The Silent Avatar Speaks

Marketing via articles is one of the best forms of free advertising on or offline that is available for bringing new visitors to our websites.

Why is that you ask?

Writing articles can lead to increased visitors to your website. The main reasons you’re writing an article is for people to read and learn about your topic and you. After writing an article you want it published of course. Getting it publshed is how you’re going to drive traffic to your site.

If you know your target market then the hardest part of the work has been done for you – that of assembling a list several thousand individuals to read your article.

You’ll want to submit it to ezine publishers, article directories and create a webpage on your site to display it and to submit to the search engines.

There are several things to consider if you decide to write and submit articles to ezines. The format for writing the article itself, finding ezines to submit it to and figuring out the right way to submit it to publishers so that it gets an above average chance of being used by the publisher.

Writing is hard work. At least for me that is. I tend to generally keep up with how the internet is evolving and develop an article from changes that I see going on.

Writing articles for ezines takes on a basic format that you should become familiar with.

If you haven’t already subscribed to several good, quality ezines do so immediately. You want to review the articles in them so you can get a basic idea of the layout of an article that publishers expect when you submit an article to them.

You’ll notice it has:

- A Title
- The Authors Name
- The Body or Content of the Article
- An Authors Resource Box
- Sentences are under 65 characters per line

Those are the five main components of articles that are typically submitted to ezine publishers. Your best bet is not to vary from it in your initial writing efforts.

Let’s take a look at each one of those components.

** The Title **

Often times you may not even come up with a good attention grabbing title until after you have finished your article. If you have a general idea of what your article is going to cover it may be helpful later on if you jot down
some ideas right away.

**The Authors Name **

Hey you should be able to come up with this on your own. Include yours just under the title of your article.

** The Body or Content **

By far the most important aspect of your article. The best articles address some kind of problem or concern that readers may be experiencing and are looking for help, guidance or a solution for. If you have identified a bonafide problem take the time to do the research to find a solution for it.

The solution could be in the form of a unique solution you yourself have found, an existing one that few people know about or you could provide several solutions from which the reader can choose the one best suited to their needs.

Some good articles also address concerns of people in certain areas of their life or business for which there is no clear cut solution. If you can present the facts, known or obscure data that will keep a reader informed on the subject or help them come to a conclusion on their own, it will work just as well.

Within the article it is always a nice affect if you can provide some online resources or links that a reader can use to help solve their own problem or gather information from which they can draw their own conclusions.

Keep in mind that you are not writing your article(s) for the fun of it. At least I hope you’ve given some thought to what you want to accomplish using this method. Your main purpose is to get a few if not several hundred of those readers to visit your website so that you can present them with your own offers for subscribing to your ezine, joining your affiliate program, membership site or buying one of your products.

Your efforts should be in presenting a good quality article to the publisher. Take your time writing about the subject you’ve chosen. Clearly the best method of writing on the
internet is a personal, one-to-one approach to writing, write as though you’re talking to a friend or relative you know very well.

** Authors Resource Box **

This is your byline. This allows everyone who reads your article to learn more about you and your business. You’ll include it at the end of your article and it should contain a short description of your site, product or service you offer, along with your url.

It’s the second most important section of your article. Here you can put between 4 to 6 lines of text. This is the only acceptable format for advertising yourself, your website, ezine, product, etc. Describe it in as great a detail as you can get into these few lines.

Publishers will exercise their own judgment and may shorten it to meet the standard criteria they have set for all submitted articles.

Here are some more Quick Tips to remember about writing your article:

- Keep your sentences and paragraphs short
- Use action words throughout your article
- Use examples from your own experience
- Write as though you’re talking to one person
- Personalize your message
- Use plenty of white space
- Use small understandable words
- Use subheadings
- Don’t hyphenate words at the end of sentences

Just one good article on a subject that is relevant to your target market and the target market of the ezine that you’re trying to get it published in, will produce some great publicity for you. Invite publishers of ezines with similar interests as yours to publish the article.

You really don’t want to slant it towards one of your products, an affiliate program or have your own links plastered throughout your article. Just about all publishers I know will recognize that kind of writing as a cheap effort to advertise a product at their expense.

Think about it – if a publisher wanted to see a product, etc promoted in his ezine he would put one of his own in it – not some stranger he has never met. Don’t try to disguise an advertisement for one of your products as an article. Most publishers will see right through this scheme.

The length of your article should probably be between 400 to 1000 words. Any less than 400 doesn’t give enough depth to a subject. Any more than 1000 can be too long for some ezine publishers who try to keep the content of there ezine to a maximum size for purposes of distribution and reader attention.

OK, so you’ve got your article written and it’s a gem and you know everyone will want to read it. Two things you now need to focus on – finding publishers and getting publishers to look at it.

The easiest place to start looking for publishers is in your own email program. Have you subscribed to any ezines? If so how many? If not – why not? If you haven’t
subscribed to a lot of them then you need to “go forth and subscribe” to as many as you can. The reason you want to do this is to build a database of ezines that are similar to your target market and at the same time become familiar with the ezines format.

You can also do a search on google or any of the other major search engines to look for ezines and article directories that your article would be appropriate for.

Here are a few article directories to get you started:

http://www.goarticles.com

http://www.ezinearticles.com

http://www.articlecity.com

http://www.article-emporium.com

Well how do you get your article accepted in ezines?

Guess what? As long as you’re in the writing mood, you’re going to have to write a short email to each publisher and ask them to publish it. Or you can invest in member only sites or software that will automate this process for you.

I’m including a sample email template for you to look at. My experience is that you modify the text and personalize any template to your own style and writing. Using a template as is from a resource like this soon becomes recognizeable and automatically deleted by most publishers who receive it. Use your imagination when you draft your own letter.

——————————————————-
Sample E-Mail Letter To A Publisher
——————————————————-

Dear Publisher,

My name is (your name) and I subscribe to your ( ezine). I’ve found it to be informative and helpful in my endeavors on the net.

I have written an article that may be of interest and helpful to your subscribers. If you find it suitable to your readers I would appreciate your considering publishing it in the (ezine).

Thank you very much for your consideration,

Sincerely,

(Your Name)
(Your Email Address)

——————————–
End Of Sample Letter
——————————–

This information should get you well on the road to writing articles for publishing in ezines that meet the criteria for your target market.

I highly recommend it as a way to get more visitors to your website without spending any money on advertising.

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Learn more about writing articles and get internet marketing tools and resources to help you with your online business. Reprint this article as long as resource box remains intact. Copyright 2009 cashway.com

Get free traffic to your sites – find out how others are doing it for free this very second.

Tags: Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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If you have a list and you continually ad-pound your members without giving value it’s a fair bet that sooner rather than later, those list members will eventually opt out.

Why is this? Simply because you’re not providing them with value. It’s one of the key ingredients missing from many running an internet network marketing business; they can attract the prospects but simply can’t get them past that stage.

Now there’s a simple solution for this. You train and educate your members from the moment they enter your lead funnel. Instead of sending them short, punchy sales oriented material why not send them information they can use and act on. Send them links to free resources or write a short report and let them have it.

Until you understand what your prospects really want then it’s going to be an uphill battle for you. Ann Sieg teaches this in The Renegade Network Marketer and confesses she struggled for a long time before giving her prospects what they wanted.

Why Someone Becomes Your Prospect

Maybe they saw you as someone who could lead them to the “promised land.” Here’s a cold hard fact…most people looking for a internet network marketing opportunity do so because they have a problem. It’s usually of a financial nature, either lack of current funds or they want to set up a nest egg for the future that they can live from comfortably and provide for their families.

Emotions come into play and if you can tap into these emotions then you are half way to getting them to join you at some stage down the line in your business. These people are looking for someone to show them how to get to a stage where they are realizing their goals.

Training Your Prospect

One way to build trust with them is to train them from the moment they enter your prospect funnel. Provide tips they can use, show them the right way to build an inter-network marketing business and show them free resources they can go to for now to educate themselves about building an online business.

Sure, you’re not making money right away from them but in the big picture, some of these people could eventually become the Diamonds in your business you’re craving. It’s like growing a garden, some nurturing and care is required in the initial stages and when it takes off well, it will literally fly.

It’s you people are interested in and not the company you’re with. If you earn someone’s trust in the first few weeks then you will be in a strong position to make a recommendation or two. But until you do this, don’t expect many people to hit the buy button when you immediately starting pounding them with sales pitch after sales pitch after they opt into your funnel.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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I’ve been a bit neglectful of my readers of late… and I really do apologise.  You see I’ve been busy moving and planning a trip to South East Asia (for 6 months) in between finalising a website I have just done and mentoring a friend who has dived head first in a MLM company (but more of than in another post). So this has left me with scant time to blog. (“Yes… I know what you mean I can hear you say”)

Now before you all start groaning and mumbling  ”lucky bugger” under your breath let me say this…

There is no such thing as luck.  Just desire, a clear goal, and then doing what needs to be done until you get your goal, mixed in with a big dollop of self motivation.

Of course we all have tasks we dislike, and this brings me to an revelation which prohibits us from getting where we want to go – self motivation. Some revelation eh? Doh.

Sure.. we have all had grand ideas, and quite frankly most times we even know how to execute them. The problem is we loose self motivation, and this ingredient has a habit of completely ruining our recipe for success.

I’ve come to know this about self motivation (usually through having experienced a lack of it), and it has been the reason why so many times I have had great ideas which have never seen the light of day, and the reason I have tried a gazillion diets and never loose the weight I want to.

If you’re like me and there is any element of the goal which involves either a task you dislike, a struggle with “how”, or if physical pain is caused along the way (and let me include hip pocket pain as well), then we are very likely NOT to be self motivated. Right?

What you started out being really excited about soon becomes something you would rather not even think about because:

1. You have spent a truck load of money you really didn’t have in the first place to spend on our idea (usually at the detriment of others around us like the wife, the husband or the kids)
2. In the beginning you have told so many friends and family how fabulous your idea is and how you are going to set the world on fire, you don’t want to remind them what you said so you keep it all “hush hush” and don’t mention it, in the hope it will go away, or 
3. You create another “focus”, another idea which inspires you again.

And so goes the pattern for a lot of us.
Great Ideas. Full of inspiration. Task becomes “painful”. Lack of motivation. Failure.

It’s a bloody merry-go-round which keeps us failing.

However… when there is what I call “feel goods” along the way, self motivation comes naturally.

In the context of an online business “feel goods” are things like increased purchases, new blog readers, better rankings, more subscribers, etc, a new lead…

When you are starting out “feel goods” are few and far between, and very quickly (unless you can bring out your own self motivation) you will become despondent, and then it’s only a matter of time before your goals are just a distant memory which you would rather forget because to remember them evokes your own sense of being a failure.

Failure. I’ve failed.

Nothing evokes dread more than these words (well maybe “Do you feel lucky punk” is in there too .

We all like to win.. be The Best, Number One, Top of the Class. Numero Uno.

In essence SUCCESSFUL.

Keep reading because I’m going to give you some ideas on how to keep yourself self motivated and keep you on track and moving forward.

1. First get this… if you ain’t moving forward you are either going backwards, or standing still.


Read it again. And again. If necessary write it down and put it where you do your most work.

But whatever you do get it!  If you aren’t moving forward you are either moving backwards or standing still.

2. Affirm this “I choose to move forward and be a successfull”

3. Get a white board and use it! If you don’t have one get one.

Have your white board in a place where you can always refer to it (this really is your “silent motivator”).

4. Brainstorm with yourself ideas about how to move forward and write them up. Then prioritise the action steps to get to where you need to go.

5. When you have brainstormed, write down (again on your whiteboard) one thing which will stop you if you were to actually do what you brainstormed about.


(Lets just stop here for a second so I can give you the picture).

Ok.. Let’s use this as an example…

List building (everyone wants more TARGETED people on their list).

So there you are in front of your whiteboard and you are brainstorming how to build your list of TARGETED prospects.  You write up on the board start a blog, post in forums, write articles with linkbacks to your site, advertise in print media, find a JV, plan a product launch…

Then you look over your list and find the one that appeals to you most (the one you are MOST LIKELY to do).

Next, think about what thing would stop you continuing to do it? Money? Time? Pain?

Whetever it is identify the one thing that will bring you undone if you were to go ahead and do what you plan.


So you got it? Identify your weakness before you start and plan to NOT fail.

6. Now you have identified what will bring you unstuck, plan to overcome it. Hate writing? Find a freelancer. No time to blog? Find a freelancer. Don’t know how to do something? Decide if you really NEED to know and learn it or, find a freelancer who can do it for you.

“But..” I hear you say!  “It takes money to hire a freelancer!”

Yes.. and I’ll say this.. If you already know that there is a task that you hate to do, (or can’t do, wont do, no time to do) and this task is integral to getting to where you need to go, then you absolutely WILL FAIL if you do not address this BEFORE you start.

So now that you know what will bring you unstuck you need to be prepared to open the wallet, barter your services with someone else who CAN do what you can’t (aka freelancer), or forget your idea because you will fail. No question. 

What motivates me to be up at 6.30am and write this blog?

Because I want to and I can, and it is a step in getting to where I need to go, and doing it teaches me so much about my own shortcomings.

Why didn’t I just get a freelancer to write my blog posts while I was busy? Next time I will.

Why? Because during the time I was busy doing other things I neglected my readers and I lost half of my readers. HALF!

IDENTIFY YOUR WEAKNESS and address it before it wins and stamps you a failure.

Time was my weakness. And time CAN be brought.

I’m going to continue this post in the next post because I have a few more ideas up my sleeve to help which will keep you on track.

Not the least is posting a comment and including a question in a blog post.

So .. got a question? Just post it here and I can motivate you with a dialogue between us.

I’m the silent avatar… and I have spoken.

Tags: Business Tips, General, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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Evening all,

This post I want to bring you up to speed on what you should be doing when your website is finished,

I’ve always said that a website is nothing more than html code stuck in cyberspace unless you dive traffic to your site.

Given that there are over five and a half billion websites on the Internet and growing at an exponential rate, this figure is enough to scare the pants off any would be Internet merchant, or home entrepreneur.

There’s good reason that Alexa does not rank website unless they are in the top 1000,000 as below this you really aren’t getting enough traffic to warrant being part of their statistics. So unless you are considering throwing a LOT of money at advertising and branding, don’t worry about having a high ranking,

Your goal is to drive a steady stream of people to your website to give you an income, or increase your “authority status”, through your blog, articles and  comments posted back to your website.

To produce a website and not consider how it is to be marketed is just plain stupid.

The time money and effort to produce a website is for naught unless you promote your website.

So how do you promote your website?

This will depend on the type of website (which I will discuss later) but at the least all website owners should be doing the following:

1. Using their web address in all of their emails, along with their tag line.  I wrote about it using email signature sometime back. Review the post “Quick Tip – Using Email Signatures“.
2. Using their web address on all stationary – including business cards, letterheads, with compliment slips, invoices, brochures… In fact anywhere you can put your web address – put it! This includes all electronic stationary as well.
3. If you have a motor vehicle have a magnetic sign made to put on the side of your car (or if you’re really committed get the car sign-written with your website details. Driving around as much as we do this is a great way to advertise your website. Just think of how many people can see your mobile advertisement!
4. If you have a shopfront your web address should be clearly visible from the street.
5. If you have a product tag, your website address should be on the tags, labels, stickers (whatever)

It takes time for something new to sink into people’s consciousness. Repetition is the key. Whether you website name is reinforced through a variety of means doesn’t matter.

Let’s now look at specifics…

[Read more →]

Tags: Advertising, Blogging, Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Newsletters, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Traffic Generation, Web Development by the silent avatar
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