Article Weblog

Have you fallen for the article marketing trap? Sending out second rate articles, worrying too much about word count and ignoring all the things that would make your effort more successful?

Article marketing has swept through the internet like an avalanche. Virtually everyone knows about the technique but very few are doing it well. Many people are actually ruining their reputation by ignoring article marketing best practices.

As an article newsgroup moderator and article marketing expert I am in the trenches everyday. Increasingly, I reject more articles than I accept. More and more often I hear complaints from publishers that the articles submitted to them are pure crap. Many of these publishers complain that article submission software is to blame. I have to disagree. Here is what I think is causing the majority of problems:

* People who want to use the technique without learning how.

* Private label articles flooding the market.

* Plaigarism and copyright violations.

* Lousy articles with no redeeming values.

* Off topic articles driving publishers crazy.

* Articles that are too short or too long.

* Writers who won’t divulge their identity and only use their by-line for advertising a website.

Can you connect the dots to find out where the article marketing problems lie? With the article marketer. The article marketer, like myself, loves the technique but is often strapped for time. Instead of writing unique articles or hiring a ghostwriter to write for them they get lazy. Stupidity and carelessness is also a factor but I bet being lazy causes most of the problems.

I believe that laziness is the root of all evil in the article marketing world. Any type of marketing with not work unless effort is expended and techniques are repeated regularly and reliably. Please do me a favor. If you can’t make the effort then don’t use the technique.

Article marketing done badly is far more damaging then not using the technique at all. It only works when you create quality work and follow submission rules. Don’t blame the publishers for your shoddy articles and don’t spend hours on forums complaining that the technique doesn’t work. It does work. It has worked for me and for many others but it won’t work for you if you insist on being lazy and irresponsible.

Make a commitment today to write well, submit only on topic unique articles and to hire help if you need it. Your best efforts will be the catalyst to better results and will support the growth of the article marketing community. Let’s use the technique wisely so that it remains a viable part of internet marketing.

© 2006, Davis Virtual Assistance. Reprint rights granted to all venues so long as the article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links are made live.

Bonnie Jo Davis is an article marketing expert who takes great pride in helping work at home parents, entrepreneurs, small business owners and enthusiastic hobbyists exploit the power of the written word. To learn how to grow your business with article marketing or to join her affiliate program visit http://www.WriteYourWayToProfit.com today!

Share This

If you are an online article author perhaps someone in your family has asked what you are doing when you spend all that time writing articles? I have recently been telling them that I am writing articles for mass distribution. Then the next obvious question they ask is; How are these articles being distributed?

Well simple I tell them; I submit the articles to an online article submission website and these send them out using RSS or real simple syndication and then websites pick them up for content, sometimes print medium and often Ezines too. What is an Ezine they ask? Simple I tell them it is an online newsletter or electronic magazine, which is usually sent out via email to thousands of email subscribers. Oh; they usually say.

Once my articles are posted in the online article submission site the Ezine Publishers capture it that way. Which puts the article into the pipeline so to speak; so they can EZINE IT! Whenever I explain this people look at me funny and then have that dumb puppy look? I explain the Ezining it, well, one could say would then be an action verb.

Because the act of putting your articles into distribution for Ezine Publishers to pick it up could be called Ezining It! In other words this is what I call the posting of an article for the sole purpose of getting Ezines to distribute it? There is no word for that action, so I simply made one up; Ezining it or Ezine It a verb. Kind of like Faxing It or Zerox it or FedEx it. Generally after I explain this to them, they want to start writing more articles also. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Share This

Recently I began corresponding with a fellow writer whose work I greatly admire. I decided to send my new friend some photographs of my home town. I made two copies of the letter and placed one in my files. I stuffed the other in an envelope along with the photographs and ran to catch the postman, just as he was leaving my front door.

Several days later, my sister came for a visit. While I was showing her some of my latest work, she came across the copy of that same letter in my files. She read it, then fell back into her chair, overcome with laughter.

“What is so funny?” I demanded to know.

“This,” she choked, pointing to the last paragraph in the letter. “How did you manage to mail two lakes clear across the countryside?”

My sister is not an inconsiderate person, nor is she intentionally vicious, she is simply blessed (or cursed) with a very keen sense of humor. When she finds something funny, she will break out into gales of laughter no matter the consequences. I could certainly understand her mirth when I read the sentence she pointed out, although my laughter was tinged with embarrassment.

The sentence read:
“I am enclosing a few photographs of our beautiful Blue Ridge mountains, and a couple of our area lakes.”

Had I truly written such a sentence? Much to my chagrin, I knew that not only had I written it, but in failing to proof read the letter I had actually mailed the humiliating error to my new friend.

In retrospect, it was clear that my first mistake had been the haste in which I had mailed the letter. The second mistake screamed at me from the page. The sentence was clearly suffering from incorrect parallel structure as well as from chronically misplaced comma syndrome. Such a poorly constructed sentence would cause my former English professor to turn over in his rocking chair.

An error of this magnitude could be quite expensive as well, should it fall into the hands of a magazine editor. I shudder to think of the consequences of such a sentence appearing in a cover letter accompanying one of my manuscripts.

For example, suppose I had written a fabulous article on the opening of the special-needs day care center in my area. And suppose I wrote the following sentence in a cover letter to the editor:

“I am prepared to supply a couple of photographs of the Rainbow Day Care Center, and several of the children who are enrolled.”

Imagine the look of horror on the poor editor’s face at the prospect of several children from a day care center being deposited on her doorsteps. Not only would I blow this sale, I would probably make a mortal enemy of this editor as well. Without a doubt, the article would be returned unread, possibly with a note attached informing me that the magazine was closed to further submissions.

To err is human…and very, very humiliating. In this age of technology, why doesn’t someone invent a piece of software with a sense of humor, preferably like that of my sister? A software program that would scan our finished documents and search for any humor in the content. If we happen to be writing a serious piece of literature and the software were to giggle out of sync, then this would alert us to the fact that we had written something completely ludicrous.

Until someone does invent such a program, and since my sister isn’t always around to keep me informed of my unintentional humor, I must rely on my own knowledge of grammatical terms and the correct way in which they should be used to form a unit of thought capable of being used as an utterance.

Ignorance is NOT a virtue. I decided that a book on correct grammar usage might work to my advantage so I purchased the book, Errors in English and Ways to Correct Them, written by Harry Shaw and published by Harper & Row. The book is an excellent guide to correct word usage, sentence structure and punctuation. Until I began studying the book, I didn’t realize how much I have forgotten of what I once thought I knew. I keep the book handy and refer to it often. I have found it to be worth its weight in acceptance letters.

I have also developed the habit of proofreading everything I write, from my grocery list to my daily entries in my journal.

Of course I posted another letter to my writer friend, apologizing for my critical error in the previous letter. I also informed him that I trusted he didn’t drown when he opened the envelope and the two lakes poured out. We had a good laugh and all was forgiven and forgotten.

Friends can afford to laugh at their mistakes. Editors do not have the time to appreciate the humor in a senseless sentence. Such carelessness can mean the difference between a rejection slip and a deposit slip.

And as every writer knows, rejection slips do not feed us nor do they make us laugh.

Leeuna Foster has been writing for two decades. Her fiction and poetry have won several awards. She is also a regular contributer to StoryTime Tapestry and a syndicated columnists. Her latest book, Hangin’ With the Rednecks is now available in print or in ebook form. Visit her website http://www.southernfriedwriters.com for details on how to purchase your copy…don’t wait for the movie!

Share This