richADZ's Site Build It! - Profitable Web Business or Bust

Recently, Max, a visitor to my site asked me for some advise (refer below):

I have a product to sell on my site.

I know I need to get visitors to my site as I realize that the probability of any sale is directly proportional to the number of hits/visitors to my site.

What should I do?

E-books? I don't want to do Viral Marketing because it is usually too long and too stressful for me to write.

Link exchanges? From my past experience, link exchanges are a series of hits and misses and I also don’t have that much time to spare.

E-mail marketing? Firstly, I have zero list and my budget does not include buying a list.

Pay Per Click? I don't even have a big enough budget for that as well.

SEO? It simply takes too long for my new sales page to be indexed by the Top SEs, and Google doesn’t seem to like my pages for some strange reason and my main page is still stuck at PR zero anyway.

What should I do?

My reply as follows:

Worry not, as there might be an easier and less time-consuming solution for you.

If you have not heard about it, or you may have "missed out" on one of the Internet marketing craze of 2006, well, I’m going to tell you, plain and simple, about article marketing.

Article marketing is the fastest way of exposing your site to more people and gaining the traffic that really matters, and I still think this holds true in 2007.

Article marketing involves the distribution of your articles to as many free articles sites as possible. Search engines love free articles sites, and having a page dedicated to your work would serve you well. Best of all, you’re allowed a resource box where you could prominently display your name as well as a link to your website. This would surely generate some traffic!

The trick is in writing an article that people would love to read, and subtly and inconspicuously promoting your product at the same time. Do consider the following ten tips in formulating your article marketing campaign.

1. You should write well - By this, it means that you should write well in accordance with proven methods in web publishing. Web readers are generally more impatient. Keep your paragraphs short, your tone conversational, and your style accessible. Avoid using jargons that common people wouldn’t understand. But still make sure that your article is grammatically sound, flows well, and factually correct.

2. You should write with focus - Pinpoint a subject you want to discuss. It should be relevant to your product, and only your product alone. The point here is to generate traffic for your site. Stick with that topic. And more importantly, list down all the benefits of your product to users and why they should get it.

3. Your article should be informative - It should not be a sales pitch, or at the very least, an obvious one. As you may have known, most readers frown on ads disguised as articles - I know I do, so before finalizing your article, go through it one more time, but read it as if you are one of your site's visitor. The purpose is to provide them with something informative, something that they would want to read.

4. Your article should be SE-friendly - Strategically populate your article with a keyword that is relevant to your business as well as the topic of your work. Search engines love article sites, and more often than not, each page is indexed, especially if the article is unique and beneficial. Making your article keyword-rich would invite those search engine spiders like crazy!

5. You should format your resource box - This is actually a short introduction of you and your company. One or two lines will be perfect. Don't forget to include your web address, preferably with your main keyword as the contextual link (also for SEO purposes).

6. You should commission someone if you can't write - If you can't write well, or do not have the time to write, you could hire a ghostwriter to do the job for you. Fees for a 300-600 word article range from US$5 to US$15, but money should not be a consideration for as long as you find a ghostwriter who is perfect for your needs. Additionally, the very essence of a ghostwriting service is confidentiality, so choose one whom you could trust.

7. Your article should be viral - Encourage your readers to distribute your article by expressly allowing them to republish it in their websites, or to e-mail it to their friends, provided that your resource box is kept intact.

8. You should have a free articles directories list - Compile a list of all the free articles directories that you can find. Know the editorial guidelines for each, and if your article would fit them, submit to as many sites as possible - my suggestion here is to submit to the top 10 leading free articles sites.

9. You should not stop writing - Most people stops at writing one article. Do not stop! Write or commission more articles and repeat the entire process. It’s still a numbers game on the Net today. The more articles you have distributed, the more chances you’ll have of being read by a lot of people. And the more the chances of someone clicking to your site.

10. You have to practice patience - Waiting could be difficult, but once your article is posted in numerous sites, more visitors are due to come. Give it time. The viral nature of article marketing would soon make its presence felt, that’s a guarantee!

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End Note: If you like the above, you are more than welcome to publish it at your site, provided that the above will be published in its entirety and include the following resource box at the end:

Rich Adz is a part time entrepreneur and content writer, who runs several online and offline businesses such as richADZ, a site that offers information on how to build successful businesses on a part time basis. Rich is also the founder of e-borneo.com, the leading Borneo travel site on the Net.