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A Free, Powerful, and Credible Method to
Promote Your Online Business
© 2002 By Angela Wu
I'm a big believer in making smart investments -- that is, I
won't hesitate to pay for marketing if I have good reason to
believe that I'll reap big profits from the campaign.
But at the same time, if there's an effective, free method
of promoting my business, I sure wouldn't turn it down!
That's why I write articles.
Articles help to build your reputation as an 'expert' in
your particular field. Over time, they build
credibility, and through credibility, trust. And we
all know that people tend to buy from those they trust!
If you have some basic writing skills you can benefit from
writing and distributing your articles. Here's a quick
overview of how it works: you write an article based
on your own experiences or research. Make it
informative or entertaining (or both), depending on the
audience you're trying to reach. At the end of your article
you include a 'resource box'. This small blurb (usually 5-7
lines long) provides a description of your business and a
link to your website URL and/or email address.
You then offer your article, free for reprint, to other
sites or newsletters within your target audience. In
exchange for this free content, the webmaster/editor
publishes your resource box. Readers that appreciate
your writing can click on your link to find out more about
you and your business.
How to Find Editors that Accept Submissions
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You can manually find and email editors within your market,
asking if they accept submissions. It's tedious and
time- consuming, and often times you won't receive a
response...
but it can be done.
However, why not make a small investment in exchange for
your time (and sanity!)? Article promotion services
such as WriteBusiness can distribute your work for a fee, http://www.writebusiness.com/article.html.
Or do the legwork yourself by purchasing a membership into a
convenient ezine directory where you can quickly and easily
find editors who accept submissions. One such service
is http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/directory.html.
If you choose to do the work yourself, create and maintain a
list of editors in your target market that accept articles.
This will save you from having to do the research all over
again when you write future articles! Include a brief
'cover letter' with your publishing guidelines each time you
distribute an article.
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Building Your List Over Time
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An easy way to continue to build your list of editors is to
place a simple form on your website, inviting editors and
webmasters to subscribe to your article distribution list.
This one technique has grown my list by about 15%!
Websites Where You Can Promote Your Articles
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There are many niche websites that accept articles. Here are
a few to get you started; these are sites that accept
articles on most topics and make them available to others
for reprint:
= Article Announce, an email distribution list,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce/
= EzineArticles.com, http://www.ezinearticles.com/
= GoArticles, http://www.goarticles.com/
= Hot Launch, http://www.hotlaunch.com/
= IdeaMarketers, http://www.ideamarketers.com/
= MakingProfit.com, http://www.makingprofit.com/
Of course, there are a large number of sites that accept
articles on specific topics such as health/wellness, small
business, active living, and so on. Distribute your
work to these sites as well.
At first you'll find that your articles may only bring in a
small trickle of traffic. Over time, though, as you
become better known, you have the potential of creating a
steady stream of targeted traffic from the newsletters and
sites which publish your work. And to think it all
started with a simple article!
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Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a profitable Internet business on a
beginner's budget: http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/article.html
.
Request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@workyourleads.com
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