CHRIS KNIGHT FROM EZINE ARTICLES.COM

Chris Knight sits down with Linda Dessau for a chat about article marketing and Ezine Articles.

How could submitting my articles to an article bank help build my business?
Why should I choose EzineArticles as a place to submit my articles?
If I've submitted my articles to Ezine Articles do I need to submit them anywhere else?
I've heard about these automated services that do all of your submissions for you - it sounds too good to be true, what do you think?
I've submitted my first article - now what? Can I stop now?
How long should my articles be?
What should I write about?
I have a local business, not an Internet-based business. Can article marketing help me, as well?
I don't write very well and it takes me a lot of time and energy to do it, can I still use article marketing?
What are the advantages to becoming a Platinum Status author at EzineArticles?

Linda: How could submitting my articles to an article bank help build my business?

Chris: Every business online and offline has this challenge: How to drive qualified visitors to their websites without paying outrageous costs to acquire that traffic. Article writing and marketing with articles, or the act of syndicating your best original quality articles, can help you begin the snowball of traffic that your articles will attract.

Linda: Why should I choose EzineArticles as a place to submit my articles?

Chris: Because we’re #1?... Most submit to EzineArticles because we deliver more traffic than any other related site. This gives you a high return for the time you invest in writing and submitting your articles.

Linda: If I've submitted my articles to Ezine Articles do I need to submit them anywhere else?

Chris: I recommend two tiers of sites or publishers to submit to:

Tier 1: High traffic article directories/banks or communities like EzineArticles.
Tier 2: Highly niched sites that won’t have the same level of traffic, but the relevancy of the visitors they do spin off will be very qualified as they reach your website.

Linda: I've heard about these automated services that do all of your submissions for you - it sounds too good to be true, what do you think?

Chris: If you don’t mind the reputation damage that goes along with that, they are fine. The challenge is that you will be lumped in with a great deal of others trying to blast their articles (many with poor quality) to everyone who will accept them… whether they are targeted or not. That’s my beef with automated submissions from an article writer’s perspective.

I do think there is some value in hiring a human article submission specialist on your team as an employee or virtual assistant. This would free you up to produce quality content while they take care of uploading your articles and finding highly targeted publishers for your content.

Selfishly, I’d like every author to submit their articles directly to EzineArticles.com without the help of a 3rd party auto or manual submission service provider because we value the relationship and direct interaction with each member. Some of that relationship or connection is lost when a 3rd party is wedged between us.

Linda: I've submitted my first article - now what? Can I stop now?

Chris: Taking that first step is important, but submitting one single article is like placing one tiny advertisement into a newspaper and hoping it’ll be enough. I’d recommend writing and submitting at least 10 articles to start with before you take a step back to evaluate the performance of those articles.

In fact, why write new articles when you most likely have existing content already from prior ezine article archives or prior website or blog content that you can rewrite into quality original articles meant for syndication. By repurposing old content you’ve already written, you can spend your time on editing and submitting & marketing instead of writing new articles from scratch to get started.

Disproportionately, the traffic spoils in article marketing go to the authors & experts who are consistent over time. This is an activity that should be invested in every single month until it becomes like clockwork. I’d recommend giving it at least 4-8 months before you determine if it’s the right strategy for you.

Linda: How long should my articles be?

Chris: 250-700 words. If you typically write 1000-3000 word articles, I recommend cutting them in half or thirds and making article sets out of them. Always create article sets with unique titles but don’t make “article parts.” Article marketing is not article parts friendly (example: part 1, part 2, part 3, etc) because of the syndicated nature of how your articles are distributed. A reader may have a difficult time trying to piece together all of your parts to read them in any sequence, if at all.

Linda: What should I write about?

Chris: Write about your area of expertise. Give a sliver of your uniqueness, your knowledge, your skills and what you can share with others to improve their lives or businesses.

Linda: I have a local business, not an Internet-based business. Can article marketing help me, as well?

Chris: Thanks to the booming interest in localized search (the fact that millions of people are searching the Internet for local solutions to their problems); article marketing can help you attract local interest in yourself and your business. Just be sure to mention your geographic locality in the article title itself somewhere.

Linda: I don't write very well and it takes me a lot of time and energy to do it, can I still use article marketing?

Chris: Yes you can! You can hire a ghost writer to write for you. This person can be a 3rd party that you hire from outside of your company or you can bring in part or full-time writers on your staff to write for you. A good handful of our 30,000+ authors have hired ghost writers to write for them.

I could probably produce a few dozen pages of comments or thoughts on how to manage ghost writers, but I’ll give you two strong pieces of advice if you are going to try this strategy:

1) Make sure the article content you pay for from your ghost writer is 100% original content and 100% exclusive to you. The last thing you want is to hire a low-cost ghostwriter who has no integrity and only gives you re-written private label rights content that they didn’t have the exclusive rights to. You want to end up with exclusive rights to the content. This is critically important to maintain your integrity online.

2) Never trust any ghostwriter at any time, even if they have already agreed to produce 100% original content that you have the exclusive license to. You must check and double check and triple check their work before you slap your reputation on it. This must be done with each and every article purchased from a ghost writer. Best way to check is via services like copyscape or by doing multiple random exact-match complex sentence searches in the major search engines.

Linda: What are the advantages to becoming a Platinum Status author at EzineArticles?

Chris: You’ll be joining an elite group of less than 15% of our 30,000 authors who receive faster approval times (6-18 business hours on average instead of 1-10 days for basic level members), and the ability to submit unlimited submissions. We setup our membership levels based on how much we trust the author to submit 100% original quality articles that they have the exclusive rights to and how much we trust that they have read our posted editorial guidelines before submitting each article.

Basic level authors are only allowed to submit their first 10 articles before we review their account for upgrade to BasicPLUS or Platinum.

BasicPLUS level authors are good enough to be upgraded to allow another 25 more article submissions, but not good enough to receive Platinum level. This happens because the author has failed to meet one or more of the basic guidelines found in our posted editorial guidelines.

Platinum level authors have received our highest trust and in addition to getting faster approval times, they also receive a yellow start next to their name on each of their articles.

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ directory. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links in tact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a free membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/.

For Ezine Publishers, Chris produces a weekly free email newsletter on strategies for helping you grow your email lists, improve your email deliverability, and manage your ezine. To subscribe, surf on over to: http://Ezine-Tips.com/

Read more about the benefits of submitting articles to Ezine Articles here.

Back to Writing Services

Wishing you much joy and creative fulfillment, Linda Dessau The Self-Care Coach 416-229-0263 (Eastern time) E-mail Linda