do so...

I tend to write in a more conversational style. Much in the same way that I write my WF posts.

This morning, I was watching my reruns of Pitchmen with Anthony Sullivan. Something he said really stood out in my mind...

In the "Stadium Back" episode, he was advising the inventor on how to be a better pitchman for his product.

He said that when he was writing the scripts for his commercials, he was doing it in such a way that he would, in essence, be having a conversation with one person in his audience. He said that allows him to touch the viewer in a more personal way...

And that is what I try to do with my articles...

Just as I am sitting here typing, I am basically having a conversation with you.

I am communicating my message to one person in the audience specifically, although dozens or hundreds of people may be reading my words and absorbing the message that I am delivering.

And likely, you can sense that I am having a conversation with "one person" in the audience.

Yet, the fact that I seem to be having a conversation with one person in the audience does not diminish for everyone else, the message I am sharing...

All of you realize that I am talking directly to Michael, answering his specific question...

But is it possible that if I left off Michael's question at the beginning of this post, do you sense that I could potentially be talking directly to you instead?

This is exactly why I prefer the conversational style in my writing...

If I can make you think... If I can teach you something that you want to know... If I can make you smile or laugh... If I can make you feel as if I am standing directly in front of you, answering your questions for you in a way that you are satisfied with my answer, then my writing will be much more effective in leading you to take the action I want you to take...

And if I can lead you through the process, from opening my article, to reading it to its conclusion, to clicking the link in my resource box and doing what I told you to do in my resource box, then I stand a real good chance of getting you to happily send me money, at some point in the present or future...

Style does matter...

But don't let it get in the way of accomplishing your real goal --- leading people to buy what you are selling....