Ezinearticles, Traffic and Your Website 4

Your biobox, the goldmine of ezinearticles

At the end of each article you post on ezinearticles is your biobox. This is a box in which you write something about yourself or your business. An 'about the author' so to speak.

The great thing is that ezine articles allows you to post two links in your biobox. They could be to a site or a blog or a forum post. [last time I checked affiliate links were not allowed].

You could make it a URL link or an anchor text link. This is the goldmine in ezine articles

In the body of your article, all you are aiming for is to get the attention, the interest, arouse the imagination of your readers. It is a 'wetting their appetite' campaign. It's the preview to your blockbuster movie. The gripping first chapter of your best selling novel.

The biobox is where you reel them in.

It is where you have a chance to deliver that line that they cannot say 'no' to.

It really is not good enough to have a biobox that says xyz is webmaster of yourdomain. This just is not going to make anyone want to click your link. Forget it, no matter how good that article is.


So how do you increase the click through rate of the URL in your biobox.

The key is to make them feel like they are missing something really valuable if they don't. WITHOUT MAKING IT SPAMMY

The work up for this starts in the body of your article's content. You must establish some authority with the content in your article. Gain their trust. Let them feel you know what it is you are talking about. So that when, in your biobox, you add visit mydomain for advanced level tips on whatever subject, they are bound to click.

Who wouldn't! You have already given some unique valuable content in your articles body. perhaps a little known tip dropped somewhere. By the end of the article, they will be gagging for more.

And then you tell them there's advanced [i.e deeper, higher, better without actually using those words] information to be had. All they need to do is click the link.

The question is does one use URL links or anchor text links in the biobox. I tend to use both. For the reason that I want them to see the name of the website I am linking to. So often one of the links will be anchor text and the other, direct URL link

Till next time

Ezinearticles, Traffic and Your Website 3

Keywords And Search Engine Optimization [SEO]


Must confess I tend to write articles, for ezinearticles, my blogs and websites; on the fly.

But I can do this because I have some knowledge of SEO and keyword selection. My keyword research does not start when I sit down to pen an article.

It really is an ongoing process. Browsing the web, I come across posts and articles that I think, 'Hmmm I'd like to write about this' or 'I could throw more light on that' And 'I wonder how many people would be interested in this'

So I have a long list of things, keywords, posts that I am yet to write. By the time I sit down to write, I have had the idea rattling around my head and bumping into other ideas for a while. So I just sit down and write


But if you are new to writing articles, then you must take the time to do some formal keyword research. How to choose the right Keywords covers this in some detail. I know it seems a very involved process but with some practice you'll find that you'll be doing great keyword research within 5 minutes.

What you want are keywords that attract traffic and buyers

Once you have discovered the keywords that would apply to the content of your article, you need to do some search engine optimization.

I am not talking about generating a ton of backlinks to your ezine article, although that definitely helps. I am talking about on page SEO.

Article SEO involves

• Including your keyword early in the title of your article.
• Including your keyword early in the body of your content. Within the first 25 words.
• Make sure that it makes an appearance somewhere near the end of the article.
• A few mentions of your keywords and variations of your keywords, in the body of your content is good [BUT DO NOT GO OVER BOARD].
• Also you must keep LSI in mind. LSI means latent semantic indexing. I know the more savvy of you have seen the videos denouncing LSI and have your doubts. But I use LSI and it really has made a difference to my SERP performance. Bottom line is even if it does not help your SEO, it doesn't hurt you either

You may be asking why bother with SEO for your ezinearticles submissions?

Agreed ezinearticles is a directory of articles on many topics. And the purpose is for webmasters looking for content to their sites to go to this directory and copy your article and include the article, as is, on their webpages. This includes publishing your biobox which has your signature with, hopefully a link to your website. And it is through these republished articles that you get backlinks and traffic to your site.

But using search engine optimized articles gives you another possible source of traffic.

If your SEO is spot on, the article itself can rank high in the search engines for relevant keywords. This means more views, more readers and more URL clicks

More on ezinearticles and Traffic

Ezinearticles, Traffic and Your Website Part 2

Your content.

You would think this was pretty obvious.

Unique content is key.
None of this PLR articles or rehashed content from someone else's website. Your articles should offer some unique information to your readers.
We've all seen the articles that say the same thing over and over and over....
Different authors, different titles, same old content.

It just does not make sense.
If you see a couple of articles by the same author, that have nothing new or interesting to share and does not add to the general body of information already available to you; what do you do when you come across another article by the same author....you just don't bother. Life is too damn short!

Structured content.
This is one really cool, not so little tip that works.
Remember all those articles that have a list of tips or a list of reference. The top 10 lists. If done properly and researched thoroughly these are absolute winners.

But if you are going to write a top 10 list, you had better make sure that the tips, websites, products or whatever else it is you are talking about truly are the top 10.

I read an article about top 3 methods of getting backlinks for SEO. The article talked about social bookmarking, blog commenting and directory submissions. What! Top 3 methods? More like average methods. Obviously the author had not done their research. Social bookmarking sites are increasingly using 'no follow' attribute in their links. There is a small loop hole that you can take advantage of but that's for another post. Maybe. directories? well you know all about directory submissions and blogs are just so hit or miss.

So the message again is if you are planning to write an article in the 'top list' format.. do your homework first. Just saves your reputation getting a knock

Character.
Some articles are soooo boring to read. Not the content but the tone. It reads like a lecture by your worst biochemistry professor. A drone.

Your articles need to have some character and wit to them. When we go round life, we don't have conversations in lecturer or textbook fashion. Each of us has a different way of speaking. Something that brands you as you. Some little quirk that your friends say definitely trademarks you. In the same way, your articles must have personality. They must have wit and character, a tone that allows your readers to fly through your article, engaged because it feels like a real personality is talking to them.

Stay on Topic.
So basic and yet so crucial. You announce via your article's title that it is going to be about SEO. So make sure the content is about SEO. It's not rocket science. Really. It is amazing how often I have clicked on an articles title expecting to find something and then you read the article two or three times wondering, 'Have I missed something' or 'Where is that content the title promised me?' Make sure your articles stay on topic. Err the same topic that your article's title offered would be the place to stay.
Okay enough for one post.
More coming on ezinearticles, traffic and your website

Ezinearticles, Traffic and Your Website

So we all know about bum marketing or article marketing or whatever else you wish to call it.

The basics of bum marketing is covered in bum marketing basics so we are not going to go into that here

What we want to cover here is how can you use ezine articles to increase traffic to your website?


If you browse the ezinearticles.com site you will find a ton of articles on all sorts of weird and wonderful niches. And some of these articles are pretty good

But let's admit it, some of the articles just suck!!



But to get back on point have you noticed that some of these articles get a ton of views and a large number of URL clicks.






And some of them even get republished on other people's sites

So how can you get your ezinearticles submissions to work for you, i.e get traffic to your site, rather than just working for ezinearticles, increasing content on their site?

We are talking about writing articles that

• Get views, loads of views from people who are actually interested in your content
• Get Click throughs to your website or other URL you put in the biobox
• Get redistributed to other websites

Watch out for the next post for some article writing tips

New Giveaway For Newbie Internet Marketers

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Digg Offline But Why?

Tried to log in to my Digg account this morning and was greeted by this message

And off course , apart from the mild irritation about the inconvenience of it all, I started wondering why?

Recent events in the news surrounding Digg may have contributed

• There was the launch of the new Digg bar approximately one month ago which has had to undergo a few updates since. Mixed reception from Digg users. A Google search for 'digg bar' came back with 5 out of the top 10 results being negative about the tool bar. Perhaps the rejig is to sort out the tool bar issues, but previous updates did not require the site to go down

• The Microsoft ads thing. Digg has had a advertising relationship with Microsoft for a while now. But anyone in the internet marketing community would have come across the news that Digg has ended this contract a year early in favour of in house advertising team. This simply means that the ads on Digg are managed by Digg staff.

Nothing in either story to merit closing down, albeit temporarily, the Digg site

The time that I am aware of that Digg went offline was in 2007. This had to do with people sharing codes for some HD-DVDs . Naughty but it happens. Unfortunate Digg decided to delete some of these posts from their site raising the issue of censorship. Didn't go down well with the Digg community, i.e members, and soon after Digg went offline. Perhaps to consider options. But Digg came back, the censorship issue was resolved out and everyone seemed reasonably happy

So it leaves the question

Why is Digg offline today and when will it be back online?

How To Add Your Blog Feed To Your Facebook Profile

Here is a step by step guide on how to add your blog feed to your Facebook profile

• Log in to your Facebook account


• Hover your mouse over the settings tab near the top right side of the page


• A drop down menu will appear


• Click on the application settings tab in the drop down menu


• This will bring up the applications setting page

• Click on the 'Notes' tab


• This brings up the Notes page. On the right side of the page you will see a clickable link that says 'import a blog'.


• It looks like this

• Click on the import a blog link


• This loads the following page

• Enter the blog feed where it says 'enter URL'
• Click the radio button to accept the Facebook terms
• Next click on 'Start import'.
• Once imported you will be prompted to review the content and then confirm at the bottom of the page

It really as easy as that to add your blog feed to your Facebook profile

About the new Digg Bar

Digg launched it's new tool, the digg bar a couple of days ago and it has already generated a lot of interest

For those new to social bookmarking, Digg is one of the major bookmarking sites that has evolved into a sort of networking site as well. You can digg your pages at the site and it becomes immediately visible to digg users. If your story is interesting or useful then other digg members could digg it as well. The idea is the more popular a story is the more diggs it gets

Obviously the system like any other system online is abused.

For example people form cooperatives, large networks that mutually digg each others submissions to artificially create the illusion of post popularity.

But you can usually sniff this out.

However digg is a very useful site for generating traffic to your sites or blogs...IF YOU HAVE GOOD CONTENT.

This blog for example has garnered a few diggs from that bookmarking site.

Now about the new Digg Bar.

This is a small bar that goes across the top of any website that digg links out to. So all the sites submitted in digg if accessed through the digg site will load with this new bar across the top of it

To see an example of the digg bar in action click http://digg.com/d1nDi4

So in what way does it help

• Short URL. The digg URL is a shortened one so easier to distribute in emails and texts

• Easier Digg interface. In the old days you had to toggle between the destination site, i.e the stories own webpage, and the digg page where the story is submitted. Now it is easier to read any article or post and digg it all on the same page.

• View Comments. Digg allows digg members to write comments on stories dugg. With the new digg bar, you can view the Digg comments on the story right there at the destination or article page.

• More data. The new digg bar shows how many diggs a page has, how many comments on the digg site and also how many times the story has been viewed

• Stumble function. The digg bar also allows you to go on to other dugg pages by clicking on the random button

Bottom line. The digg bar is still new and the jury is still out on this one. However I think it adds more functionality to the digg process and so far I like it