Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas by Creating a List
Take a topic that you can easily break down into a list – " Five Ways to…," "Seven Best Tips for…," "Three Little-Known Ways to…"

Readers love this kind of articles. It suggests to them that the subject is simple to understand and easy to break down.

It doesn't even matter if you know that more list items could appear on your list. As a matter of fact, being able to come up with more is even better.

Include in your article the number of tips you chose in your title to cover. The fact that you know of even more that could have been included in your list gives you an opportunity to encourage readers to visit your site to find out the rest.

Put more tips in a special report. Then, in your resource box, tell readers that they can get however many more tips in your special report that they can get from your site. This gives them an incentive to visit your site and sign up for "the rest of the story."
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Other Writers
You can get ideas for your own articles from other people's articles. Don't get me wrong on this. I'm not suggesting you plagiarize other people's work. You can, however, take an IDEA from somebody else's article and take that idea in your own direction.

Don't copy their words. Don't even paraphrase them. Take the idea and use your own experience with the subject to give it a completely different perspective.

I find that doing this not only gives me a lot of article ideas that I wouldn't have identified on my own, but it keeps me from beating to death a lot of the pet subjects that jump into my brain when I try to generate an article idea off the top of my head.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Time to Set Sail
Here's a favorite quote from Mark Twain:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover."

This one has a lot more meaning for me as I grow older. Some things have already passed me by. I always wanted to rock climb. I always wanted to explore caves. I never did either, and the chances of doing that now are pretty much gone.

With my wife now being limited by a bad knee, athletic activities like those are not likely, unless I choose to do them on my own. Frankly, starting hobbies that would exclude her don't interest me. But I sometimes wish I would have done them when I had a chance -- and when I could have shared them with my children.

Even if some of the things you once wanted to do have passed you by, there are still things that haven't. You have things right now that are ripe for you to do. But the time may come when those things pass out of possibility for you. Don't make the mistake of letting that pass by, too!

Throw off the bowlines! Sail away from the safe harbor! Catch the trade winds in your sails! Explore, dream, discover!

There's still time. And that time is now!
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas Turning Your Knowledge into Multiple Articles
Do you have knowledge in your subject area about a topic that is too broad to work for a single article? Break it down into multiple articles.

Many tasks or processes lend themselves quite well to this approach. Many times the parts of a process can stand alone as complete articles. For example, you can do separate articles on various tasks involved in setting up a website:

• How to buy a domain name
• What to look for in hosting
• What technical steps to take with your hosting once you have it
• What site building tools to use
• And so on...

(Or, ahem, you could do a series of articles on different ideas for getting ideas for articles. Oh, wait. Somebody has already done that.)

The point is, you have a lot of knowledge in your field that you can break down into bite-sized chunks from which you can create articles. Just take a process or an area of your expertise and break down how many different standalone articles you can create out of it.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Problems You Solve

As you do a task or tackle a problem that your target audience also experiences, write down what you do. As you answer a question that one of you target audience asks, write down the advice you give.

Stuff like that is a goldmine for articles. Not only does it give you a great idea, but as you write out your answer, you end up with a complete article that merely needs a little polishing in order to present as a quality article.

Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas by Repurposing Old Content
This week I'm sharing ways to come up with articles that you can syndicate to article directories or to content sites that agree to publish your articles. Yesterday I told you how the idea for this whole week's worth of blog posts came from commenting on someone else's blog post.

Plenty of other ways of getting ideas for articles exist as well. You can take things you have written for another audience and repurpose it for a new one. For example, many of this week's blog posts will come from articles I had already written for different audiences.

With a little bit of tweaking and updating, an old article becomes fresh and current and new. It's a fairly quick way of writing an article -- much quicker than most people's ordeal of sitting down, scratching their head about what to write, and slogging through a new article from scratch.

One thing, though, is essential for this approach. When you write something, keep track of it. Organize yourself. I know. "Organize" is a dirty word for some, but it's a remarkable time saver.

File it electronically in folders that let you easily find it when you choose your topic. That way, you'll always have content at your fingertips that you can quickly work into articles that you can submit.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Your Own Blog Comments
You've heard it many times before. Content is King when it comes to the Internet.

Good content draws people to your site. Good content keeps them there.

What if you draw a blank when you sit down to write all that great content, though? Throughout this week, I'll give you some tips to help you find ways to get past that dreaded "blank screen syndrome," so you can create the quality content you need. Here's the first.

Post comments on other people's blogs. I create a lot of my content that way. I add my insights to whatever topic the blogger discussed. Then I take my insights and flesh them out into a full article on the subject that is 100% unique.

I've found that the act of commenting triggers my creativity and gets me out of the "what should I write about" swamp. I rarely sit down and try to think of a topic anymore. Even when I need to write on a particular subject, I always get myself going by seeing what others have said about the same subject. Inspiration comes quickly and easily that way.

Incidentally, this blog post came directly from a comment I posted on someone else's blog. And once I had this post, it was only natural to see how I could create an entire week's worth of posts out of the subject, describing other tips that I use to spark ideas.

One blog comment = two weeks' worth of content. Not a bad technique for overcoming the blank screen syndrome!
Jeff

Labels: article marketing