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How to use articles for marketing online?

Article marketing is about driving customers to your small business by placing articles that people want to read on your website.

By purchasing some keywords from search engines, you can be sure that the articles you publish on your website will have priority in the search list when customers type in those keywords in the search screen.

With article marketing, you show your customers that you are the expert in your niche, so customers will have confidence in your products and services.

Worldwide Exposure for your business

Marketing on the World Wide Web gives your small business access to customers all around the world, so your business can be taking orders and making money while you sleep.

The Search Engine Effect

Search engines index articles on several criteria, as well as the keywords, including readability, unique quality, currency, and popularity of articles.

Stuffing an article with your keywords, without making the article make sense will not win you hits from the search engines. Articles need to be well-written in order to both please and interest the customers, and to win the hits from the search engines.

Originality is Key

If you plagiarise articles from other websites, you may not get the marketing results you are after, as the search engines direct customers to the first website that published the article first. Unique articles will draw more customers to your website and market your small business better.

Consistent New Articles

Current and recently published articles will attract more hits from a search engine. Commit to adding new articles at least once a month.

You can archive the older articles, making them available to customers with a link and display the latest articles prominently on the website. If you regularly change the articles, your customers will come back to the website to read the latest news or articles on your area of expertise.

Keep Article Quality in check

Popularity of articles can mean number of hits, as well as customers who click on the article to read the entire article, and not just the initial blurb.

Well-written, informative, interesting, and unique articles will increase the popularity of your website. You also need articles that build up a level of trust and relationship between your business and the reader.

Authenticity and articles that do establish your business or an individual representing the business as an expert in the field will provide better marketing for your small business.

If you are unable to write well, you may want to use freelance writers, or websites like www.Constant-Content.com, where freelance writers sell articles to suit your needs. Purchasing quality unique articles every few weeks will ensure your website attracts the most hits from search engines and will provide your customers with regular information updates.

Article Marketing is Cost Effective and it works

Article marketing has many benefits and is not difficult to start. It can be an extremely cheap method of attracting many customers to your website and can build your customer’s trust in your small business as the expert in the field.

Whenever I try to log into MySpace and type my password it won’t let me log in - it says something like “find jsmon” and won’t let me in. Please help!

There are a lot of reasons why your MySpace account isn’t working but it might take a little trial and error to figure out why.

MySpace Problems

First, make sure that it isn’t the website itself. There have been many instances in the past few weeks of login problems that originate with MySpace. If you are told that your account has been deleted and you know it hasn’t, this might be one of those instances. Your best bet is to go to MySpace help and read up on any alerts. You can also fill out a “Contact Us” form if you feel that none of these suggestions apply to your case. You may or may not have success in reaching someone there.

Stolen Password

Hate to say it, but your MySpace account may have been hacked. Break up with anyone lately? Make any new enemies? Did you log into your account at the library or where someone else could see you type in your password? Any time other people know your password, you are subject to someone going into your account and changing your password so that you no longer have access to that account. Unfortunately, in this situation the best you can do is contact MySpace, tell them that you have been hacked and open a new account. You must be using the original email you signed up with in order for them to verify your identity.

MySpace Locked

Has MySpace locked you out for any reason? If you try to sign in with the wrong password or ID too many times, MySpace will shut you down. You need to wait at least 15 minutes before trying again. You can also get locked out for spamming or other behavior that is against their rules.

Possible Solutions

To try to get around the lockout, you can:

• Download the MySpace instant messenger and log into your account that way.
• Try another browser. Sometime switching from IE to Mozilla Firefox will do the trick.
• Try typing in: m.myspace.com into your browser to get into the mobile version and log in that way. You may not be able to use all of your apps, but you can at least get your messages.
• Your firewall may be blocking MySpace. Try disabling your firewall and then logging on. Be sure to turn it back on again when you’re done.
• Clear you cache, cookies and temporary Internet files. To do this in IE, go to Tools and then Internet Options. On the General tab, find Temporary Internet Files and choose Delete Files.

I really hope that one of these workarounds gets you in. Unfortunately, with services like this, sometimes the only solution is to try to cancel your old account and start over. Try to think of it as an opportunity to redo your account and it might not hurt so much.

I have mixed results with Googles conversion optimizer as it relates to the success of different products and different campaigns. Is there really an improvement with conversion optimizer vs the standard manual bidding option?

Google Conversion Optimizer vs Manual bidding

In my experience the conversion optimizer option results in less traffic but improved conversion rates. Campaigns with manual bidding turned on, seem to get a plethora of low quality clicks that have me constantly struggling to manually optimize bids.

Here is a great article about Googles conversion optimizer

Google Conversion Optimizer Discussion

Join the discussion below!

Revenuewire update: Revenuewire Conversion tracking now fixed as per www.rwstatus.com message below

Ongoing July 16th 2009 04:13pm PST
External (3rd party) sales tracking should now be corrected. We are currently working on ‘backfilling’ (regenerating) the tracking requests that were missed - this should be complete by the end of the day.

New July 16th 2009 04:01pm PST
External (3rd party) sales tracking is currently experiencing issues. We expect to have the issue corrected shortly.

I noticed this morning in my Google Adwords account that conversion tracking is not working for all my Revenuewire products. What are the implications of broken conversion tracking on Conversion Optimizer enabled Google campaigns?

Revenuewire Conversion tracking

First of all, Revenuewire conversion tracking is amongst the best there is- if not thee best. You see Revenuewire doesnt just place a cookie to ensure affiliate credit is given, they also look back at referral strings and in the event of a blocked cookie, will still credit the referring affiliate correctly 99% of the time. This is much improved on standard cookie-only tracking which yields approximately 90% accurate crediting to affiliates.

Implications with Google trafic

How does correctly and incorrectly functioning conversion tracking affect Google traffic?

It’s very important for conversion tracking issues to be fixed as soon as possible and the Revenuewire team is on top of this issue with vigor. Google’s conversion optimizer depends on accurate tracking in order to serve traffic to your sites that have the highest probability of producing a conversion. If tracking is broken the conversion optimizer thinks that all traffic sent your way is not producing a conversion or sale for you. Over time a conversion optimized campaign will get less and less traffic if no conversions are being counted.

Referring to the www.rwstatus.com page for Revenuewire which identifies system issues across the Revenuewire platform, the Revenuewire team is aware and working on issues identified with the affiliate interace. All other key areas like order and payment processing show green, so proper functioning.

A fix for the “Revenuewire conversion tracking not working issue” can be expected very soon!

I have a problem on Bebo. It has changed my writing to Spanish and when I look up to see if United Kingdom is there, only the Spanish speaking countries are listed. Spanish? Can you help me?

Bebo is a pretty cool social site. It takes a bit of browsing to find all of the neat features that it offers. From uploading videos to viewing them to sharing photos to chatting, Bebo offers a great deal for those who become members.

Errors with Bebo Language List

For some reason, Bebo seems to automatically change the language on its home page quite frequently. It’s a problem that many people are confused about when they encounter it. It doesn’t make sense for it to do so, especially if you’ve already selected your language. Nonetheless, it happens. Hopefully, the info that I provide here will help you. I can offer three ideas for changing the font. The first one is the most common one. The next two are simple enough to complete as well.

Changing Language in Bebo

Strategy 1:

Normally, you’d simply navigate to the lower right-hand corner of your screen to change Bebo language. There’s an image of a flag there that should be labeled with the language that you are using. In your case, this would be Español. You simply click on the word and select your new language choice from the menu that pops up.

Strategy 2:

Since it sounds as though the above strategy doesn’t work for you, then you need to try this tip for changing your Bebo language: Log out, use the steps above to change the language on Bebo’ home page, and log back in.

Strategy 3:

If that strategy doesn’t work for you, try clearing out the temporary cache in your web browser first and then entering and editing the language directly on your home page using strategy 1. Change the language setting to the one that you want.

How to Change Bebo Language Font

It’s important to note that special characters used in some languages do not migrate (transfer) properly in Bebo. Therefore, they aren’t going to show.

If you want to change your font while using Bebo, here are a few strategies that you can use for simple changes:

Bold Font: Enter <b> type your text </b>

Italic Font: Enter <i> type your text </i>

Underlined Font: Enter <u> type your text </u>

Strike Through Font: Enter <strike> type your text <strike>

If you enter the info exactly as above, only the text your type in between the two added bits will appear in either bold, italic, or underlined.

Ways to Make Money Online by Freelance Writing

Internet has helped revolutionize businesses in every way. Freelance writers have more opportunities today to earn great amounts of money writing online. Freelancers can get in touch with clients from anywhere in the globe for their writing projects. Here we will see how freelance writers can exploit the Internet revolution.

Part I: Freelance Writing Online

A number of freelance writing sites help writers build an online portfolio, and grow their writing business slowly. Here are some ways writers can earn good income online.

Constant Content

Constant Content (CC) is perhaps the leader in marketing freelance content to thousands of websites out there. The writers can submit content on various topics here and set their price of choice. When an article is sold, the author gets 65 per cent of the sale price.

Customers can request for particular content to the whole writer community or to specific writers as private requests. Already, some of the top members in Constant Content earn thousands of dollars writing. Getting private requests is important for all authors, since it will help them earn more.

Constant Content gives you an online portfolio, which shows all your content and sales history. This portfolio will help get rise in payment for your articles or even land a permanent writing job. Also, the writing standard of CC is very high, as it filters out content with incorrect grammar or punctuation.

Associated Content

Associated Content is a very popular content provider out there. Two types of payments are available here: upfront payment and performance payments. Upfront payment is available only in the US, and is usually less than 10 dollars. This is made on publication of the article. Performance payment is according to the number of pageviews an article gets. It is about 1.5 dollars per thousand pageviews.

Though the payment is low, AC offers greater reach to its authors. Associated Content gets almost 7 million visitors, who view almost 40 million pages every month. Hence, you are sure to get a great reach through AC.

Helium

Helium is another high quality freelancing site. Helium is a popular content provider in various topics. Even news media look for content within Helium writing marketplace. Helium also provides partnership programs, freelancing opportunities, and writing contests. If you are lucky enough, writing contests may fetch you a lot of money and exposure.

Helium’s freelance writing marketplace has lots of freelancing jobs for writers out there. Since Helium is popular, the competition can be tough, but the pay rate is higher than other freelance sites.

Contribute to Professional Publications

Quite a few professional publications can take your articles for publication. They include newspapers and online and print magazines. Although you can make quite a lot of money by publishing with them, the exposure matters the most. A print media publication can provide you enormous exposure.

However, most of these publications require that you query them with your article idea. Don’t send your article without solicitation; otherwise, it may end up in slush pile. Query the editors first, and follow up professionally if you don’t get a reply in a reasonable amount of time.

Freelancing Websites

There are quite a few freelance writing sites in which clients post writing projects. Writers can bid on these projects. Writers with greater proficiency and experience can win their bids easily. Since this is a worldwide marketplace, the competition can be great. Here are some freelancing websites:

1. Constant-Content.com
2. Elance.com
3. Academia-research.com
4. Bizreef.com
5. Scriptlance.com
6. Guru.com

Sponsored Review Blogging

If you have a popular, professional blog, you can write reviews of various products in it to get paid. These reviews require you to link out to the reviewed product website. Each review can fetch you about 10 or 20 dollars. Here are the sites that offer review jobs:

1. PayPerPost.com
2. SponsoredReviews.com
3. Smorty.com
4. ReviewMe.com
5. BuyBlogReviews.com
6. Blogsvertise.com
7. Matched.co.uk

Begin a Blog and Promote It

You can have a higher chance of landing a professional writing job by starting a blog and promoting it well. You can advertise your writing portfolio in this blog and offer to write for money. Clients checking out your blog can see and estimate your writing standards before hiring you. And your competition in this case will be very low. Do good search engine optimization on your blogs to get more exposure and thus more jobs.

Search for Jobs

You can find freelance writing jobs without associating with a freelancing website or starting a blog. You can search for jobs. The largest classifieds ad network in the world, Craiglist.org can help you find a lot of freelancing jobs. Search within Craiglist and you will land many writing jobs that pay well.

However, writing random jobs like this will not help build a good writing portfolio. Most of these jobs are short term for one article or article packages. Long-term jobs are the best for professional freelancers.

Blogging on Blog Networks

A number of blog networks offer blogging jobs for writers out there. Most of these networks don’t offer jobs to newbies. You should have good experience in your field to land such a job. Also, the money you can earn from these networks is enormous.

Another advantage of blog networks is that they hire SEO professionals to promote their blogs. So, you only need to write content, and promotion will be taken care of by the company. Also, every blog in the network are interlinked, which makes sure that even the new blogs on the network will get high traffic and money.

However, as mentioned earlier, the expertise in the topic chosen is very important to land a job here. An inexperienced person is obviously not in demand here. Here are some blog networks:

About.com: About.com, owned by News Corporation, is one of the largest content networks out there. According to Alexa, its traffic rank is 81. Writers on About.com are called guides. A guide not only gets about 800 dollars a month, but also gets huge promotion. With your popularity, your earnings will also increase. Top guides in About.com earn in tune of thousands of dollars a month.

Suite101: This is a blog network, which has blogs related to various topics. You can apply to be a blogger there on any of the topics. Chosen writers are paid handsomely for their articles.

451Press: This is another blog network like Suite101. The popularity and pay rate are a little less.

B5Media: This is a blog network started by professional blogger, Darren Rowse. With over 300 blogs now, B5Media is growing.

Today.com: Only US residents can apply to be part of this blog network.

Ad Revenue Sharing Networks

There are several companies, which share advertisement revenues with its writers. All you need do in these sites is submit your content and your advertisement IDs (affiliate IDs). Well-written content will drive huge amounts of traffic to your articles. This traffic will earn a lot of money, which will be shared with you. Hubpages and Squidoo are examples of ad share networks.

Well-written articles, called Hubs or Squidoo Lenses, earn lots of pageviews and money for the writers.

Publishing and Selling E-books

If you are an experienced person in your field, you can publish an e-book and sell it to make profit. There are a number of publication sites, which help you publish your content online. ClickBank is an online retailer, which helps you promote and sell your digital products including your e-books at a minor fee besides the affiliate commissions. If your e-book is valuable, you will get several sales, earning you great amount of money.

Besides Clickbank, you can publish with on-demand self-publishing companies like Lulu.com.

Part II: Building an Online Freelancing Portfolio

A successful online freelancing career requires an online portfolio. Though everything you do online is tracked and archived, you should do the tracking yourself with the help of a blog, website, or social networking profile.

All freelancing sites have your profile with your article samples, number of sales, client feedback, etc. This helps greatly in building your career. Here are some tips:

Start a chronological blog: In order to track various steps of your progress, start a blog or journal, and post your career developments.

Social networking: For all Internet enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, social networking is unavoidable. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter etc., are so popular that you are sure to make a lot of professional connections through them.

Stick to one freelancing site: There are some advantages to sticking with one freelancing site than spreading your career in a number of them. If you have your full profile in one place, it will be easy to show it off to your clients. Also, when you don’t have any work on the primary site, it is good to work on projects from the other sites.

Contribute to the community: There are a number of communities just for freelance writers. They include social network groups, forums, etc. Contribute well to all these communities in order to be known far and wide as a trusted freelance content provider.

Watch out for scammers: Through some forums like the DigitalPoint forums, some people request articles and don’t pay money after the writer has uploaded the content. You should be aware of such scammers, and request an escrow service before sending your content.

Conclusion

Professional freelancing depends on your writing prowess. If you have good writing skills, you can effectively outwit your competition. Also, early in your career, build an online profile to show off your work and ability. This way, you can get many more clients.