Using free articles can help you make sales.  Once you write those articles and get them approved thorugh article directories, go one further and use social marketing tools to promote your articles.

Using a social media tool can help you sell more of whatever it is you’re selling. And because there are so many online water coolers that you can share your links at, you should take advantage of as many as you can!

Do you have a regular to-do list of things you follow when you start to promote something new?  You should! Social media will help you get the word out and it can go viral, reducing the need for you to agonize over getting traffic on your own.

You don’t always have to repeat the exact same pattern but every time you launch a new sales page or write a new blog entry or article, you should consider following a stream of habits that can help you get the word out. These habits will increase your SEO and help you get humans to your site as well.

Social Media & Article Marketing

If you’re marketing with articles, for instance, in order to sell products from ClickBank or E-Junkie, there are some things you should do. Here’s a list of a few things that might work for you:

• Post in your life stream about it. This could be on a service such as FriendFeed or Ping.Fm. Some of these sites will update your streams automatically, which is a bonus!
• Blog about it on your site’s blog (either through a post or through your blogroll)
• Write a HubPage or Squidoo lens about the product or subject and link back to your site.  Link to the hub or lens in your article if you can’t use an affiliate link. Don’t forget to put links to all your promotional efforts into the link section on that lens or hub, as well.
• Start a free blog about the subject on some place like Blogger and write a few articles about the topic, linking to your sales page, article, hub, lens or hoplink.
• Submit all the above locations to one place each. You might use Delicious, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Reddit, Onlywire and others.

Get The Word Out!

As you can see, there are a lot of ways you can get word out and create multiple linking points back to your site.  Your to-do list will help you get traffic and get potential sales!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

How do you get to be a better article marketer? Here are some tips for you.  Article marketers write articles to get people interested in their product. When you write, you need to pique interest and convince the reader to follow your call to action.  Here are a few tips for you:

Solve a problem

If your headline tells a browsing reader that your article solves a problem for someone, they’ll be eager to read your article. Do what you say you’ll do by writing content that matches the headline.

Follow a pro

If you’re in the beginning stages of article marketing, find a guru to follow and mimic what they do.  Don’t plagiarise, of course but look at their strategies and the way they write not just their headlines and copy but the way they summarise and how they outline their resources box or byline.  If you don’t know how to find a guru, check out a site like www.ezinearticles.com and read lots of articles in your niche. When you find a style you like, read everything you can by that author and dissect their articles to find out why they’re compelling and how you can learn from the writing style.

The power of social marketing

Once the article is out there, use some social marketing tools to help it go viral.  Ping it, blog about it, microblog about it, Digg it, Stumble it and see your sales soar.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Are you writing articles for free e-zine sites yet? If not, you should! Not only can you use these articles to make money via article marketing  promoting affiliate products but you can also build up your site’s off page search engine optimization. This is a great tool for self promotion and it’s free!  All online marketers should be using this form of free advertising.

These articles don’t earn you direct income but can indirectly pay you in a big way.  Not only will the article have the potential of going viral if it gets picked up by other webmasters who will publish on their site and point back to your site as well but people may buy your wares as a result of reading a good, convincing article.

Here are some tips for writing a great free article

-Catchy title! Grab a reader’s attention. The article isn’t likely to sit on the home page for long with a busy, high ranking article directory so grab the reader’s attention when they arrive on the site.

-Write with SEO in mind.  Search for target keywords and include them in your title and your bio box.  Anchor the keyword in the bio box and point it back to your site.  The landing page and a deep link can be great for your SEO and the article will likely rank in search engines as well.

-Follow the rules of the site to get your articles approved quickly.  Note the terms of service and editorial guidelines so you can get the article approved without much of a lag and without rework required.

-Don’t forget a call to action! Even though these articles are written mainly for search engines you can attract buyers with them so do use your bio box as a chance to grab human readers as well as search engine robots, too.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Social networking can make a huge difference in your success online but there is a bit of a fine line between marketing or networking and spamming.  Let’s look at some examples:

E-mail Marketing

Marketers build e-mail lists and market selectively. Spamming would include many tactics such as anonymous email blasts, ignoring those who try to opt out or selling lists. If you want to build an e-mail list, consider giving away something for free, having a valuable newsletter or doing something else to build a list of people who are likely going to be interested in what you’re selling.

Article Marketing

Valuable articles will give the reader some information and may direct them some place they can go to in order to find out more information. They don’t generally contain affiliate links and they do provide value. If you try to spam through article marketing you probably won’t get very far because most e-zine sites have requirements and terms of service that prohibit spam.

Blogging or Splogging

While it’s perfectly fine to do advertising on your blog, you want valuable information there as well otherwise it’s considered a splog (spam blog) and you won’t have too many repeat visitors. Visitors who do arrive probably won’t buy anything or return again. Give people value and you’ll have more chances of making sales and having them do some of your marketing for you through social bookmarking.

Social Media: Don’t Be One Sided

If you’re constantly asking people on social networking tools and forums to Digg or Stumble your entry but never do it in return and never participate in discussions in a reciprocal way, eventually everyone will just ignore you. Reciprocate a little in your online marketing efforts and you’ll find a bit difference in how people receive you.

(photo credit: www.sxc.hu)

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

When you’re guest blogging or doing article marketing, you’ve got around two or three lines where you can do several things. This is often known as a resource box and is essentially, your byline. In a few short sentences, you can create enough interest to get people visiting your website and you can link some keywords that also bring search engines around as well.

How Do You Write a Great Byline?

The byline should tell interested readers a bit about you and where they can find more information about you. If anchored keywords related to your niche are present, they’ll tell people about what you do and give them a place to link to in order to find out more about you. This can bring you further publicity.

Here are two examples:

Dana Prince is a writer and blogger who thrives on information about internet marketing. Read more of Dana’s blog posts at www.seanseo.com.

I tagged myself as a blogger and showed where people could read more of my blogs about internet marketing.

And:

Sean Rasmussen is an internet marketer and success communicator who has been helping people learn to be successful entrepreneurs for several years. 

I’ve linked to two places where Sean can be found that anchor words related to his topics. This can help people interested in either subject click through to learn more and helps the search engines index Sean for these targeted key phrases.

You can use the byline to generate interest, help you become perceived as a subject matter expert and get you human visitors and search engine spider visitors as well. Those spiders will help your website’s SEO significantly. Use the space at the bottom of your page on article directories and guest posts to your full advantage!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008