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7 Article Marketing Secrets Revealed

A strong online presence is necessary for any small business. A strong presence translates to plenty of content. Many small business owners engage is time-wasting activities — uploading content to their webpages, blogs and other media, sharing sites, while reaping little or no benefit from their hard work. Nothing is more frustrating than that!

As a small business owner, time is money. Do not waste any more of your time crafting great articles for content that will only be viewed by two or three people. It is important to make the content work for you. The only way to do that is to have it read by as many people as possible. Here are 7 less common ways to maximize your time spent developing your content.

1. Find Your Niche

Bigger and broader isn’t always better, especially in the World Wide Web. Finding a niche for your articles will focus your content directly at your specific target market, increasing readability. Find your niche using article directories honed in at your target audience. A couple of ways to do this are to use Google searches for “insert target market here” and “article directory.”

2. Be a Guest Blogger

Offering to be a guest blogger for sites relevant to your article topics will further the reach of your work. Think of it as borrowing another blogger’s subscriber list on a per-article basis. Connect with other bloggers in your industry on sites like Blogger Linkup, or search for blogs on your own at Technorati to contact other bloggers directly.

3. Give to Get

Ask to write content for associations related to your industry. This will not only help establish you as an expert in your field and build consumer confidence; it will also help spread your article’s content further. Search for associations by typing “insert target market here” and “association” into Google.

4. Guest Write for Topical E-Zines

Do a bit of research to identify the best and most relevant e-zines related to your topic and target market. Then test them out. Become a subscriber yourself and get a feel for it. If you think you can contribute, contact them and see if they accept guest writers.

5. Compile an eBook

Writing anything with the word “book” in it sounds daunting, but in this case, it really is not. Compile a decent amount of related articles on your specific topic, which are all directed at the same or very similar target markets, into a ten-page or more eBook. You may need to make a few changes here or there, and write a bit of an introduction to establish context, but having an eBook can be quite valuable these days. Next, upload your work to directories such as Free-eBooks to gain exposure.

6. Take Your eBook Viral

Though no one really likes to give away his or her work for free, offer to rebrand the eBook so that other professionals are able to change the affiliated link, so it appears as their own. This is a great incentive to get others to market your work for you, while increasing distribution of the eBook to their own networks and databases. This can be done at sites such as ViralPDF.

7. Upload to Document Sharing Sites

Share your content with others by converting your articles into .pdf format and uploading them to document sharing sites. A great one to check out is Scribd.

Once you get the hang of internet media alternatives, you will understand how these various sites will help establish yourself as a feature contributor. Once that happens, it’ll become much more of an incentive to sit down and write those articles. Knowing you’ll be heard suddenly makes the whole process seem much more enticing, now doesn’t it?

 

 

Matthew Toren
 

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs.org, BizWarriors.com and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley).

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