Title:

Are these the worst articles ever?

Word Count:

1027

Summary:

Write for people, not for machines!

Keywords:

Articles, Writing,

Article Body:

Articles. We love them. Content-rich and drive visitors to our website. Inward links across the internet. Search engines count the keywords and count the links. We get a higher page rank. We come higher in search engines. Our Adsense goes up.

However, having read a few of them, I have to say I have not read so much crap in my life. Anyone who puts this on their website via an RSS feed or by copying the article wholesale is really being stupid. Very few of these "articles" are anything more than keyword-optimized web pages designed to pull in search engines, or outright adverts.

Excuse the length of the quote, but here, as an example, is a quote from a keyword-optimized article:

"The opinion on who’s the best free online dating service in America could vary, depending on the person being asked. But there was a popularity survey conducted among Americans and Canadians to find out the best online dating sites. The high rank though does not mean that it is the best free online dating in terms of quality but it does mean that it is by far the most popular.

“There are a number of free online dating web sites over the net to choose from. Free online dating web sites offer real time chat, emailing, profiling, and telephone access dependant on the clients’ choices. These type of sites can be accessed through Internet service providers. Participants are required to be over the age of 18 and have registered with their chosen dating service provider.

“A Free online dating web site enables...

Spot the keyword phrase being looked for? Yep it’s "Free online dating". I should expect the phrase could be generically replaced with "free African dating", "free Vietnamese dating", "free free dating" or more. Edit/Find/Replace anyone? This article is NOT written for a person to read. It’s written for a search engine to read. Hence the use of the word America/Americans. Dating websites are, by their virtue of being websites, international. This article writer, has, however, ritten the article so that it will hit the keyword "American". Why? Because there are 280 million Americans, they are patriotic, and they are to the internet what Germans are to the swimming pool.

Who doesn't know that "These types of site can be accessed through Internet Service Providers". How else are you supposed to access a "free online dating site"? Post? Telepathy? This is making a sentence purely for the hell of it.

Another article talks about the SMART way to attract women which is simply the application of a management principle Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. This is yet another example of verbal BS designed to draw traffic to the writer’s website.

I wonder if either of these were written by humans. Certainly both of the above have been APPROVED by humans on article websites who claim an editor will look for more than just page formatting. However, what we’re seeing is people writing sentences hoping that Google will pick it up, follow the link and raise the page rank, and human editors simply acceding to that need.

But what is particularly irritating is articles which are wrong. Another article tells you how to say “I love you” in different languages. One translation they give is Swahili which they tell you is "naku panda". This is wrong on a number of counts.

Firstly Swahili verbs are entirely conjugated. The phrase “nakupenda” can be broken up into its constituent parts of subject, tense, object, and verb root. "Na" is both subject and tense. It means "I" without any indication of time. It is simply a state. "-ku-" is object, it means "you". "-penda" is the root and is the verb. It means "love". Hence the verb-phrase "nakupenda" means "I love you. You can change the tense. "Ninakupenda", for example means “Nina”, "I am now", “-ku-“, "you", "-penda" loving, e.g. I love you but with a present rather than a perfect tense. Change the "-na-" for a "-ta- " and you have the future tense, I will love you.

You can look this up elsewhere. However, our expert article writer had made a wrong translation in a number of senses. "Naku panda" should have been written as a single verb-phrase, "Nakupanda". However the verb root "-panda" means something quite different to "-penda", love. Like most verbs it has a contextual meaning. Here are the various contextual meanings it could have: "I climb you", "I ascend you", "I increase you", "I copulate with you", "I get on you", "I cross you". So DON'T try this phrase in Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda. Stick with "jambo", "sasa", or "vipi". They mean "Hi", and you can't get in to trouble with those. Easy response? "Poa" - cool.

So, for article writers, here's three things not to do:

1. Don't write a SEO optimized article. Write something for humans. One day Google will read like a human and be able to spot crap a mile away. At the end of the day you want HUMANS to read your work, only they can click on a link and pay a credit card bill.

2. Don't write absolute rubbish. Perhaps you attended a lecture or seminar or read something and you want to apply it to something else. Try it yourself first! Don't just join the head of a fish to the body of a cat because it makes an article! If you do such ridiculous things you end up with ridiculous articles. How about "Application of the Geneva Convention in Slug Control", "How to write a cheque in Binary" or "American Foreign Policy - An Ethical Approach"? It’s all pure nonsense.

3. Don't be WRONG! If you are going to write something make it something you know about, better still something you are passionate about! Writing things which are wrong is akin to writing lies! Next thing you know someone will be swearing blind it’s true because they read it on the internet. Even if your article is about your toenails it’s something you KNOW about rather than something you wrote because you wanted more links to your website.

Title:

Running Music

Word Count:

463

Summary:

Music For Running - Running Music: Music for running offers an enjoyable running experience for joggers. It is most appropriate way for relieving the stress. It will energize your workouts.

Keywords:

Running Music, Good Running Music, Music for Running, Running Playlist, Running Songs, Runners World.

Article Body:

If you feel that you are becoming a couch potato and putting up weight, it is a time to take a serious action so as to avoid any further complication where your excess weight leads to health hazards and other complications. Well, if you are not a gym freak, then make sure you check out some amazing running music that will definitely motivate you in order to speed up your exercise routine and help you keeping fit and staying in fine shape. A good running music helps you in keeping the tempo with your exercise regime and listening to your favorite music while sweating out on treadmill or jogging in park.

Running music helps in uplifting the mood and increasing the levels of performance where the style of music along with the beat, rhythm, lyrics and the volume leads to the creating of perfect ambience where one gains psychological and motivational edge. One cannot deny the fact that running has various physical benefits and in order to make this session more delightful, it is much better to have an iPod or a MP3 player that dishes out our favorite numbers and helps us in continuing our jogging and running schedule.

Running music helps you in keeping undue stress, tensions at bay so as to provide you a relaxing exercise schedule while cutting you off from the unnecessary worries of everyday life so that you can concentrate on your task. This will help you in providing a relaxing and enjoyable workout session that distresses you in a simple way. However, do take care of the music levels if you are listening from an iPod or MP3 player so that it does not hurts your ear drums. A peasant song will definitely help you in enjoying your exercise session. So, if you are looking for a perfect work out session, make sure you do forget to check out the latest and the best running music collection. However, if you an aerobics freak, you can simply play amazing running music in your computer or music system that helps in offering you in a superb workout session where you enjoy every bit of stretching the muscles. Therefore, while getting your exercise kit ready such as running shoes and track suit, do no miss to carry your running music collection that helps you in unwinding yourself while working out to get a fit and fine body.

This article is originally published here: Running Music

Title:

The importance of writing articles

Word Count:

295

Summary:

If you want inbound links to your site one way to do this without paying is writing articles and post them in different sites that allow you to submit articles.

Keywords:

articles, submit articles, articles directory, writing articles, add articles

Article Body:

If you want inbound links to your site one way to do this without paying is writing articles and post them in different sites that allow you to submit articles.

Writing articles is one of the best ways to promote your web site. It is one of the best ways to build the relations, credibility and to help get people to know more about you and your area of expertise is to write articles. One advantage that you can get with writing articles is that if your article get submitted it is an automatic inbound link to your site without having to add a link on your site to them.

People are always looking for good articles for their websites, blogs and newsletters. By submitting your articles and allowing others to publish them free of charge you begin to develop credentials in your field and essentially "brand" yourself through your name. Make sure you submit your article on the right category and also make sure you write the articles according to their terms. If you don't follow the terms then you won't have your article publish.

It is through well written articles and keeping your visitor wanting to learn more that you will see more traffic on your Web site. More traffic means more profit for you.
By having lots of articles on lots of web sites around the world, you automatically rank above average on search engines because of your link popularity. All those links in the resource box back to your site can make a big difference in search engine ranking.

Need traffic? Write an article.

Need sales? Write an article.

Need Your Name branded? Write an article.

Writing newsletter articles can do all of these and more. So start writing articles Now!

Title:

Article Automation Rears An Ugly Head

Word Count:

629

Summary:

Automation can be very useful, however there are instances when automation becomes the downfall of many great ideas. As the rush for Internet gold steadily increases, quality articles are becoming an endangered species.

Keywords:

article marketing, automation, article submission, PLR memberships

Article Body:

Content is king. You have probably heard that a million times but it's true. That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. It’s also one of the most abused marketing methods.

The online advertising craze began picking up with the introduction of FFA (Free For ALL) sites. These sites allowed you to submit your link or ad, which slowly rotated off the page as new links were submitted. Once this method of advertising became known, scores of people rushed to FFA sites and began submitting their ads. Programmers invented ways to automate the process of submitting links to hundreds of sites within seconds, causing it to become an ineffective marketing option because of the scores of people who began using this system. Links would rotate off the page within seconds and this eventually led to the downfall and popularity of them.

Another marketing method, which quickly became useless, was banner advertising and exchanges. People covered their sites with banners, learned how to cheat exchanges and surfers began to train their eyes to ignore them completely. As a result, image advertising also became ineffective.

Automated page creation was also a problem as thousands of people began to create gateway pages as a means to draw in the search engines with multiple pages stuffed with keywords to increase their site’s page rank. Gateway page generators automated the process of building these pages and soon they sprang up all over the net. Eventually this fad also became useless due to abuse as well as the introduction of smarter search engine spiders.

The latest moneymaking craze is Google Adwords. Once pay-per-click advertising grew in popularity, webmasters discovered how easy it was to earn income by stuffing their sites with useless content in order to profit from textual advertising. The automation monster appeared again making it fairly easy to submit articles to hundreds of content sites by merely clicking a few buttons.

In steps PLR membership sites. PLR articles, also known as Private Label Rights articles or public domain articles, provide people who are too lazy to write their own content with a means to get links back to their site and hopefully sell some of their products in the process.

Search engines have begun penalizing web sites for duplicate content. In response, new programs are being created which randomize paragraphs and change words within an article to make them unique enough to bypass the duplicate content filters. So now we have automated article creation?

Publishers are beginning to recognize the different methods of article abuse and it’s becoming more difficult to get articles approved. As editors begin tiring of trying to keep up with the massive influx of articles that are obviously written for the sole purpose of gaining link popularity or to advertise affiliate links, we will see more article directories shut down.

Is automation really the monster here? I think not!

Automated article submission is a great tool for submitting articles to a large number of sites providing it is used properly. So what’s the problem?

Greed and laziness – plain and simple.

Automation allows writers to submit their articles to many sites quickly and easily, freeing up more time to write original content. The problem comes from those who are always looking for a shortcut to making money, rather than to work for it.

Article marketing abuse will soon reach its peak just as FFA sites, banner advertising and gateway pages did. Eventually we will look at private label articles as another passing trend and online publishers will be able to provide their visitors with quality content once again. For now, we can only wait until those hoping to get rich quick find another marketing option to automate and abuse.

Title:

Your Fortune is in the Follow Up!

Word Count:

669

Summary:

Would you blow your entire annual marketing budget on just one ad to run once during the Superbowl?

Keywords:

ezine writing, ezine advertising, e-zine advertising, ezine newsletters, ezine marketing, ezines, e-zine, ezine, speaking opportunities

Article Body:

Would you blow your entire annual marketing budget on just one ad to run once during the Superbowl?

Of course you wouldn't. You know that people seeing your message just once wouldn't be enough.

Then why do we tend to spend our time and dollars on single-shot marketing, rather than repeated messages?

The answer is... most folks just don't know any better. Or, perhaps it seems boring to repeat your message over and over and over and over.

But the truth is, your fortune is in the follow up!

This past weekend I went to hear direct marketing master Bill Glazer (my marketing mentor who runs Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle (along with Dan Kennedy) speak at a conference here in Los Angeles. During his talk, he shared with the audience how he spent the last few decades of his life running Baltimore's #1 retail men's clothing store, Gage Menswear, along with his late father.

Bill talked about one of his first direct mail campaigns, and how during the planning stages he announced to his dad that they were going to mail a special promotional offer to the same list not once, not twice, but three times. His father was appalled and yelled at Bill that he was crazy and was wasting their money!

Bill persisted and mailed all three pieces of the campaign. Well, their results revealed that mailing the exact same offer three times not only increased their response, it DOUBLED their response! Pop was floored, and he sure was delighted with the flurry of sales that came in. From that point on he also trusted Bill with their marketing dollars.

Why does repeating your message work? online newsletters writing

It's simple... people are inundated with messages every day. Last statistic I heard was each of us sees over 3,700 distinct messages a day! That means you need to repeat yourself over and over if you're going to break through the clutter, actually get their attention, get them to read or listen AND get them to respond.

Your assignment is to now look at all areas of your marketing and advertising in your business, and see where you need to add some follow up.

Some quick places to look at:

Your Ezines - Are you publishing your ezine enough? Once a month just doesn't cut it anymore. You should be reaching out and "touching" your prospects and customers at least once a week, if not more. (If you're running out of ideas or you're not sure how to do this without bugging folks, my ezine system takes care of that for you!)

Teleseminars and Live Events - When promoting events, you're going to need many more than one or two announcements or mailings. As a general rule, when I'm really trying to fill up a teleseminar (phone seminar) I sent out at least three emails dedicated to the promotion. For live events, you need dozens of messages, and well ahead of time. Most of the trainers I know start marketing no less than six months ahead of any live event they're hosting!

One-on-One Marketing - If you cold call or mail out letters to prospects, how many times are you following up? Don't be afraid to call or mail again. I myself have finally responded to an offer after I've been contacted several times, and was glad the vendor took the initiative to follow up.

Advertising - Instead of blowing your budget on a few large ads per year, try running a smaller ad much more often! Also most publications, both online and offline, will usually give you big discounts for purchasing more than one ad at a time. (I do this with ads in my own ezine, Straight Shooter Marketing.)

Remember, many marketing experts who test all these strategies say that repetition is the key. So don't even feel you have to be creative with your marketing - just saying or mailing the same thing over and over is better than not saying it or mailing it again.

Title:

Why Write Christian Articles?

Word Count:

387

Summary:

Seven reasons to write Christian Web Content

Keywords:

christian article writing, christian article, christian articles

Article Body:

Why should you write articles for a Christian audience? Christians everywhere are looking for good Christian web content, and when you write quality articles, you help provide that content. When you write Christian articles, you are providing yourself and your web site with web exposure. And when you write articles, you increase your own web credibility.

1) There is a dearth of good Christian articles on the web. Perhaps because there is a perception that there is not as much profit in a Christian consumer (I happen to think the opposite---if you have a quality product, the Christian consumer will purchase from you). Perhaps because the Christian author is not willing to place his articles on a secular web site. Perhaps because Christian authors feel compelled to ‘water down’ their article.

2) By writing to the Christian audience, you provide a much-needed service to the Christian Internet market. Many Christians are simply discouraged by the lack of good Christian content on the web, and thereby spend less time on the internet. By creating good content for a Christian audience, you can help increase the Christian market size.

3) By writing Christian articles and posting them to your own web site or blog, you add good quality content to your own site, helping to increase your search engine visibility.

4) When you write Christian articles and submit them to the various article directories, you create exposure for your own web site. Simply place a link back to your own web site at the end of the article, or in the resource box, whichever the particular article directory prefers. When your article is read, and the reader appreciates your content, they will often click through to your site, providing much-needed web traffic for you.

5) By writing Christian articles and submitting them to the various article databases and directories, you establish backlinks to your own website, which can help with some search engine rankings.

6) When you write Christian articles, you establish yourself as an authority on whichever Christian topic you write about. From your website, you can link to the particular article directories that accept your article, giving you and your web site added credibility.

7) We want your articles! When you write your articles, submit them to both the web site where you are reading this article, and to my website, listed below.