What does it take to make money with articles? Do you need professional training in journalism or on-the-job experience? What if you do not know how to write, just do not want to do it yourself or do not have the time? Is article marketing a viable option for you?
The good news is that you do not need a college degree or special diploma to begin writing articles to use in article marketing campaigns. If you do not want to write, you can still use articles to market.
Writing is a skill. Like any skill, you can learn it if you take the time. As you practice your writing skills, your speed and the quality of the pieces you create will improve. Reading well-written articles will also help you improve. But, if you have no interest in learning to write, you can still use articles to market your business.
If you just do not have the time or desire to write, you can outsource your articles at a variety of sites around the web. Article writers will ghostwrite whatever you need for a very low cost. The cost of outsourcing an article typically ranges from a penny per word to two cents per word. Authors relinquish any moral rights to the article. Once you pay for the article, you own the copyright and can do whatever you like with the article, including adding your name as the author. Two popular writing services are Textbroker and My Article Express.
You can also find freelance writers to ghostwrite for you on one of the freelance clearinghouses. For a small fee you can post your job. Interested freelancers will then bid and you select the writer that you want. The freelance site will hold the payment in escrow until the job is completed. This way both parties are protected. Some of the more popular freelance sites are Guru, Get-A-Freelancer and Elance. A huge list of freelance sites is at FreelanceSwitch.
Another option if you do not want to write your own articles and do not want to use an article-writing service, is to use free articles available at online article directories, such as EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, Buzzle, GoArticles and others. A list of the top 50 article directories, complete with Alexa rating and Google page rank is at the Virtual Real Estate Toolbar site.
Authors post articles on nearly every topic and allow website owners, e-zine and newsletter publishers to use the content for free providing that it is not changed in any way. The author’s resource box must also be included with the article when it is published.
You will still need to do keyword research whether you write the article yourself or not. Selecting the proper keywords to draw traffic to your site is crucial. When researching keywords in your niche, look for words and phrases that have between 2500 and 7000 searches done each month and a low number of websites that appear in the search results.
The idea is to use a word or phrase that people are actually searching for, but that does not have a very good supply of information available in the search results. Your site has a much better chance of appearing on the first or second page of a search when you focus on this type of keyword.
Writing articles to use for marketing your business requires no professional training. If you are willing to take the time to learn how to write articles that people will find useful and search engines will index, it will be well-worth your time. However, if you just do not want to write articles yourself, then you can find an excellent ghostwriter from a writing service or freelance site. Either way, article marketing is a long-term strategy that you absolutely want to include in your marketing program.
Like this? For more information on how you can use article marketing to improve your business visit Deb’s site, MakingMoneyWithArticles.com. Be sure to grab your free gift while you’re there.
