About the Wisdom of Blogging and Blog Marketing. About Blog Marketing Tips, internet marketing tools, service and the tips about Affiliate Marketing and Blogging.
Internet Marketing is a tough job. Intellectual Marketing is that Art by whch we use our intellect to generate traffic.
Creating a website or blog is not enough. Your sites and blogs should achieve visibility on the search engines. Then only will people come to your site. Remember a blog or a site without traffic is zero. It is traffic which makes a site great. Yahoo, Google or MSN get tremendous traffic ( above 1 miilion hits a day ) and that is why they are ranked high.
There are many methods of attracting traffic. You have to submit your blogs, feeds, urls, articles etc to the respective directories. Then only will they achieve visibility on the search engines.
Talking and writing about generating traffic is easy. It is difficult to get a lot of traffic. One has to do Intellectual Marketing religiously. I put in 10 hours of Web Marketing every day. Otherwise my blogs and sites will be devoid of traffic !
After you have created your blogs, you have to submit them to the blog directories
Submit Your Blogs
This is blog submission web page I use to submit my 28 blogs
Squidoo is heavily trafficked and I created 27 lenses on Squidoo. Each Squidoo page is a url and they should be submitted to the Search Engines. Once submitted they will be visible on the Search Engines. Once they are visible, you will get traffic to your Squidoo Page.
From your Squidoo page you should give links to your blogs and sites. That way you will get fairly good traffic.
Use Social Bookmarking
To get traffic, you can submit your pages to Social Bookmarking services like Digg, Technorati etc. These social bookmarking sites get around 1 million bookmarks a day. The web or blog page which you bookmark becomes visible and people read and click and lo ! you have got traffic.
I use the Social Bookmarking Button of AddThis ( www.addthis.com ). It submits to over 16 Social Bookmarking Sites.
1) Article Submission to the Article Directories 2) Submitting the Site to the Search Engines 3) Ezine Promotion 4) Ezine Ads 5) Participating in Forums, Blogs, Discussion Lists 6) Signature File 7) Create A Weblog or Blog
These sevenfold strategies can be termed as the Brahman of Web Marketing, ( Brahman being a term for the Ultimate Reality ).
Article Submission
This is known as the Pull Strategy of Viral Marketing.
Write an article, with a resource box which contains your dot com, your mobile no etc. You have to submit it to article directories.
It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. That statement cannot be truer on the Web, which is a written medium.
If you submit your article to the article directories, readers and publishers ( Webmasters, ezine publishers, ebook publishers ) visit the directories for content & they will download your articles & publish them. You get free publicity & exposure. People click on the hyperlinks and lo ! they have come to your site. This is called Article Marketing, which is another synonym for Viral Marketing.
You can compile your articles into an ebook and give them away. The ebook should contains your site's hyperlinks. Readers will click on your links & visit your site.
Remember, Traffic is Internet Gold. Without traffic, you cannot succeed. You have to bring people to the site and then only can you market.
Take up the pen, write and submit content to Article Directories. This is the age of the Article Directories and there are more than 500 of them. You can access the Article Directories List at
Writing an article is not difficult. You can get the content from books which deal with the subject. Or you can get content from the search engines. For example, go to Yahoo or Google and type the subject. In my case, the subject is Astrology and when I type Astrology, many astro sites open up. You can get articles on Astrology, study the subject and write about it.
Submitting it to Article Directories is not difficult either. Here is a small list
You can sign up for a Free Account at one Article Directory. They will send you an Activation Link and once you click that, you have become their member and you can submit your articles to that directory. The Admin will approve your articles, content publishers will download your articles and publish them on their ezines or websites ! Your articles should have a byline, a bio or Resource Box, which points to your site. Readers read these articles and click on your website link and you get solid traffic !
Submitting the Site to the Search Engines
This is known as the Push Strategy of Viral Marketing.
This is submitting your url to the search engines. Also your press release to the sites which accept press release.
First url is my main website url. Second one is the free subscription to my Zine. And the third is the blog url.
This is the resource box used when I submitted an 'Blog Your Way to the Bank' article to article directories.
Now the Zine publishers and website owners are looking for quality articles. They can get these articles from the article directories. They visit the article directories and download articles of their choice. They publish these articles in their Zines/ Websites.
The readers read these articles and click on these hyperlinks. And what do you get ? Traffic, which is Internet Gold !
Normally you can submit a 3 url resource box. Putting more than 3 urls in the Resource box is risky.
All my 22 blogs have got good traffic. Also my five websites and I attribute all this to Article Marketing. I blog regularly about the subjects I love - cricket, marketing, blogging, philosophy, astrology, gemology, numerology etc. Many come to my office to learn blogging.
I have also monetised by blogs and sites and I get monthly checks from Google & Adbrite, thanks to Article Marketing !
May you increase your blog traffic with Article Marketing
Articles give us tremendous free exposure. This is the secret of Viral Markeing which is Free Advertising. If our article is good, it will be displayed in ezines and websites and the resource box at the end will proclaim who is the author of that article. Many a reader will click on the link to our website and we get phenomenal amount of traffic!
When writing an article, it is the Resource box which pulls people to the site. The Resource box must be well written. I used to write like this
You should give your site's name & your email address in the resource box. If you have an ezine, you should give the email address for subscribing to your ezine. In the Resource Box, it is better to give a short bio of yourself and your area of expertise. Those who are impressed by your article will definitely subscribe to your ezine as they thirst for more quality information.
Successful marketers never try to sell their products at the first instance. What they try is to get a free subscription to their Ezine! It is their sophisticated approach that sells !
The main principle of Marketing is Never Sell - Influence. It should not look like business. If you write an ad, it should not look like an ad.
Once people subscribe to your ezine via your Resource box, you can give freebies - free reports, free ebooks and free consultancy. They become your loyal customers ! They will refer more people to your site and your business will thrive.
Once the article with the Resource Box is finished, you have to market it to your target audience.
What I used to do is go to the search engines and type in "ezines" which deal with your subject.
Since I started writing articles on Astrology, I used to go to Yahoo, Ebay, Altavista etc and type in Astrology Ezine and search.
This search will give a list of Astrology Ezines. If your subject is Medicine type Medicine ezine and search. Suppose it gives 40 lists. You go to these websites and write down their email addresses. Then you write a covering letter to the Zine Publisher and submit your article to be published by him/her.
I used to write like this:
Dear Zine Publisher,
I came to know about your esteemed Zine from the Net.
I am a writer on Astrology with a website - http://www.eastrovedica.com/ I have written an article on Astrology. Please publish it in your Zine/Site.
It is a win-win situation for both of us as you get good content and I get exposure in return.
Thanks and regards,
G Kumar http://www.eastrovedica.com/ You can also submit your articles to Site Owners. They may display your article on their site. Site Owners are looking for quality content. If you can provide that, they will definitely accept your articles.
After writing articles on the subject, one should group these articles and compile them into an ebook.
After I wrote nine articles on Astronumerology, I compiled them into an Ebook called Astronumerology and distributed it free.
Article Banks Article Banks are considered to be Net Marketing Gold. There are a lot out there and it will be better if you subscribe to them and post your articles regularly. I used to submit my articles to the following lists: WriteitPublish_Announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com article_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Cramp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com I_Need_Content-subscribe@yahoogroups; ArticleReview-subscribe@topica.com WriteitPublish_Announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; articles_archives-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ArticlePublisher-subscribe@yahoogroups.com clickforcontent-subscribe@topica.com free-content-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; Free-Reprint-Articles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; Free_eContent-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; freezinecontent-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; FreeWrites-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; free-content-subscribe@topica.com; Free-Reprint_Articles-subscribe@topica.com; free_articles-subscribe@topica.com; freeezinecontent-subscribe@topica.com; netwrite-publish-announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; publisher_network-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; QC_Reprint_Articles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; ReadMyArticles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; ReprintArticles-Paradise-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Free E Book Compiler
To compile an Ebook, you need a compiler and Keebo is a free compiler. We have used it ourselves, but at this price of zero dollars, it's certainly worth checking out: http://www.keeboo.com/ENU/index.html
There are other paid ebook compilers. You can download a trial version from http://www.ebookcompiler.com/
In the ebook you should give links to your site. You can give links to your friend's sites as well. You can tell your friends that you have given links to their sites in your ebooks. They will reciprocate by giving you links in their articles or their ebooks. They may even give you a link from their sites as well.
You can ask ezine publishers to give the ebook away freely to their customers. You can tell siteowners to give the ebook away to their visitors. This is known as Perpetual Marketing, wherein many publishers and siteowners market your site free for you!
You can give the ebook away as an incentive for subscribing to your Ezine. You can give the ebook away when a customer buys your product, as an added bonus.
You can tell your friends that you have given them links in your ebook. Inspired, they will distribute it free amongst their friends, relatives & customers. You can post your ebook here http://writers-bbs.com/inkspot/?forum=ebookpromo.
You can submit your ebooks to Ebook_News@yahoogroups.com & majordomo@exemplary.net
You can give your ebook away as a free download at your site. Or you can give them as a paid download.
If people download your ebook, they will definitely visit your website & sign up for your newsletter or buy your products or hire you for your service.
I have created several ebooks that have been read by thousands of people all over the Net and this has resulted in massive traffic to my site.
Sheer hard work is imperative along with persistence, perseverance & lots of time to be successful as a marketeer on the Net. Because of the dynamic & ever changing nature of the Web, marketing becomes an everyday job. " Promote or die" is the slogan. We have to market smarter, not harder.
Ebook publishing is the biggest money spinner on the Net. Many have become millionaires as a result of e-publishing. Rick Beneteau ,Jim Daniels & Monique Harris are some shining examples. So why dont you try this viral method?
In our last article, we have talked about the wisdom of distributing e-articles and e-books. Let us analyse if there are any other marketing tricks which can of considerable use in Web Marketing.
One viral technique is to create a freeware program and distribute it free. In that freeware you should scatter links to your site. This will create a lot of visitors, provided the software is good quality. The fame of your company will spread like wildfire. Provided the software is good, you will get a lot of hits to your site. Word of mouth publicity about your company and your software will spread all over the Net.
Another strategy is to create " Tell it to a friend ". This simple script can be installed in less than an hour and this facility allows visitors to your site to recommend your site to their friends. Their friends will definitely visit your site as human beings tend to believe their friends.
Another trick is to install greeting cards on your site. All people want to send e-cards to their relatives & friends in order to do so they will visit your site. Each card contains a link to your site which will produce an appreciable amount of traffic. This is one of the most powerful of all viral techniques.
Another technique is to incorporate a free searchengine submission program on the site and advertise that your site has a free submission program. Many site owners will visit your site for free submission. You can advertise the free submission program in your sig file and in your ezine ads. It will look like this
"FREE! Free submission to 10 search engines.Visit www.eastrovedica.com and submit to Altavista, Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, Looksmart and build incredible traffic at no cost ! "
Another trick is to hold a contest and advertise that your site is holding a contest. This will bring tremendous traffic on your site as people tend to be drawn to intellectual contests which tests their skill. This is an opportunity for people to pass away their time, test their IQ and MQ & also get some gifts.
Distributing ball-pens with the name of your dotcom imprinted on them helps in spreading the word. You can offer it as a gift to your customers or to people who come to enquire in your shop.
Distributing T-shirts with the name of your dotcom printed on them is another marketing trick. You can kill two birds with one stone. You have given freebies to your potential customers and you have spread the word about your dotcom!
All your offline promotion material should have your url address imprinted on it along with your email address. Business cards should be distributed freely to whomsoever you come into contact. Make it a point to distribute at least 3 business cards in a day. Marketing is the life-blood of business!
In your articles, you can promote not only your products but also your friend's products. For example, my friend AK Selvraraj has written a book which I promote in my articles on Philosophy. The theme of Self Actualisation is highlighted and an excellent book for achieving that objective is referred. Eg. Click here http://hop.clickbank.net/?zodiaccom/7gsbook
In your articles, you can recommend your friend's products, the products of the affiliate programs you have signed up & you can give links to your friend's sites ( and ask them for a reciprocal link ). You can sign up for many affiliate programs and then promote these products through your writing !
After writing articles, submitting them is another Herculean task. My method of Article Submission is as follows.
After writing my first article on AstroNumerology, I went to Google.com & typed Numerology Submit Article.
The Search showed 1600. I went to each of the links and submitted my article.
Most of the intellectual websites have a Submit Article Webpage wherein they say "Share your Expertise and Profile your business". You will not be paid monetarily but you will get Free Advertising in return as the bio shows who you are. So this is the practical way to do it. Go the Search Engines, type Subject Subject Article and submit your article to the links that appear as Searches.
Group Lists
Group Lists are considered as a goldmine of marketing. There are so many groups listed on http://www.topica.com/ and http://www.yahoogroups.com/.
What you do is to go to these sites and type in the name of your subject. I typed Yoga in http://www.yahoogroups.com/ and got 458 lists. I subscribed to all. I post my messages to them once a week. I got 40 lists on Astrology from http://www.yahoogroups.com/. I subscribed to them. I post regularly and the people on the list see my posts. My posts contain my url address & my email address. People on the list see the post and visit my site or contact me via email. On the first day I received an order for 40 ebooks. Next day also. Many subscribed to my Ezine, the Z Files. Traffic increased considerably because of this method. Hope you will do the same.
On the Net, success depends on Marketing. Benjamin Franklin talked about improving our 13 skills which will lead to millions, the greatest of which is adcopywriting. Marketing skill is another. Promote, promote & promote !
If your marketing plan does'nt include writing, better incorporate it immediately. The whole Net belongs to writers. Isn't the Web an Information Encyclopaedia? All people want content and you better give quality content to be recognised amongst the multitude. Your web site must have good content, something original and unique.
Now here we focus on using writing skill as a marketing tool.
The place where you can deposit your articles on the Web is called an article bank. You can post your articles to these article banks. You will be surprised that many people read your articles, visit your site and subscribe to your newsletter. They may hire you or pay you for your future articles! This is FREE ezine advertising and you can save thousands of dollars which otherwise would have gone to marketing !
You can write copyright info and bio on every article you submit and in some article banks you can include your photo.
I used to visit http://www.writingtree.com/ and post my articles there. This is a site which encourages writers. Writing is an art and this is recognised by this site.
You have to market your articles. For this you can design a web page like www.eastrovedica.com/html/articles.htm and link all the articles into an article bank. It gives the visitors option to read any of your articles.
Another good site where you can submit your articles is http://www.selfgrowth.com/ - Their newsletter is pretty successful with a large circulation base. Your article may be published by them if they like it.
I always submit my articles to http://www.marketing-seek.com/ They have ezines dealing with a lot of subjects despite the fact that they concentrate on marketing. You can get your articles published in their ezines.
You can open a new Web page and publish your article in yourSite. I wrote an article on Pranic Therapy and published it recently on my site. To see how I have done it, click on this link http://www.eastrovedica.com/html/pranic1.htm
The reason for publishing your article on your website is that some sites which have a Web Page called Submit Article want it to be published on the Web. They ask for the url where the article can be found.
When I wrote Vedic Astrology Lesson 4, I instantly published it on the Web due to these Submit Article websites needing one to do that. My Web Page http://www.eastrovedica.com/html/va4.htm became an instant hit !
Publish or perish ! Use your Nature-given talent to write and write your way to the top. Dont let the inhibitions in the mind block you from being a successful writer. Dont let age prevent you from writing !
Chaucer at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales ! Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past !
On the Net, Content is King and Email is Queen. Take advantage of this equation. People are ready to pay for branded content !
In our earlier articles, we dealt with the wisdom of creating an Ezine and distributing it.
How do we do it? There are softwares available for bulk mailing.
One of the popular Group Mailers is the Aureate Group Mailer. It is capable of 650000 emails in one hour. I use this excellent Software which goes to 14500 subscribers of my Free Ezine, The Z Files ! You can click on this link to get it.
Another software you can use for the purpose of submitting your Articles, free ezine ads and ezines is the Ezine Announcer. You can Get it at this link
http://wetrack.it/eza/af.cgi?362
Site submission is also important. You can submit your site to 100 search engines at one click using an Automated Submission Software. Click on this link
If you want more data about writing, you can go to about.com which has a forum for freelance writers and screenwriters. Just type "writers" and you will be stunned at the information you get.
A website where you can deposit your articles is called an article bank. Dont think all sites pay you for your articles. Only one site in my list pays at 2 cents per click. With that sort of money you cant become a millionaire instantly. You have to place copyright info and a bio on each article. Many will read your articles, subscribe to your Zine, write to you, visit your site, hire you or pay you for future articles !
If you dont have enough articles for your ezine, you can visit an articles bank. Even if you dont have the time to write you can do the same. These article banks allow you to use articles from their sites!
Marketing these articles is difficult. If you design a page on your website, you can link the artilcles you have deposited into an article page.
Here we are giving the names of some article banks for you to use.
1) http://www.themestream.com/ - This site will receive all your articles. They have a newsletter and your articles may be published there.
2) http://www.topten.org/ - This site sends out daily newsletters and you can publish coaching tips and quotes.
3) http://www.ideamarketers.com/ - This site will market your articles for a small fee.
4) http://www.top7business.com/ - If you post your articles to this site. it will definitely bring in a lot of traffic.
5) http://www.makingprofit.com/ - This is another site you can submit your articles to.
6) http://ezinearticles.com/ - Different categories have been given and you can submit your articles to any of them.
10) http://www.writebusiness.com/ - A business articles directory.
In this article we discuss signature files and their uses.
A sig file ( signature file ) is a short bio of yourself. It contains your url and email address.
Signature files have got tremendous use in Web Marketing. It goes along with every email and proclaims who you are and what knowledge you have and what you sell.
This is a sig file which goes out with email I send.
Zodiac Computers = G Kumar ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sidereal Astrology & Yogic Psychology Expert Get your free Astronumerology Report
http://www.eastrovedica.com/
Hotmail.com was one site which came up due to Viral Marketing. The message " Get your free email with Hotmail.com" spread like a virus and within 18 months Hotmail has 30 million registrants. This is what the sig file can do. If you give a freebie, you can add that too in the sigfile. In my sig file I offer a free Astronumerology Report & so many at least 50 percent of the receipients do visit my website.
If you are using Outlook Express, you can set up a Sig File. You can go to Tools on the Main Menu, click Options, click Signatures and design a sig file and devise in such a way that this sig file goes out with every email that you send.
Ezine Ads
Ezine ads are the most costefficient way of advertising. What is advertising, after all ? It is Salesmanship-In-Print! Ezines do not charge much when compared to banner ads and express search engine submissions. For a nominal price, you can have your ads blasted to thousands of the ezine's subscribers.
If you have an ezine, you can swap ads with other subscribers. If your ezine has a subscriber base of 1000 and if you want to swap ads with another ezine which has a subscriber base of 2000, you can do a 1:2 ratio.
Adcopy writing is an art. The first and foremost principle to bear in mind is get the attention of the reader. The ad copy headlines should be attractive and should catch attention. You have to focus on the 'you' benefits, that is what how the customer will benefit from purchasing your products. You convince him about his benefits and he will definitely buy your product. My ad which pulled in a lot of subscribers runs like this
--->>>FREE Ezine Ads For YOU!<<<--- Ezine advertising is the BEST way to maximize the potential of your business! Get 1 FREE ad in the Z Files ! Please click on this link mailto:info@eastrovedica.com?subject=subscribe url - http://www.astrologiavedica.com/
In this ad I tell the consumer how he will benefit by subscribing to my ezine.
Article Banks
Article Banks are "Banks" where articles can be deposited. In our last article we had given the email addresses of the article announcers.
Here we give the links for submitting it online.
http://opportunityupdate.com/articles - Articles dealing with Marketing, computers, business, promotion, web design and the art of writing can be posted on this site.
http://www.ultimateprofits.com/ - A good marketing site with a lot of marketing tips.
http://www.selfgrowth.com/ - This is a site which deals with Self-development and they have a 60000 subscriber base. Provided your articles are good, they will publish your articles which are posted on their site !
http://www.ideamarketers.com/ - They will market your articles and have got a good affiliate program.
www.promoloop.com/submissioncriteria.html - Articles dealing with Business & Promotional
http://www.webmasterslibrary.com/ - You can submit articles on Web Design, Web Copy, tutorials, interviews & tips to this nice site.
http://www.topten.org/ - This site send daily newsletters You can submit your articles to them. They publish Quotes and marketing tips. They have a large subscriber base.
http://www.marketing-seek.com/ - Two Web Marketing experts are the brains of this site. They are publishers of 10 ezines belonging to 10 categories!
Article Swaps
You can swap articles with other writers who has ezines.
Last month I swapped articles with Dr Rajesh Kotecha of http://www.chakrapaniayurveda.com/. He published mine and I pubished his.
Ebooks are electronic books used as a promotional tool on the Net to get traffic and to boost sales. They are educational tools and can be of immense benefit to newbies.
Creating an ebook is sound marketing wisdom. Dont be put off by the inhibiting thought that you cannot write. Such a statement is far from truth. You can write and you can write your way to glory. Create an ebook about your area of expertise and offer it free to visitors of your site !
So, after you have created your eBook, how do you go about promoting it?
First offer it free to people who you are in contact with online. Include it in your sig file in, your email discussion lists, especially those active groups that are geared towards eBooks such as:
mailto:Ebook_News-subscribe@onelist.com
mailto:AnEbookChat-subscribe@onelist.com
Submit your eBook to as many directories as possible. Here are a few directories that you can start off with if your eBook is free .
