Do Not Quote The Associated Press

One of the reasons why I teach my Articology article marketing system is to teach people how to write effective articles without having to resort to plagiarism. And this is the reason why… The Associated Press just put the word out that they are going to start charging people $2.50 per word for quoting their stories — even if you add a link to the original AP story.

Say WHAT!!! You heard me right.

Evidently this is in an effort to stop bloggers from basically swiping their stories and adding a link to them at the end (which no one will click since they already have the information). It’s basically theft. And they aren’t putting up with it anymore. Solution: Now I know that many of you get your ideas for blog content and articles from the AP wire. So basically you need to read the story once, don’t look at it again, and then re-write it in your own words using your own "voice". Avoid linking to them since you will be using your own words — but if you feel so inclined, you can add them as a (*source) for your articles and posts — just be darn sure that you haven’t written your story using their words.

AP, associated press, plagiarism

Share

**********************************************************************
New to the site? Don't Miss Out On New Article Ideas!
Subscribe to our RSS Feed or our email list, so that you don't miss out on great article-income building tips from Lisa Angelettie! Thanks for visiting!
**********************************************************************

Signed Up For Articology Yet?

Have you signed up for Articology yet?

The spots are filling up as we speak. If you are ready to stop thinking about driving tons of new traffic to your site and start doing something about it — then article marketing is by far the smartest way to go.

Learn more about Articology at: http://Articology.com

Share

Ezine Queen’s Last Seminar Ever!

Alexandria Brown also known as the Ezine Queen is a genius marketing coach. Unlike many of the typical “gurus” online - she oozes personality and meaning in her coaching, products, and workshops. I’ve been privileged to have received the benefits of all three of these — which helped catapult my business into a money-maker instead of a “hobby”:)

This all started when I first turned to her to build a better ezine. She is the expert on this topic and unfortunately she is going to be hosting her LAST free teleseminars EVER on ezines, March 25 & 27. Don’t miss this! Last I heard today, she had over 4000 people sign up for the calls!

Sign up now at: Ezine Queen Teleseminars

alexandria brown, ali brown, ezine, ezine marketing, ezine queen, newsletter, publishing

Share

When Someone Scrapes Your Blog

If someone scrapes your blog, it means that a very lazy person out there is stealing content from your blog and pasting it in theres to create the illusion of original content. Most of these people build blogs around various popular topics, scrape blogs for content, and profit through adsense and other monetization options.

It use to be that scrapers only stole content from the big bloggers. But now that’s getting a little too dangerous for them to do, so it’s much easier to steal from the smaller blogger who may not even know how to check to see if someone is stealing their content. This could be you!

Now, when someone scrapes your blog…

1. You may feel helpless and angry and want to call the copyright office, but that’s not the right protocol nor the way to get matters resolved quickly. Trust me - I’ve been through it.

2. The first step is a simple one and that is to contact the owner or webmaster of the blog usually by email. And give them the url of the content they scraped and the original url of where they can find your content. Make mention to them that they have used your content without your consent and you would like them to take it down within 24 hours. If you can get a hold of someone, this step is usually the last step. Most people will take it down fast. End of story. But if not…

3. The second step would be to contact them again if you haven’t heard from them via snail mail, telephone, etc.

4. The third step if you haven’t been satisfied is to contact the webhost and/or domain host of the site which has a responsibility to help you seek a resolution. You can check this by using the WhoIs database through GoDaddy.com. Just plug in the domain name and after it says that the domain is already taken - there will be a link next to it that you can click on which says “click here for info”. Click on that and you can usually find the owner’s name and contact information for the site.

Remember that anything you write on your blog that is your original content is protected under the copyright laws of the U.S. So you are in your full rights to pursue this course of action.

*Also if you own a blog powered by wordpress (like this one) or a blog which is actually on wordpress.com (a free one), then your rights and how you pursue copyright infringement can be a little different depending on which one you own. Learn more about wordpress content theft at Lorelle’s blog.

blog scraping, content theft, copyright infringement, wordpress

Share

Do You Write Enough Blog Posts?

I am currently in the middle of a marketing training program (all of you should be investing in continued education by the way:) which brought up a great point about blogging. It talked about how to make any sort of significant impact in your niche - you have to write a blog post every diggity day.

Take a look at the top blogs in your niche - do they write blogs posts everyday? But the part that resonated with me about it - was the fact that they explained how writing regularly trains the search engines to search and spider your content on a regular basis. Getting you quicker placement in the search engine rankings for your blog posts and keywords in those posts. Don’t you just love that? Does that mean that you have to write 500 word articles everyday? Uh, no. But it does mean that you need to be passionate about your topic and dedicated to the success of your blog to make it happen.

Remember you can blog about news in your niche, product reviews, things going on with you personally, updates on your current projects, etc. So I’m up for the challenge. Let’s see if we can all post a bit more frequently. While I am not fully committed to 7 days a week (hey, I have 3 kids, a dog, a fish, and a husband:), I will commit to 5. Okay, well I set the intention…how about you?

blogging, writers block

Share

Attract Tons of Traffic With The Magic Bullet Article!

In Articology, I discuss in detail on how to write something I like to call "The Magic Bullet Article". These type of articles are traffic magnents! And while they cannot be the only kind of article that you write, you should write some of these regularly for your business. For instance, two HOT stories right now in the media are the 2008 election and the recent break-down of Britney Spears.

Find a way to incorporate one of those topics into an article, give it a great title, and make sure you tag it appropriately — and you should have a traffic winner! I know this works - because whenever I take a look at my stats for the articles I have written and submitted somewhere - I get great results for most of my articles - but I get almost 5x the traffic for my magic bullet articles. Why not write these all the time then? Well, then you would be more of a current events writer or feature writer and not really an expert in your niche. Plus, there’s a few more good reasons why I talk about in the program. Bottom line - find something current and hot to talk about. Find a way to attach it to your business, and write about it NOW!

article marketing, britney spears, magic bullet article, writing

Share

Should I Send Text or HTML Emails?

Isn’t this the age-old email, ezine, newsletter question of all time? Email is the life-blood of most online businesses. Sure we have RSS feeds, social networking, etc. - but at the end of the day, all of us should be asking the permission to continue contact via email of every visitor to our site(s). Period.

So how should you get your message out - effectively every time? Well, there was the theory that we should just send everything out via text because it was sure to get through the spam filters and many people do not have the capability of viewing html emails.

Then there was the case for html’s power to get the emails opened and read. They are attractive and compelling - just not as boring as the dozens of text emails we receive each day.

So now this is the new theory - really not so new:) - and that is to send out your newsletters in both text and html format for each issue. This way you are covering your bases. Those who can only view text emails or choose to only view text emails - will see your text email. Others who prefer html - will get your html version. This gives your subscribers the power to make the decision how they read your newsletter - and not you giving them only one option.

*HINT - There are many newsletter/autoresponder services out there which may give you the option of a text or html message, but pay close attention to the details.

There are some that can generate a text message out of your html message automatically - which is a nice feature.

There are others which can have you post both versions - and will send both versions. So your subscribers will get two emails with the same content. (That one annoys me. I use to have that option with my old service.)

Or you can have the option of sending both text and html versions - but the subscriber will only see the version they have set up on default. For example, I have set up my Apple Mail to always read html messages. I prefer them. So when I send a test email to myself - that is the only version I see. Others will only see the text version - never both. This is a really cool feature I use over at aweber.

Bottom line - take the extra step or the extra few minutes and send out both text and html versions to ensure deliverability. Remember that building relationships with your members/ readers is at the core of creating a buzzed about business!

email marketing, spam filters, text message

Share

How To Write For High-Traffic Information Sites To Build Buzz

I have tried many different things to build a buzz around my name and my websites, since I started online years ago.

There are things that failed miserably - and then there were things that really worked. One of them was taking strategic editorial positions at high-traffic online information sites.

I started out at Bellaonline as a home finance editor to get in the door, then I moved over to my specialties when the openings were available - in mental health and depression. Now because of a ton of other commitments, I only write and edit one department - which is Depression.

I have gained tremendous exposure and traffic to all of my other sites, because I have written and continue to write for a high-traffic and reputable website. I get the best of both worlds at Bellaonline - which include credibility and visibility. Plus I get to write about a topic I’m very passionate about:) Just make sure you carefully choose the site that you write for — and don’t commit yourself to something that would take a huge amount of time away from your own business.

1. Look for traffic ranking (get an idea over at alexa.com)

2. Look at google pageranking for the site

3. Look at the process for applying to become a writer

4. See if you get to split or keep 100% of the affiliate income made

with your articles

5. Check the forums out at these sites and see if people are visiting

and connecting with each other. Another good “traffic” sign for you.

If you’re ready to take the plunge, take a look at available topics over at the Bellaonline site now and see if any would tie in with your existing business. Other sites you may want to consider include allexperts, about, ivillage, sheknows, and soon I will be accepting writers over at my advice & counseling site - GirlShrink. (I’ll let you know when that happens.)

credibility, writing

Share

Writers Block When Blogging

I get quite a few emails about new bloggers (and old:) getting stuck with writers block when it comes to adding new content to their blogs.

I think a lot of that is based on the fact that it is necessary to post often to gain decent exposure for your blog — and some of us just weren’t born chatterboxes!

Well - I have a few ideas for you that I have worked for me and few of my clients. They aren’t rocket science — but they are probably things that you may take for granted or forget about.

1. Blog when listening to music. Believe it or not - the right music can instantly lift a person’s mood and creativity (we also recommend this in psychotherapy:). You will be amazed at how the creative portion of your brain will kick in when you remember to turn on the itunes, ipod, cd or radio.

2. Remember that just because you know your topic backwards and forwards, doesn’t mean that your readers do. In fact, if they are even bothering reading your stuff at all –they are interested in either your information or your opinion on your information. So if it’s related to your topic - write about it.

3. Use google alerts. All you have to do is put keywords related to your topic or perhaps another expert’s name in the google alerts tool and you will start to get email alerts on what is new in blogs, the news, or other web pages on that keyword. You will get a ton of ideas from using this tool.

4. Write an opinion piece. Some bloggers get trapped with only writing about “information” or “news”. But what brings readers back is your particular writer’s “voice”.

5. Write about new things you are trying with your business while you are trying them. Don’t wait to see the end result. Readers will want to follow the results.

Have any ideas on beating blogger writers’ block? Please share:)

Google, writers block

Share

Why You Should Submit Your Articles To Newsvine

There are oodles of websites out there that you could submit your articles to. You can find many of them included in the article submission software products on the market. Or you could simply do a google search for places to submit to. The question always is though –what websites are WORTH submitting to?

Fortunately, I have done a lot of research on this over the years, and I make it my business to stay as current as possible on what websites should be included in my article marketing master list and which ones may have fallen out of grace.

One site which I think is worth the trouble is Newsvine.com — I like this particular site for a few reasons:

1. The pagerank of this site is great. PR7. It would be great to have articles deep linking to several different pages on your website from here. Remember - the better your pagerank - the more likely your articles and site will show higher in search engine results under your keywords.
2. The site allows you to recommend existing articles - much like Digg. BUT it also allows you to submit your own original content directly to the site - much like an article directory. In fact, you can create your own news column which could point to both existing and new articles.

3. You will find a great mixture of topics and top stories on this website. You really don’t see domination of one genre. You may find a hard news story about the war in Iraq and a story on better SEO tactics in the top 5 stories of the day.

4. There are also groups to join or you could create your own group based on your topic. And unlike some of the other web 2.0 sites, these groups seem to be really active, which means more exposure for you.

I highly recommend using Newsvine in your article marketing campaign. But remember, that you need to use Newsvine “naturally”, like all the other news sites you may submit articles to. Which means submitting other articles and blog posts which you have found helpful or interesting - along with your own content. Do both - and you will do fabulously!

In fact, you can start now by naturally linking to this post by clicking on the link below. It will give you a chance to start looking around and getting familiar with the process of seeding links you like - as well as your own content. Have fun!

Seed Newsvine

article marketing, article submission, news sites, pagerank, submit articles

Share

Next Page »