Lisa Angelettie

Bestselling Amazon Author

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Can I Submit Same Articles To EzineArticles & Blog?

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Can I Submit The Same Articles To EzineArticles & Blog?

I guarantee you that someone asks me this question every week, no matter how many articles I write about it. So I thought I’d feature it as one of my frequently asked questions this week. Plus, it sort of ties in with my whole Google theme this week.

Q: Lisa, one of the problems I am having is that I want to use EzineArticles to promote my articles as well as my own website. Can I use the same articles that I write for EzineArticles on my website?

A: I am a big believer in repurposing articles – so my answer is yes – but with a few caveats. First of all, I need to know where you are in your business. If you are just starting out, then I definitely recommend getting some momentum going by publishing articles to EzineArticles as well as your blog.

Don’t worry about duplicate content, etc. right now. EzineArticle’s WordPress plugin will help carry this out even faster. After you’ve published the article to your site, you can publish it as is to EzineARticles throught the plugin OR you can make a few changes tot he article and then publish it to EzineArticles via the plugin.

If you are in the middle of your business, meaning that you are generating some income and have been building a list for a while, then your site/blog has probably gained some traction on the web. You are appearing in the search engines, but now it’s time to really take your optimization a little more seriously. Duplicate content starts to matter to the established webpreneur.

Now when you submit your blog articles to EzineArticles or vice-versa you need to make sure that you change the article enough that it looks like a different article to Google. This is actually much more important now than it use to be due to Google’s latest algorithm update. Sites like EzineArticles took a hit because too many websites had identical articles to the ones on their site.

Ways to make sure your articles are different are to rewrite them (which I do) or use article spinning software. An article submission service that also offers a high quality article spinning service is SubmitYourArticle.

Bonus Tip!
Also, writing unique articles will be easy for EzineArticles and your blog because you should be using links to related resources/content in your blog articles. On the other hand, you cannot add links to your EzineArticles articles (or at least only one in the body of the article) the other links are only allowed in your resource box. Having an article with no links vs. one with links helps create two distinct articles that the search engines will view as different and unique.

 

 

Ghostwriting Services

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Should You Use Ghostwriting Services?

If you have read any of my articles over the years, you know that I am a firm believer in writing jobs entrepreneurs, especially solopreneurs, writing their own articles and content. I believe that you lose a level of authenticity and unique voice when you allow someone else to write content for you. Especially when it is content that is suppose to represent you in your marketplace.

I know in this age of “outsourcing” madness, a lot of professionals would disagree with me, but I can assure you that among your competition, your marketing message is what is going to set you apart from the rest. And it’s not about how well you dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s. It’s more about if what you say in article after article resonates with the reader. Do you stand out? Do you have something different to say? Or do you say it in a unique way?

Having said that, I rather you write SOMETHING then fall prey to perfection paralysis and write nothing because you don’t think that you can write. If you don’t think my beginner’s article marketing training course would work for you — then and only then would I advise you consider looking into ghostwriting services.

What Is A Ghostwriter?

A ghostwriter is a writer who writes articles, reports, and even books for you – under your author name. Ghostwriters are not given any credit. They are paid for a service and you take all the glory. Yet that is why most “good” ghostwriters are paid well. It’s not an easy job.

Sure they have experience writing, but they have to be able to work well with you, and be able to give your vision life in ink.

How Do I Find Ghostwriting Services?

There is some criteria you want to consider when selecting ghostwriting services:

First – You want to make sure that you don’t just select someone based on price point. There are people out there who say they will ghostwrite articles for you for 99 cents an article, but you will get what you pay for. I have tested out that theory from several reputable freelance sites and received inferior writing. So be willing to pay several dollars per article. The ghostwriter has to research your topic, add related info if necessary, and then write the article based on your specifications.

Second – Try to get a referral. If you are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or you are an active member of some sort of writing or marketing forum – ask for a referral. There are many people that have worked with ghostwriters and would be willing to give you a referral and direct you to a sample of that person’s work. You’d be amazed what kind of information you can get if you just ask. If you don’t get at least 5 referrals from just asking on major social media outlets like those – then I’d be amazed.

*Side note – Going to writer’s forums are a great idea because there are oodles of writers looking to make extra money.

Third – Be willing to try a few writers out at first. Ghostwriting use to be a very niche profession, but with the development of the web and so many freelancing websites out there, anyone can say that they are a ghostwriter for hire. So you have to be willing to go into this knowing that you may have to try a few writers out at first until you find someone who really “gets” the type of content you want to produce for your community.

Fourth – Know what you want. A ghostwriter is not a mind reader. You have to be very sure about what you want from him/her in order for writing project to be successful. Things like: word count, topic, keyword terms, links, style of writing (corporate, fun, storytelling, how-to, etc.)

Fifth – If you are working with an unknown ghostwriter, make it clear that you will be running their articles should be able to pass the copyscape test – and be 100% original work. You would think it would be pretty self-explanatory, but you need to put it out there so that everything is crystal clear. Many writers will steal content to write your articles out of shear laziness, so it’s a good idea that you do really check: http://copyscape.com

Sixth – A good place to start posting your ghostwriting jobs is: http://www.freelancer.com/projects/by-job/Ghostwriting.html

You can also always go to the other well-known freelance sites and try your luck with them: Elance, Guru, Craigslist, etc.

Lastly, you can do a google search for “ghostwriting” “ghostwriting services” or “ghostwriters” and see who pops up. Take a look out their sites and samples of their work. Truthfully if someone has taken the time to set up a site and samples of their work – I may try them out before I hire someone off of a freelance site.

Conclusion

As time marches on and people find this article on the web, it would be great to get a list of ghostwriting service referrals going for folks to check out. So if you are a ghostwriter or worked with one that you thought did an excellent job, go ahead and list them in the comment section below.

Article Rewriter – Does It Work?

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Article Rewriter – Does article rewriter and article spinner software work?

Q: Hey Lisa, just wondering what your thoughts are on article rewriter software and article spinner software? I’m wondering how I can produce more unique articles in less time and thought that this would be a good strategy. I see them being advertised all over, but wanted to know if you use them.

A: While I enjoy writing, I am always looking for a way to produce more in less time too. Article marketing is a numbers game for sure – so it makes sense to look for short cuts. The reality of those short cuts though is that they are either  just plain crappy and create unnatural articles that no real person would read OR they take forever to use. You could probably write 3 new articles in the same time it takes to “rewrite or spin” an old article.

So when people ask me for a referral for article rewriter software, I typically don’t have any except for one service that I use myself, and that’s SubmitYourArticle. The reason why I prefer them is that their article rewriter is pretty fast to use (after you get past the short learning curve) and they publish your articles to high quality and high impact sites and newsletters. They’ve been around a long time, so they’ve established good connections with publishers. Many of these new article rewriter softwares and services cost you a lot of time spinning the articles and more time submitting those spun articles to no-ranked, low-trafficked blog networks.

My final thoughts on the matter are that I rather you submit your own unique articles to directories and 3rd party blogs, but if you must use an article rewriter then SYA is the way to go.

Submit Your Article

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Submit Your Article

This isn’t quite a review. It’s more of a overdue recommendation I think, because one of the most frequently asked questions I am asked by clients as well as visitors to my sites is “Is there an article marketing submission software you recommend?” Let’s face it, article marketing is a numbers game AND the more short cuts we can use to expose our content to the largest number of people is a high priority on the article marketer’s list. I have kept quiet for many years, and would randomly give my recommendations – but now I’m speaking up. The only article marketing submission service that I recommend to my clients is: Submit Your Article.

In the beginning of my online career, I would recommend services and software based on affiliate revenue. Like many newbie marketers, I wanted to earn money through affiliate marketing, so I would promote the latest, greatest article marketing software programs or services. Well as you can imagine – that was big mistake!

Practically every one of those services I recommended was overpriced and the software programs were horrible. They were janky, spammy, and did not do a very good job. I learned that because I also invested in these same programs to publish and promote content for my first site (GirlShrink), and was terribly disappointed at the quality and the results.

Over the years I have tried many and I do mean many different article submission softwares and services and have only found true results, accountability, affordability, and reliability with one service and that is Submit Your Article. And yes that is an affiliate link, but it is the only link you will probably ever see from me for a service of this type. I use Submit Your Article myself and I have no direct or personal relationship with the owner.

So Why Submit Your Article?

There are a few reasons why I think this is the only article submission software to go with after testing many different options…

1. Submit Your Article actually has a network of real and well ranked websites, ezines, and article directories that they will submit your articles to. They don’t use a huge network of 0 ranked homemade blogs, created just yesterday, for the sole purpose of publishing your articles to. That is what a lot of article submission services do by the way! So buyer beware.  Your submissions are a waste of time.

2. They use something called ArticleLeverage ® to help you create unique versions of each article you submit. This is optional of course and yes there are other services out there that offer something similar, but I find this is the easiest to use and does a good job of creating unique versions of your articles.

3. The price is right. This is an affordable service for the average marketer.

New Submit Your Article Gold Level

Submit Your Article is about to unveil their new Gold Level membership which will include some new and exciting features and functionality for creating and publishing unique content to the web and other publishers. As well as powerful link building! I don’t know the details yet (you know how marketers love to build up anticipation:) but I’m sure that it’s going to be features that are going to really enable you to create many unique versions of your articles and publish them to high quality publishers in a very efficient way. I can’t wait:)

The great news is that you can lock in your rate as a Gold Level member, but paying at today’s rate. So if you join today, you can start submitting your articles to their powerful league of publishers AND you can lock in your Gold member status just by joining. So if using an article submission service is something that you have been thinking about, and you were finally waiting for me to give a recommendation, this is it. Go learn more about it – Submit Your Article.

Article Submission Software Vs. Manual Submissions

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Article Marketing Question Of The Week. Today’s question comes from John:

I’ve submitted over 100 articles to Ezine Articles alone. Now, apart from linking them to my website, I haven’t done much else with them. The thing is that so many marketers give conflicting advice, so I don’t know what else to do with them. Do you manually submit to other directories or use some directory software?

When I submit articles to other directories, I do so manually. There are several reasons for this. First, I only submit to directories that I have tested and found send me traffic or syndicate my articles. Otherwise, you are simply establishing backlinks to your site and you can do that once. Continually getting backlinks from the same site will not really improve your ranking. Having the one is actually enough. So having said that, I only submit to a few key directories.

The second reason why I do not us submission software is that all your submissions will be the same. One of the points of submitting articles to directories is so that you can have valuable backlinks point to your site. I’d like those backlinks to have different keyword anchored text – so you really have to submit articles and resource boxes manually in order to implement changes. Finally, different directories have different guidelines. If I am submitting my article to a site that allows links above the fold in my article – I am absolutely going to do that to my site or one of my products, etc. You will not know this using automated software.

I’ve heard that mass submitting to directories isn’t accurate.  If it is okay to use these submitters, do you recommend submitting to Ezine Articles manually or through the submitter.

I have tested this with various submitters and found that the biggest inaccuracies are with category selection. Each directory has different category choices. It is not a universal list across directories. So if you submit your article under “internet marketing” but they only have “business” as a category – that is where your article will go, and it can be a lot worse than that.

People looking for internet marketing information would have to wade through all the business articles found on that directory. That’s not likely to happen. This is also not good SEO either. So if you have to go in and manually change the categories for your articles, you might as well submit the entire thing by hand. The whole point of using submission software is that you don’t have to enter individual sites at all. If you’re doing that to “fix” stuff – then have you really saved any time?

If you really still want the benefits though of streamlining the submission process with minimal errors, then I would recommend SubmitYourArticle. Out of all the article submission softwares or services that I tested (and i think I’ve tested everything out there), this is the one service that was the most accurate and offered great customer support. Also – I did see good article syndication results with this service. So I think the beginning article marketer may benefit from this service.

Also, is there more I can do with my articles with regards to social media? I understand I can link to my social media accounts from Ezine Articles but wondered if there is more I can do.

You can absolutely do many things with your articles – my favorite thing is re-purposing them into products. But in regards to social media, one of the best things you can do is set up your articles and other content to autopost to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of your other favorite social media sites.

That way all your followers will know when you’ve posted new content without having to visit your site or article directories AND you will create really great backlinks to your site. Social media sites get a lot of Google Luv:) You can do this using several free services online such as Twitterfeed or I can set it all up for you in about 24 hours. http://tinyurl.com/2dcm8fs

Article Distribution: Frequently Asked Questions

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I receive inquiries every week on how to effectively execute article distribution. So I thought this would be a good time to address several of the most common questions sent to me by members:

Q. How often should I distribute my articles?

A. It is important to the search engines that you build links back to your site “naturally”. And that is what you are doing when you publish and distribute your articles to different places. You are building links. So it is best to not distribute too many articles at one given time. Instead it is better to “drip” your article distribution.

Q. Should I use an article distribution software program?

A. It is no secret that I have bought, tried, and tested almost every article distribution software out there and frankly am not impressed. So should you invest in a software product to see results in your article marketing? I don’t think it is neither essential nor necessary. Distributing your articles manually is just fine.

Q. Should I use an article distribution service?

A. I have also invested in several of the top submission services and like these much better than article distribution software programs, BUT they have their downsides too. Some have a pretty steep monthly fee, which I think works against the spirit of article marketing. One of the great things about article marketing is the fact that it is free, costs you nothing, and having to pay an arm and a leg to have someone simply distribute my articles is not something I prefer to do.

What I do LIKE about many article distribution services is that some have well-established connections with highly ranked and trafficked sites that would be great place for your articles. These are sites that many of us would have no real opportunity of getting published on by ourselves. So sometimes, that is worth the investment.

Q. Is there an article distribution service that you recommend?

A. Out of all of the services that I have used, I think the one with the strongest connections to 3rd party sites and superior customer service is Submit Your Article. There are a few others that are good as well — but I think that SYA has the strongest 3rd party site connections and superior customer service.

Q. How many places should I distribute my articles for effective article marketing?

A. There are two approaches that most marketers seem to take with the distribution of articles. One is to try and publish articles to as many places as they can in an effort to build backlinks and traffic. Yet this is the type of approach that leads to duplicate content penalties. The other is to publish articles to strategic places based on traffic, importance, page rank, usability, etc. This is the stronger approach, and with it you only need to distribute articles to “select” places.

Q. How much time should I spend on article distribution?

A. Contrary to what you may hear from marketers who want to sell you some “bright and shiny” software program, etc., you do not have to spend a lot of time on article distribution. Remember that quality is much more important than quantity. I rather publish and distribute my articles to 3 kick-butt directories than a 1000 no-traffic blogs.

Related Websites

Article Marketing Automation: Should I Use Article Marketing Services?

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As an article marketing evangelist and somewhat of a purist, I am still obligated to try any new article marketing automation and/or article marketing service available in order to guide my community to the “best” products and services. I take it very seriously. I join these programs, pay good money (that I could be using on my kids:), all to make sure that my members aren’t being taken for a ride. After several months of using some of the “better” article marketing services — this is what I have found.

The better article submission sites and article marketing sites often offer writers the opportunity to create “unique” versions of their articles in an effort to avoid the dreaded article marketing duplicate content penalty. This is usually the feature of their service that they highlight mostly because it justifies the monthly cost of their programs. Other article submission services that only submit your articles to directories and 3rd party websites, usually charge a lot less.

So these are the problems I have found with this distinct article version feature in most programs…

Problem #1
In essence, you are re-writing your first article, chunk by chunk, using their web-based programs — BUT — it takes a very long time to re-write your article using this system. Time that some of us (maybe not all) could have written our own versions of the original article all on our own. For me, I have found that I can re-write my articles with less aggravation without the program.

Problem #2
These article creation software programs don’t always hit the mark, in fact they quite often miss it. After you’ve spent about 25 minutes creating your various new “article chunks” you’ll be surprised to see just how little the variations are between your articles. Little enough that you may not end up with as many distinctive versions of your articles as you had hoped. My search engine results for articles I had written with a few of these services showed that. There still were “duplicate results” in my Google search for my articles.

Problem #3
And this is my biggest one, when it comes to article marketing automation, where is the accountability? One thing that has always bothered me about all of the article submission and article marketing services that I have tried over the years, is that you never really know where your articles have been submitted. You never get a true picture of your results. And this is why…

Many of the article marketing services out there submit your articles to about 10 relevant sites, and then to hundreds of blogs that they own and rarely update with relevant information. So your articles do get submitted, but to mostly dead man’s land. The untended blog abyss!

Wrap-Up
Now having said all of that, let me add that many of the services out here designed to do all of your article marketing automation, do what they say. They do submit your articles to more than one publication, and some others even submit distinct versions of those articles, but you must ask yourself — are you willing to pay $27, $37, $67 a month for a service that does this but with all the limitations that I have mentioned above including no tangible way to know where your articles are published?

So this is an open letter to all article marketing automation services: Will you add accountability to your service? Can you show me a list every month of where my articles are published? Can you be a bit more transparent about what relationships you have with other publications, or at least if you are publishing my articles to your own network of blogs – say so.

If you’re up for the challenge, I’m willing to give your service a try, use it for my own business, and recommend it to my community.

Until such time, let the buyer beware…

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