Top 20 Expert Authors Honor

November 14, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

Top 20 Expert Author Showcase Featuring Me At #5

My favorite article directory (Ezine Articles) has featured over 200 of their favorite expert authors in interviews on their EzineArticles blog. Recently they’ve identified 20 of their top experts from that list, and I am honored to say that I made the list at #5.

If you know anything about me, you know that I teach that articles are the foundation of any content based strategy or product and that when you get that right, you will grow a very visibile, engaged and profitable business. The easiest way to get started writing and publishing articles is to publish them to article directory Ezine Articles.

Even after the fallout of Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, where many article directories dropped in rankings, Ezine Articles still stands tall and in an elite class by itself with stats like this:

Alexa Traffic Rank: 374
Bounce Rate: 38%
Avg Pageviews: 5.3
Avg Time On Site: 6 minutes

As an author there myself, I continue to receive traffic from Ezine Articles — even from articles I wrote over five years ago. Nothing to sneeze at!

Here’s a snippet of the original author showcase interview I did with Ezine Articles:

Today’s Expert Author Case Study takes a look at the intelligent practices and positive results of Pennsylvania author Lisa Angelettie.

What sets you apart from other Expert Authors?

It is really important for me to write articles that truly teach the folks in my niche something useful. I don’t ever sit down to write just for the sake of publishing an article. It’s probably because I am a wife, mother, adult caregiver, dog mommy AND an avid reader. I’m busy and I assume the people in my marketplace are as well. So who has the time for article fluff? No one. It has to count!
What’s your secret to article writing and marketing success?

I think that the biggest key to my success as an article writer and marketer is that I have always written authentically and consistently.

In regards to authenticity, I always write my own articles, I always write the way that I speak and I always try to include information plus my point of view on the topic. I think including a solid point of view in your writing separates one author from another in the same niche.

In regards to consistency, I have made a commitment to myself and my business to write SOMETHING everyday. I can honestly say that it wasn’t until I made that decision, that article marketing truly rewarded me with tangible results that I could test, measure, rinse and repeat.

3. How do you stay motivated to write articles?

It’s not very difficult for me to stay motivated about strategies that work in my business, but there are days when I just want to lay like broccoli! So I try to motivate myself and my clients by looking at article writing and article marketing in the same way as I do personal care. Brush my teeth, take a shower, write an article. Then continue with the rest of my day! These aren’t especially exciting things to do, but we must do them everyday right?

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my original interview.

Why Do So Many Entrepreneurs Fail At Content Marketing & Article Marketing?

June 21, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

This is a frequently asked question from members of my community that I don’t think I’ve answered before on this site because it is such a “loaded” question. Yet I think that I’ve now worked with enough entrepreneurs and small business owners that I can answer this pretty confidently. So here it is…

Here are my top 5 reasons why so many entrepreneurs have trouble seeing results from their article & content marketing and what they (you too!) can do about it:

#1 – Analysis Paralysis

Many entrepreneurs do not succeed with article and content marketing because they get stuck on what to write about. If you aren’t creating content on a consistent basis, you will not see results — plain and simple. It should not take you 3 weeks to write a blog post and if it is taking you that long — then you need to see me! You are over thinking this whole content thing.

Here’s the key for consistent content creation: solve a problem! Quickly write out a list of 10, 25 or more of the problems your clients/customers typically face. Now write an article that solves that problem. Ta-da the end!

#2 – Unrealistic Expectations

I am notorious for “splashing cold water” on my clients by telling them to stop believing all this crap that many marketers are trying to sell. You cannot dominate your niche with content in a week or even a month. It takes consistency for a long period of time, but the payoff is totally worth it. Free traffic. More visibility. More influence. More authority.

#3 – No System In Place

Many fledgling article marketers typically wake up and decide at some point to write an article or shoot a video during their day, then they do not what to do with it OR they don’t create another one until the “mood” strikes. Things like this happen because entrepreneurs don’t have a system or a blueprint for what to write, when to write, where to publish, etc. in place. I use the Articology blueprint for article marketing in my business and the businesses of my clients. It really makes things a lot simpler when all the guessing has been taken out of the equation.

#4 – Not Using Enough Optimization

Okay, I’m not trying to frighten you with SEO talk but I’ve got to be honest here. One of the major ways that new traffic will find you is if they find your content through a typical organic search in Google, Yahoo or Bing. You cannot create an article or video with a “clever” title and think it will be found by people searching for information on the web. People don’t search for answers using clever words or analogies. They use everyday 5th grade language. Ex: “How do you fry chicken?” or “How can I lose weight?”

So it’s extremely important that you optimize your content for the search engines, otherwise known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I have tons of articles on SEO on this site, but if you need a tip right now: you should be writing titles for your content that contain keyword phrases that your clients/customers are searching for.

#5 – You’re Not Promoting Your Articles

I talk about article promotion a lot in Articology because it’s something not a lot of marketers or strategists are showing you. It’s not enough to publish an article and wait for the traffic to follow. You have to publish then promote that article. Tell people that it’s out there. Shout it out! Guide them with a link.

Let people know what problem you are solving for them today and where they can find the answer and they will RUN to your content, like it, tweet it, share it, etc.

Conclusion

Content marketing and article marketing work. In fact, all the six or seven figure entrepreneurs I know online ALL use content marketing in their businesses. Avoid these 5 stumbling blocks and you’re already way ahead of the game!

How My Blog Traffic Increased by 33%

March 4, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 9 Comments

One of the major ways that you can and you should be attracting more clients and customers is by leveraging the power of the web. Ultimately what that means, is that you should be taking advantage of the free traffic that the search engines will send you when you give them what they want–content.

How I Increased My Blog Traffic By 33%

On February 13th I got the highest amount of traffic ever on my site and most of it was due to several articles I had written over two years ago on February and Valentine’s Day related article ideas. I saw similar results last year, but this year the increase was even higher probably because Google has ranked those articles pretty high for me with related keywords.

For instance, if someone is searching specifically for Valentine’s Day Article Ideas, they will find that two of my articles on this site come up in positions #1 and #2 in Google out of over 49 million results!

Keep in mind that I wrote these articles two years ago — nothing this year around this topic because I was busy promoting Articology. So my point here is that the real key to consistent traffic that will only get better as long as it still is relevant is to just do it! Create it, publish it, rinse and repeat. And realize that you will reap rewards from your efforts immediately when you push your content out in social media AND for years to come as the search engines rank your content higher and higher in a search like the above example.

You can replicate these types of results as well when you follow a few simple rules:

Do Proper Keyword Research
I didn’t accidentally come across the term valentine’s day article ideas. I did my research and knew that there was a select group of people searching this topic using these keywords. So I made sure that I wrote optimized articles around them. I talk about this a lot in my article marketing training program Articology.

Keep Stacking Content
It’s important that you continually publish content to your blog. Not only to keep things fresh for your clients, but for the search engines, who will rank your older content based on how relevant you continue to be with your new content. Simply put, if I hadn’t continued to build my site and stack it with relevant content, I doubt that those articles would hold the #1 and #2 positions. They would get ranked, but probably not that highly.

Keep Sharing Your Content
One thing that I did do differently this year, was to casually remind people through my ezine and social media that if they needed article ideas for February or Valentine’s day that I had a few articles around that topic. I really think that this helped my traffic rise for not only the 13th but the entire month of February. Remember that while you are always sharing new content, it’s important that you remind folks of all your great older content found deep inside your site.

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize
Remember that content marketing is a long-term marketing strategy. It serves as the foundation for your business and you should ALWAYS be doing something content related in your business. This is not a quick fix strategy. Once you adjust your mindset around that fact, you will do the work necessary to see REAL results like mine as you grow your business.

Are You Going To Hit It & Quit It?

I want you to stop thinking about the pursuit of search engine traffic as a one hit wonder, a one night stand, or a quick fix. Sure there are a lot of marketers out there trying to sell you WordPress plugins, software, and “systems” that will assure you a HUGE avalanche of traffic (can you hear me being sarcastic?), but the truth of the matter is that I am not here for a quickie. I’m in it for the long haul. I can stay committed. I am faithful. I want a long term partner and therefore long term results. That is why I consistently feed the search engines what they want:

Content that is original
There is little tolerance for duplicate content by the search engines and rehashed content by readers. The search engines are getting smarter and smarter each day to all the duplicate content tricks, PLR mess, etc. and the readers are getting a little sick and tired of reading something they know that they’ve read somewhere else. Be original.

Content that is high quality and useful
I’m going to be totally transparent here. There are definitely days where I have written articles that I just wanted to get done and rushed it. Or there were articles I’ve written where I didn’t really have a lot to say and perhaps should of saved them to include in a more meaty article — but I didn’t. Ultimately I will pay the price for those so-so articles because people won’t read them or they certainly won’t convert. Not when there is a higher level of content out there on my topic. Now I’m not putting a word count on that content – I’m putting a quality meter on it. If it’s highly informative or entertaining, then publish it. If it’s not really something that you would read yourself, forget it, and go back to the drawing board.

Content that is shared with others
This is a relatively new concept for many business owners but it makes perfect sense. The quality level of any piece of content can generally be judged by how many people share it with others. Think about an article you shared with someone recently. Or a video you “liked” or “tweeted”. If you’re not totally sold on social media yet, think of “old school” sharing. Comments. Or reviews (like Amazon). Anything that gives your content the thumbs up or the seal of approval is of great importance to the search engines and helps them determine where they will rank your content. For example, if you’ve enjoyed this article, I’d really appreciate it if you would comment, Tweet it, share it on Facebook, or give it a G+.

Your Turn!
What strategies have you used to increase your blog traffic this year? What are your trying? What’s working for you? What isn’t?

Are You Writing Articles That Attract Your Ideal Clients?

January 18, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

About two years ago, I worked with a client who wanted help with positioning himself as a go-to authority in his industry. He initially found me through an article I had written somewhere (as most of my clients do) and wanted me to basically perform miracles for him. Okay — I’m a miracle worker sometimes (dusting off my shoulders:), so I took on the challenge.

My first job was to take a look at his business and one of the first things that I took inventory of was the types of content he had created and in particular if he was creating content that resonated with his ideal clients. He wasn’t, and at first, he didn’t get it. He would occasionally write articles and publish them, but never with any purpose or rather enough purpose. Never strategically. He really just wrote what he thought was important for his ideal clients to know, titled them what he wanted, and waited for them to come. They didn’t come.

And that’s my point here.

If you are going to spend your valuable time creating content such as articles, wouldn’t you like to make sure that they are working hard for you, and pulling more of your ideal clients towards you? Of course you do!

So here are a few points you should consider when sitting down to write an article this week. Think about your ideal client during this entire exercise – not yourself:

1. What is the point of this article? Is it to entertain your ideal clients? Am I solving a huge challenge for them?

2. Did I write this in a way that my ideal clients can understand and relate to? Am I using language that they use or am I talking above their heads or to the lowest common denominator.

3. Have previous clients asked you about this topic? That’s always a good indication that you will attract more ideal clients with content designed around the same topic.

4. Are you publishing the articles places where your ideal clients visit? Why are you guest posting at a home business site if your ideal clients are frustrated and burned out CEO’s?

The key to filling your business with not just clients, but clients that you LOVE working with, is to ensure that you know who those ideal clients really are and that you create content that they are looking for. I’ll be talking more about how to create client attracting content like this in my upcoming teleclass, “The 5 Biggest Shifts You Must Make When Writing, Publishing & Marketing Articles That Attract Clients!” . Register right now!

Are Your Pages Panda Protected?

January 5, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

Are The Pages On Your Website Protected From Google’s Panda Smack Down?

Updated: March 2012

I’ve written before about how a lot of shifts occurred on the web after Google’s latest search engine algorithm tweak. Sites that use to dominate the search engines were hurt pretty badly by what is fondly known in the seo world as Google’s “PANDA” updates.

What Was The Point of Google’s Panda Update?

To take a serious chunk out of duplicate content on the web and unnatural link building. Now if you follow any of my work at all, then I know that duplicate content isn’t even an issue you for you – right:) Great! But you do have to make sure that no one has ripped you off and scraped some of your content and published it to some junky adsense blog.

So this is what I need you to ask yourself:

Do my articles/pages contain unique, detailed, grammatically-correct content that is not plagiarized or reprinted elsewhere?

Not so sure? Then I’d like you to occasionally run some of your more popular articles on your site (ones that were heavily shared in social media or commented on) through a duplicate content tool like Copyscape and make sure that your content is unique and Panda Strong!

While I would not recommend doing this for every article you publish, because who has the time for that, just running one of your more stronger articles every once in a while will give you sense of whether or not your content is being swiped and published, thereby possibly indirectly affecting your ranking with Google.

Do my website statistics reveal a major dip that I have not recovered from?

Take a look at your website statistics. If you see a major dip in traffic for a specific month, for the entire month, then you may have suffered a rolling Panda update. Google continues to do them although we cannot really anticipate when they will be. So you just have to pay attention. If you do notice a sizable drop in traffic (like 40 or 50%) — don’t panic. More than likely you have been hit because of some bad backlinking.

Troubleshooting Backlinking Disasters

Anyone can suffer from a backlinking disaster because for one — you don’t have control over who links to you. Yet if you find that your Google traffic has seriously dropped and you run a high content, high quality website then more than likely there is a site that Google doesn’t like that is linking to you. Make sure you take a look at any questionable backlinking you’ve done lately. Backlinks that were paid for. WordPress plugins that troll for comment backlinks, etc. You should eliminate any quick fix backlinking strategy, because chances are it’s what’s putting you in the mouth of the Panda!

I talk a lot more in detail about how to protect your content in my article marketing program Articology, but implementing today’s Panda related tips will give you a really good head start. Please make sure to share this tip (if you liked it:) with others by liking it on Facebook, tweeting it to your followers, sharing it on LinkedIn, and of course giving it the big G+.

Ezine Articles New Guidelines

October 6, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

Ezine Articles Revamps Writing Guidelines

One of the article directories that I always promote here on my site is EzineArticles and that is primarily for the fact that is truly the most human reviewed directory out there — which I love because there is a level of quality on the site that is not found anywhere else — BUT that also leads to problems for many new article marketers — Their articles get kicked back.

If you’ve ever had an article or are worried about article submission to EzineArticles, then I think you’ll be glad to know that they’ve revised their old writer’s guidelines. They haven’t changed much, BUT they have rewritten them to further explain what you should and should not include in your articles to ensure that they are approved in a speedy manner.

Here’s the new Editorial Guidelines breakdown:

Content Qualifications – As an introduction to the Editorial Guidelines, the Content Qualifications sections discusses how to keep your articles unique and informative, which in turn builds your credibility and a loyal audience.

Article Content – This section provides all the do’s and don’ts while writing the content of your articles.

Author Name – Your author name is an essential extension of your brand. These guidelines will help you in branding as well as choosing pen names and managing ghostwriters.

Format – Providing do’s and don’ts of article titles, optimizing your article body, how to use keywords naturally, tips for your resource box, as well as link strategies, the Format guidelines ensure you don’t let one bit of your article go to waste.

Article Spinning Software Finally Evolves!

September 14, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 7 Comments

Article Spinning Software Finally Evolves!

As someone that teaches entrepreneurs how to write and publish their own compelling content, I have to make it my business to try every service and software product on the market, and during my quest I have never found a great article spinning software.

At the end of the day, they ALL produced articles that sounded unnatural, and that ruined my marketing message and my professional image. OR the rewriting process literally took me over an hour to complete and in the same time I could have rewritten the article myself. I never want unintelligible junk on the web with my name attached and I don’t want my virtual assistant or myself to spend hours out of our day trying to spin and submit one stinking article. Not smart.

So imagine my surprise when a nice guy named Aaron pleasantly contacted me from Spin Rewriter to let me know about his new article spinning software. Okay, so in the back of my mind, I totally believed that this software would just be another one of those programs or services that I would never use — but I was wrong.

There is a detailed list of benefits that makes this software phenomenal which I will list in a minute, but the bottom line if you are a bottom line type of person is that this software does what ALL the others can’t.

1. It will take your article and create many unique versions that are grammatically correct and still sound like you wrote them.

2. You will have dozens or even hundreds of articles for submission to directories, blog networks, 3rd party sites, etc. that you can comfortably submit knowing that they won’t get kicked back for duplicate content issues or grammatical & sentence structure problems.

3. You can do all of this literally with ONE click. I spun one of my articles into hundreds of highly unique (89%) articles in less than five minutes. Seriously

Why You Should Use Spin Rewriter Article Spinner(according to them):

Great benefits right? But again if I’m going to bottom line it here, being able to create hundreds of unique pages across the web will:

1. Create more backlinks to your site

2. Makes your site more important to search engine eyes

3. Then Google will rank your site higher in the search engine results

4. Which means you get more traffic

5. Which means you’ll build a bigger list and generate more income

Is that motivation enough? It was for me:) FINALLY — I’m all in!
Here’s the link: ==> Spin Rewriter

How To Get #1 Search Engine Rankings Using The Google Mindset

September 4, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 2 Comments

Getting Into The Google Mindset

It is no secret that writing high quality articles is my #1 traffic generator and list building strategy for ALL of my websites. In fact, writing good articles is an advantage that many coaches and consultants have because many of us are “natural writers“. We have a message and we want to help people with some sort of problem, so we have a lot of content already spilling out of us. We’ve just got to get it all down and spread to prospects in a BIG way. One of the best ways I have found to get my message out to thousands of people is by taking advantage of the search engine powerhouse Google.

Google has been sending me oodles of free traffic to my main and niche websites for many years. In fact, I have held the #1 position for over a 100 of my keywords for over seven years! That’s seven years of Google updates and Google slaps. Seven years of the ups and downs of marketing trends. And the reason why my #1 positions have never waivered is because I have always chosen to have the Google mindset when writing my articles.

For me, the Google mindset means to write my articles with my readers needs #1 and the search engine’s criteria #2. That’s really what Google honchos want from us as webmasters and that should be what we want for our businesses too. First, we need to serve our clients. And then we need to make sure that we can do it in a BIG way, so that means we should write using good search engine etiquette.

So What Is The Google Mindset?

Not too long ago there was an article published on the Google webmaster site about how Google identifies a high quality article and a high quality site. While they were not going to reveal their secret algorithms for ranking content, they did give webmasters a LOT of insight on the questions that they ask when they evaluate a piece of content (and how we should evaluate our own content as well). Here they are:

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
9. How much quality control is done on content?
10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?
11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Why Getting Into The Google Mindset Is Critical Right Now

If you hadn’t heard, Google has been implementing Google Panda which is a long-term algorithmic shift that has involved several updates. The first update, Panda 1.0, rolled out in February and has been followed by several more, all of which have affected a growing number of sites. The updates, as of this writing, include:

Panda 2.4 on August 12th.
Panda 2.3 on July 27th or so.
Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
Panda 1.0 on February 24th

It is more important than ever to get into the Google mindset for writing high-quality articles and content for two reasons. One — you don’t want these updates to affect your site, your articles, and their ranking. You want to stay where you are or rank even higher for your keyword terms. Two — you want to be ready to step into the place of some of your competitors who were affected by this update or who will be very shortly. As some of your competitiors fall in the rankings for certain terms, that leaves room for entrepreneurs with the Google Mindset to step up and take your rightful position of #1 !

If you’re ready to learn more about the Google Mindset and how to write articles that Google loves for more guaranteed search engine traffic and #1 Google positions, go to: Writing Articles That Google Loves! to download my special report with bonus step by step checklist where I spell it all out for you in easy, simple, steps.

In less than 30 minutes you’ll be a Google ninja!

Top 20 Expert Authors Honor

Top 20 Expert Author Showcase Featuring Me At #5

Here’s a snippet of the original author showcase interview I did with Ezine Articles:

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my original interview.

Why Do So Many Entrepreneurs Fail At Content Marketing & Article Marketing?

Here are my top 5 reasons why so many entrepreneurs have trouble seeing results from their article & content marketing and what they (you too!) can do about it:

#1 – Analysis Paralysis

#2 – Unrealistic Expectations

#3 – No System In Place

#4 – Not Using Enough Optimization

#5 – You’re Not Promoting Your Articles

Conclusion

Are You Writing Articles That Attract Your Ideal Clients?

Are Your Pages Panda Protected?

Are The Pages On Your Website Protected From Google’s Panda Smack Down?

What Was The Point of Google’s Panda Update?

Do my articles/pages contain unique, detailed, grammatically-correct content that is not plagiarized or reprinted elsewhere?

Do my website statistics reveal a major dip that I have not recovered from?

Troubleshooting Backlinking Disasters

Ezine Articles New Guidelines

Ezine Articles Revamps Writing Guidelines

Article Spinning Software Finally Evolves!

Article Spinning Software Finally Evolves!

Why You Should Use Spin Rewriter Article Spinner(according to them):

How To Get #1 Search Engine Rankings Using The Google Mindset

Getting Into The Google Mindset

So What Is The Google Mindset?

Why Getting Into The Google Mindset Is Critical Right Now

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