All of those ways of article marketing may work, but which works the best? Lets just go through the different ways.

1. Most of us do not have the time to write several articles a day and if they are about the same subject, intending to promote one particular site those articles can become repetitive and lose quality to quantity. Of course some people can write several good articles a day but I do not think that I am one of them.
2. Spinning articles might be a great time saver, but when you look at the results of spinning they can be laughable. The articles often do not make sense to the reader and can be difficult to understand in much the same way as badly translated articles. Many directories do not want those articles; I know that I do not want articles on my site that visitors may have difficulty in understanding.
3. Changing the first paragraph and or the title of an article and submitting it to different sites is great, that means there is not so much of a duplicate content issue. Submitting the altered versions of the same article to the same directories is not on. Last week a joker submitted the same article to my directory with slightly different titles 4 times using 4 different accounts. As if I was not going to notice the similarities when I looked at the list of articles waiting for approval!
4. Then there is quality and submitting to fewer sites. A quality article is a pleasure to approve. I enjoy reading the article, I know that the quality of my site is going to improve and I know that the quality articles are going to bring in more traffic to my site. I also know that a quality article does not need to be submitted to hundreds of sites or spun. A quality article will be picked up on by publishers and replicated pretty darn quick.

You can guess which article marketing style I prefer; its quality all the way. Looking at number 4 I sound like a proper know it all. I do not think that I know everything but I do know what my site stats tell me. The author articles that get the most hits are nearly always the articles that I have regarded as high quality, or have been interesting enough to read all the way through.

I have different ways of defining quality that may make me seem contrary, but I have always looked at things in different ways. A business colleague calls me a lateral thinker, I think he means a pain in the b**t!

Quality that is extremely well written, but on occasion no matter how well an article is written if the content is dry and boring the article is not going to fly for the majority of readers unless it contains specific information. I do not claim to be an extremely good writer, I think that I am an adept writer who can occasionally pull off unexpected great results almost by accident. I have had enough of those accidents to be able to figure out why those articles are hitting the spot and why articles such as this one is unlikely to produce masses of hits.

One of my accidents was an article about where I live. I wrote it as an example because I wanted members of my travel site to write about where they live. It started out as an article about a regular town and without initially intending to I added paragraphs about places of interest and tourist spots within 10 miles. It dawned on me after writing the article that although I live in an industrial town that would not be considered on it’s own a tourist centre, like most places there are tourist spots close enough by to include a mention in an article.

That article does better for hits than most articles of my own and those of authors on my sites that have been especially written for article marketing. I asked myself why and came up with 2 reasons. One was that I had added a good variety of keywords and phrases without thinking about it. The other reason I suspect is that the article is unique, very different to any other travel article that I have seen out there. It is also obvious that I know the place well whereas most article marketing travel articles don’t give you a sense of the authors knowing the places that they write about and show little personality.

Another accident was an article written a month ago about my bad experience with a spyware fraud. I was so cheesed off that I turned to writing to make myself feel better. I have never known an article get so many hits in such a short time. It has been picked up by a lot of webmasters, bloggers and ezines and I am sure it still has plenty of scope. I have even seen it on some geek sites, now that’s something I never thought would happen to an article of mine!

I think that the article is doing well because it is offering information written from obvious personal experience that people want and need and those people have had the common sense to do a search before being scared into parting with their money.

The top 2 articles on my directory every month are my own scam warnings. They are only on a couple of my sites so the hits are not spread between zillions of article directories. Again I am providing information that people want and need. Neither of the articles were written for the purpose of article marketing and a variety of keywords and phrases happened naturally.

So to me a quality article is reasonably well written, packed with information written from experience that people want or need, unique or as different to other articles as possible and showing some personality.

The fatal flaw in my accidents is that I have not used the articles to promote money making ventures, just my sites in general. I will have to get a grip and accidentally make some money from them!

I’ll end this far too long article by including a quote from a forum that made me think. ‘Thats a major problem I see in article directories — its so difficult to find good content in them that they are not nearly as useful to article consumers as they could be.’

Submit your articles to article directory BB Articles or your travel articles to top  travel article directory Articles Abroad and find free content for your travel websites and ezines.

There are certain traits a budding journalist will already need to have when embarking on a career in journalism. A good journalist must have; a keen interest in people, an inquisitive nature, ability to meet deadlines and outstanding communication skills. Basically, if you are not interested in what people have to say, their emotions and their achievements you simply can not function as a journalist.

Take up a part time course

I have met many people who have found taking an evening or at home journalism course very helpful. They won’t teach you all you possibly need to know but they give you a good base to start with. You can find courses like this at most local colleges that run during the year or even shorter courses for ten weeks at a time. Online journalism schools especially offer an array of courses which are more specialized such as sports journalism, community journalism, photo journalism, feature articles, conducting interviews, shorthand and many more. It will give you a base to start gaining experience which all journalists need. You never know, it might open doors to other things!

Cross your T’s and dot your I’s!

I really can not stress enough the importance of spelling, punctuation and grammar. Sending off work that has not been spell checked or edited will only look bad on you and will tarnish your reputation. An editor might think you have a good story, but they do not have time to correct mistakes as they have deadlines too. An important tip to remember is to never not proof read your own work and to double check over and over!

Read and write whenever you get the chance

Try to read whatever you can get your hands on. It is important for a journalist to keep up to date and analyse other styles that are out there. This will also help you develop a good news sense. It is a good tip from early on to archive clippings of any articles you have written, as you might need to fall back on them later.

Try and read and rewrite smaller articles as much as you can. This is a good habit to pick up to keep you in the ‘write’ frame of mind. I find it helps before writing anything as the words seems to flow more.

When I first started writing as a freelance journalist the only way I could really publicize myself was to write for free for a local community newspaper. Free jobs like these I feel is where the most experience is gained as you get the chance to strengthen your style and build up the speed in which you can produce a good article. It will give you a good opportunity to build up relationships with editors and get to know good contacts.

There are also many different outlets out there that you can use to advertise your work. The internet is one of the best for this. You can also start your own website, blog, ghost write… There are many websites that offer new and experienced writers places to showcase their work. With the internet especially, there are no limits to what you can do!

The author writes for several websites including UK Travel Guide, The Creative Writer and the make money from writing site where you will find lots of tips and information about making money from writing and free writers tools worth over $3000.

Detail and Information

For me writing reviews was good grounding for article marketing. I had previously written articles for home business magazines but when I started to write reviews I soon found that I needed to add more detail and information to do well in the review site ratings and earnings, sometimes it could get a bit silly when over critical members would want to know every little detail about packaging when the site owners did not.

The more detail and information we add to an article the better. Some article marketers split their information into several articles instead of writing one information packed article. That may work better for getting quick back links but if I tried to do that I would feel as if I was selling myself and readers short. There is always the option of using part 1, 2, 3 etc in the article titles but if a site visitor looking for information found part 3 first would they bother to look for parts 1 and 2 when they can just click back to the search engine and find a full article on the subject that they are interested in?

As we are always hopeful that a publisher may use our articles as website or ezine content I suspect that if an article comes in several parts it would have to be really good to stand a chance of being chosen.

Warts And All

There is a difference between reviews written for sites like Ciao and Dooyoo and reviews written for article marketing. On the review sites you review a product warts and all. The reviews need to be honest because it is useful feedback for manufacturers and because the review sites are communities your credibility is at stake amongst other members. The rewards are not very high even for top writers, but I guess that would depend on which area of the world that you live in.

Most of the reviews that I’ve seen in article or Internet marketing are full of praise and no warts. You know that the authors are trying to sell a product or get readers to join the latest millionaire making affiliate programme. You also know that many of the reviews will be dishonest because the authors are trying to gain product or affiliate sales.

In article marketing the rewards are backlinks to your sites and hopefully syndication of your articles to get more backlinks. The money that can be earned through article marketing is greater and especially if an article goes viral, but as with review sites you do not earn anything if you do not get it right.

Getting Content Right

Getting the content right for reviews and article marketing is much the same. Quality, information, legibility, correct grammar and punctuation, advice, detail, layout and for me simplifying technical explanations to a level that most can understand. That last one was my idea! If a reviewer is writing about a particular model of mp3 player and that review is found in a search for information about mp3 players by somebody interested in buying one; and the reader cannot understand the technical jargon then they are going to look elsewhere for advice.

The same applies to article marketing. If your article about mp3 players is linking back to your site or blog that incidentally has adverts for mp3 players you want the reader to go all the way down to the bottom and click on your link, not click away because you have lost their understanding part way through. As a publisher looking for website content I would be more likely to go for an article that is easy to understand rather than one giving the same information but full of technical jargon. That is unless you are aiming your article towards techie sites and that’s a whole different ball game.

When you write product reviews for the review sites you do not need to think about key words and phrases as in article marketing, though if the review sites pay per visitor click it’s not a bad idea to use them. In article marketing we learn to use key words and phrases in our article titles and article body, but when we use too many it can make an article harder to understand and read. If a publisher is looking for good content that will capture visitors interest and keep them on their site longer they will be happy with key words and phrases used in context with an article but not if they are too many and placed where they don’t fit.

Knowing Your Subject

When you review a product you are expected be familiar with and have used the product enough to be able to give a fair assessment of it. For instance a review about a washing machine that you have been using regularly for several months is far more credible and useful as feedback and for prospective buyer information than a review about a washing machine that you have only just bought and used twice.

The same should apply to article marketing and in many cases it happens, but there are also lots of contrived articles. The best writers can carry it off and make it seem as if they use a product or service but many writers cannot fake it. It is pretty obvious that they have gleaned their information from sales spiel and the lack of user experience in an article lowers it’s worth for readers looking for information and publishers looking for content.

My biggest bugbear is travel articles. I love reading about different places from a visitors point of view. Contrived travel articles are generally boring and next to useless for readers who want to know what a place is really like and are looking for tips before they book their holiday. If I couldn’t produce more information than can be found on a travel brochure I would not write about a place.

Do Reviews Work In Article Marketing

I think that there is a place for reviews in article marketing and if they are well written and show user experience they are good for publishers to use as content. Reviews can be written about almost any product or service giving a wide range of subjects to write about – as long as that product or service isn’t your own!

The author Patricia Jones owns top travel article directory Articles Abroad which offers travel information free submission and free content for travel websites and ezines.

The Nitty Gritty

First of all article marketers submit articles to article directories as part of their website promotions – that and much of what I’m saying here applies for any niche. Ideally article marketers are working towards the following:

· Long term backlinks pointing to their sites
· Viral effect of articles being re-published on authority sites and ezines
· Click throughs on those links
· Establish themselves as an authority in their niche
· Credibility in the eyes of readers

The first 3 are about getting more traffic to your sites, the last 3 are about benefiting from the traffic. Article marketers will not benefit from their work if they produce:

· Poorly written articles
· Show a lack of first hand knowledge
· Ruin their credibility by misleading and disappointing readers

It’s all common sense but not every writer gets it. In order to explain more I will use some potential scenarios.

Information Searches

Jess and Mick have booked a cheap flight on the Internet to the Canary Islands. As they need accommodation it’s only natural that they do a search for the type of accommodation that they want. They use ‘Canary Island holiday property rentals’ in their first search and are pleased to see an article titled ‘Canary Island Holiday Property Rentals’ at the top of the search results.

Disappointment hits them when they find that the article is about the Canary Islands in general and has nothing to do with holiday property rentals except for a link in the resource box. The author has lost credibility because their title is misleading and the only links that are likely to be clicked on are the Google ads that you generally find on the article directory pages or more likely Jess and Mick click away and continue their search.

They finally find the information that they really want and accommodations sorted out they now want information about hiring a car. Their search is Canary Islands car hire, the top link is an article titled ‘Canary Islands Car Hire’. Imagine how annoyed Jess and Mick feel to find yet another general article about the Canary Islands and the only thing concerning car hire is a link in the author bio – goodbye credibility, article and click throughs!

Publisher Searches

Mathew is building a website about the Caribbean. He has some of his own material but decides to visit an article directory and find some content to help build his site faster. He finds a really great article about visiting Jamaica and would love to use it but the title ‘Cheap Flights To The Caribbean’ is a problem. Yes you’ve guessed right – the only reference to cheap flights is in the author bio. Mathew decides against using the article on his website because he has ethics and does not want to mislead his site visitors.

He then spots an article titled ‘Fabulous Jamaica Resort Review’. Mathew expects a genuine review from somebody who has visited the resort, but he doesn’t get that. Instead there is a brochure like article extolling the virtues of a hotel or all inclusive resort that just happens to be linked to in the author bio – and an article that shows no indication of the author ever setting foot on the beautiful island of Jamaica. There is also a sentence recommending a website for more information within the article body and that website just happens to belong to the author – goodbye credibility.

Reality Check

With these scenarios the authors have thought that they were being clever and used the best keywords and phrases in the titles for what they are promoting in the author bio. Fair enough if the article content matches the titles and key phrases – shooting yourself in the foot article marketing if it doesn’t.

If you promise a review of a resort you should deliver just that and not something that can be found on any travel brochure or travel site. A review should be an author’s opinion written from experience and nothing less. Recommending your own websites in the article body not only spoils an article but is also a credibility hit.

If your misleading article is accepted on article directories do you want to benefit from the viral effect of your article being published on other websites and ezines? Would you want content on your website or ezine that is misleading or pure unpaid for advertising? I know that I wouldn’t.

Any good and ethical sales person, and that includes Internet marketers know that to do well you need to build up trust with your prospective customers. You want your articles to work for you so start thinking about them from the point of view of a reader or publisher and you won’t go far wrong.

The travel niche is huge and nowadays many travellers search the Internet for information before they book their dream holidays. The majority of travellers know nothing about Internet marketing, article marketing or key phrases. All they know is what they see – that they are being misled. Would you click on a link and buy from an author or seller who is misleading you?

The author Patricia Jones writes for the UK travel guide and Make Money From Writing where you will find lots of tips to help you with your writing. Patricia also owns the top travel article directory Articles Abroad where authors may submit quality travel articles and publishers find free content.

Write all the time

Writing every day in little bursts will help combat the serious bout of writers block. Where ever you go keep a notebook handy so if a great idea comes to mind you can write it down there and then. If you can’t get past it, the best way I find to help unlock your thoughts on to paper is to go for a short walk, to clear your head before returning to the computer screen.

Meditation

I find that meditation helps quite considerably. It helps you to relax and allows you to find a peaceful place in order to gather your thought. After meditating I find I am at my most creative and relaxed. Most meditation courses can be found by private teachers, but if you are lucky to have a Buddhist center near by, they offer regular classes which run at different times during the day to suit you.

Don’t try too hard- take a break

Sometimes it can feel like you have to squeeze the words out, and in the end you are just not happy with what you have created. Don’t push yourself, even if you have a deadline as this will only stress you out further. Give yourself a break even if it’s to recharge to return to it an hour later or the next day. The best way to beat writers block is to come back to your writing when you are refreshed and relaxed. I find first thing in the morning is when I am at my most creative and fluid.

Change your scenery

Changing your surroundings can be a great way to alleviate writers block. Take yourself to a quiet café, or if it’s a nice day go outside. New things could give you inspiration and I find this helps when I get the worst of writers block.

Refresh your skills

It is always a good to refresh your skills once and a while to beat writers block. There are many inexpensive short day workshops for creative writers of all levels that you can use to your advantage.

A few years ago I went on a creative writing holiday in Scotland. The scenery among other factors was a great inspiration and being able to write with others meant I could learn new skills and techniques. These courses don’t happen all the time so snap it up when you get the chance.

Listen to how you write

One of the best bits of advice when beating writers block is to write with your talking voice. It is always obvious when a writer is not expressing themselves naturally and in the end, is more frustrating to write and uncomfortable to read.

I find the best way to combat this is to read what you have written or your problem passage and record yourself. Play back the tape and what you have written will sound completely different. This will help you to find the right words and will help get rid of writers block.

No matter what method you use to rid yourself of the dreaded writers block, it is always important to remember that really, writers block does not exist. It is a name we have given to the inability to make decisions when writing. Look at where you are having problems in coming to making your choice, whether its wording that paragraph or chapter. Sit and then figure out what decision you are not making and make it.

The author writes for several websites including UK Smart Travel Guide, The Creative Writer and the make money from writing site where you will find lots of tips and information about making money from writing and free writers tools worth over $3000.