As you would surely be aware after some time in the Internet marketing business, submitting your articles and getting them re-published on others' websites and newsletters/ezines is one of the most powerful Internet marketing strategies. Your articles will start working as a free advertisement for you forever. And you do not have to pay even a dime for such advertising space. You will continue to enjoy free traffic driven to your website for a long, long time!



Assuming you have decided to venture into writing your own articles, the following checklist should offer you as a very useful guide to help you overcome some common problems all beginners find in writing articles:

1) Decide on a Specific Objective

Always begin with a clear objective of writing an article. Is it a solution and answer to a particular problem faced by many? Is it an article expressing one’s experience in certain field? Or is it an article to attract prospective customers.

2) Target Your Audience

Before writing an article, ensure that the targeted audience is big enough to make your effort worthwhile. Ensure that this target is relevant, meaning they would find your article beneficial. For example as I write this article the target audience is the Internet marketers who want to drive or improve traffic to their sites by submitting articles to directories etc and are looking for a good guidance to do so effectively.

3) Give a Brief Description of the Article

With a quick glance the reader would immediately know the gist of the purpose, the important points and benefits of this article.

4) Create an Attention Grabbing Title

Perhaps we need some tips from the Advertising experts. One has this to say :

“People that sell products to help you stop smoking don't sell the "stop smoking" part. They sell the part about making your breath better, improving your health, living longer, getting better-looking dates, having whiter teeth"

Hence your title must grab the reader's attention and prompt them to start reading at least the introduction of your article in order not to miss the benefits by ignoring your article!

5) Write as if You Are Talking to Somebody

There is no need for big and bombastic words and jargons that only would lead to confusion to some. You must write with simple English and in a manner that the reader feels that you are actually talking to him or her.

6) Re-read and Re-Write Your Articles

After you have finished writing, safe it and put it away for one day or two. Open it and read again. I bet you would find some weaknesses or mistakes that need your correction and amendments. Repeat this once or twice at least. If possible get somebody with experience of the same subject to proofread for you.

If with all this and your initial enthusiasm of an eager beaver, you still failed to become a writer, do not despair. Although you are ready to resign to the fact that you just don’t have the flair for writing and may be writing is not your forte, there are ways you could create your “own" writing with your name as the author in the “resource box"……………without having to write.

In fact there are three ways from which you can choose one or use all of them:

1) Hire a Ghostwriter.

You could hire somebody to write on your behalf on any subjects of your choice and he does not even take any credit despite his effort hence he is called a “ghost" writer. However a ghostwriter could be expensive. If you could afford this, it might be the best and easiest thing for you to do.

Visit http://www.elance.com/ where you can search for a writer who can help you create your own articles.

2) Buy Private Label Rights to a Collection of Articles

You could get hundreds of pre-written articles for a small enrollment fee. From these you could choose articles discussing subjects related to the content of your website. These are referred to as the "Private label articles" which you have full permission to use and also put your own name to the resource box as the author.

Although this method also costs money it is less expensive than ghost writing. The obvious disadvantage is that if the Private Label Articles are being sold in large numbers, there could be many purchasers using the same content at the same time unless of course you are good enough to do a considerable amount of editing.

3) Get Someone Else to Write for You… Through an Interview!

This is a free method. You get someone else to create the article for you through an interview. Very often, interviewees are put in the limelight that would improve their image as experts in their fields. Hence people are glad to be interviewed, even if it’s free. If you know of any experts, a face-to-face interview in person can be conducted. Otherwise interviews through phones and e-mails could also be carried out. The article cold then be sold and distributed either as a text or audio format!

In conclusion, whether you are cut out to be a writer or you are hopeless as a writer, you now know how to get the articles you require and distribute them to articles directories, e-zines to start driving traffic to your websites. Getting your own articles published on the Internet is one of the very best Internet marketing techniques in existence.

Copyright© 2006 John Woon(Sung-Liang)