Should you give away some of your content for free to get traffic?  Marketing with your content is not a new concept.  You want to spread your ideas and build your authority online. One way to do this is getting your content in front of more eyeballs.   Sharing your free articles is one method that doesn't seem to be going out of style.   How can you get started?

Article marketing is a good free concept for getting free traffic to your websites or blogs.  Part of the online marketing strategy of article marketing is making sure that you pick the right places to post your content.  All article directories are not of the same quality.Amazines is an article directory that you should take a look at.

There are plenty of article directories.  The top article directory for you to post your content is probably ezinearticles.com.  The only issue with them is that getting your articles approved is more difficult.  The process of getting your articles approved with amazines is a much smoother process.
So what do you have to do to get your articles into amazines? Just create good quality content and pay attention to the rules.  Come up with a good headline for your article.  You can do some research to find highly searched keywords that you can include.  Make sure to remember that you are trying to get the attention of people that want to republish your article.

Give good information in the body of your article.  Create a strong call to action at the end of your post.  Give your audience a good meaty article that they can really sink their teeth into.  Tag your article with the keywords that are related to your topic.  Take a look at the different categories that are available.  You can assign up to three article categories, so choose them wisely.  When you are done, just hit the submit button.  Your article will be assigned the pending status.  It should not take long for the reviews of amazines to give your article an up or down vote.

Submitting your articles to amazines is simple process.  What happens if you have a lot of content that you want to add?  They even have a bulk submit function.  You can load lots of articles at one time.   Instead of spending a lot of time doing article submissions, you could do it in a more organized fashion with bulk submit.  Just another good reason to use amazines as a online destination for your articles.

One of the ways that you can share information about your products and services is through article marketing.  Articles can entertain and educate your prospective audience.  People are online searching for information at all times during the day.  How can you share your information online?  Use article marketing.

Article Marketing Tip 1 - Create Good Headlines

You can write a really good article and it never gets read.  Why could this possibly happen?  Writing a good article is just the beginning of the process.  Marketing still comes into play when you are adding articles to article directories.

Grab Your Prospects by the Neck with Attractive Headlines

The headline has to grab attention.  You could create a headline that is boring and it gets ignored.  A catchy headline might get people to click to read your article.  Your article could be a poor article, but the headline can at least get it read.  Learn to write headlines that get attention and get your prospects to click the link for more information.

Article Marketing Tip 2 - Choose Top Article Directories

Where are you going to place your articles online?  Does it make a difference where you place your articles?  You can spend a lot of time creating articles and it only makes sense to place them online in areas that give you the best results.  Find the top article directories that have the most traffic.

Top article directories might be more difficult to use that lower tier article directories.  Top article directories might have tougher restrictions on what they allow in.  Take some time to search online for the top article directories.  See what other article writers have to say about their experiences.  This can be easily done with online searches.  Try online forums that are dedicated to article marketing and even check other article marketing blogs.

Article Marketing Tip 3 - Pay Attention to the Rules

When you are writing articles for your own blogs, you don't have many restrictions.  You can just come up with articles and hit the publish button.  Article directories have rules that you must follow in order to get into their directories.  It is important to learn the rules before you decide to submit your article.

Learning the rules can save you a lot of time.  You don't want to submit a lot of articles and then have to go back and make a lot of changes and revisions.  Getting caught in the revision loop can be no fun.  Make sure that you know the article word counts and all of the restrictions that are placed on articles.  Article directories don't like affiliate marketing links and they don't like a lot of links in the body of the article.

Take a look at the successful articles on the directory to see what is getting approved.  This can help give you a guideline for what is acceptable.  See the headlines, the number of paragraphs and the flow of the article.  Learning the rules of the article directory can help you save time and that is just half of the battle.

Article Marketing Tip 4 - Educate and Entertain with Your Articles

What is the purpose of writing your articles?  You might be in search of more traffic or you might want to establish yourself as more of an expert.  You can use many different types of writing styles online.  You can educate, you can even entertain and help accomplish your goals online.

People are turning to the web for the information that they need.  Write articles that provide the information that they are looking for.  You don't have to write dry and boring information about your topics.  Make it entertaining and write with a regular voice.  You are writing for regular people.

Take a boring topic and change it into something interesting with a story.  People don't just go to the web for information, they also go there to have fun and be entertained.  So every article that you write doesn't have to be filled with data and statistics.  You can start tapping into your creative side and weave stories into the topics that you want to cover.

Article Marketing Tip 5 - Remember Your Audience

Stay focused on your audience.  You are trying to get the right response from your articles.  The first hurdle is getting the right people to republish your article.  This means creating articles that fit with your desired target audience.  What are they really looking for.  Article directories are searched by people that have their own websites and ezines.  You want to provide the information that their audiences will find irresistible.

There are lots of web developers and ezine owners that need content for their online properties.  You might even be one of those types of people yourself.  You have multiple sites and you want something good to share with your readers.  Think about the kinds of articles that you would be willing to share with your trusted audience.  You want to protect your relationship so you don't want to offer them just anything.  You want well crafted articles that fit your niche to a t.

Article Marketing Tip 6 - Write Articles that are good enough to republish

Face it, some of the articles that you write are just regular and basic.  They are quickly written and you just want a little bit of traffic from them.  You don't put a lot of work or thought into them.  Sometimes you just want something to add to a site so that something is there.  When it comes to writing for the article directories, you don't want to do this.  You want to write articles that have a fighting chance of getting selected by web developers and ezine owners.  Cutting corners with your articles will result in less article views and nobody hitting the republish button.

Before you submit to the article directories, make sure that you are offering up good quality articles that are worthy.  If you just submit quick articles that don't pack a punch, you are just wasting your time.  Getting your articles into the directories can be a long term traffic opportunity.  Write articles that are evergreen in nature and of top quality that can provide real value to the web developers and ezine owners as well as your target audience.

Article Marketing Tip 7 - Strong Call to Action

After you have written your top of the line article, it is time to bring it all home.  There is a line in sales that is often repeated.  Always be closing.  You will notice it in the movie glen gary glen ross.  There is something that happens to some sales people in the field.  They might go through the whole sales pitch without asking for the order.  You don't want to do this with your articles.  The article can be full of information and fulfill what your target audience is looking for.

Don't drop the ball just before you get into the end zone.  Help your audience get even more powerful and helpful information by adding a strong call to action that gets them to click your links and visit your sites.  You might include a blog address or you might want to capture contact information for a newsletter.  The choice is yours.

Article marketing can be a low cost option for building up traffic.  It might not happen overnight, but when you have limited marketing funds, article marketing could be your long term internet marketing strategy.

Offline marketing might not be on your mind, but you might want to give it some thought.  Simple marketing with a flyer might get the attention of your audience.

Create simple flyers in black and white.  Come up with a clear message and call to action.  You can test a lot of different marketing messages and see which ones get the most response.

Give your prospects different methods for contacting your business.  Have a phone number.  Create a quick response code.  Have a website that they can visit.

Flyer marketing can be a low cost method for getting access to prospects.  Create pullouts that can allow your flyers to do double duty.  Place them in high traffic areas and see if you get some results.

Online marketing is cheap and easy to do, but sometimes we forget that there are lots of people offline ( walking around in the real world ) that might need your services.

Try multiple marketing options for business.  The only way to find out what works is to keep trying new things and recording your results.  Keep the winners and start dropping the losers.

Free blogs are a good way to market your business.  Just because a blog is free doesn't mean that it can't provide good value.  The web is open to all and now it is really easy to share information.  You don't need to have really great tech skills to get online and get access to more markets.

If you have the information, all you need to do is take the steps to create it online.  Blogs are great for this purpose. You can do your keyword research using free tools and post information to your blog with ease.  You don't have to let money stop your marketing efforts.  Instead, you can leverage all of your creativity and use free resources that are available to you.

Squeeze every possible ounce of your writing skills and turn them into online gold for your business.  The internet is all about ideas, and if you have the skills that can connect with an online audience, you are way ahead of the game.

The thing to remember is that there are lots of people online looking for information that can help them solve their problems.  They really don't care if you are using a paid web hosting program or a free blogging system.  What they are interested in is getting the results that they are looking for.

Don't let the money stop you from marketing your company online.  Create different headlines that grab attention and fulfill the promises of your article titles.  Post your information online and drive traffic to your blog.  Don't fret about not being able to spend money to market your business.  Instead focus on what tools that are available to you and use them to the fullest extent possible until you can grow and get to more options.

Free blogs can be the stepping stones that get your business off the ground.  You might get to the point that you don't want to use paid sources for your marketing purposes.  The only downside to using free services is that you must pay attention to the rules.  Free sites do have string attached, and you do not want to violate the rules and lose your free blogging options.

Use your free blogs to educate your audience and give good value.  Brainstorm your topics and think about what your audience is looking for. What steps do you want your audience to take?  Get them to pick up the phone and call you?  Join your mailing list?  Think about the outcome that you want to take place when you are creating your blog and stay focused on generating that outcome.

There are lots of places that you can submit articles online. One place that you should really think about joining is squidoo.  Squidoo is a social media site that allows you to create written works online.

Squidoo is not an article directory.  Squidoo articles are called squidoo lenses.  They are a collection of different squidoo modules.  There are lots of different squidoo modules and they have a membership level that controls what you have access to.

Squidoo has a points system.  The more points that you obtain, the higher your squidoo level.  You get points for different actions that you take on the squidoo website.  You can earn points for reading lenses, visiting the site, commenting on guestbooks and much more.

Squidoo modules get unlocked at certain levels.  Several squidoo modules are common and readily available.  You can use a text module to add your content.  Create a good headline and fill your text module with high quality content that gets traffic.  Think about doing some keyword research before deciding on creating a squidoo lens.  When you pick a url for your lens, that is it for good.

Keep your lens updated with new content to keep it live on the squidoo site.  This is something that is relatively new.  In the past, you could publish a lens and it would be shown to the web community all the time.  Now since the search engine updates, squidoo requires that you keep your lenses updated.  If your lens rank falls, it won't get promoted.  So you might end up having to promote it yourself off of the website.  Driving traffic to your lens is still a good idea anyway.

Why do you want to use this site?  First of all, it is free.  It is not a classified site.  Squidoo does have an online community and it is good to participate and view some of the other lensmakers content.  Squidoo is affiliate friendly.  You can earn some money with your content.  Affiliate links are not frowned upon.  Just don't go overboard with it.  They might block your lens if you load them up with links.

Squidoo is one more place that you can create content online that doesn't have to cost you money.

Writing and typing your article are simple things to do.  The real work comes with getting the attention of your readers.  Not only do you have to catch attention, you have to grab it by the neck and put it in a choke hold until you are through sharing your great info with your readers.  Sometimes people don't get it the first time and you might need to say important topics more than once.

Creativity can go a long way in building great articles for your marketing efforts.  Just like when you get a cone of ice cream, you don't want just one small scoop.  You want to get three big heaping scoops for a cheap price.  Don't you feel cheated when you don't get what you have asked for?  So don't cheat your readers when it comes to creativity.  Give them much more than what they expected.  This might mean spending a little more time coming up with good ideas.  So put your ideas down on paper and let your mind run wild with different ways to explore the topic.  Get into flow and just record where it goes.

Think in mental images of the types of concepts that you want to convey.  Do you remember the cone of ice cream with three scoops?   I know that I am repeating myself.  You might run into situations when you are having a hard time trying to come up with something new.  When you don't have any ideas, you just need to kickstart the process.  Kickstarting the process is just what it sounds like.  When people want to start a motorcycle, they have to jump up and come down hard on the crank to get the engine started.  You are going to need to do this for your article writing process.

One way to get a jump on your ideas is to not lose them when they come to you.  Keep a journal or a pad nearby for when ideas jump into your head.  Write them down and don't let them get away.  You could have a great idea, but if you don't record it, it could be a long time, if ever that you are able to recover it.  Don't put too much pressure on yourself.  Relax and clear your head.  Is your mind too busy.  Sit down and turn off the tv or radio for a while.  Clear your thoughts for a few minutes.  Think about some recent experiences that you have had related to your topic.  Write a few quick notes down to see if they go anywhere.

Writing articles is all about creativity.  You can take an article anywhere that you want.  Get creative and see where it takes you.

It is hard to believe but there are still some businesses that are not using the web as a promotional tool.  Some business owners might still be trapped in the old ways of doing things. Yes, there are still a lot of business owners that still rely on the yellow pages for generating business.  I guess they still might have some pull in the eyes of a different generation.
 
Internet Marketing Tips - Internet Marketing is inexpensive

The web is a perfect place to share information about your business.  One reason is the cost.  There are lots of low cost ways to market your business online.  You could setup your own website.  Start your own blog and even use free social media applications to let people know about your company.  Cost doesn't have to be a big factor in getting your company online.  Domain names are inexpensive and web hosting costs are minimal.  Unleash your writing talents and create information that your target audience is looking for online.

Internet Marketing Tips - Internet Marketing is global

The internet is a global resource.  You can create content quickly with a blog.  Hit the publish button and your information is instantly available around the globe.  Physical books like the yellow pages only go so far.  With digital marketing efforts, you can reach a large audience.  The web can be your testing ground for new ideas and marketing materials with low costs.

Internet Marketing Tips - Internet Marketing is essential

People are not taking it slow when it comes to information.  Your prospects and clients want the information and they want it now.  The encyclopedia age is over.  Now your prospects can get all the information that they need with simple computing devices. They don't pick up phone books, they go to the web to get the latest information.  Your company needs to be on the web in order to even have a chance at getting business.

Internet Marketing Tips - Internet Marketing is long term

The internet is the long term business option that cannot be ignored.  Establishing your company online is a long term strategy.  Building up an online presence over time can help build credibility.  The age of your website can make a difference.   Build a strong foundation online with high quality content for your sites.  Create evergreen information that will can stand the test of time.

Internet Marketing Tips - Internet Marketing is mobile

The web is growing and changing how it is accessed.  People are not just sitting at home using the web.  Internet marketing is now shifting to mobile devices.  Take a look around while you are walking outside.  People are talking on smart phones and working on computer tablets and laptops.  There are new areas for internet marketing on these new devices.  Is your business ready to deal with mobile customers?  Is your website mobile optimized?

Internet Marketing is mobile, long term, essential, global and inexpensive.  Start learning the basics of using the web for your marketing opportunities.