Writing Articles: A Great Promotional Tool

I hope you paid attention in English class. Because, if you manage an Ebusiness, one of your best promotional tools is going to be writing articles for publication in various ezines, and on other websites.

Getting your articles published can be one of the best tools for boosting traffic that you will find. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of ezines out there that are constantly looking for fresh, informative content for their ezines. Notice the key words there: "fresh" and "informative".

Before you think about the submission process, you need to understand what kind of article can bring about the best traffic. From personal experience, I have found that an article that is pure information, and very little blatant self- promotion gets the best response. Of course, you save your promotion for the signature file that you include at the bottom of the article. This is where you tell who you are, and what you have to offer.

So, what exactly do you write about? The most well-received articles, of course, are going to be the ones that give folks information that they can use. Think about what you do. What kinds of things are you doing that make your business better? What techniques are you using that work? The easiest article to write will be one that tells of your first hand experience, something you believe in and are excited about.

Also, keep your eye on the email you receive. What kinds of things are people asking about? What are the prevalent needs of people that you see most often? Make it a point to notice what people want, then research the subject, and give them the information.

ABOVE ALL, keep it honest and sincere. A well received article can bring you a boost to traffic that you will not get from many other promotional resources. And one of the keys to writing a well-recieved article is the same as the key to being successful in any other area. Be yourself, write with the intention of helping the reader. Show your sincerity in truly wanting to see others succeed. (This has to be REAL in the first place!!!) Develop that attitude before you ever start writing at all, and it will make ALL the difference in the tone of your articles. It will show through in your writing, and your readers will respond.

Ok. Now that you know what to write, its time to start getting your articles published. Submitting it to other publishers can be a tedious task. But with the right tools, can be made fairly simple.

First of all, there are various sites, and email lists that allow article submissions. These lists take the submissions and put them out in an email collection of articles. Here are a couple of the ones we use:

aaBusiness - Mailing list. Articles submissions sent to subscribers.
Post Article: aabusiness@egroups.com
Subscribe: aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com List owner: aabusiness-owner@egroups.com
URL: http://www.egroups.com/group/aabusiness

EzineArticles.com - EzineArticles is a free weekly ezine that provides resources and connects Internet writers and publishers. It includes both publishers requests for
certain types of articles, plus allow article submissions
for delivery to subsribers.Free subscriptions are available at http://EzineArticles.com/ or via email:
join-EzineArticles@ezinearticles.com

Ezine Ad Swap List - This service gives access to folks who are desiring to swap ezine ads. But also gives information as to which publishers accept articles.
http://www.HomeBasedProfit.com/east

TopEzineAds - This service has a HUGE database of ezines with information on which ones accept articles. There is a small cost to this one, but one of the BEST investments I have made.
Http://www.topezineads.com/cgi-bin/affiliate/b.cgi/862

There are many other resources available, if you start hunting for them. But these are the basic ones I use.

Using these resources, I have created a mailing list of nearly 700 publishers that accept articles. This is where having your own list management software comes in VERY handy! (We use GroupMail, which is very easy to use, and VERY affordable.
http://webworksathome.com/groupmail.htm)

There is some work involved in collecting the names and addresses of publishers, but it is well worth it to do. It is an ongoing process. You must always be on the lookout for publishers that accept article submissions, and keep adding them to your list.

Thats all there is it! (LOL!) Like anything else that will be beneficial to your Ebusiness, this takes TIME and WORK! But I assure you, you will find it well worth your effort as an ongoing resource.

About the Author

Gail Hornback is a stay at home mom of 5, editor of WebWorksAtHome Weekly Update, and author of the WebWorks Website at webworksathome.com . You may subscribe to her weekly ezine at http://www.listbot.com/subscribe/ webworksathome

gail@webworksathome.com
http://www.webworksathome.com