Article Marketing & Online Marketing Strategies from IdeaMarketers - Where Your Ideas Shine

Insider Secrets to Self Publishing

I've just completed the transcript to the teleclass I gave a couple weeks ago. You may now download your copy of "Insider Secrets to Self-Publishing" at no charge. The class includes details on ebook vs print publishing, how to economically get your book to print, promoting your book once it's ready, and much more.
 

IdeaMarketers Helps You Promote Your Books

Have you written a book? Are you ready to let the world know about it? IdeaMarketers has made some exciting changes to help you do just that!

• We no longer require you to use Amazon links for your books. This means your book needn't be listed with Amazon to be listed on our site. It also means that if you'd prefer to send people to a page on your own web site to learn about your book you can.
• We're still offering no-charge listings for your books in our system. This puts them on your member profile, on your articles, and under the "Related Books" link that appears on articles.
• Now books are prominently promoted on the left-hand column of the IdeaMarketers home page and on the left-hand columns of the channel pages.
• You may bid for top placement of your books on our home page and channel pages. It works just like our article bidding system!

To add books to your account and/or bid for promotion:

• Go to http://www.ideamarketers.com/login.cfm and log into your writer account.
• On the main administration page for your writer account, scroll down until you see the "Promote Your Books" section.
• Click on Books. This will bring up a page where you may add new books, edit books or place bids on existing books.

If you have any questions or need help, just let me know. I hope you enjoy this exciting new benefit for writers!

BelieversAtWork Revamped to Help You Build Your Business

I've just remodeled www.BelieversAtWork.com to be a forum for Christians to promote their businesses, articles, books, teleclasses and more. Businesses don't have to be religious in nature to be listed. Categories run from Accounting to Web design and more. Basic listings are free. For those who want access to our library of ebooks and audio as well as bid dollars on IdeaMarketers, a newsletter builder with access to 59,000+ articles, and much more there are two affordable membership plans.

My logic behind this site is that success in business must first be founded on right thinking. So the site's library includes ebooks and audio like "7 Laws of Abundant Living" and "You Can't Fly If You're Still Clutching the Dirt," "Nothing Is Impossible for Those Who Believe," and "A Christian's Guide to Surviving a Home Business." Once your thinking is squared away, then it's time to roll up your sleeves and use article PR and ezines to get the word out about what you're doing. BelieversAtWork goes beyond rhetoric to practical application by gives you access to a suite of tools that deliver your message to the online world. To learn more about BelieversAtWork memberships, go here.

"Ready To Publish" Articles

Article PR has become such a popular form of self-promotion that literally hundreds, even thousands, of article directories have cropped up since IdeaMarketers first opened in late 1998. The frenzy for keyword positioning on Google (coupled with article submission tools) has flooded most directories with lower quality, keyword-packed articles. Generally speaking, IdeaMarketers has been able to maintain higher quality articles because we don't take mass submissions. This attracts higher caliber writers who are willing to take the time to submit to our site rather than mass marketers who are more likely to spam our site with junk articles.

While there are plenty of articles on the Web, the average webmaster or ezine publisher must wade through an article jungle full of weeds to find gems that are fit to print.

I'm happy to announce our solution to this ever-growing problem - a site with nothing but proofread content - ReadyToPublish.com! Every article on the site has been proofread by human beings and is ready to publish.

Here's how it works:

Writers can still submit articles to www.IdeaMarketers.com for free, but to have their articles featured on ReadyToPublish.com the articles must be proofread. Writers may either pay for proofreading or if they place a $30 bid for placement or higher, they automatically receive a complimentary proofreading. Only articles that have been proofread are listed on ReadyToPublish.com. The site is designed to offer webmasters and publishers of both online and print publications easy access to premium content.

To use any article on the site, use the "Request Reprint" link in the upper right of the article, fill out the form, and then your request will automatically be sent to the author for their approval. If you'd like access to 59,500+ articles (75% of which have been preauthorized by the authors and require no waiting for you to reprint), consider a subscription to one of our Publisher's Toolbox services.

To submit content to ReadyToPublish.com:

1. Sign up for a free writer account at IdeaMarketers.com.
2. Log in and post your article.
3. Order our proofing service or place at least a $30 bid for placement or higher and you'll receive a free proofing.
4. Your article will then display the ReadyToPublish logo on it at IdeaMarketers.com and will be included on ReadyToPublish.com.

How to Leverage Your Articles for Better Search Engine Positioning

As the creator of www.IdeaMarketers.com, I’ve noticed that many writers neglect to take full advantage of two important pieces of information when entering their articles into IdeaMarketers.com: the summary and the keywords.

Did you know that IdeaMarketers uses these two pieces of information in the meta tags for your article? That’s right! You have control over the meta tags on IdeaMarketers! Our programming takes your summary and uses it for the description tag and your keywords for the keywords tag. With this knowledge, you have power to influence your search engine positioning! Here’s how:

1. Choose relative keywords and phrases that you think people will enter on Google or other spidering engines. Use these same keywords or phrases in the body of your article to increase their pulling potency.
2. Write a summary that gives a good description of your article.
3. Write a title that’s catchy and will grab someone who is looking through search engine results. For tips on writing powerful titles, click here.
4. To maximize the potential of your article being noticed by search engine spiders, purchase a bid for placement high enough to put your article on the IdeaMarketers home page or at least on the channel pages. Spiders frequent IdeaMarketers because it is incredibly popular. When it sees your article on the home page, it knows it’s important! It will follow the link, pick up your tags and place your article in a prominent position on the search engines.

Please note that IdeaMarketers.com has no control over search engine positioning. We cannot guarantee positions. We are only going by data we’ve seen on existing articles and their positioning based on keywords they’ve selected. Remember that how high you come up on the search engines depends upon the popularity of the keywords or phrases you chose. If there’s lots of competition for the keywords you select, your article may get lost in a sea of links. Try to choose keyword phrases that are popularly searched, but aren’t popularly used by other marketers. Overture offers a free keyword search tool to help you search for keyword popularity.

Interview and Travel Update

I just got back in town from a much-needed mini-vacation to Utah with my husband, so that's why I haven't posted over the last few days. Before I went out of town, Aneeta Sundararaj of HowToTellAGreatStory.com conducted an interview with me. If you'd care to read it, it's in her ezine called Blow Your Own Trumpet.

During our trip, I had the opportunity to finally meet face-to-face with one of my favorite best-selling authors, Julie Coulter Bellon, who I'm privileged to have as my own personal book editor. Julie's also one of our talented editors at IdeaMarketers.com and a good friend.

We're both a little wind-blown here cause I almost forgot to get a picture with her and ran back to grab her as she was getting in her car. :)

Oh, and by the way, if you ever find mistakes in my blog, rest assured Julie hasn't proofread it and missed something. I save Julie and my other proofreaders for the important stuff - YOUR articles! :)