Writing and submitting articles to article banks has been proven to be one of the most effective of all traffic generating techniques. You may not actually generate any real traffic for your website in the next few days by learning to write and submit articles but this technique will serve you very well and it is worth the effort to learn how to do it and use it to your fullest advantage.

You may think that you have no writing ability at all but you are probably wrong. You might not be ready to write the ‘Great American Novel’ but you can write articles about the topic of your website and about the products that you are selling. You just need to know the rules for making them effective.

The first and most important few words of your article are in the title or the headline. The title MUST contain the key words that relate to the topic of your website and to the products that you sell. This is the first thing that other website owners or E-zine publishers will look at when they are deciding whether to reproduce your article on their websites or in the publications because they know that the key words are what search engines use to determine the results of searches.

Note: The search engines are the method by which people find products or information that they are looking for on the Internet. To find those products or that information, they type key words into the search boxes of the search engines. For example; they might type in ‘fish bait’ or ‘fishing lures’. The results that the search engines provide are based on the key words that the searcher uses.

The other thing about the title or headline of your article is that it must be attention getting. You can’t just title your article ‘Fish Bait’. You have to make your title interesting enough to entice the reader to keep reading. ‘Fish Bait that Works’…that isn’t very good either. How about, ‘Fish Bait from Heaven’ or The Fish Bait the Fish Can’t Resist’? Either of those titles would entice the person who was looking for information about fish bait to keep reading.

The second most important few words in your article are in the first line of the first paragraph. Internet surfers have a notoriously short attention span and rarely actually read anything word for word unless it is information that they believe will serve their needs, solve a problem or make life better in general for them. So…the title…and the first line are the bait and the hook that you use to entice a reader to actually read the article. The first line needs to contain the key words, as well, and it also need to be attention getting. ‘The fish were begging for more of this fish bait after my first cast!’ If you were a fisherman, you would keep reading.

Another thing about writing articles that you plan to submit to article banks is that they need to be short. Very short! They should be a maximum of 400 words and closer to 300 would be better. It’s easy to get carried away and suddenly have an article that is 1000 words are more when you are discussing a subject that you know a lot about and are interested in. If you start writing and forget to stop, break long wordy articles down and make three or four articles out of the one long one.

Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Remember that short attention span that we talked about? Don’t use big words and don’t use run-on sentences. Make you article easy to read.

Go easy on the exclamation points, as well. One exclamation point indicates importance or excitement… a half a dozen are just rude.

Your resource box at the end of the article is the part that is most important to you. Other website owners or E-zine publishers who download and reproduce your article are required to include your resource box. This box needs to contain your full name, your contact information and, most importantly, a link to your website. That link is the little thing that is going to help increase traffic for you.

Yahoo Answers can get you lots of targeted traffic if you use it right. Some people use Yahoo Answers to build up their credibility in their field as well, since millions of people turn to this site every day to get their questions answered, or to view other answers. That is a lot of traffic to simply ignore.

Here are 5 tips to help you get more traffic using Yahoo Answers.

Yahoo Answers Success Tip # 1: Use Your Profile.

A lot of people don’t take the time to fill out their profile for Yahoo Answers. Taking the time to fill it out is well worth it. Once you start answering a lot of questions specific to your niche, people will want to know who you are and will check out your profile.

You can advertise yourself and your site on this page and add your link. You will get clickthroughs directly to your site from your profile, especially if you build yourself up as an authority on the niche you are in. It will also establish you as a serious contributor to the Yahoo Answers site, since most people never bother to fill out their profile.

Yahoo Answers Success Tip # 2: Answer First.

A lot of people who go to Yahoo Answers look at the first answer only, and then close the window. Some are looking for a quick answer and don’t bother to check and see if it was the best answer, or even if there were others that were better. Some do not understand how the whole system is set up – that there can be more than one answer or best answer by voting. There are also a lot of visitors that have English as their second language.

If you want to get traffic from Yahoo Answers, strive to make your answer as the first one given.

Yahoo Answers Success Tip # 3: Strive To Give The Best Answer.

Many people using Yahoo Answers have been there before and will search for the best answer and ignore the others. If you research the topic first, or already know the answer, word it carefully and precisely so that it makes total sense to almost any reader.

Give any extra details if necessary and try to keep it as simple as possible. Use easy words and short sentences to get your point across so that it will have a better chance of being chosen as the best answer.

If you don’t know what an answer is you can just look it up on the Internet and rewrite it to make it your own. You can become an authority in your niche quite easily on Yahoo Answers.

Just take a look at all the other comments to questions. Some are totally ridiculous! Here is one example: “I don’t really know the answer to your question but you should find out.” Sheesh! After an answer like that, your answer will appear to be genius!

Yahoo Answers Success Tip # 4: Never Spam.

Yahoo offers a place that you can add your link to, but you have to be careful with that and not put it in too often. You can be reported as spamming if you go to a lot of questions, offer an answer that is mediocre at best, and then insert your link.

If you want to build up your credibility at this site, in your niche, offer great answers always and don’t insert your link every time. A good rule of thumb is to insert it once out of every 5 – 10 answers.

Yahoo Answers Success Tip # 5: Find the Buyers.

Everyday people go to Yahoo Answers to shop, whether they know it or not. Some are searching for a particular product in your niche and are literally asking for a URL to be sent to for that item. They have their credit card ready and want to make an immediate purchase. All you need to do is give them your answer, and a link to your site.

To find the buyers, look for buying questions. They will be phrased something like this: “Where can I find…” or “How can I get…” or the best “Where can I buy…” It is as simple as that. Just check the questions everyday and look for the buyer’s questions. They are ready to spend right away, so check back for any new questions every day.

Yahoo Answers can get you some quick targeted traffic if you are just starting a website, or have one already established. On top of the traffic, using Yahoo Answers lets you keep in touch with your niche by seeing what types of questions people need answers to. It gives you the inside edge on your niche, and on what people are looking for. It allows you to stay one step ahead of the game while getting great traffic.

Is there an art to generating free prospects on a forum? Oh yes, it most certainly is an art – but it is not one that requires years of training and practice to perfect. In fact, once you have read through this article, you will know exactly what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do if you want to generate unending, highly targeted and qualified leads from participating in public online forums.

To preface, I must tell you that I have been generating leads from forums for about 2 ½ years. At first I did it absolutely the WRONG way. I went into any forum I could find and I SPAMMED them! I took my well planned ad, started a new thread and stuck it out there. I was even rude enough to go back a day later to respond to my own thread to bump it up! As you can imagine I got a lot of terrible responses from the active participants of the board, and NO leads. Let that be a lesson to you. You never, ever want to go into a discussion board and open a thread with the express purpose of advertising your business. Each and every forum that is business oriented will usually have an advertising section. That is the ONLY place that it is appropriate to post your ad. If you post your ad elsewhere, or hijack a thread about a competitors program, that is considered SPAM. If you include your link in the body of your message, that is also against forum rules and etiquette.

There is only ONE place for your link, and that is in your signature file. Most forums will have a ‘profile’ section that you can access to upload a thumbnail picture (highly recommended), and to add your signature file. Most, but not all, forums use USB codes so that you can link your text. That is, you can create a one-line ad and hyperlink it so that it goes directly to your lead capture page.

The code will look like this:

[URL=http://www.YOURCAPTUREPAGEURL.com]Your One Line Ad[/B][/URL]

Once your profile is set up correctly, and your signature file is a clickable text link, you are ready to ‘go’.

Go where? Go into the forum and look for threads that have been viewed many times and/or have many replies. These are the threads to spend your time in. Unless that thread is about something that is directly of interest to you, if it has very few page views or replies, then it’s probably not someplace to spend your time. Once you have found a decent thread that is on a topic that you feel you can speak on- then add your 2 cents to the discussion. Again, you are joining the discussion in progress, and your comment is relevant to the topic. You want to write at least a few sentences that are relevant at well. Just typing in ‘me too’ or ‘I agree’ is NOT the way to go. You want to be respectful and respectable, to watch your grammar and spelling, and have FUN! I know your mother told you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all? Well, this is particularly true on a message board. You NEVER want to get into an argument on a forum. You want to spread good will, helpful advice, and to instill confidence in YOU as a leader. That last part may take a little time, but it’s incredibly important to your success at this. If you are going to spend ANY time attempting to generate leads this way, then you must be effective at this. If you become a ‘regular’ on the boards and have a presence that people respect, then you can and will generate endless leads. This is “Attraction Marketing’ in action.

What kind of boards should you post on? Forums that relate to your business, or to a topic that has nothing to do with your business, but relates to something else you are either very knowledgeable about, or have a great interest in. The first seems obvious- to find targeted, opportunity buyers, post where they are reading. The second is under utilized and therefore even more powerful! If, for example, you are a gourmet cake maker, find a board where other cake makers worldwide go to discuss the craft. I can virtually guarantee that most of the people on that board will NOT have a business link in their sig file- therefore YOUR link will stand out and will get a lot of clicks because people are innately curious. They HAVE to click on your signature to find out how you are making money online!

Use Google to search for relevant forums. Once you have found a few active boards, save those links in your favorites, and try to post at least 5 different replies on 5 different threads at least 2x per week. By keeping your signature file at the top of those boards, you cannot help but generate leads!

Remember, Time is Money and a Self generated lead is the BEST lead. Spend an hour or so a week posting in forums after you are done with your prospecting a follow up calls for the day. You WILL generate leads from forums and bring more income into your life as a result if you follow the instructions I have outlined!

You want your readers to stay engaged, so you’ll need more than just a great title. Now don’t get me wrong, the title is a very import part of your article. But, the content of your article must be just as valuable. Below are the top 10 secrets to successful article writing.

1.   Before you begin thinking of what you want to write, establish who your audience will be and only write for them. Make them feel as if you’re writing just for their circumstances. This gives you a reason to write more articles, tweek them and redirect to another targeted audience. You cannot satisfy everyone in one article, so don’t try.

2.   Keep one or two needs of your target audience in mind as you write. You don’t want to try and address all their needs in one article. If you stay focused, your audience will stay focused, and get the answers they need. This will also keep them comming back for more information, from your articles.

3.   Make sure you are consistent with your word style (slang, proper, online lingo, etc.). This may change between articles, but not in the same article. Jumping from one word style to another will appeal to no one in particular. Remember, you want your audience to understand what you’re writing about, and come away with a great reading experience.

4.   Definitely stick to the subject from beginning to end. In the beginning, state the reason you’re writing the article. In the middle start to introduce the fact that you have the solutions. Conclude with the solution and a lead to additional information coming soon.  

5.   What’s really important is that your readers feel you are an expert in their particular problems.  You must position yourself as the go-to person.
Your value is always in the problems you solve for your readers. If you can accomplish this you’ll establish trust, and a faithful following.

6.   Get the best mileage from your articles. After you’ve produced a few, you’ll get faster and better at writing them.  But, regardless of how well you write, articles still take a certain amount of time. So do your research to determine the most popular keywords in your area of expertise, this will cause your articles to perform well in top search engines.

7.   Know the rules of article writing. You have to remember that you are submitting your articles for publishing sites, not your own blogs or websites. So, keep the self-serving links or inappropriate content in the body of your article to a minimum. Most publishing sites allow you a signature, this is where you put short self-serving content and contact information.

8.   K.I.S.S. your readers, keep it simple sweetie. The article should not come off like you’re re-writing the dictionary from A to Z. Big fancy words will take away from what you’re trying to say. While they’re trying to understand what you mean, I guarantee your message will get lost in translation. And that’s only if they stick around, most people are going to give up and move on to the next article.

9.   Make the article short and sweet.  Keep it to about 500 to 800 words of awesome, information. Most of us, when we read articles are just trying to get the main idea quickly. Once we think we get it, we make a decision to read or not to read. So use bolding, underlines, italic, some color (don’t get carried away),and please don’t have things jumping around the page.  If you do this your audience won’t know where to look first, therefore cannot decide if they want to read your article or not. 

10. Create articles on relevant hot topics. This will generate more internet attention. Keep your topics current and in the flow of your target audience. Do your research, stay in the know so you can get your articles quite possibly picked up by additional ezine owners and published on their site.

Next time let’s talk about how to get your articles picked up by other publishers and posted on additional sites, now that’s spreading the word.

Joy Brooks
Online Business & Marketing Mentor
Http://www.mlmjoy.com/?t=articleb

Be that as it may, let me turn to what a few website owners faced while trying to claim a pie of Google Adsense earnings. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from running an honest site that’s designed to make the most out of this very profitable opportunity that Google offers. Implementing and maintaining Google
AdSense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters.

- If you happen to be an affiliate who owns a website, you’ll learn how to maximize the money you get for ads placed on your site (Product) Red for Google Adsense would be a great tool. Specifically, Google will display these AdSense ads on your site to match how they perceive the contents of your Google Adsense. The advertisers pay google for every click on their ads and an adsense- participating webmaster gets a portion of this revenue, when the clicking is done on his/her website.

If you don’t, won’t or can’t do that, get a blog, post your code and make money through your google adsense account. Ad Center also allows advertisers to run their ads on specific days of the week, and even on certain times of day, a feature Google Adsense only adopted recently. For more details www.thegoogleincome.com Keep updating your website, keep marketing the site, and you will soon see Google AdSense Profits. Well, technically, someone could make some money off of 100 visitors a day, but what good does 100 visitors a day do you when it comes to generating money through your Google Adsense ads.

Sign up with Google AdSense or another contextual advertising company, and let them place their ads on your pages. Most of this site solely exists to generate ad revenue from Google’s Adsense program, or affiliate relationships. These get spider by Google bots, and so long as you leave a link back to your page, people will be able to find your page easily and your adsense revenue will go up. Google AdSense is a way for webmasters to generate income from their sites by displaying text or image advertisements from companies participating in the Google Ad Words program.

Besides placing advertiser’s ads on your Blog, you can also make money Blogging by placing Google Adsense into your Blog. The Adsense Decoded site even says that this is not something that Google has made any official statement about. Yeah, everyone is in rush and attracted to Google Adsense. For more details www.yourgoogleincome.com Before you can understand why Google AdSense is so important to content sites, it’s important to know how AdSense works Google has recently added a new type of Adsense format, called Ad links. Much of the complaints about Google Adsense were related to their so called “unfair” banning of many publishers for click fraud, which to them can mean anything from clicking on your own ad unit, to spamming, to almost anything that violating the program’s terms of service. Note that Google Ad words enable you to get paid for advertising and Google Adsense is when you will have to pay for advertising.