During a slow period of my writing career, I found myself only writing queries. With article assignments temporarily slumping I soon started losing the ?edge? that kept my writing tight, sharp and crisp. As a new or practicing writer, it is important to establish and maintain good writing habits. Writers write, and ?practice makes perfect? as they say. So thinking that ?a little more writing exposure never hurt anyone?, I took the plunge and signed on to one of the internet's largest article banks, also called article submission sites. It was a move that sparked my writing like never before in my writing career.
Article banks - What they are
Article banks (article submission sites) are websites which allow you to post focused articles on a number of topics. You get published on the web for free but you are not paid for the article. The catch is that the piece can be freely distributed everywhere to other websites, e-zines or read and used by anyone as long as they leave the entire article intact including your byline and bio. There are stringent writer guidelines at the better sites, format and content restrictions, but certainly nothing I found prohibitive in any way. Guidelines also vary somewhat from one site to another.
Crank up the volume
Write an article a day? Are you kidding? Yeah, that was my answer too when asked that question in one of the many writer-inspiration pieces I gobble up in my spare time. Even though writing an article a day seems daunting at first, you can work yourself up to that with some persistence and guidelines. How about putting out one or two articles per week? How many thousand-word pieces could you reasonably pump out in one month? Wouldn't you like to know? Well, here's your chance to find out. Use a simple ?article template? or article outlines to help. If you'd like the templates I use, e-mail me and I'll send them right out.
Practice slanting and re-slanting
Online marketing professionals need to write about the same topic over and over. How do they do it? They slant and re-slant the articles. Writing multiple articles in your areas of specialization (you DO have them, don't you?) will give you needed practice in devising a variety of slants for your articles. Can you focus your article idea towards women, children, teens, men, seniors, businesses, students, an ethnic group or other target group? Practice in developing an ?eye? for different slants will be invaluable for your querying and article marketing efforts.
Speed up and refine your research skills
If you are wringing articles out of your muse at record speed, you'll need to hone those research skills to razor sharpness. Finding quotes quickly, using keywords to focus the reader's attention and digging up an expert or two quickly will soon become second nature as regular practice fine tunes your skills. Skills you'll need for those high-paying writing assignments to come. If you need to use keywords in your piece, you can make use of Google Ad words Keywords tool at: http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox for a keyword search of high-ranking possibilities.
Looking for a poignant quote or two or more, try: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art4753.asp
Another good site for quotes is: http://www.quotationreference.com/quotefinder.php
To track down some topic experts go to: http://www.ideamarketers.com or the exhaustive http://ezinearticles.com both of which allow expert authors to post.
For press releases page through: http://prweb.com . As you hum along you'll surely develop other resources of your own.
Become a ?household? name
Are you famous yet? Sue Grafton, Edna Buchanan, Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowlings may not need their names and brands marketed, but in all likelihood you might. An article posted to an article bank like ezine articles.com will probably be read by hundreds or even thousands of people in a relatively short time. I've had more than a thousand views of my articles in less than a month. It's a fast, cheap, sure way to get your name and writing specialties out in front of myriads of people. Some sites have counters which allow you to track the number of times your article is viewed in real time. At the end of each of your articles there is a 'resource box' or SIG where you are allowed to place your bio, e-mail and website, or even a short ?promo? piece if you have a book or product to sell. Articles stay available online for months or years. Imagine how many times your piece might be read over time.
How and where to post
There are scores of good article submission sites online. A Google search under ?free article submissions? will net you hundreds of viable sites. They are not all equal. The best article submission sites will have a high search engine and internet traffic ratings. They?ll also have an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed of articles posted there for maximum article syndication. Here are some of my favorites:
? http://ezinearticles.com
? http://www.goarticles.com
? www.buzzle.com
? www.articlealley.com
? www.web-source.net
While I'm not a staunch advocate of ?working for free?, I do recommend posting to article banks as a way of keeping the flow going and maintaining the habit of writing regularly. Pulling a piece together and having it published within a couple of days online for all the world to read, is extremely encouraging. It may be just the thing you need to lift you out of the doldrums and keep you going ? and writing ? during a slow period.
Finally, if you'd like to get a better idea of what typical postings are like, feel free to look at some of mine at:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Larry_M._Lynch
By the way, this article was conceptualized, outlined, researched, drafted, written refined and sent - all in one day. If I can do it, so can you.
Larry M. Lynch is a bi-lingual copywriter and photographer specializing in business, travel, food and education-related writing in South America. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News and Brazil magazines in print and online. As an expert author he ghost-writes original articles for article marketing campaigns, content for websites, newsletters, blogs and e-zines. He can be contacted at: [email protected].
