Writing articles

If you think you are illerate, check this question out: how does money enter the equation when writing is involved? Is it only when someone clicks on your Website and purchases something, do some sites pay for articles, or is there some system that I have imagined where one gets a fraction of a penny if someone clicks on your article or on your website? Or does the # of clicks relate only to advertisers on the site? And what if you have nothing to sell but writing?

I have seen an increased tendency for some posters in forums to submit posts that read more like articles, both in length and content. Personally, when I visit a forum board, I expect to read rather short to medium length posts and not a several hundred word long article disguised as a post.

And I have also seen articles AND posts that contain horrendous spelling and grammatical errors, and not merely from foreign posters. For those who speak English as a second language, it would behoove them to try to find someone to proofread their article before submission - still, those can be excused somewhat.

It's those who write, with English as their primary and learned language, who don't take the time to proof their work and then post it that gets frustrating. Sure, we all make mistakes and I probably have several, if not more, posts on this very forum when I have inadvertantly mis-spelled something, or put punctuation marks where they don't belong - but if you want someone to seriously consider what you have to say, you should take care that your content is as correct as possible.

Posts versus articles? They are both effective. But like Vishal has said - you have to stay on top of them and keep posting and or submitting articles. One is not enough.

Hello Julio,

You raise a great question.

Without a doubt, writing articles is a more effective method for attracting traffic than posting a message, and that can be attributed to two important viral components:

1. Permission to freely republish online or in print.
2. The inclusion of the author's bio at the end of the article

Those two features alone could have articles appearing on hundreds of Web sites, ezines, newsletters, blogs, article directories and search engines in no time, exposing the writer to thousands of viewers.

The more articles written, the wider and faster the exposure and the greater the potential for traffic.

A message/forum post is a different tool. It's usually more condensed than an article and is seen largely by other members of the forum. Exposure will be influenced primarily by the popularity of the forum. But, because there is no distribution factor, the overall impact on traffic is significantly less than that of article writing.

Hermas

hi

Submitting articles to ezine will increase your web traffic as well as traffic to your website. 200 ezine websites are listed on http://www.articleautomation.com/article_resources.htm

You are right. Ezine articles is probably the best place to submit articles to. There are tons of other ones like Article alley and article city. If you check ebay, you can get 'article submitter' for like a dollar! It will submit an article to tons of article directories at once!

If you want to reach the top of search engines you will have to do a complex strategy and the most important thing that you will have to do is to make a great content into your website.
So, keep in mind this thing: great content. Search engines does not looking any more for large amount of visitors.
I will get back with more details.
Take care!

Does anyone know how I can submit an article? Not so familliar. Will I be penalize for personal views on, let say, politics, comments, etc.
I believe life is like a paradigm and all of us will look at things from a different angles or perpectives. right?Freedom of expressions but still have to be careful with choice of words especially on sensitive issues but just to give a different views, ok right? To each his own and one man's meat is another man's poison? Well i believe you can never please everyone, even God didn't, right, eventhough I believe He could.

I'm not sure whether articles seem to pull better than forums regarding search engine ranking. I have done many searches lately and seem to think that it's really even.
But what I agree on is that participating in both these methods will help your online exposure heaps. I managed to get a organic google ranking 5 with a blog within 3 days and I'm very excited about this actually, I think the key to success is doing a little bit every day and do it consistently.
Small consistent action outpulls massive short action any day.
Monika

Hi,

I've got a list of over 450 article directories. They are split into two groups, registery and non registry sites. Here's a direct link to them(right click save target as): http://www.siriusfreehomebiz.com/articledirectories.txt

Enjoy,
Brice

Try this: www.articlemarketer.com
It will submit your article to 29 sites for free

A8ch: Here are a few other article sites I use:

- GoArticles.com
- IdeaMarketers.com
- SearchWarp.com

Like EzineArticles, the above sites also have the useful feature of display statistics on page views or downloads, to help you track the demand for your article.

Until further notice, writing articles for republication is one of the most powerful, economical and perpetual ways to advance yourself and your business.

Thanks for the tip. I've been looking for some other article resources.

-Sean

I have just submitted my first articles in SearchWarp.com and I must say that the response has been very good. Within the first few hours, I had comments on my articles AND I had visitors to my site. Evidently, when you submit an article, it goes to the Home page of the site and the title is listed under "recent articles." This means that your articles get immediate exposure and are very easy to find.

hal,
no need to worry, as long as you follow the terms of service, your articles will be accepted. I've got about
30 live now.

BP

Vishal P. Rao: I would usually advice against submitting to many directories at once, because Google's patent specification indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow. Sudden spurt in link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam for Google.

Also, you should vary your anchor texts as much as possible to make sure that your links look natural.

Getting a top ranking is getting difficult day by day. More effort and uniqueness is required than ever to make it to the top. You can't get a good ranking by just submitting to article directories.

Just look at the amount of articles that are being submitted to ezinearticles.com everyday! How can you afford to stand out? Earlier, yes, it was a surefire technique to get a good ranking by submitting articles regularly. But I'm not sure if it works as fast now.

Another important point to note is not to use the same articles you submit to directories on your site. Try to have a slightly different version, so search engines don't consider it a duplicate content. Same is the case when you use other people's article on your site. Ask the author if you have the permission to modify the article a bit (especially the title) to make it unique. I think most would have no problems if the theme remains the same.

Moral: There is no easy way to the top

I could really use some help here. I am an old salt with Network Marketing, MLM. I have a great business, awesome compensation plan. I'm very good one on one talking to people. But, i don't know SQUAT about ezines, articles, blogging, etc. I am comfortable in forums, and know how to use them to my advantage, plus, i love the interaction in forums. It's like having a conversation, something i am very good at! LOL!

But, i need some good basic article writing and Blogging 101. And, what the heck is Squidoo? Can you help me out? I don't even understand the terminology, RSS, Lenses, etc. Thanks

To learn more about writing articles and using them to market your business check out the resources at EzineArticles.com. They are the top article directory and authority site online today.

Ezinearticles is a great source. Squidoo is a collection of user created sites that Seth Godin developed. It is a great source for marketers, it's not only allowed but encouraged. Since you're not supposed to link directly back to a commercial site from your article, I use Squidoo as a go between (landing page) my articles and my products. Both of the links in my signature are Squidoo lenses. I'd be happy to help you better understand these things.

BP

Hi,

This is a great thread and I love reading it but how about writing the articles itself ? How do you all go around with this ?

For me it's a rather time consuming process. I often have writer blocks and can't get a sentence on paper or don't know where to start. Do you all wait for inspiring ideas or do you use software to make articles ?

Abbi: For me it's a rather time consuming process. I often have writer blocks and can't get a sentence on paper or don't know where to start. Do you all wait for inspiring ideas or do you use software to make articles ?

Most articles I write are for my sites, but the principle, I think is the same. I'm not a 'great' writer, but this is what I do.

Once I know what I am going to write about (keyword phrase), I think about explaining something to a friend. I try to write like I talk. It gives the article a more personal touch and is more believable to the reader.

I suppose that would be different if your targeted audience was of a technical nature and expected formal or technical language. For the most part, though, just write like you are talking to a friend. You can then go back and read it and adjust it to include the right phrases you need, correct mistakes, rework choppy bits, etc.

Not very professional sounding, I know, but that's what I do.

Great advice and tips here thanks everyone, I am currently looking in to getting someone to write some parenting articles for me and now I have the resources of where to submit them, thanks all