Phew! I was absolutey useless yesterday. It took me 2 hours to research and post an article I was writing (what kind of article marketer am I, right?) and then I got stuck, like a broken record, in this MLM Forum I was browsing. It was horrible. It’s like when you go on YouTube to watch an educational video and then you get stuck watching doggies (and their people) dance! It’s addictive and, no, you aren’t spending quality time promoting your business!
Oh well, lucky for me I’d already created some shortcuts for myself when it comes to article marketing. These really helped me out yesterday and they can really save you some time, too, when you’re brain dead! So here goes …
#1: Let Others Inspire You
There are literally millions of articles out there that have already been written on just about any conceivable topic. Instead of racking your brains every time you want to write an article, let what other people have already written be an inspiration to you. Once you know your general topic, go to any popular ezine directory and do a search on your topic. Read what others have written and see what ideas it sparks in your head. You may be reminded of something you already know and can easily write about or you may learn something completely new. You can write about that, too. Another option is to read one or more articles and then write a critique of those articles. Of course you want to be careful never to plagiarize and to give credit where it’s due, but using other people’s articles as inspiration is definitely fair game.
#2: Prepare Your Articles for Submission Ahead of Time
Any good article marketer knows that every article directory is slightly different in terms of submission guidelines, so you want to fully prepare your articles for submission ahead of time. Most article directories will want the following information: title, keywords, short description, article body, and resource box. To cut down the time it takes to submit your articles, have all these bits of data for every article in one place, like a spreadsheet or text document. Then when you go to submit your articles to multiple directories you don’t have to keep typing the same information over and over. Just copy from your spreadsheet and paste into the appropriate fields. This method also prevents you from introducing typos into your article from repetitive typing.
#3: Submit Only to the Best Article Directories
Any article marketer worth her salt knows that submitting to a million article directories is an exercise in futility and frustration. Submitting your articles to the top five or ten directories will give you the maximum traffic and exposure with the minimum effort. Submitting articles to obscure directories is just a waste of time because very few people visit them. To find the article directories with the highest traffic and rankings, just Google “10 best article directories” or “best article directories.” You’ll find a variety of lists and the best ones will be at the top of every list. We get the best traffic (as do most pro article marketers) from www.EzineArticles.com.
Being an efficient article marketer is just about as important as the content you produce. Content is king, of course, but if you are too inefficient in submitting your articles you won’t gain enough critical mass for this marketing method to really pay off. Practice these shortcuts and see how much it speeds up your article marketing process.
Hope that helps. But, of course, if you find yourself on YouTube watching someone set fire to his farts (for real!) or you find yourself shopping on eBay for more stuff you don’t need (another perennial favorite), at least you will know that you can spend less time on article marketing and more time doing silly useless things online!
Cheers,
Stephanie
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