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

10 Wordpress Plugins That Are Free and Powerful

Jessica Swanson, our official Shoestring Marketing Expert, helps you discover the top 10 most powerful, yet free plugins for your Wordpress.org blog or blogsite.

 

Watch more of Jessica's videos

Drop Down Menus on IdeaMarketers

I hope you're enjoying the new drop down menus on IdeaMarketers. The menu system we had was just way too overwhelming for the human eye, and I'm hoping the new one eases some of the information overload and allows you to find things easier on the site.

Drop me a note and let me know what you think. :)

New Year - New Look

It's a new year, so we're celebrating with a new look at IdeaMarketers.com. I've given the site a bit of a face lift which I hope will make it more professional and also easier to navigate. Besides the aesthetic differences, I also tweaked the code a little and the site should run a bit faster as a result. Drop me a note and let me know what you think.

Extending Article Bids

Per the suggestion of a writer, I just finished programming a function inside the writer accounts for writers to be able to extend existing bids. Up until now, the new system wouldn't let you bid on an article that already had a bid running on it. Now you have two choices.

1. You can extend the current bid amount on an article for up to 10 weeks longer.

2. If you want to start over with a new bid amount, you can do that too.

I don't recommend the second option unless your bid is about to expire anyway, because it will  cancel any time and money you have remaining on the existing bid and start over from the day you place the new bid. In other words, you forfeit any time and bid dollars remaining on the existing bid and the new amount and number of weeks starts counting from the day you place the new bid. To maximize the use of your advertising dollar, you'd be better off just waiting for the first bid to expire and then place the new bid.

Read articles in Spanish, Portuguese, French and more!

Now people who speak Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Italian can read articles in their own language on IdeaMarketers. Each article has a menu at the top where you may choose the language you'd like to read the article in. Here's an example article.

Things Just Got Easier at IdeaMarketers

We've recently streamlined our writer login area at www.IdeaMarketers.com so that it's easier to navigate and easier for you to place bids for promotion and proofreading requests. You can add funds to your account and then place bids for promotion and requests for proofreading using those funds - eliminating going to Paypal after every purchase. You may also place bids so that they last for several weeks at a time.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Add funds to your account. You may add any amount that fits your budget. But, if you add $60 or more at one time, you'll receive 20% in Bonus Dollars added to your account! So, for example, if you add $60 to your account, we'll add $12.00 (%20 of $60) in bonus dollars to your account, giving you a total of $72.00.

Step 2: Now that you have $72.00 in your account, you may use it however you wish. For example, you could place a $10.00 bid for 3 weeks on one article (total $30) and another $10 bid for 3 weeks on another article (total $30). Then you could have the second article proofread (for $12.00) totaling $72.00 ($30.00 + $30.00 + $12.00 proofreading). Oh, and another delicious benefit: when you place $100 or more in your account at once, you'll receive a complimentary 1.5 pound box of Dreamy Gourmet 4-Chip Fudge from MrPersonalChef.com!

Changes to Our Proofreading Option

We now offer a flat rate of $12.00 for proofreading of any article of 2,000 words or less. While we're no longer offering complimentary proofreading on higher bids, we're giving bonus dollars when you add $60 or more to your account at once. You may then use those bonus dollars for proofreading or bidding. To get started, log into your writer account and then you'll see an option for adding funds to your account.

Our Sweet August Winners!

We'd like to thank our top 8 U.S. contributors in August who will receive the "Sweet Reward" of a Cheesecake from Mr. Personal Chef are:

1. Amy Potavin
2. Willie Crawford
3. Rick Carbone
4. Kent Jacobson
5. Kathleen Gulrich
6. Stone Evans
7. Adam Beazley
8. Jay Jacobus

Even though we said non-US residents would be ineligible, we'd like to go ahead and award Fei Lim of Canada who was in the top 8 range. He will receive $50 in bid promotion dollars in lieu of a cheesecake since we can't ship cheesecakes outside the US.

Our Sweet August Promotion

Ready for a little "sweet success" that "takes the cake?"  You could be one of 8 fortunate individuals to receive a complimentary cheesecake from Mr. Personal Chef. My husband, Greg, is a personal chef, and he makes the best gourmet cheesecakes on the planet, even if I do say so myself.

So this month, I thought it would be fun to reward those who support our site by giving 8 individuals who contribute to IdeaMarketers one of his cheesecakes! Here's how it works. The top eight purchasers at www.IdeaMarketers.com from 8/8/06 through 8/31/06 will receive a complimentary large gourmet cheesecake (your choice of Citrus or Chocolate Truffle) from Mr. Personal Chef (A $49.90 value which includes shipping it straight to your door).  View the cheesecakes here.

We'll tally all the money spent on the site by each U.S. contributor (sorry, cheesecakes can only be shipped within the continental US). The top 8 contributors will receive a fre.e cheesecake. The following purchases qualify toward your total:

• Bids on articles or books (monthly or 7-day bids) 
• Writer Promotion   
• Proofreading Services 
• Article Submitter Software

The purchase(s) must be made and paid for between 8/8/06 and 8/31/06 to qualify. If you have any questions just let me know. Otherwise, let the sweet stuff begin! :)

Search Engine Tool - How Well Are Your Articles Doing?

As a follow up to my previous post on search engine positioning for articles, I've developed a cool tool for you that will help you quickly look up your articles on AOL, MSN, Google and Ask.com. To use it, just go log into your writer account. Then under "Article Administration" you'll see "Look up your articles on search engines." Select that and it will take you to a page that lists all your articles and gives you quick links for looking them up on search engines. There are also some tips on that page for getting better positioning. I hope you find this useful. Oh, and if you can't remember your login information, you may have it sent to you.

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! :)