March 2002

Traffic Generation Technique
Article Writing

One of the most effective and high bang-for-the-buck techniques for infopreneurs is article writing. The traffic comes from links in your bio area and from links you put in the article.

There are many uses for any article you write and you really don't even have to write them yourself if you don't want to. You can simply record your thoughts or jot down notes and have a student or professional transcriber do it turn your knowledge into articles.

I really like it when I can get many uses out of one body of work. Look at the number of ways below just one article can be used:

1. Put the article on your website

2. Put the article with minor changes on your other websites

3. Let other people put the article on their website (you get your bio blurb and link to your website in payment)

4. Put the article in your ezine

5. Offer the article to other ezines

6. Use variations of the article as side door pages.

7. Use the article in printed trade journals.

8. Use the article as a downloadable report.

9. Offer the article to printed newsletters written by others.

10. Use the article in your own printed newsletter.

11. Make an ebook out of the article or bundle several articles together to make an ebook.

12. Use the article as a chapter in a printed book written by others.

13. Use the article in your own printed book.

14. Compile many articles into a printed book.

15. Use the article as a script and record it for use as A. an audiotape, B. a CD, C. a streaming audio file for your website.

16. Sell them to others to reprint.

17. Have a membership site (like this one) where people pay to read them.

Right there is 16 ways to use the same piece of work and I probably forgot a few......Now that's working smart!!!

1. PUTTING AN ARTICLE ON YOUR WEBSITE

In many circles content is still king especially if you want to develop long term loyal clients that really believe in you. You want to be known as a really great source of information so putting your articles on your website helps accomplish this goal.

2. PUT THE SAME ARTICLE ON YOUR OTHER WEBSITES

When you really get serious about Internet marketing you will use other websites that you own to catch larger amounts of traffic. This is my big target theory of traffic generation. The more pages you have that are created properly, the more chances you have of getting search traffic. 

You can take the same article with minor changes and put it on your other websites. The reason you make changes to the article is that the search engines are getting smarter all the time and they don't look favorably on identical pages cluttering up the Internet.

3. OFFER THE ARTICLE TO OTHER PEOPLE'S WEBSITES

One of the best ways to expand traffic to your websites is to get your articles placed on websites that don't belong to you. You are now getting the benefit of the traffic generated by that website. Just about any website  will do, but higher traffic websites are generally better with some exceptions. 

If you have a tightly targeted market, a low traffic website that has visitors looking for exactly what you have to offer could be much better for you than a very high traffic "general" site.

Getting placed on other sites

Why would someone want your article on their site? One reason is that content sites need content to attract visitors. The more visitors they have, the more they can charge for advertising. 

Example: Let's say a site specializes in automobile issues. They have every conceivable topic related to automobiles. . . .insurance, safe driving techniques, etc. and let's also say you are an expert in selling auto insurance. You could write an article for the site "10 Tips to Save When You Buy Auto Insurance."

Most of the time you don't get paid for the article in cash. You get paid in the form of a bio blurb and link back to your website. Millions of people might see your article and click to your site to check you out further. 

Will everyone jump at the chance to post your articles? NO WAY! You have to be persistent and consistent with approaching sites. Don't just try one email and give up. Use phone, fax, snail mail or even a personal visit to get their attention. And, of course, you have to provide quality articles, but that's not hard either as we'll see later in this article.

4. PUT THE ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE

A paired down version of your article can be used in your electronic magazine. Generally a fully fleshed out version of an article is too long for most ezines.

There are several ways around this. 

A. Make your longer article a two-part article. When you do this you should put a brief line at the end of part one to tease the reader into watching for the next issue so they can finish the article. You might write something like:

"In the next issue we'll see how to ..."

B. You can have a "digest" ezine where a brief synopsis of the article (along with other articles) is given with a link to the full article which is located on your website. The drawback to this method is that the person must be online to read it.

5. OFFER THE ARTICLE TO OTHER EZINES

Your article may be of interest to other ezine publishers who are looking for content. There are article trade sites where you can list your article. Other Ezine and website publishers can simply take your article and publish it.

WHOA YOU SAY! What do you mean "take my article?" Calm down now. This is a good thing. Usually the article must be used in its entirety and you get the bio blurb and link . . . That's what you wanted in the first place right? Don't get all whacked out thinking everyone is going to steal your work. That kid of protectionist attitude won't do you much good.

The idea is to get your name spread around the world. Would you rather be an unknown that never gets ripped off or a superstar that's "worthy" of getting ripped off?

Article trade resources:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/ 

http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml 

Paid membership directory of other ezines that accept articles.

6. SIDE DOOR PAGES

We'll cover this more in-depth in a future "Great Internet Marketing  article, but for now, you need to know that these articles can be tweaked to help you get high rankings in search engines. You can put out many different versions of the same article to suit different search engines. Don't worry. A visitor to your site won't see ten different versions of the same article. They will see only one if they are in your site looking at articles. But if they are looking for your subject in a search engine they will only see the article they found in that search engine with a link which will direct them to wherever you want them to go in your site.

7.  OFFER TO TRADE JOURNALS

Most people try to get their articles in national magazines. I'm all for shooting high, but most people fail at this and then quit writing articles saying that writing articles is a waste of time. I've got a better way and more consistent way for you to get your articles placed.

Pick an industry that you want to infiltrate. Get all the trade journals you can find for that industry and believe me they have one or many of them. A trip to your local library will get you a list. Check to see if they have an online version of the journal and read the articles.

Try also to get a copy of the printed magazine if they have one. One way to do this is to ask for a media / advertiser's kit. You could say you are considering advertising. Don't lie. Just consider it and get the media kit..

Review the articles. How long are they? What topics do they have? What are the regular sections? When you submit an articles try to make it a similar length as the ones you see. Make it easy for them to accept your article when you submit it.

Speaking of submitting, what are their submission guidelines? Many times they are printed right in the magazine. Sometimes you just have to call / email and ask.

SUPERTRICK: I learned this from Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound. Ask the magazine for their "Editorial Calendar." This is a picture of what they plan to focus on in each issue in the upcoming year. 

This allows you to precision strike your article to coincide with the focus of a particular issue. This dramatically increases your chances of being accepted. 

Joan and I wrote a book that covers Publicity in-depth. Get a free chapter and the Table of Contents at http://www.antion.com/publicityhoundTOC.htm 

Remember also that print magazines have a long lead time....sometimes 4 months so don't wait until the last minute to submit.

Negotiate your bio line and do everything you can to get your link, email and 800 number included.

8. USE AS A DOWNLOADABLE REPORT

Again I'll refer to Joan Stewart. She has done a great job of selling mini reports on her website. The entire process is automated. People pay for the report and download it themselves. These reports are on specific topics just like an article would be. Check her out at http://www.publicityhound.com 

9 & 10 USE THE ARTICLE IN PRINTED NEWSLETTERS

Obviously the same articles you use in all the places I've outlined so far can be used in print newsletters.  . . .either your own or those produced by others. You will have tighter space requirements and word counts since everything must fit on printed pages.

11. MAKE AN EBOOK

Many articles can be expanded with graphics and extra material to make a short ebook. Compile many articles together to do the same thing. Just as in 8 above, this is a real moneymaker because you have no printing, labor, and postage involved, plus you can plaster the ebooks and reports with links to your other products and services. If the person is online while they are reading your ebook, they can click instantly on any of the links and be buying your other stuff in minutes.

12, 13, & 14 USE IN PRINTED BOOKS

Articles can be used as chapters in your printed books or books written by others. Compile a bunch together and you have a complete printed book. Once you've done an ebook, it's not a big jump to taking the same file, reformatting it for print and bam / wham you've got another product driving traffic to your site.

15. USE AS A SCRIPT AND RECORD

This is pretty self-explanatory. All you have to do to get an audiotape, audio CD or streaming audio product is to read your article and record it. This is also a good way to create an audio business card.

You want to keep the links back to your website easy to read aloud and short. Remember this article is about driving traffic to your website so everything you do should have links in it.

16. SELL OR GIVE THE ARTICLE TO OTHERS

You can sell or give the reprint rights to others and let them use the article in all the ways mentioned above. This is called viral marketing because others are doing the work for you.

I've actually sold right's to my books and articles, but this is a generally tougher way to go because your competition is every professional writer on earth. I even think it's counterproductive to go for pay for your articles. A professional writer wants the money for the article. You want the enormously larger amount of money that comes from exposure of your products and services in your target market. Unless you are a great writer and doggedly persistent, I suggest you go for the free articles with bio, email address and links to your stuff.

17. USE THE ARTICLES ON A MEMBERSHIP SITE

Just like you are reading now, I am charging for the right to read my stuff. This is a little bit backwards because it's not really driving traffic to my site. You are paying for the right to come to my site, but hey, I'm sitting here blowing my Saturday morning so you don't have to, so I guess it's worth it :)

It's hard to start off this way unless you have an established following. I use the big following I've built up in my free "Great Speaking" ezine along with my established customer base to fuel sales to this site.

HOW TO WRITE A GREAT ARTICLE IN 15 MINUTES

10 tips articles are really fast to write and very well accepted in publications. Here's the method:

A. Pick a topic

B. Write a brief opening

C. Write 10 tips

D. Write a brief closing.

It seems pretty simple and it is. These articles are especially loved by print publications because they can chop off a few tips and make it an 8 tip article when they are tight on space. They may also reduce it to a "side bar" and add your tips to another article (you still get credit).

Remember to put links strategically in your articles to help drive traffic to your websites.