Article Writing: Easy or Difficult?

I'm going to tell you a story about a man that flunked out of school at the age of 16.  It was so bad at school that the only A's he got were in physical education.  When he was in junior high he never did any work in English because he hated it so much.  Of course, if you don't have good English, your reading suffers too.

He didn't like school at all.  He would hook out of school and go to work; he was only 13 years old (he looked a lot older).  He went to summer school every year just to get through junior high.  I think they just pushed him through because he doesn't remember doing anything but showing up.

Why am I telling you this?  Because the same man that flunked English every year and quit school at the age of 16 is a successful Internet marketer.  And guess what he does.  He helps people to discover multiple ways to quickly create content for websites, articles, autoresponders and any other type of content.  And you’re right - it's me.

One day my best friend Lori, who is also my partner, was talking about starting a home business.  We both like to travel and we wanted our business to be portable.  We came up with this idea of working on the Internet.  We picked a guru program and put everything in it that we could.

In the program, there was a lot of reading and writing.  I had cold feet right from the start.  Lori knew that I had problems with reading and writing. My writing was so bad that when I used spell-check I could swear the computer was smoking and I was dreading it.  Me.  Of all people.

But Lori saw something in me and figured a way around it.  She had me first start just doing some research on keywords.  I wasn't too bad just checking out some single words or phrases.  After I did that for awhile then she said that our websites needed to be blogged.  What the heck is a blog?  Did I tell you that the only thing I knew about a computer was how to fly my flight simulator?  Not even how to write or send an e-mail.  When she mentioned writing a blog, I didn’t know what to think.  She told me that she would show me how to write just a few lines.

I’d write a few lines about our different web sites.  Every time I wrote a blog I would have to ask her to make sure everything was spelled okay.  All day long I would do research on keywords and I would try to write blogs.  Lori would read them and correct my spelling.

Then one day Lori said I should write an article about something that I have a passion about.  She said, don't worry about the spelling; just write down what you know.  I started doing what she asked.  I had no idea where she was going with this.  When your spelling is not good, your typing is even worse.  I think my top speed was about six words a minute.  It took me awhile to put things down.  But I did what she asked and didn't think about it anymore.

One night Lori said, Jeff come here I want to show you something. You are now a published author.  I said there is no way that I could be a published author.  Lori edited my so-called articles and submitted them.  See you can write, she says.  My response was, you must have rewrote the whole article and just put my name on it.  When I read it, it was my words but spelled right.

I could not believe what she did.  It opened my eyes and made me realize that I can write articles and even e-books.  My point to all this is, if a high school dropout that flunked out of English every year can write articles and e-books so can you.

Article Writing - The New SEO Master Tool

Article writing is now a major weapon in search engine optimisation.  If you have read Part I of this article you will see why previous linking strategies are failing miserably.  As the major search engine, Google now expects links in order to increase your site ranking to be:

1 Relevant
2 Varying Anchor Text
3 One Way Links

These rules display that more of a natural linking strategy need to be evolved.

Writing expert articles about the content of your website helps to achieve the three objectives above.

First of all, you are able to place links within the resource box of your article pointing back to your website.  Some article directories even allow you to place links within the article body itself.  Therefore any link text that points back to your website is highly relevant to the article content itself, and your sire.

It is possible to vary the anchor text from article to article while still keeping it keyword orientated and most importantly, relevant.

By submitting your article to article submission sites, you are not committed to place a reciprocal link back to the article site on your website.  This ensures that the link to your website is one way.

By writing many quality articles, you will start to be recognised as an expert in your field.

You can see how writing articles about the subject of your website can be a master SEO tool.  However, things get even better.

Ezine authors and webmasters also regularly scour these sites for fresh content for their ezines and websites.  Your article is free to be distributed and republished as long as it remains intact, with the resource box and all links live.

What this means is that each article can potentially create hundreds or thousands of backlinks to your website, each of them relevant, varying in anchor text and one way.  Not bad for about 30 minutes work.  So the advice is simple - get writing, or if you feel unable to write your own articles, get someone to write them for you!

The Difference Between Autoresponder Programs and Autoresponder Services

Many newcomers to the Internet marketing arena are not aware that there is a vast difference between an autoresponder program
and an autoresponder service. Not knowing the difference, they often purchase the wrong type of autoresponder, and find out too
late that they have wasted money on a program that is useless to them.

An autoresponder program is a program that is set up on your web server. This is usually a free autoresponder that comes with
your web hosting account. Many people don’t like to use autoresponder services; so instead, they use an autoresponder program
that they have more control over. Some of those people don’t like the autoresponder programs that come with their hosting
accounts either and purchase autoresponder programs or scripts that must be installed on their web server.

Other people are quite happy with using an autoresponder service. This is a service that is usually paid for on a monthly or yearly
basis. The fees are ongoing, and everything is browser based. In other words, you can set up your autoresponder messages and
manage your opt-in list through your web browser – just as you can with an autoresponder program that is installed through your
web hosting account. The difference is that the service runs on the autoresponder service’s web server – not yours or your web
hosts.

Beginners are usually better off using an autoresponder service. These services are very easy to understand and to use, and no
technical knowledge is needed to set things up. As a newcomer to the field, however, you might be concerned about the costs of
an autoresponder service. If this is the case, you have the option of signing up with a free autoresponder service.

Free services make their money by placing advertisements in each autoresponder message that you send out. Sometimes these
ads appear at the top of your messages, and sometimes they appear at the bottom. Some of the free services are simply an
enticement to purchase the professional version, and have many of the more advanced features, such as tracking, disabled.

More advanced users often choose to use autoresponder programs, simply because they have more control over the autoresponder,
and they don’t have to follow some of the stiffer rules imposed by autoresponder services, such as sending confirmation to each and
every person who is entered into the autoresponders list.

The autoresponder that you choose is strictly up to you, but in most cases, an autoresponder service should suit your needs. If
you are unsure, look for a service that offers free signups, with the option of upgrading to the professional paid version at a later
date.