Outsourcing

KISS – Men and Article Writing

Posted on November 2009

Keep It Simple Stupid!

Writing a good SEO article isn’t difficult if you follow basic steps – and that is perhaps why so many male internet marketers would rather outsource this task. This is not intended as a negatively sexist comment, but more an observation. Consider the following to see if you agree with me:

When some men are give a new mechanical device, often their first urge is to take it apart to see how it works. The fact that their investigation leads to the items failure to perform in its intended way is irrelevant.
When you bring ‘assemble yourself’ furniture home, the first thing a man reaches for is the screwdriver or allen key – the last resort is the instructions leaflet (which is invariable in dubiously translated English, granted).
They will spend hours cleaning a barbeque and then get distracted during the 10 minute cooking process and burn the steak………..

Back to article writing

So, when I tell you that over 70% of my clients are male internet marketers, it is worthwhile to acknowledge that there are differences in the way men and women think. Obviously for me, that’s a very GOOD thing. It means that one of my major income streams, providing writing services for internet marketers, is doing nicely. I am constantly looking for new writers to join my team, and it doesn’t take long for me to see who ‘gets it’. And mostly it is women – although I have had one male writer for well over a year now (and you know who you are JC!) who is sensational!

KISS

Keeping it simple is one of the main things I look for in writers. That they can understand a sometimes complex topic and produce articles that, while interesting and informative, are able to be understood by the common man, is a gift. Convoluted sentence structure, overly technical terms, and flowery language are NOT required.

So for all of those internet marketers out there, particular those who cannot or do not want to, write articles – outsource! There are people like me out there who would be glad to help you out – and in the process you allow us to set up own own businesses as service providers. There is plenty of work to go around, and some work can be done quite cheaply.

However, if it is quality, original, SEO content you need – you know where to find me!

Postscript:

In order to continue to deliver premium content to my current clients, I have closed my list to new clients for 2009. Please do contact me though if you would like to be contacted 2010.

Article Writing – Getting The Basics Right

Posted on November 2009

Whether you are a beginner or have been writing internet marketing SEO articles for some time, it is important to know that you are getting the basics right. Are you?

Keyword Placement

Are you placing your well-researched keyword properly? It should be in your article title, in the first and last paragraphs, and once or twice in the body of the article, depending on its length. Don’t use them gratuitously – if your article is well written they should appear organically anyway. Overuse of keywords will cause readers to click away – probably not what you had planned.

Interesting Headline

Make your headline as interesting as possible – but not at the expense of losing your keyword. “5 Ways to..”, “Top Seven Reasons Why…”, “The Truth Behind…” – all invoke curiosity.

Deliver Value

Don’t waste your readers’ time. Have something of value in the article, teach them something they might not already know. But don’t fall into the trap of telling them everything about the topic – they need to have a reason to visit your site to learn more.

Make Your Resource Box Work For You

If you are posting your article to a publishing site that provides a Resource Box, use it to its full potential. Don’t waste time telling the reader your life story (they don’t care, they just want to know what you can do for THEM). You can BRIEFLY position yourself as an expert, but more importantly you need to deliver a call to action – tell the reader what he or she needs to do next, i.e. find out more at http://www.yourwebsite.com. BIG HINT: Don’t use hypertext in your research box – the link may be lost when the article is reproduced elsewhere.

There are many other ways to tweak your articles for SEO and the associated traffic and links, but get these basics right, and you know you are on the right path.

And if article writing is not your forte, don’t agonize over it – outsourcing article writing is easy, and gives you the freedom to do the things you do enjoy and are good at!

Ezinearticles.com – On The Warpath!

Posted on October 2009

For many years ezinearticles.com has given article marketers the best exposure for their work. As with all good vehicles for internet marketers though, the site has felt the impact of those who would abuse it, to submit second rate articles that have been changed minimally from ones already on the site. But no more.

In the last few weeks there has been much whining and bitching in the internet marketing community about the tough stance ezinearticles is making on this. It is going to hurt a lot of them, especially those who are outsourcing the ’spinning’ of articles, or who are using PLR. The more astute ones already know the value of quality articles, and now maybe, perhaps, the also-rans will stop the moaning long enough to realise that this is a GOOD thing! That maybe if they invest in what ezinearticles wants – ‘original, exclusive’ articles, their articles will find their way out of ‘problem status’ and be published..

Now by ‘exclusive’, EZA CEO Chris Knight, is at pains to point out that he is not saying that you can’t put your articles on your own website AND EZA. Of course you can. But what you cannot do is take that article, change the headline and the first few lines, and then submit it everywhere else. This is called ‘derivative content’ and it devalues not only the article on EZA, but the article on your website as well – and THAT is bad!

By using a human (with a good command of English!), and not spinning software, to rewrite your article will provide you with yet another original article for submission to EZA or one of the other article publishing or distribution sites. Treat EZA with respect and you will be rewarded with nice traffic.

Chris Knight explains more here: http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2009/10/derivative-content-be-gone.html

Affiliate Marketing Articles – Know The Rules!

Posted on July 2009

Affiliate Marketing is a a type of internet marketing where a business (or ‘merchant’) rewards others (‘registered affiliates’) by way of an ‘affiliate commission’ for each customer or sale resulting from the affiliates’ marketing efforts.

If you are writing for affiliate marketers, or are an affiliate marketer yourself, here are some tips on how to place and format links to ensure they are accepted by most article distribution sites:

Write quality articles that provide real information about the topic
Don’t include the ‘whole story’. You need to provide just enough information on the topic to encourage readers to click on your link to find out more!
Where Resource Boxes are used, make the information you include relevant to the article. Don’t use the same Resource Box over and again, unless it relates to the article.
Don’t put your life story in the Resource Box. Rather demonstrate that you have particular knowledge on the topic of the article.
Place affiliate links in the Resource Box if one is provided.

Ideally the author should own the linked redirected URL
Some directories require that links be to the primary domain (e.g. http://website-name.com), and disallow links like:
- http://subdomain.your-company-name.com/
- http://your-company-name.com/page.html
- http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html
- http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

There is no substitute for quality! If you cannot write a good article, get someone who can to do it for you!

Ask me how.

SEO Articles

Posted on July 2009

Internet marketers know that one of the most effective ways of driving targeted traffic to their sites is by employing article marketing strategies.

Search engines reward websites with good rankings if they contain quality, relevant and unique content. By additing original articles to your website, you satisfy this requirement.

Well-written articles can also be submitted to article directories for distribution. By crafting them to contain well-positioned keywords and with just enough information to create an interest in reading more, these articles can bring ‘warm’ clients to your website.

My articles are usually a minimum of 400 words in length, and rarely longer than 600 words. I prefer to work in blocks of 10 articles per topic, and offer a discount for this package.

Contact me for prices.

Blog Content

Posted on July 2009

Short blog posts are ideal for providing fresh content to your wordpress website. The great thing about blogs is that you can have a year’s supply written in advance and ’scheduled’ to publish once or twice a week – a real ’set and forget’ way of setting up a site. They are particularly good for ongoing affiliate marketing projects.

Blog posts can be as short or as long as you like, but I think they are most effective for affiliate marketing, when they are around 200 words in length. This gives you enough room to include some vital information about the product or services, just enough for the reader to want to read more and clicking a link to go to your sales page, squeeze page or affiliate site.

Ask me for prices!

Article Publishing

Posted on July 2009

In order to get the most exposure for your articles, it’s ideal to publish them to one of the free publishing services, like ezinearticles.com or articlealley.com. Well-crafted articles that are published in this way, with correct keyword placement, will reward you with great seach engine rankings.

Because they will contain links to your website, either in the body of the article or in the Resource Box, interested readers will click through to your site to learn more. The great thing about this is, because they have already demonstrated their interest by clicking on the link, they could be considered ‘warm’ prospects. Hold their interest with a great landing page, and a sale is that much closer.

Another advantage of publishing to these sites is that other website owners may use your article as well – often as new content for their sites. This is great, because they must take the whole article, links included – a great way to get more traffic to your site.

I am able to submit articles to these sites on your behalf, and also modify articles I’ve written so that they may be submitted to several different sites.

We can discuss putting a package together that includes writing articles, making variations, and submitting them to article publishing sites.

Article Distribution Service

Posted on July 2009

Would you like to make your articles go further? There are several ways to do this – and I can help you do it!

Articles without product names

The first is by using the type of article distribution service that will submit your article to many different free-publishing sites. There are few of these sites that don’t have rules regarding ‘duplicate content’. The reason is that each of these sites needs to maintain its integrity with the search engines and by publish articles that appear elsewhere, they dilute their value in the eyes of Google, Yahoo etc. As a consequence, they will be penalized with lower rankings in the search results, and they know that this is not good business.

These sites also have rules that prevent you from openly promoting any named product or service. You are able to write generally about the topic, but not recommend anything direc tly. They do, however, allow you to do this in a “Resource Box”, usually at the bottom of the article. Read the rest of this entry »

Writing Project Management Tool

Posted on June 2009

From July 1 I am phasing out managing my projects via email – too cumbersome with my growing client base. I’ve looked at the various project managemet tools around, and decidedon one that is middle-of-the-road techie. I don’t want this to be a difficult system to use, for me, my valued clients or talented writers.

I’ve decided on ClientSpot, and am busy populating it with client and writer details now. It is going to provide a central point for me to post my projects, notify writers of the requirements, and for them to upload the files to this one spot. I can then let my clients know when the material is ready, and they can download direct from the site.

It’s great because both the writers and clients will only have access to the projects that I nominate, yet I can see them all and track their progress from one overview.

I’m hoping this will streamline my business and enable me to continue to delivery quality writing services to my clients.

Writing For Internet Marketers

Posted on June 2009

Internet marketers need a regular supply of relevant, original and unique content if they want traffic to get to their websites, and for those websites to be ranked will by the Search Engines.

Because they are ‘ideas’ people, internet marketers are not necessarily great writers. And in this business it is best to play to your strengths. If writing is not your thing, then outsourcing makes sense.

By spending your time on what you enjoy, what you are good at, is a smart way to work. Outsourcing your writing and article distribution is a great first step – but why stop there? You should outsource things like bookkeeping, database management, Search Engine Optimization – the list is endless!

>>Internet marketers: Outsource your writing

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News & Events

Faster Approvals promised by ezinearticles.com

January 2010

Today the head honcho at ezinearticles.com, Chris Knight, announced that the free publishing site had really picked up its game and promised faster article approval ...

Public Domain and Copyright

January 2010

There is a wealth of free information in the public domain, mostly from government agencies, that can be used as the source of website content. ...

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"Kerry Finch has been helping me with content and articles for a long time. I can highly recommend her services, and if you’re looking to learn how to become an article writer just like Kerry, then I recommend her information products. She has great information, she knows exactly what she’s doing, she’s researched it – she does this for a living, and she’s damn good at it. So make sure you take Kerry up on her writing and coaching offers - she’s really good, and I highly recommend her services."
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"I am new to internet marketing and needed some good articles and blog posts to get me started. Kerry was incredibly helpful, and her service was exceptional. Her articles and posts were not only well written but covered different aspects of the topic incredibly well. Publishing the articles according to Kerry’s suggestions has resulted in driving extra traffic to my site, resulting in increased sales of my eBooks. I couldn’t have asked for more! If you are looking for high quality articles, great service and speedy response, then Kerry is your gal!"
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