Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Being Observant
This is one of my favorite ways of finding a topic for articles -- and an absolute staple of my blog. I love to find connections to new business insights in such mundane things as watching a bridge being built, walking past an unrented storefront, passing a business sign that someone has covered with a tarp, or the change in household duties required by my wife's broken wrist.

If you can keep track of the ideas that unconnected events trigger in your mind, you can have an almost unlimited supply of engaging article ideas that you can share with others.

The problem is not that no ideas exist about which you can write an article. The problem usually is that we simply haven't trained our minds to recognize the multitude of article ideas that bombard us every day.

Train your eyes to see those ideas. Then, go out and write some articles.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from PLR Content
If you have trouble coming up with ideas for articles, Private Label Rights (PLR) content is a great way to get ideas. Most people feel more comfortable editing content rather than writing it from scratch. PLR content gives you prewritten content that you can edit to make it uniquely your own.

The temptation with PLR content is to take the prewritten articles and submit them -- as is -- to article sites. The problem with that is that many other people buy those same articles and submit them to the same directories.

It doesn't take much for the article directories to catch on that article A is identical to article B. Once they find that, you can forget about them accepting that article. You could even find yourself banned from submitting to that directory ever again.

Use PLR articles to get you started. Get your idea from the PLR article and then take it from there to make your article unique. I'm not talking about changing a word here or there. I'm talking about making your article completely UNIQUE.

Most PLR articles I've seen are pretty lame, anyway. Most are pretty generic. They desperately need better writing and more useful content.

Take the PLR articles you buy and make them your own. You're much more likely to get them accepted that way.

By the way, if you'd just as soon outsource your article writing to someone else, check out Spin Ready PLR. You work with writers who write specifically for your niche (as opposed to most PLR sites who write articles for a variety of niches that might not always be a good fit for you). And they present your finished articles to you in a way that makes it extremely simple to "spin" them into a completely unique article.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Old Books on Your Market
Unless your niche came into existence yesterday, you can step back into the past for an article topic. Look at older books about your niche. Consider what has changed and what hasn't.

Those changes (or lack of them) give you several angles to use in approaching your topic.

• What has changed and how those changes affect your readers
• Why things have changed
• What those changes suggest about the future of your niche
• What hasn't changed and remains as a timeless value to you and your readers
• What things that have dropped out of favor are ripe to be rediscovered

Does this work only if your niche has been around for 3,000 years? Absolutely not. Any niche that has changed over any period of time is ripe for this approach.

Consider the Internet. It has been commonly used only for the past 15 years. Yet look at how much it has changed over that time!

Any niche that has grown and developed gives you a chance to use this approach. Things DO change in virtually every niche. Take advantage of that fact.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Classic Stories
Another good source for articles is by taking a universally known story, like a fairy tale, and drawing a connection between it and your area of expertise.

Classic stories resonate with people because they touch a familiar chord in their own experience, even if they've never stepped through a looking glass, or done a taste test of porridge in a house built by three bears, or accompanied a Jedi knight on a quest to save the universe.

Tap into the shared experience that cause people to connect with those stories. Tie those shared experiences in those stories to your topic and you'll engage people's curiosity to see what new insights you're leading them toward.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Quotes, Products, and News
Another place to get article ideas is from quotes that strike you. You can use an insightful statement from someone in your industry and create an entire article off of your reaction to it. What emotional response does it trigger? What further insights does it generate in you?

If your industry isn't one in which insightful quotes abound, you can write about your reaction to news, to products, to trends. If you have a good pulse on your industry, you should find no end of topics to write about.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Other People's Lists
Look for a topic you'd like to write about. Find an article that is written in list format - " Five Ways to...," "Seven Best Tips for...," "Three Little-Known Ways to..."

Look at the items in the list. Chances are that each of those list items could be fleshed into a solid article all on its own.

Focus on whatever items you can cover in more depth than the original list did. Write a complete article on that one item.

As I've said in other article idea tips, don't copy. Don't even paraphrase. Use what you found in the other writer's article strictly as an idea from which you provide your own, unique viewpoint on the issue.

By hunting for these list-type articles, you'll get ideas for not just one, but multiple articles that you can write.
Jeff

Labels: article marketing

From Opposite Points of View
Here's a favorite quote from Winston Churchill:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

I'm not sure what I can add to this one. Its blessed simplicity says it all. Two people looking at the exact same situation can see two different things based on their point of view.

In reality, I'm not sure there even is a difference between difficult and opportunity. They are two sides of the same coin. They always come joined as one.

The key is to look at the side of the coin that serves you best. And by that, I mean to see the opportunity. I am firmly convinced that all difficulties are just a kind of school bell ringing to tell you it's time to learn something.

Train yourself to look for that lesson when you experience difficulty. Train yourself to look for the opportunity. It's all there. You just have to look for it.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes