MarkTse.com Internet Marketing Blog

Featured Article By Article Marketer Inc.

There is one article marketing mistake that constantly tops the list. It’s horrific. This single mistake made by an author can ensure that the article isn’t published as widely as it otherwise might be. It’s a deal killer.

Every week I meet with the Article Marketer editorial team to discuss the major editorial concerns surrounding the articles submitted during the week. Our editors have reviewed articles from over a thousand authors, so they’ve pretty much seen it all. In preparation for our weekly meeting, they gather and report on the most common mistakes being made by authors. Our editors work with these authors to correct errors and ensure that their articles get more widely published.

Every week many of the same issues are on the list:
* Sales letters posing as ads.
* Resource box information within the article body.
* Spelling and grammatical errors.

Even these egregious (and frequent) issues pale in comparison to the most widespread and insidious problem facing publishers seeking high quality content:

The Biggest Problem: Off Topic Articles

Off topic articles target the wrong audience. Off topic articles contain content that doesn’t match the chosen category. The Article Marketer editorial team tells me that they spend most of their time helping authors and internet marketers properly categorize their articles so that they reach the right audience. It’s all about results.

How do articles get incorrectly categorized?
It’s generally an innocent mistake. After all, it’s certainly no shock to internet marketers that free reprint articles are about educating readers and providing good content to webmasters and publishers. Everyone knows that “content is king” on the web. The Google spiders go crazy when they find relevant content. Internet marketers provide content-rich, royalty free articles in exchange for that all important resource box that contains a relevant back link and entices a reader back to the author’s website. It’s a win-win situation.

Imagine an author or internet marketer who has gone to great lengths to provide wonderful information about, oh?say, “Cats”. The article teaches the reader about which grooming tools to use, provides a history of the domestication of cats, and explains some of the time-honored traditions and techniques of the breeding guild.

It’s absolutely perfect content for publishers with newsletters or sites about cats. It’s even a good match for “pets” or “small furry things”. It’s going to be a spectacularly popular article. The readers of cat newsletters are going to love this article. And it reaches a perfectly matched target market for the author ?a cat toy merchant. Everything is wonderful. Until the author makes a critical error.

When submitting the article to thousands of editors and publishers, the author selects not the “pets” or “cats” categories ?but selects the “Education” category, because the article is educational.

OH NO!

What might otherwise have been a dazzlingly successful article will now flop. The article might be “educational”, but it isn’t a good match for someone who publishes an “education” newsletter.

Choose the correct categories for your articles.
There’s a mixture of art and science to selecting the appropriate categories for a free reprint article. It requires that an author change focus and step into the other guy’s shoes for a bit. From the author’s perspective, the article itself is an education, and so it’s a good fit for the education category.

But take a moment and imagine that you’re a publisher, interested in receiving articles in the “education” category. You’ve got a niche newsletter or content site focused on the education market. When you look for articles in the “education” category, what kinds of articles would you like to see?

You probably want tips for teachers, student management techniques, grading strategies, articles related to the process of teaching, how to be a more effective educator, how to get your point across to a group of unruly students, etc. Imagine that you’re looking through the “education” articles and you come across an article about grooming a cat. Huh? This isn’t about education. It’s SPAM!

That’s the crux of the problem. So many people are writing articles these days that the problem of “article spam” is spreading like wildfire.

Publishers are hypersensitive to article spam. Some will just delete the offending article, but others will take dramatic steps to prevent getting more spam ?even up to the point of banning an author from submitting further articles.

In our meetings, the editors tell me that they spend the bulk of their time working with authors to make sure that their articles meet the guidelines. A big part of that effort is focused on categorization.

Real World Example
So lets watch as the rubber meets the road. This is an article about “mistakes in categorizing royalty free reprint articles”, written for publishers all around the web. How should it be categorized? Which newsletters would be interested? Which article directory categories would be an appropriate fit?

The article is written for writers and internet marketers, so that’s where I’ll start. The fist thing to figure out is how to best reach that audience. it’s not hard to decide that the “Internet Marketing” category will be on the list. Article marketing is a highly effective form of internet marketing. Internet marketers would be interested in this article.

Because this article provides tips and tricks on getting articles more widely published, the “Writing” category makes sense. Authors with a desire to get their articles published will find this article helpful. An editor who publishes a newsletter for writers would like this article for that newsletter, because serving the needs of subscribers is what this is all about.

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably reading it in a newsletter or on a website for writers or internet marketers. It is likely that you’re interested in royalty free articles, writing, or internet marketing.

Now it’s up to you. What are you doing to properly categorize the royalty free articles you provide to editors? Are you making things easy for them? Are you giving them the right information to ensure that your articles show up in the right places? It’s a good strategy for you. Your articles gain wider exposure by laser targeting your audience.

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You are free to reprint this article by reserving the resource box.

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In this ebook Jinger will teach you how to use search engine optimization techniques that will always work, no matter how often the search engines change. If you apply these techniques to your website, you will see a significant change in your traffic.

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Warmest Regards,
Mark Tse

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This article is written by Mark Tse. Mark shares free tips, articles and downloads about Internet Marketing. You can visit his blog and read his latest posts here:

http://www.marktse.com/blog/
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Why targeted traffic is the key to a successful website?

Targeted traffic (or the lack of it) is what determines the success or failure of any commercial website. A site can receive thousands of visitors per day and still fail if most of that traffic isn’t targeted.

What is targeted traffic?

Have you ever clicked on a link or an ad only to discover that the site you land on has nothing to do with what you thought it would? Have you ever been redirected to another website that offers something you aren’t interested in?

If so, your visit to those websites consisted of untargeted traffic because you simply weren’t interested in the item(s) being sold on those sites. You got there expecting one thing but found something different. Or even worse, maybe you got there without even knowing you were going there.

Receiving targeted traffic simply means receiving visitors who are pre-qualified because they clicked on an ad or link that accurately describes your site and/or what it has to offer.

If someone clicks on your ad that explains how you sell top-quality green widgets, the chances are very high that she is actually interested in green widgets, perhaps even looking to buy one!

But if someone clicks on your link that describes green widgets only to discover that your site actually sells blue gadgets, you not only have just received an untargeted (and probably upset) visitor who has no intention of buying your product, you have also wasted valuable bandwidth and possibly advertising fees!

How to get targeted traffic to your website

Obtaining targeted traffic is simple, but it isn’t easy. Here are a few great ways to do it:

1. Exchange links with other websites that specialize in the same thing you offer. Many webmasters are reluctant to do this because they see it as linking to their competitors. Such an attitude is misguided and short-sighted.

Why? Suppose you have a link for your green widgets site on another green widgets site. Anyone who clicks that link is obviously interested in green widgets and is very likely to buy. Traffic simply cannot get more targeted than this!

But if you’re like many webmasters, you’re probably thinking “But I’ll be sending my precious visitors to a competitor’s website!”.

Yes, that’s true. But your competitor will also be sending his precious visitors to your website! It all balances out in the end.

In reality, it more than balances out because the on-theme inbound link to your website boosts your search engine rankings a bit, which in itself brings you even more targeted traffic from the search engines!

In a nutshell, if done properly, exchanging links with your competitors will always results in a net increase in targeted website traffic and sales! Always!

2. Buy advertising space on high-traffic, relevant websites and ezines. If you sell green widgets, a great place to advertise would be on a site or in a newsletter that reviews green widgets.

3. Build an effective pay-per-click advertising campaign for your main keywords. And be sure to use relevant synonyms to bring in the most targeted traffic possible.

4. Write articles that provide valuable information about the items you sell, then offer those articles to other webmasters for free to place on their site as long as they include your link in the article.

For example, if you sell green widgets you can write an article explaining how to properly care for green widgets and offer to let other green widget sites publish it along with your link.

5. Create an ebook about green widgets with your link on each page and give it away for free. You can even offer to let other webmasters give it away for free (as a bonus, for example)!

These ebooks get passed down time and again, extending your website’s reach and boosting its targeted traffic to ever higher levels.

Conclusion

Lots of targeted traffic is essential for the success of any commercial website. On the other hand, untargeted traffic is very expensive (in more ways than one) regardless of how cheap it is, and it does nothing for your bottom line.

If you’ll spend your valuable time building a great website and getting lots of targeted traffic to it, you’ll enjoy great success in your web-based enterprise!

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You are free to reprint this article by reserving the resource box.